Happy Thanksgiving!

Yes, I am aware that it's not November. I'm also aware that in the United States we focus on one day in November to be "thankful". Well, I'm breaking that today. I don't know that it's a rule or anything, but I know that I, personally, have not really ever had a time when I've expressed how thankful I am for someone or something other than that day every year. Today, I'd like to share with you what I'm thankful for...

This little girl:


I'm just not sure that there are words to express how thankful I am to have my little chica in my life!! What, you may ask, has brought this up? Well, this tiny little member of society has brought this up:


This... is Kayleigh, and you can find her story here. I have been watching this family's story for almost a week now, but they have known Kayleigh since last summer. Kayleigh was born VERY prematurely. So prematurely that her parents were asked if they wanted to abort her as she was still young enough developmentally that it would have been legal to abort her. Her parents chose to carry her as long as she would last in the womb, then deliver her. Kayleigh has been fighting for her life on the world's largest, and scariest, rollercoaster. Her parents have blogged every triumph and every setback. I just couldn't imagine having to go through what these people have gone through. As I sit here today, little Kayleigh is still struggling in the hospital. A place she has never gotten to leave. Kayleigh has never seen the great outdoors, never breathed in a breath of fresh air, never left the hopital. The doctors are telling her parents that she is now "brain dead" and her trip "home" to heaven is closer than they would like to think. I would ask that all of you pray for little Kayleigh, her parents, her two older siblings and the rest of her family and friends who are affected by all of this.

Sure... it's taken me a couple of hours to write this blog because Maddy has needed me to entertain her, needed her diaper changed, needed some breakfast, but, seriously?!?! Who cares!!! I am so THANKFUL to have her in my life and to be able to experience all those things!!

My challenge to all of you is to take a moment today to be thankful for something. Let's make Thanksgiving a more regular holiday!!

I'd like to leave you with this hard to believe picture of Kayleigh:


Love you guys!

Have a great weekend! I know that Maddy and I will!! :)

Join Us...

I have a new challenge for you, my faithful readers. I know that you are all creative, and some of you are just down-right hilarious... Here's my challenge. I'm going to post 5 pictures, and I want you guys to come up with the captions... Just post your captions as a comment... You don't have to caption all of them if you don't want to. The funnier the better. We're all looking for a good laugh!!! :) You may want to click on each picture to make it bigger to get the full-effect... Here goes:

Number one...




Number two...




Number three...




Number four...




Number five...





Isn't digital photography great?!?! We can take so many pictures that we don't care when we get the less-than-desirable shots!! I am excited to see what everyone comes up with!!

Love you guys!! :)

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!! :(