It was cute while it lasted!

I managed to get 2 pigtails into Maddie's hair this week and she was a ham for the camera. Of course within the hour, she pulled them out. Oh well, at least I snapped a few pictures!

Blowing Kisses

I couldn't have taken these pictures with our other camera. I could make a flip book and turn it into animation!

On a side note: We get lots of comments about who Maddie looks like. "Oh, she looks like Chris; she has your nose; she is such a combo; she has Chris's eyes." Well I agree that she has the same big bright eyes as Chris, but here's where she got her baby blues from since Chris and I are both brown/hazel.................love this picture.

Colorado Trip (First post NOT about Maddie)

This post is NOT about Maddie because for the first time, I took a trip without her. After much deliberation, Chris and I decided that it made much more sense for me to go see Jess and her new baby Carson in Colorado Springs by myself. I travelled with Jennie (6 months pregnant, bless her for making the trip...I couldn't do it). We vowed to never fly with a layover again after a long trip home. I will admit that a big part of me missed Maddie, but another part of me did not envy those we saw in the airport travelling with small children. Maddie had a great weekend at home with Daddy and Nana stepped in an extra day too. Well, so much for this not being about her........on with the details of the trip.
Jennie and I flew together from VA and we met Shelley and Sarah at Jess's house in The Springs. I had an added bonus, my friend Mia and her daughter Nora visited from Boulder. They made the 2 hour drive in the snow to see us. I am so lucky to have such wonderful friends and it was awesome to have Mia and the girls meet. Nora is a doll and I can't wait for them to visit this summer! We had a great time just hanging out with Carson, he is such a good baby. We went to dinner at the historic Broadmoor Hotel, went to Garden of the Gods which is gorgeous (see scenice pics below) and drove through downtown Denver. It's always so good to all be together, which is getting harder and harder these days as our Fab Five grows to 8, 9, 10.....
Here are my favorite pictures from my trip.

Cutie Carson
Me with Nora and Mia
Fab Five with Pike's Peak in the background (snow capped mountain)
Garden of the Gods
The happy new family :)

Easter 2008

We had a very fun Easter weekend. On Saturday, we went up to my Nana's (the original Nana Flo) and had dinner with my Nana, my parents, my Aunt Lorraine and her family, and my cousin Patrick.

The beautiful eclaire cake!
Sunglasses and a squirrel from Nana and Pa
The original Nana Flo
Great Aunt Lorraine

Then on Easter Day we relaxed at home and then had dinner with Chris's family. We missed the egg hunt with the neighbors because Maddie took a 3 hour nap (go figure). But she did an egg hunt at with us at home and again at Grandma and Grandpa's house, thanks to Aunt Kim's hiding skills (in other words...not so hidden). Aunt Samie was home from college and we always love getting to see her!

The egg hunt!

Stay There!

The other morning, Maddie and I were walking down the stairs. I realized I forgot something upstairs and so I left her standing on the landing part of our stairs by the window. I didn't want her to fall or attempt to continue going down herself, so I told her to stay there. The rest of the day and week she has been saying, "Stay there!" and pointing with her hand. I had to catch it on video because it was cracking us up. She was at my mom's the next day and my mom sat down on the kitchen floor with her. Maddie looked at Nana, paused, said "stay there" and proceeded to get up and get 2 balls to play with. My mom got a good laugh out of that one.


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Happy Easter

Here are some of the pictures we had taken for Easter. We got the CD with the files, so I decided to put my favorites in a slideshow. Have a Happy Easter!

What a week!

Last week Maddie was sick. You would never know it though. She had a fever of 102 for 3 days but was the happiest little girl. I decided to be proactive and take her to the doctor to make sure she didn't have an ear infection or strep. While at the pediatrician's office, her heart rate was high. So the very nice (and very new/young) doctor sent us to a cardiologist that day. Maddie had an EKG, an echocardiogram, and was sent home with a Holter monitor for 24 hours. They put it in a cute little Disney princess backpack and she wore that thing the whole time and never once tried to take it off. It was the cutest thing! Not to make light of a serious thing like her heart, but she's fine and they're attributing the high rate to her fever. We'll take her back around her 2nd birthday to be sure everything is okay. We just cracked up at the backpack and she called it her princess the whole time. Here are some pictures and a video.





Despite the fever and the heart monitor, Maddie was dancing and playing! She loves to wear one of Chris's snowboarding hats and she's wearing it in the pictures above and this video.

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New Camera!!!

I am in love with our new camera! Chris's parents gave us a new camera for Christmas and we just couldn't seem to get consistently good pictures. It was a super nice camera with tons of features, but basically it wasn't dummy-proof enough for us. So we exchanged it for a Canon dSLR, upon the recommendation of Mia. And if you've seen Nora's blog (see link above), Mia takes AWESOME pictures! It is so nice and easy and besides a couple pictures with red-eye, we haven't had any bad shots yet. Here are some so far. We've had a busy week and will hopefully take more pictures this weekend and post them soon.

Colors

We've been trying to teach Maddie colors recently and everything is RED!!! It's the first color I taught her and so every time you ask her, "what color is this?" she answers....RED!!! One day she learned green and blue but not with any association to things that are actually green and blue. So in this video, you see her go through the colors in order every time until she gets it right. She was also looking at my lips for a clue since I would start to say the color for her. I know she'll eventually get it, so for right now I'm enjoying how much fun it is for her to say RED!


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18 Months!

I have no real theme to this post other than to say that I can't believe our baby is a year and a half! Maddie turned 18 months the end of January and is becoming quite a big girl. We've been busy having lots of fun doing toddler stuff. She goes to gymnastics class (see first picture); she is talking more every day; she loves to put on our shoes and carry one of my purses; she climbs up onto the chair and her booster by herself and generally just loves life. My dad calls her "Happy Girl." And that she is....and we couldn't be happier that she's our happy girl. Here are just a few recent pictures.