We're BACK!!!

I have a feeling that this is going to be a rather disjointed blog, so I'll try to just give some section titles to make it easier to follow!! :)


:::Bluebonnets:::

After church yesterday Bryan and I took Maddy to a field of bluebonnets that a friend of ours took their family to last weekend for a little photo op. For those of you that are unaware, the Bluebonnet is the state flower of Texas. I just learned that it is a crime here to pick a bluebonnet and you can be arrested. I'm so glad that we didn't try to make a bouquet to bring home. Here are a couple of the pictures from our little adventure:



Maddy was less-than-thrilled with the prickly grass, and she made sure we knew all about it:




I joined her for the photo shoot to try to get a few smiles out of her. While I didn't really get a smile, Bryan DID get this pretty good picture of us!!



Once those pictures were taken, I convinced Bryan to hop in a few with us. Other than these, he told me that he was content with just being the photographer. Here's our little happy family!!



I then gave Maddy an American flag to play with. I LOVE this picture...



As a matter of fact, I LOVE it so much, that I used my new photo editing software to do this:


Notice that the American flag is the only thing in color. I LOVE this feature!! :)


:::Daddy/Daughter Time:::

Daddy and Maddy were playing last night, and I got a few pictures. Here's one:


This one looks like Maddy is trying to pull Bryan's ear off his head. LoL.



A little father-daughter love:


Here is Maddy helping Daddy to train Nash. Unfortunately, Bryan's hand signal is telling Nash to "stand". Notice that he's still sitting. LoL. Oh well... We'll keep working on that one!! :)


Peeping Tom-ette... Maddy was peeping over the fence at the neighbors who were having storytime in their backyard. I guess she wanted to join in. :)


:::More Teefers:::

Poor Maddy has 4 of her top teeth coming in currently, so this warm, wet washcloth was like heaven on earth for her during bathtime last night:



This was the reason for the bath:



That's biter biscuit ALL OVER her face!! She sure loves them, though!! :)


:::Little Miss Technology:::

Maddy LOVES playing with our laptops... Look at her go!!! (And you thought I was actually doing those blogs, didn't you?!?!)



:::Who is number one??:::



MADDY IS!!!


:::Teething, Again:::

This is a picture of Maddy with a new teething/eating tool that we got for her. You can fill the blue bag with anything you'd like, then she can gnaw on it and get some of it out through the holes in the mesh. I put an ice cube in it today after lunch to help with her teeth. She seemed to like chewing on it!!



:::Mommy's Little Helper:::

Maddy took a ride in the laundry basket today, and LOVED it!!



Well, I hope you've enjoyed another little snapshot of our lives. I hope to do more photo editing soon. I'll share whatever creations I come up with. In the meantime... Keep little Maddy in your prayers. Four new teeth at once is NO FUN!!!

Love you guys!! :)

More Easter Pictures

I thought I'd take a page out of Aunt Sue's blog, and just post some photos today. No real story... just some pictures that my friend Amber took of our Easter outing at her house!! ENJOY!!

Here we are... Maddy is playing with her friend Sophi:



Here are Maddy and me hanging out outside:




Maddy and Sophi hanging out in the grass:


Maddy giving Sophi a look... Why are you eating that, Sophi??



Amber made this one black and white and printed a couple of copies for us:


I hope you enjoyed these pictures!

Love you guys!! :)

Hoppy Easter!!

Maddy wanted to share a couple of pictures and a little video with everyone and wish you all a very Happy Easter!! She enlisted my help (Mommy) to make sure that everything gets spelled correctly!! :)

Here's Maddy sporting her outfit from her Uncle Chris and Aunt April. Please note the ADORABLE cotton tail the pants have!!



Here's Maddy in her Easter dress. You may remember this dress from such events as: Bryan's friends wedding...


Here's Maddy with her Easter basket before church this morning. She couldn't wait until after Mass to see what the Easter Bunny brought for her. As you can see, she LOVED her yogurt melts!!! :)


This is a close up of Maddy's personalized Easter basket:



Maddy says "Hey Y'all... Happy Easter from Texas!!!"


Maddy got her very own cell phone from the Easter Bunny. She's asking "You talkin' to me?!?!"


Maddy is learning how to feed herself... and she's starting with Biter Biscuits. They sure do make a mess!!



This afternoon we went to a friends' house for Easter lunch. Maddy's friend Sophi was there. I don't know if you remember Sophi, but she's 3 weeks older than Maddy. Here they are sitting on the floor together:


Here are all the ladies that were at the lunch:



We let Maddy sit in the grass, but she wasn't too sure what to think about it:




This is a video of Maddy playing with her new toy. Thankfully, it has an on/off switch. Otherwise, we might just go crazy in our house!! LoL.




We hope that everyone had a nice Easter holiday. I know we did!! Love you guys!! :)

6 Month Check Up

Maddy and I went this morning for her 6 month check up. Here are the stats: She weighed in at 15.8 pounds and measured 26 inches. She was in the 50th percentile for her height, weight and head circumference (that means that she's very much average). The doctor said that everything looks GREAT!! He gave us the go-ahead to try some table foods. He gave me some suggestions of things to start with... and a few warnings of things to steer clear of (eggs, nuts, etc.). I gave her some applesauce for lunch and she seemed to like that. Her next big hurdles are learning how to feed herself some of the finger foods and using her sippy cup on her own. She's been drinking a little water out of the sippy cup, but doesn't hold it on her own. She also had to get 3 shots while we were there. We're going to do Tylenol every 4 hours this time since the last round of vaccines were not so painless. So far, so good!! We're due for another dose in about an hour.

After we left the doctor, we ran a couple of errands. It was only supposed to be ONE errand, but my car seems to have a slow leak in the tire, so I stopped by Discount Tire to get them to take a look at it, and sure enough! There was a screw in my tire. They removed the screw and patched the tire FOR FREE!!! Isn't that GREAT?!?!

Not too much else has been going on here. Bryan and I took some pretty cute pictures of Maddy last night, and a GREAT video, which I'll post now for all to enjoy!!


Maddy "hanging out" with her sippy cup "hanging out":



Look at that!! She even takes self portraits!! HaHaHa. Just kidding!!



Everyone from the newest generation (Maddy and Nash) was completely into watching Bryan play the original Nintendo that we hooked up last night (Thanks Mom and Dad). Yes, that's the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game he's playing!! :)





This is a video of Maddy giggling. I love the fact that such simple things seem to make her happy... Just my hair tickling her belly brought her to a belly laugh!!! :)




I hope everyone has enjoyed this latest installment... Happy almost Easter!! Talk to you soon!!

Love you guys!!! :)

In A Mood...

Miss Maddy woke up "in a mood" today. I was ready to put her back to sleep so she could wake up on the RIGHT side of the crib after about 15 minutes. Then, I did a little studying and research and realized that we have 2 more teeth coming in. I excused her "behavior" and immediately turned to feeling bad for her. Her poor little body was a little warm to the touch (no fever, but just not quite right). Her cheeks were a little pink... and she had several more "classic" symptoms of teething. Then, I took a peek, and I can see two little buds coming in. When Bryan got up (he flew last night, so he slept in today), he asked when the last time was I gave her Tylenol. I laughed and admitted that because of the stress and fussiness, I just plain didn't think of it. We gave her some Tylenol and she's been better... Not 100%, but better since then. Speaking of, it's been about 4 hours, so I should probably give her another dose... just to be sure!

Despite the fact that Maddy was having a rough day, we decided to go walk around the mall with my friend Jessica. Jess had a few returns to make, so we decided to join her. While we were there, look at who we ran into:


Yep... The Easter Bunny!! Maddy screamed when he first held her, so this was the "happiest" that Grumpy Gus got today!! We may go back another day with a planned outfit. The onesie we're wearing is not at all what Mom would have chosen for this picture. Oh well...

One piece of information for anyone with children... I was appalled at the prices for the "packages" of pictures you can purchase (whatever happened to the Polaroids??). I jokingly asked the photographer if I could take my own pictures with my own camera. He told me that as long as I stayed behind the rope, I could take as many pictures as I wanted. So, I'm not sure if all the holiday photographers work this way, but it's apparently worth asking!!

Until Next Time...

Love you guys!! :)

P.S. Wish us luck with these teeth... These seem to be a little more painful for poor Miss Maddy!! :(

It's Been A While...

Sorry it's been so long since I last blogged. We had some houseguests this past weekend, so I didn't see much of my computer. Bryan's parents and his grandmother came to visit. Here are some pictures of Maddy with them:




While they were visiting lots happened. Some good... Some, well, not so good...

We'll start with the not so good (the bad news, if you will)... Bryan's family arrived on Saturday afternoon, and it was pretty warm outside. We turned the A/C on about an hour before their arrival to make sure that the house was nice and comfortable when they got here. About an hour AFTER their arrival, we all began to realize that we were very toasty. I decided to try to bump the thermostat down a little. When I looked at the thermostat, it said it was 83 degrees in our house with a target temperature of 77. The fact that it had been running for at least 2 hours at this point was a MAJOR red flag to me. I told Bryan that I thought we had a problem. Yep, sure enough... our A/C died on us!! What better timing?!?! We have a houseful of company and NO AIR CONDITIONG!! Thankfully, or so we thought, it cooled off outside for the next 2 days. We only thought this was a good thing, but since we have a heat pump, and not a separate furnace, our heater wasn't working either. I am happy to report that the A/C repairman just left our house about 30 minutes ago, and after replacing the pressure switch outside, we are back in business!!

The good news, if you will, from their visit is the patio extension that Bryan and his dad built. We have been wanting to lay some paving stones next to our existing patio to put the grill on. While Bryan's family was here, Bryan and his dad accomplished this goal. Check out the pictures:



Now, I'll leave you with a pretty comical video. Last night after everyone was in bed, Bryan and I were sitting on the couch doing some end of the evening e-mail checking when we heard something strange on the baby monitor. I kept listening and just could not figure out what was going on. I didn't know if Maddy was waking up, moving around, if we were catching interference from somewhere else. I had no idea what was going on. I got really curious and poked my head in her room... and this is what I heard... (NOTE: It was dark outside, thus it was dark in Maddy's room, so the video is completely black. Just listen!!)




Yep. That's Miss Maddy... that tiny little girl... SNORING like a lumberjack!!! Pretty funny, huh?!?! I guess she was just pain worn out!!

I hope all of you had a good weekend. I know we did!! I've been playing catch-up with the laundry all day today. Bryan just left for work (he's flying tonight), so we've been hanging out today. My friend Jess and I are going for a walk later this afternoon, then Maddy and I are going to hit the hay early tonight!!!

Until next time...

Love you guys!! :)

Excitement

I would like to start this blog with the idea that the word "excitement" takes on a whole new meaning as you get older. When you're a kid, "excitement" is something major and earth-shattering. Now that I'm a little older, "excitement" doesn't have to come in such a huge package... I think that's a good thing. That means that we're, in a sense, easier to please as we get older... So, here's what's exciting at our house:


:::Mini Blinds:::

Yesterday, I took on the task of taking down all the mini blinds and washing them. This was quite an undertaking, but I'm THRILLED that I got it done!! Who knew that our blinds were ACTUALLY white under all that dust?!?! HaHaHa. Even though the "normal" chores haven't been accomplished yet this week, I still feel like the house is cleaner having this MAJOR chore done!!


:::Doors:::

Keeping in line with my "spring cleaning" frenzy, I also took the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and cleaned all the interior doors yesterday. I went through 2 of the Magic Erasers, which kind of grossed me out, but they look much better!! I DID, however, come to the resolution that unless we repaint the doors, they won't look "perfect" again. Oh well... At least they're cleaner than they were. What's in store today?!?! Hopefully the switchplate covers and plug covers. We'll see!!


:::New Bathing Suit:::

Another change that happens as you get older is you get excited for other people more easily. That being said, Maddy got her first bathing suit the other day. I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!! Granted, she couldn't care less about this purchase, but I happen to think she's ADORABLE. What do you think?!?!







:::Tax Refund:::

Today, our tax refund hit the bank. I got up and checked the bank account online, which is something I do EVERY morning, and there was more money in there than when I went to bed last night. I LOVE it when I earn money while I sleep. Now that our tax refund is here, we'll be able to pay off my car this evening. What a GREAT feeling!!!! We're pretty dang excited about that!! I think that deserves a WOO-HOO!!


:::Baby Dahlin:::

One of the girls I hang out with at all the spouses' events for Bryan's squadron had their baby on Monday. He's a real cutie!! I've only seen pictures, but he looks like a doll!! I can't wait to meet him soon! If I get any good pictures of him, and his parents give me permission, I'll post some for you to take a gander!!


:::Teeth:::

I may be jumping the gun on this one a bit, but I think I may see another little tooth bud in Miss Maddy's mouth. The reason I'm not 100% sure that that's what I'm looking at is because it's not where the next tooth SHOULD be coming in. This crazy kid is going to have a mouthful of teeth before her first birthday!! Crazy, huh?!?! Oh well... I'll keep you posted if that is, indeed, what I saw this morning!


:::Fondue:::

Tonight, our friends Bailey and Marshal will be coming over to join us for an evening of fondue. When we were hanging out with them one night, we mentioned that we liked to do fondue, and they got all kinds of excited (see the recurring theme?)... We've been talking ever since about getting together to have a fondue night... and here we are!! I'll have to let you know how it goes!! :)


:::Packages:::

I have three packages that are supposed to be delivered today via UPS. We don't get packages very often, so to get three in one day is pretty, well, exciting!! One is our Wii, which had to be returned to Nintendo because it was not working properly. Now we should be able to play our Wii... The other two are from my mom. I was told to call her when they arrive "for further instructions". This makes the receiving of the packages that much more EXCITING... Wonder what's in them?!?!


:::Giggles:::

Miss Maddy has started to giggle a little more lately, which is fun, and, you guessed it, exciting!! I LOVE to hear her giggle!! She even shrugs her little shoulders when she giggles sometimes. Sooo cute...



So, like I said, "excitement" as you get older takes on a whole new meaning... What's exciting in your lives?!?!

Love you guys!!