1st Birthday!

I can't believe it, my baby is one!! How did that happen so fast?  It has been a wonderful year. On Tuesday night (the day before her bday), I was thinking back to myself a year ago. I had no idea what I was in store for. I was about to feel such an indescribable amount love for the little baby inside of me. I was also about to experience the challenges and worries that go along with being a parent. I remember feeling euphoric for days after I had her -- then, of course, sleep deprivation set-in! :)

Here's a little bit about our big 1 year old: 

-Madeline is an very active little girl. She is always on the move! She actually has been from day one. Even as a newborn, Madeline was extremely squirmy! 

-Loves dancing! She has these little watches that play music and they are her favorite toy. She presses the button and starts to dance. She also likes it when we dance too :)

-First word was Dada. She now says Momma, Duck, Noooo (and shakes her head), and lots of "baby talk"

-Loves her little singing dog named Violet. Violet and some other stuffed animals sleep with her every night. 

-Walks all over the place and soon to be running, I think!

-Recently learned how to give a hug and kiss (Mommy and Daddy ask for a lot of those) 

-Pretty good sleeper -- goes to bed easily at 7:30PM and wakes up around 6AM

-Enjoys bananas, yogurt, and apple sauce (she doesn't seem to be too picky)

-Very loved by her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and more!

We celebrated Madeline's 1st birthday and Parker's 1st birthday this past Sunday with a Hoedown! Here are some pictures...

For lunch, we did a chili bar. We did three types of chili, hotdogs, corn bread, baked potatoes, and a bunch of other yummy stuff. For dessert, we my mom made these adorable sunflower cupcakes!

We had all kinds of western decor. My mom also made this table runner. 

 The kids panned for gold!

Photo opp! 

Some family shots...

 Aunt Emily with the birthday boy and girl! 

Madeline taking a break from the party for a quick bottle // Grandma and Grandpa Warren with the grandkids!

This was the extent of Madeline's cowboy hat wearing...she was not a fan :)

 

The cowboy and cowgirl!

 The western town that we made out of boxes...

Birthday cupcakes...

 

We found out that Madeline does not like the feeling of frosting all over her hands. Parker enjoyed it though! :)

Tomorrow, Parker turns one too!! He's celebrating in Atlanta. Happy Birthday, buddy!! 

More Walking

With the weekend coming to a close, I wanted to show you all a quick video of Madeline walking! At this point, I'd say that she is walking more than she is crawling. After church this morning, she wanted to walk to the car. He's a little video of it...

We are getting ready for Madeline and Parker's birthday next weekend. It is Cowboy and Cowgirl theme. Here's the invitation that we sent out. I'll post a bunch of pictures after the party.

Our friends Sergio and Andi are coming into town next weekend too. I have been needing to organize our two extra bedrooms and company coming into town is a good reason to get the job done. It's been a lot bigger undertaking than I expected, but I'll be so happy when it's done!! Part of the goal of this project is to have a dedicated craft room :) 

Officially Walking!

We've been having a really exciting weekend over here -- Madeline is WALKING!! She dabbled throughout the week and now she is really getting the hang of it. There is definitely some wobbles going on, but she is consistently trying. It's so cute because she is proud of herself when she goes a longer distance....well, George and I do cheer and clap so I'm sure that has something to do with it :)  

Here's a video of the walking. I like this video because you can see Madeline walking and hear George playing piano!

Madeline loves hopping up onto the piano bench with George. She bangs away! 

 Yesterday morning, I went to our garden to do some work. There are some tomato plants from the people who had the plot before us. They are cherry tomatoes and they are coming in nicely! 

We have been working hard to clean up the plot (there were a ton of weeds) and prep it for planting. My goal yesterday was to finish tilling. It might not look like much, but I'll tell ya what, tilling isn't easy!  The next step is to mix in compost and then plant our seeds! Yesterday, there was also a community garden get-together. The community garden council informed us that NBC National News will be doing a special on Agritopia and the community garden. I don't know the details yet, but I'll post them on here once I hear! 

The weather has been shaping up around here. Yesterday we enjoyed lunch outside at Postino in downtown Gilbert.

We spent last night watching the ASU vs. USC game on TV. I normally don't discuss sports on here, but the game was SO good. ASU won in the last few seconds with a Hail Mary after USC was ahead for the entire second half. George and I were screaming and cheering...I still can't believe that Madeline slept through all of our noise :)

This morning, we did the Walk for Hope with General Mills. The walk was at the Phoenix Zoo so along the route, we stopped to look at all of the animals. Afterward, we went downtown to Matt's Big Breakfast and to see Hannah's dorm room. So, yeah...great weekend...and it's not over! :) 

Latest Happenings

An update is long overdue! My blog has been on my mind, but the days just seem to go by so fast. Tonight, I am making myself do two things: 1. Update my blog and 2. Organize Madeline's clothes. So here I go on number 1!

Last weekend, Madeline unveiled a new trick! She's one step closer to walking...literally. Here's the video of her moves :)

What else have we been up to? I've been working on some sewing projects. Terrisa, my mom, and I have been trying to get together once a week for a "craft night". It's a nice way of setting aside time for a hobby and also getting together with them. I am almost done with a project that I am really excited about. Hopefully I will be done in the next week -- I will share it with you once I am done. 

George and I have also been taking Financial Peace University (Dave Ramsey) at our church. I have been a big fan of Dave Ramsey's radio show on KTAR for a long time. I used to listen to it on my way home from class every night while I was in school. The class is on Tuesday night so my parents have been coming over every Tuesday to watch Madeline while we go to the class. Basically, the class is all about making smart financial decisions. I'm probably weird, but I love it! 

Brian, Terrisa, Emily, George, and I recently signed up for a plot at the community garden at Agritopia (near Joe's Farm Grill). They have 43 20 ft x 20 ft plots that are available for a one year lease. We have been on the waiting list for several months and one finally became available. They provide the water, plot, and resources and we create a fruit and vegetable garden. It's definitely going to be a ton of work, but hopefully with all of us working on it, it will be manageable. I am looking forward to have fresh fruits and veggies and learning a bit about gardening. I will keep you all posted on our progress! AND...if you're a gardener, any tips or suggestions would be appreciated :)

Little gardener :) 

The picture on the left is a "blank plot" and the picture on the right is a more established one. 

The farm plants herbs for all of the community garden members. I went over this morning to pick some basil, rosemary, and mint. 

I used it to make pesto -- super easy and delicious!! 

Here's the final product :) 

Rochester Trip!

We are back from our trip to Rochester -- or should I say adventure? I say that because our travel plans didn't go quite as planned. As many of you know, we are all about getting bumped! Basically, we volunteer to give up our seats in exchange for free airline $$! Sometimes they need people, sometimes that don't. More often they don't. However, on a holiday weekend, they often do need volunteers. Long story short, we got bumped on the way to Rochester (flew into Buffalo instead). On the way home, our flight actually got cancelled due to mechanical issues, which was crazy b/c a complete flight cancellation has only happened to us once before and that was just in May when we went to D.C. Anyway, it didn't end up being so bad this time because we got bumped on our re-scheduled flight! All together, we scored $2000 in airline vouchers to use on any travel in the next year. 

Enough about getting bumped...moving on to the actual vacation. We had a wonderful trip! Really, really nice. We did a lot of relaxing (as much as you can with a 10 month old anyway) and just hanging out. Here are some pictures of our trip.

Here is Madeline in front of my Grandma Warren's house. We took several walks. Many of the walks were taken in an attempt to get Madeline to sleep. 

As you can see, those attempts weren't always successful!

 

We went to Camillus (Syracuse) on Friday and stayed Friday night. We really enjoyed our visit with the Harts! We're looking forward to their visit to AZ for Christmas this year. 

Madeline loved all of the grass at my Aunt Lesley's house!

Their area is gorgeous!!! Aunt Lesley took us to a really beautiful winery near their house...

We also went to Skaneatles, which is just about 15 minutes from their house. It is a really cute little town. Sarah and I walked around while George enjoyed a cold one at a restaurant overlooking the lake. 

Skaneatles Lake (did I spell that right?) 

Just relaxing with Ian! :) 

Another highlight of the trip was seeing the newest member of the family, little Seth! He is such a cutie pie! 

Madeline swinging at the Moore's lake house on Thursday night. We need to hang her swing up here at our house!

Awesome trip!! Now, it is back to reality here in Arizona :)