Happy Anniversary to Us

We just celebrated out 8th anniversary! It has been an amazing 8 years fo Tony and I. Our lives together have been full of so much excitement, heartache, and best of all full of love. When I look back to our wedding day, and the events leading up to it; I particularly remember our wedding ceremony rehersal. I had specifically told Tony and his friends no to be late. I was worried because the Colorado-Nebraska game was on (that was when we were a good football team); it went into overtime and my mind started thinking he would be late. Low and behold I got to the church with my mom, and Tony and ALL his groomsmen were already there, so guess who was late.

We had talked about our vows before, and I gave Tony strict instructions he was in no way allowed to cry at the wedding because then I would and my make-up would run and I would be a mess. So we got all our crying out during the rehersal...i couldn't stop crying. Tony, being the strong man he is was great!!

The day had finally come nad mom woke me up at 7am telling me she felt like an expectant mother!! I really just wanted to be sleeping, but beauty called and we had to get ready! When we arrived at the church to get dressed, mom wasn't ready and I was worried she was not going to make it back for the pictures. I don't think we had cell phones yet to call her. She mad eit and looked like a radiant mother!! I was amazed at how calm I felt and was feeling until the minute te doors opened and we were to walk down the aisle. I froze...my heart was overwhelmed and I couldn't believe all those people looking at me, there were there to witness Tony and I delcare out lives and our love to each other; secretly they just wanted to see my dress! Mom and Kevin were ready to start walking and I remember whispering to them that I needed to catch my breath before we started or I was going to lose it!! I didn't and the day was perfect!!

Thank you Tony for being my very best friend and sticking with me through the heartaches and difficult times in our lives. I could not have gotten through one single minute without you by my side. Thank you for always believing in me and allowing me to try things and then change my mind. Thank you for being by my side and honoring my deicison about my career, I know it wasn't easy for either one of us. Thank you for honoring me and loving me everyday. I love being your bestest girl and pray we have a lifetime of love and happiness ahead of us. Tony, you are an amazing father and I love watching you play with the girls and see how they love being with you. We prayed so hard to be parents and I know at times, we never thought itwould happen. Addison and Olivia have made us truly believe in miracles and that if we put our trust in God, he will fulfill our lives. My medical condition and problems have truly tested our faith, and everytime, we have dug deep and prayed and trusted in Him. I imagine our life with more little ones running around and I pray God has that same plan for our life together. I love you Tony!!!

We decided to spend our anniversay with the girls this year. No candellight dinner, no romantic movie, but laughing, singing and playing with our 2 little miracles. We even got to see Santa on our anniversary. Here is Addison sitting on Santa's lap asking him for "a train and a dolly with pigtails".

Holiday Fun...try again

I don't know why some of you are having trouble seeing our holiday fun. The link works when I click on it. It does take some time to load, but it eventually does. Try this...someone let me know if it works this time.


Hey, I just made a total elf of myself. Check it out by clicking the link below.
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9549318278
This elfin' greeting brought to you by OfficeMax®.

Holiday Fun

Check out our holiday fun!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9549318278

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Sometimes we just run out of time to put our pictures onto a CD and then load them onto the blog. Today is definatly one of those days. But i thought I would just share in words what has been going on around the Chapman house these days.

Life is crazy, life is hectic, life is busy, but we are loving life and living it to the fullest. Over the weekend we decided that it was so nice outside, we just could not not put up the Christmas lights. So Tony got out the ladder, untangled the lights and up they went. Then things started to get a little out of hand...the boxes of Christmas stuff were out, and could not just sit there for a few weeks, so we put up the tree, put on the lights, put up the inside decorations, put up the outside decorations. Put away the trkeys, the pumpkins. One would think we are boycotting Thanksgiving this year. Trust us, we are not...life is just busy and we have no free weekends until the middle of December. Addison is marveling in the decorations and can not get enough of the singing snowmen. She takes them with her everywhere, and even into the bathroom with her. She has standing snowman in her room that she insists on using as a night light - it makes the sun look dark. I have no idea how she is sleeping in there, it is so bright!!

We are starting some new Christmas traditions this year and will start on Decmeber 1st, so I am anxious to see how Addison enjoys this. She can not understand that Christmas is still 40 days away, so tomorrow, we will be making a countdown wreath. You know the ones we made when we were little, it was construction paper garland. We are making one of those!

Addison is busy making her Thanksgiving Prayer Book full of things she is thankful for this year. You will be happy to know it includes her fmaily, her grandparents, her cousins, her very best friend Keyara and of course, Shrek. Yes, I am a little embarassed to send the picture of Shrek to school; knowing that it is probably not the most approriate thing for her to be thankful for. But this is her project and so we will let her take it!! Hiding and cringing the whole time!

Olivia is in full walking mode. She looks like an abused child to prove her walking skills. She has a bump on her head, a bruise on her forehed, a bruise on her cheek, and this moning, she managed to get herself a fat lip. Not just a small fat lip, but a huge one. I actually was a little worried she might need stitches, but after the blood was washed away, and the tears stopped, we decided no stitches.

We head to York this weekend to finally meet Sydney. Tyler and Latisha had a little girl in October, and we are finally going to meet her this weekend. We have given Addison all the lectures about how to touch her softly, and to only touch her toes and hands. We should be giving the lecture to Olivia.

Pictures will follow soon, in the next couple of days...i promise!!

Toot Toot, Chugga Chugga, Big Red Car Pictures

***Please note - I am having trouble getting the video to work. Not sure what to do. Hopefully it will work soon.
***Don't forget to read the post right before this one!

Addison was VERY excited when she found out who the "special friends" were going to be. This is Tony showing her inside the auditorium what we were doing and her reaction! We loved seeing how excited she was to be seeing The Wiggles. The Wiggles house was all Addison saw when she entered the auditorium, and knew immediatly what she was going to get to see! She just could not believe that she was going to see a "Wiggley Concert". We of course had to get in line with all the other parents to see how much we could spend on souviners. We opted for a cup with the Wiggles on it, as it seemed the most practical. While waiting for the concert to start, daddy taught Addison how to blow through the straw to make it sound like a whistle, a very loud ear-piercing whistle! Mommy was not real happy!!

Addison wanted to know if she was going to be able to see her boyfriend, Jeff. She loves the purple wiggle, Jeff the best. She has a little boy in her class named Jackson; who she told us was her boyfriend the 1st few days of schools. About a month after school hd started, we ran into Jackson and his mom in Walmart. I asked Addison after we left if that was Jackson her boyfriend, she politely reminded me that only Jeff was her boyfriend and she could only have 1 boyfriend. How silly of me to forget!

Our seats were good, not too far away that Addison could not see, but far enough away that some of our pictures were not real good. Here are some pictures of Addison, our dancing Diva.

The diva dancer in action:

Bye Wiggles! Hope you had fun Addison. Mommy and daddy REALLY, REALLY had a fun time with you and you were so good on our trip!

Toot Toot, Chugga Chugga, Big Red Car

Yep, that's right...Tony, Addison and I went to the Wiggles Concert on Friday night! Addison was so excited and could hardly believe that she was going to get to see your boyfriend, Jeff. We did not tell her where we were; we dropped Olivia off at Bubba's house and headed back out on the road to Ames, Iowa. All Addison knew was that she was going on a date with daddy and mommy and was going to be able to stay in a hotel and also go swimming. Early Friday morning when we were getting ready to leave, Addison was kinda whinning that she wanted a friend to go with her to the hotel. I tried to tell her that we were going to see some special friends while we were there. She pushed the issue all day long!!

When we arrived at our hotel, Tony went and checked in and the manager asked what we were doing in town. Tony told him and he said he was noticing a trend with the clientele coming into the hotel. We were worried that our nosy little peanut might here someone talking about it, so we tried to shield her from everyone. I am sure we looked a little silly. Anyway, we went to dinner at the Pizza Ranch, and she was still talking about seeing her friends - still no idea who it was going to be!

We arrived at the Hilton Coliseum at 5:50 pm for the 6:30pm show...the man who took our tickets asked Addison if she was excited, I told him she had no idea yet what she was doing that it was a surprise, he said, "oh she'll have tons of fun then"!! We walked right into the coliseum so that she could see what we were doing. I think she was in shock as she realized what we were doing...

"The Wiggles mom, are we seeing a Wiggles concert"?

"Addison, your friends are the Wiggles; mommy and daddy wanted to surprise you because we love you so much and you are such a big helper".

"Do I really get to see my boyfriend Jeff"?

She was beyond excited. I will load the pictures tomorrow.

Happy Halloween Raggedy Ann's

Let me preface this with this comment: if any of you out there that read this have more than 1 child you will know what I am talkig about - it is absolutly IMPOSSIBLE to get a GREAT picture of both your kids smiling and looking at the camera at the same time! So with that said, enjoy our halloween pictures of the tops of heads, closed eyes, stuffing our faces with candy and minimal smiling!

Both the girls dressed up as Raggedy Ann for Halloween this year. We were able to get som clothes from Mamo (Tony's mom) to wear. She collects and makes Raggedy Dolls and even makes some life size dolls, so she already had the outfits. Addison enjoyed trick-or-treating this year, with minimal fright. She tried VERY hard to talk herself out of ever scary costume we walked by. I had to remind her numerous times that under the mask and make-up, that little boy of little girl was just the same as her. She would look at me and relpy, "I know mom, they are silly. I am just laughing". All the while standing behind my leg so as not to see them. Olivia is getting a cold, so she got to put her costume on and then had to head to bed shortly after. She needs her sleep right now since I can't buy any cold medicine for her (apparently, the FDA thinks it does not work...Tony and I disagree).

Enjoy our febble attempts at catching the Raggedy's together:

After dinner Kristin, Brian and Keyara came over and trick-or-treated with us for a little while. Addison and Keyara were about as cooperative as Addison and Olivia were earlier in the evening. Kristin even said she didn't pull out the camera because it just wasn't worth it...true!!!

We did have a memorable Halloween and even found a few new traditions that we want to start!