Helm Family Year in Review

Last day of the year...it has gone soo fast!! But time does go fast when you are busy and have a little one running around. Madi is growing up way too fast. It's fun to look forward at the new things she can do and will be doing, but I miss having my little baby around. But we will have a new baby to spoil in a couple of months!! I am really excited about being an aunt and Madi can't wait to have Jaxson here to play with.

Here's how our year went:

January: We are totally consumed by work on the house. The outside is done and inside is clipping along. Madi is energetic as usual and who could forget the "International Harvester" dance video! It's still her favorite song!


February: Still working on the house. Madi is starting to talk more and more. I wrote early in the month that she is putting two words together. She sure has made progress in the last 10 months, you can't keep her quiet now and I can't even count how many words she strings together.

March: Building is done and we moved in the last weekend of the month, YEAH!!! We had Daddy's birthday this month and Uncle Jason's birthday on Easter. Madi loves the outside!!

April: Absolutely loving the new house, peace and quiet and watching all the wildlife around us. We got the old house on the market.

May: Madi turned 2!! She is a ball of energy and talking up a storm. We got her to ride the four wheeler for the first time and she loved going on rides behind the tractor. I can't wait to do those again this summer.

June: Chris and I celebrated our 5th anniversary. Crazy month of bad storms. And we learned that Madi LOVES the water!! We can't keep her out of it, even mud puddles!

July: We had a little vacation at the lake over the 4th. We sold the house!!!! Madi and I had a great trip to the zoo and she absolutely loves it. (I'm so excited, Jason and Tabatha got us a family membership to the zoo for Christmas. We will be making lots of trips their this summer!) And we built the deck.

August: We had a fun visit from Walt and Beth and Joye and had a great Helm get-together. Madi moved into her big girl bed and made an easy transition. We started work on finishing the basement. And of course, it was the month of the fair. Madi looked so cute in her cowgirl duds!

September: Madi got her first official haircut! We finished the work on the basement. We made another zoo trip and got to see the Budweiser Clydesdale's. Madi tried skating for the first time! And the big news, Jason and Tabatha are having a baby!!!

October: Madi gave herself another haircut, she loves her Barbie's, and we had a great Halloween!

November: We got another tractor this month, something else for Chris to play with. Chris went and worked a couple days in Chapman on the Extreme Makeover house and we had our shop at the house built.

December: Chris went to deer camp and we got to go a couple times and visit. Madi absolutely loved it and is still talking about it. We spent most of the month working on our craft projects for Christmas and getting the house ready for family to stay. Madi loves Christmas and is still singing Christmas songs and talking about Santa.

We had a great year and really can't believe all that we have accomplished. We have a lot to be thankful for. Chris' business is doing great and growing, we have a wonderful house and are exactly where we want to be. We are enjoying watching Madi grow and change everyday. We also have a great family and want to thank everyone for their help this past year.

I hope everyone had a great year as well. Happy New Year!!!

Love, Amy

Not a Creature is Stirring...

It's a quiet house again. We had a full week with a full house and a lot of Christmas'. It was a good week, but I am ready to get back to our normal routine. We spent Saturday and Sunday doing absolutely nothing. It was nice to be lazy and lay around.

I spent the morning opening all of Madi's gifts and getting all the little tiny pieces out...just so she can lose them in a week. I am so sorry to the parents if we gave presents with a bazillion little pieces in them. This is our first Christmas having to experience that, what a pain. I'm making a trip to Wal-Mart after nap time to buy more storage tubs for all the play sets and hopefully I can pack up some toys that she doesn't play with anymore. I already went through all the stuffed animals and eliminated a bunch of those. I guess this is the perfect time to reorganize, when the house is in disarray and having to change over the holiday decorations to the everyday decorations.

I put together a slide show of our Christmas events this year. Of course I was a total airhead and didn't have the camera's or batteries ready or even located half the time. I didn't have very many pics of Christmas at my parents (I need to get them from you mom!!) and I didn't have any pictures of Christmas morning. So unprepared, I could kick myself.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! Thank you to everyone for a wonderful Christmas!

Love, Amy

"Snow!!!"

Madi got up this morning and came in and immediately saw the snow we got overnight. "Look at all the snow!!" "Let's make snowballs and a snowman!!" So, we got our first snow since moving out to the country. And you better believe I'm not going anywhere! It's days like this that keeps me in, I just wish we had a fireplace. We keep talking about putting one in but obviously we didn't get it done. It just makes me nervous after last year's ice storm, not having some kind of alternate heat out here. We definitely won't be roughing it if we lose power. The weather report is showing freezing rain for Thursday, let's pray we don't have the ice storm that we got last year, that was a rough week.

Love, Amy

Busy Elf

I have been non stop for the past two weeks. Since I procrastinated and have (had) huge plans on what I wanted to do for Christmas presents and we have family coming Friday to stay with us, I have been a busy, tired little elf. I'm sure I don't look like an elf because I actually feel like a chicken with my head cut off running around trying to get everything done and I can only imagine that the elves are a little more organized than I am and they don't wait till the last minute to make their gifts...Next year I will be a little better about managing my time (is that a New Year's resolution I just made???) I better add that one to the list.

Anyways, I have been driving everyone nuts around me lately because I am totally stressed out, sorry everyone!!! Actually it's getting a little better...except I just got off the phone with Chris, he wants me to go to Glasco and pick up his deer meat. That was not on my list of to-do's this week.

Speaking of deer...here are some pics from deer camp.


Chris' buck (I think the lens was fogged over, sorry about the blur)


Dan's buck, Chris' buck, and Chris' dogs (I mean doe's!!)


Madi looking at the deer.

I kept trying to get her to stand in front of them, but she said they were broken and she didn't want to. She actually did really well around the deer, I was surprised. I thought they might freak her out, but she was actually walking among the eight deer hanging down at the shop. She was playing with them and calling them her pets. She is too funny and probably scarred for life. She is constantly talking about wanting to hunt a deer now. She is such a tomboy. We did skip taking her down during processing of the deer. I think that would have been a little too much, that's not a pretty sight.

Wow, that post was a little spacey, that's me, Space Cadet Amy. I've spent too much time sitting already, got to get busy!!

Love, Amy

Deer Camp 2008

Madi and I tagged along this morning to Wilson Lake. We went to help setup and hang out and play for a bit. What a gorgeous day!! They always have such great days to setup and then it always turns nasty...which I think it's supposed to tomorrow. Madi had so much fun and I took a ton of pictures. She was so photogenic and actually smiling at the camera. I hope she does this great for the real pics on Saturday!!

Madi was so excited to go to Deer Camp. Once the guys put up their beds, she claimed one right away and I think she really thought she was going to stay. I told her she can go hunting with Daddy when she is seven. Knowing her, she probably won't forget that either!!

Love, Amy

**Check out this post from two years ago, same little girl, same toys...man has she grown, made me a little misty eyed seeing those pics again...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We certainly did. We spent Thursday at Dan and Jane's house. Had a great traditional turkey lunch. And then headed to Mom and Dad's to visit in the evening.


Friday morning we got up bright and early (4 am) to hit the sales at Wal-Mart. Dan came out to sit with Madi. She was supposed to sleep and let him go back to sleep. But she heard us leaving and she was up at 4:30. Poor Dan had to stay up and entertain her all morning. Needless to say, she took an early nap Friday. We ended up getting the items we most wanted at Wal-Mart. That place was a zoo. We got there before the 5 am start time and there were people just hanging out by the pallet of stuff that they wanted. Chit chatting with the people around them and then 5 am hit and you couldn't hear anything, you couldn't walk down an isle, forget trying to get a cart anywhere with any kind of speed. We found our items and made it to the checkouts at 5:15, along with about 200 other people. INSANE!!! We went to several other stores and made it back home by 7:30 with a car full. It was a lot of fun. This was the first year that just Chris and I went and we had a lot of fun together. We don't get very many chances anymore to do something together.


It was very sad though to hear about the Wal-Mart employee in NY who lost his life being mowed over by anxious shoppers. I don't understand how people can be so narrow minded about something that they didn't even know they were stepping on someone. That doesn't make any sense. And his poor family that has to remember that day and that event as the death of their loved one, just awful.

Saturday, Jason and Tabatha came into town and everyone came out to our house for Thanksgiving. We had a nice lazy day with lots of food. The girls went shopping after lunch and later the guys went out to sight in their rifles for deer hunting this week. Madi had a blast playing with Uncle Jason. She didn't want them to leave. They came out again on Sunday to eat and hang out. The guys were going to do some more sighting, but the weather didn't cooperate. So we played games and snacked. It was a great weekend.

Madi and I are at the shop this morning. I'm supposed to be paying bills and getting paychecks ready...oops! Chris is trying to get things planned out for the week and get his work done today and tomorrow so they can leave for deer camp at Wilson Lake. He is hoping he can get out of town early tomorrow. They will be gone until Sunday. It's going to be a long week. Thursday, I am planning on frying up chicken and taking supper out to them. Probably leave after Madi's nap so she can run around and do some playing out there, if it's not too cold. And then Saturday, Madi and I are going to Beloit to get some pictures taken.

I started decorating the house for Christmas yesterday. I got the tree up and a few small decorations out. I have a pre-lit tree that I got two years ago and already some of the lights aren't working and I can't find the bulbs to replace them. I'm a little discouraged. I guess I'll just have to put a couple of strings of lights on it and call it good. It's going to take a little more time to decorate this year. I don't have as many places to sit things and I really wish we had a mantle. I don't know what I am going to do with the stockings. But I love Christmas time and decorations, so I'll get it figured out.

We hope everyone had a fun and safe Thanksgiving. There are so many things to be thankful for this year and looking forward to a great December and being able to spend time with family and starting off a new year with many more things to be thankful for.

Love, Amy