Madelyn's Snowy Day Dedication

Today we had Madelyn's dedication at our church. We had been planning this for a little over a month and were totally shocked by all the snow! Jason's mom came up Friday to avoid the weather, but my family waited until Sunday to make the trip. It ended up being a very long trip! My mom and dad, grandmother and grandfather, aunt, and great aunt and uncle all came up and braved the blizzard! Thankfully, the all made it right as we were preparing to go up. Our Pastor called this morning and I told him that we were still coming and planning to do it as long as he would be there. He said he'd be ready. It was a great service and very special to have everyone there. We had lunch afterwards at our house. I actually made food (and so did mom, Leanne, and Mere) and decorated and tried to make the day very special for Madelyn. It was absolutely perfect! We really appreciated our family for braving the weather and being a part of her dedication. It is so important to Jason and I that we raise our children the way that God wants us to and we are so thankful and honored to have family members that support us and love us and want to help us be Godly parents. It was funny, last night as we were feeding Madelyn, Jason and I were talking and I was concerned that my family might not be there and we started talking about people within our church who support us and that they would be there even if the rest of our family was not. Of all the people that were at church today (and there were few due to the weather) most of the people that we named were there and that made the day even more special. Here are some pictures from Madelyn's special day!

Sweet Madelyn with her enormous bow! Her name means Magnificent. I think that it fits her perfectly!
Sweet girl fell asleep when we got to church. She wanted to rest up before her big debut!

An attempt at a family picture. We took several and on several cameras, these are the ones that I have.

Here is the spread from lunch today. It turned out perfect!

Our attempt at a family picture. Andrew and Madelyn couldn't stop looking at each other! This was the best we could do, but I love pictures like this, because it helps you to remember the real moments of life instead of being perfectly posed!

Funny thing, I was curious as to what Andrew's name meant, I couldn't remember and I wanted to see how fitting it was for him. His name means courageous. I think that fits him perfectly as well!

Mr. Fix It

Thank goodness we have Andrew! He can fix anything....even if it's not broken!

Eating Play-Doh and Jumping

The other day as we were coming home from school Andrew said that he wanted to play with play-doh. I thought that sounded like a great idea. He wanted to make sure that I put Gracey up before I got the play-doh out so she wouldn't eat it! I asked him if he was going to eat play-doh and he said "Andrew, no eat play-doh mommy." You can see how true that statement was!

Madelyn loves to play with her gym and pull on things so I thought she might be ready for the jumparoo. She was, but Andrew wasn't ready for her to play in it. He screamed and threw a big fit and told Jason to put it away! Once Madelyn started jumping and talking he thought that was funny and wanted to play with her!

A 2 and a half year old and a 4 month old

I realized the other day (as I was running WAY late for work) that Andrew had turned two and a half and Madelyn had turned two months old days before. What was worse is I didn't have any pictures to document these special ages, so here they are!

Andrew at 2 and a half

* Does not want to pose for pictures, but would love to take YOUR picture!

*Loves Elmo and all the Sesame Street gang

*Is still my cleaning boy! Loves the vacuum, mop, spray (pledge, windex, etc), and broom!

*Enjoys going to school every day and has a lot of sweet little friends

*Loves that his mommy is at school with him and drops by my office to visit (this entails him running away from his class)

*Adores his baby sister

*Has totally given up on going to the potty. Tried to rip down his potty chart and will not touch the Sesame Street books, stickers, or underwear

*Talks CONSTANTLY!

*He does so many things that I could write pages and pages and pages, but these are just some of my favorites!

Madelyn at 4 months

*She has total head control (even with the enormous bows)

*Loves to play in her activity gym, bouncer, and jumparoo

*Smiles and laughs a lot

*Wants to carry on a conversation with you

*Likes having cereal in her nighttime bottle

*Is sleeping through the night when she wants to, other times she wants to get up around 2:30 and visit!

*Enjoys going to school, she smiles at all the kids. I'm told she's the best baby in the nursery!

*Sings along to the music in church

*Would rather look at Andrew then anyone else! Will strain her little neck to look at him

*Has the sweetest disposition! She is just the easiest baby to take care of!

Bleach Baby!

Here are some pictures of Miss Madelyn enjoying her bleach bath! I know it still sounds crazy to me every time I say it, but it really works! I do have to bathe her in J&J after her bleach bath so she'll still have that baby fresh smell!

I Bleached My Baby!

Yes, you read that right! I bleached Madelyn last night....in a good way! If you haven't noticed in pictures, Madelyn has HORRIBLE exzema all over her body. We have tried creams and lotions and anything else. I took her to the doctor yesterday and he said to put her in a bath with 1 tbsp bleach (yes, Clorox bleach) to each gallon of water. I was very skeptical, but he told me just to do it and it would work. Low and behold, it did! Madelyn's skin is almost right back to normal! She sat in her bleach bath for about 5 minutes, then I rinsed her off and put two steroid creams on her and she looked like a brand new baby! She also slept all night, because she wasn't clawing at her skin! She is supposed to have a bleach bath every night for the next couple of weeks and then we can ease off, so I'll post pictures later. If your child has exzema, try this...it really works!

Sesame Street Live!

This weekend we headed to Oklahoma City to visit Jason' s family and to see Sesame Street Live! We had talked this up to Andrew all week and he was really looking forward to seeing Elmo and all his Sesame Street friends. He would say, "The Count will be there, Big Bird (Boo Bird- I don't know why...) will be there, Bert and Ernie will be there, Abby will be there." and the list goes on until all characters are named. Well, Andrew had come down with an ear infection and hasn't been feeling just great, so the day of the show he decided that he did not want to go. Well, I wasn't going to let that stop us! We headed to the show! Andrew was a little overwhelmed. After getting LOTS of souvinears (thanks to Daddy!) he kind of warmed up to the idea of seeing the show! He really seemed to enjoy it! I was so glad! We thought it was really good and look forward to taking both kiddos next time!

Feeling a little overwhelmed by Elmo!

Enjoying his spinning toy!
Here's Big Bird!

Taking it all in!

Everyone showed up!

Really enjoying the show!

Cuddling his new pal Big Bird!

"I want more Elmo!" He screamed and cried when the show was over.

Andrew got to play with his cousins, Sarah and Jorja. It was hard to get a picture of the four of them together. The girls cooperated, but a certain boy wasn't going to have anything to do with it!

Andrew kept picking his nose in all the pictures- on purpose! He thought it was funny.

All Rolled Into One

This is a very long picture post! It's been a few weeks since I've been able to post pictures. I've started my new job which I LOVE! It's a totally different working experience then I had before-not that I didn't love teaching- but, working for my pastor and with people within my church is just awesome! It's so uplifiting and positive. Not that every part of the job is positive, there are parents to please- and you can't always do that! And children with needs that are hard to meet. I have also had to learn that I am the director, so I make a lot of the decisions and that's the way it will be. That is really new to me- I am learning to like it! I have a great staff that I am so thankful for, they are so positive and just fantastic with children! I NEVER worry about Andrew and Madelyn! The biggest perk of the job is getting to see them anytime I want to! Andrew has learned that even though I am at school and come in his classroom or the gym or playground, it is "mommy's work" and he respects that. He had a hard time when I would leave crying and wanting to come with me, but now he says "bye Mommy" and just goes back to what he was doing. He is very protective of Madelyn! It's soooooo cute! He says "that's my sister" to anyone who talks to her! Absolutely precious! So, here are the pictures from the last couple of weeks...

Jason and I went to Lake Tahoe on a business trip. I had a fab-u-lous three days at the spa! I read and relaxed and enjoyed some "me time"! It was great! The snow was gorgeous. It snowed 24" in Reno when we arrived. It looked like a winter wonderland!

Madelyn has started to love her gym. It was Andrew's, but he never liked it. She gets in there and kicks and grabs at everything. She laughs and talks! I love it!

Mere and Don got Madelyn a rocking chair for her room. It finally came in and we were able to pick it up. Andrew really likes it!

My sweet boy!

My precious girl! She is looking at her big brother!

Just relaxing!

More gym time

Andrew is starting potty training. He prefers to use the "big boy" potty. This was the first day he used the potty at school (this is not the potty at school)! He ran up to me and said "I get jelly bean!" They get jelly beans when they go potty at school.

Splashing in his orange bathwater

Madelyn is enjoying her bath. She is still an avid hand sucker!

One of the perks of my job! Watching Andrew on the playground. Here he is on the slide.

Andrew got a cookie monster shirt from Wal-Mart the other day. I heard this sweet little voice saying, "cookie monster (mon-ter), cookie monster mommy." I looked all over to try and find what it was he was looking at and in the t-shirt section there was a cookie monster shirt. It's a 5/6 and so it is enormous, but he is so proud of it and showed EVERYONE his new shirt the next day at school.

Madelyn loves to sit in the bumbo seat. Yet another essential baby item that Andrew didn't like! Thank goodness she enjoys them!

I turned on A's Elmo Live! for Madelyn. She thought it was so funny and just laughed at him. I've never seen such a tiny girl that is so into the things around her!

The girl also enjoys watching TV. Our TV is over the fireplace, but she wasn't going to miss out on her shows!

Enjoying more Elmo. Andrew was napping, but later he saw her watching Elmo and decided that it was alright to share Elmo with Madelyn!

He did not, on the other hand, know that she was lounging in his chair!

I just love this precious girl! (and the precious boy!)

Riding the tractor at the mall today. He thought it was so much fun!

We also took a train ride (two actually, he rode with Nana the first round). It's quite a bumpy ride. I was nervous that he was going to get motion sickness!It was also quite windy!

Tonight Madelyn rolled over!!! Of course, we all missed it. Nana saw her do it and we saw her after she had done it. We were all on our hands and knees trying to get her to do it again. Andrew would say "come on, roll over Madelyn."

I asked Andrew to show her how to roll over and this is how he decided to do it!

He just pushed her over himself! We are still waiting for her to do it again, but she won't! I guess she's stubborn too!

I decided the other day that Iam determined to get Andrew potty trained. I know that he is capeable of doing it. He goes on the potty quite often, but not consistently. So, I did what I am best at- I made him a chart! I have a potty chart that is divided into weeks (8 weeks is my goal) and then there are the days of the week. He will get a small sticker each time he pee-pee's in the potty and an M&M. When he poo-poo's in the potty he will get a big sticker (they are Sesame Street stickers- surprise, surprise!) and he gets to choose a little book from the Sesame Street book collection. I thought that was good incentive for him. If that's not enough, I got him some Sesame Street underware too! So, here is hoping that I can get this boy out of diapers!

I had to explain Andrew's potty chart to him and he was excited, he said "Mommy make potty chart." I then, had to take away the books and explain how he could earn them. Shockingly, he hasn't messed with the books...or the potty!

So, this is what's been going on with our family over the last few weeks. We are just enjoying watching the kids grow and wishing that it didn't happen so fast!