{madison's 13th birthday}

started the day by running through starbucks {of course} at 10 a.m.

venti coffee frappacino light coffee for me

tall passion tazo tea for madison

tall carmel frappacino with whipped cream and caramel sauce for taylor

picked taylor up at her house and headed to old navy in eugene to do some shopping for a little girl at one of john's schools. then, headed over to NIKE at oakway to try and find madison a duffle bag {with money from grammy and papa}, but no luck.

so, then we headed for olive garden for lunch. soup, salad, and bread sticks. yum!

madison and taylor both got new shades at charlotte roos. madison also found lots of cute outfits at hollister and a really cute new volleyball shirt at the duck shop. nice to have money burning a hole in your pocket.

both of the girls have been sick for a long time. taylor was running out of steam, so we decided to go and see a movie at 3:00......jonas brothers in 3-d. i went to pay for the tickets and the guy at the window says, "that will be $45!" what the heck. good thing i didn't know ahead of time or we definitely wouldn't have been seeing that movie.

it was kind of cute to see with two little girls.

got home around 6:00 and john took madison out for ice cream and cake at applebee's.

jonathan neuschwander is staying the night. the boys just ran to the store to turn in a ton of change and were going to go and rent movies.

hopefully it will be a peaceful night. happy birthday madison. i love you.

{birthday dinner}

came home from work tonight to find madison completely crashed on the couch.....with company on the way in about 15 minutes. she is definitely still not up to par.

she perked up when she heard grammy and papa show up and handed out hugs to everyone. including her big brother who wasn't very happy about it.

showing off her birthday cash!


birthday cake. same as always. angel food with whipped cream and strawberries.

new ugg boots from mom.

and a special birthday card from daddy.

we love you madison.

shopping tomorrow in eugene with tayter and mommy. it should be a fun day.

{doctor detour}

made a detour trip to the doctor's office at 3:30 this afternoon.

she was doing so great and then hit a wall all of a sudden.

i really need to get back to work, so i decided to take her in hoping that they would send her home with a "Z pack" or something.

got the same ol' virus answer that i always get. why do i even bother.

they contributed her high fever to her getting ready to get sick again in the next day or so. he asked if she has lost her voice recently. my answer was a big loud "yes" since she sounded like a total dude all last week.

they did do an asthma test on her though {which we haven't had to deal with for a couple of years now} and she was only 10% of "normal," so he ordered her a new inhaler which i need to go pick up from the pharmacy. i was just too D-U-N to pick it up after her appointment.

john and i just got back from fred meyer. ran to get food for her birthday dinner tomorrow night.

hoping she will feel better for her big day on saturday.

and then there is this......missy was commenting on how much the kids have changed in two years. here is the comparison {notice zac's johnny cash look}

{freshman year 2007}

{ junior year 2009}

{sadie hawkins 2009}

john, madison, and i were in forest grove at a volleyball tourney over sadie hawkins weekend.

the kids looked so cute.....and grown up.


lots of pictures with their dog foxxie.

meg, foxxie, and zac.

grammy and papa went over and took pictures for me and helped zac get ready.

thanks mom and dad!!

the kids went out to dinner at ruby tuesday's in corvallis, took pictures at the dance, and left after a half hour. they said it was lame.

anyway......

madison is feeling a little better today. low grade fever and feeling a little droopy, but will probably send her to school tomorrow. i really need to get back to work....i have a lot to do.

why is it that moms feel bad for staying home and then bad for going to work?

ugh!

will officially have two teenagers in the house on saturday as madison will turn the big thirteen!

{sick girl}

103 fever.

{green lips}

grammy kathy trying to figure out how to edit on her computer.....

green lips and all!

way to go mom. i will fix it for you later gater!

love you.....thanks for taking pics for us!

{sadie hawkins 2009}

whenever zac gets ready for a dance john and i call him johnny

{a.k.a johnny cash}

he always wears the same black shirt and pants {they just seem to get bigger each year} with a different colored tie.

so, for every dance john and i always tell him to have fun with june

{a.k.a. johnny and june cash}

more pictures to come tonight!

{sadie hawkins}

sadie hawkins is on saturday......

this picture is of meg and zac when they were freshman at their first sadie hawkins dance ......

they are juniors now...... and zac is still just as excited to go with her on saturday as he was two years ago.

{celebrity crush}

introducing mr. robert buckley.....

so....who is your celebrity crush?

i think i could very possibly be old enough to be his mama......

and jack will always be my more realistic celebrity crush because he is so darn funny.

i know. i'm kind of weird.

{happy valentine's day}

make sure to give the people you love lots of kisses.....

.....and hugs.

{thursday night}

boys are at wrestling.

taking the girls out to dinner

tay is staying the night.

activity day at school tomorrow.

my day off.....kind of.

working for corndog at costco all day.

zac leaving for seaside tomorrow.

early valentine's day presents for all.

i can't keep a secret......and will probably buy them all something else again.

ta ta for now.

{love}

"You might hate me, but you need me."

The best quote I have heard in a long time

{compliments of my bookkeeper at work}

{it's so daily}

standing in front of a mirror....setting the timer on the camera......setting up photo shoots with friends...

this girl's camera never stops clicking. i constantly have 40 shots on my camera of the exact same scene with 40 different smiles or facial expressions.

then add taylor into the mix and you never know what you will get. if the makeup and costumes get pulled out, it's all over with!

the funniest pictures you have ever seen.

{s.o.s.}

the bird is chirping.

missy and i were just saying the other day we haven't really had a reason to pull out our favorite {or least favorite, however you look at it} phrase in awhile.

the moment has come......i'm losing it tonight.

cranky.

irritated.

annoyed.

unappreciated.

disrespected.

umm......the list goes on.

sometimes you just have to say it {or write it} and you feel better.

i know there are kids that are sick and people are hungry, but right now, i'm just annoyed and have to vent.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhh................

p.s. my mom is freaking out right now {hi, mom}.....i'm fine. just venting.

{back in the day}

back in the day when he used to hand out hugs to his little sister.

{mr. skarpohl}

it has been a sad couple of weeks at the hunter house.

madison's beloved 5th grade teacher, mr. skarpohl, died after a short battle with stomach cancer.

not only was he madison's teacher, but he was also the 5th grade teacher at john's school {central elementary} and a good friend to john.

the funeral was last night and even though the two of them {madison and john} are the two in my family who show little emotion.....they both were really upset at the funeral.

i don't think madison had really thought much about it until we were actually sitting in the church listening to everyone talk about him and watching the video.

as a matter of fact, i don't know that she has even really been to a funeral before.

we took her sweet friend jessie with us and we sat in the rows sectioned off for keith's "central family."

the girls recalled stories about their favorite teacher on the car ride to the funeral. madison talked about how he never made her feel like she was asking a dumb questions. he always told them that "the only dumb questions are the ones you don't ask." she also said that even if you got an answer wrong he was quick to point out something good about your answer {like "well, if we were doing the problem this way you would be absolutely right!}.

she said that before she was in his class she had never wanted to talk in front of people. he would make the kids get up on a "soap box" and make speaches and talk about their day. she hated it at first and learned to love it in the end.

he was also a huge duck fan, so madison loved that! they were the minority in the class, as most of the kids are beavers!!

she had bought him a donald duck mug when we went to disneyland that year and it always sat proudly on his desk.

in the slide show at his funeral he was also wearing the baseball hat she had bought him in several pictures. she pointed that out to us on the car ride home. she also remembered that he used to wear it in class all of the time.

i think this was a good lesson to her. she will miss mr. skarpohl a lot, as we all will.

he was an amazing teacher and much too young to die.