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 :) 

Family Photos

We recently had a girl in our neighborhood take some pictures of our family. Her mom put an "ad" on  the Facebook page in our neighborhood saying that her daughter was raising some money for college this fall. We've been wanting some family photos and the price was right so we decided to go for it. I think she did a great job -- photographing a little one cannot be easy!

Madeline and Curious George :)

 

 

Nothing Much

Hi All! Not much new around here. Madeline is crawling all over the place and pulling herself up onto things, but she isn't show much interest in walking yet. That is OK with us because we've heard that it gets that much harder to keep up once they start walking :) 

Is it just me or is the month of August flying by?! We are looking forward to our trip to Rochester next week!! It will be so nice to see family and have some time off of work. I am especially excited since this is Madeline's first trip to Rochester. She has met some family, but not everyone. We're hoping for a smooth flight. Madeline flew to Colorado when she was just 6 weeks old and she did great, but this will be a whole new ballgame since she loves to get down and crawl around. We'll bring plenty of toys and bottles! :) If you have any tips, let me know! 

Here are some pictures of Madeline from the past week. She thought that this box was a pretty sweet ride! 

 George's parents had a foreign exchange student from China last year. Shangyi actually came back last Friday for another year. She plans to graduate early and go to ASU for college like their last exchange student, Yewon. We all got together for dinner at George's Grandma's house to welcome Shangyi back. While we were waiting for her, I snapped this picture. I call them "Madeline's fan club!" 

And just a couple other random pictures. We actually got professional pictures taken yesterday morning that I will post once we get them back. I can't wait to see them!! 

Baby Giggles

The past couple of weeks have been busy with travel. Two weekends ago we went to Pinetop with George's family. It was SO nice to get out of the heat -- we are ready for summer to be over!! We got back from the cabin on Sunday and on Monday I left for a work trip to San Francisco. I stayed downtown by Union Square and during any downtime, I explored the city. I didn't do anything very touristy since I have done most of that in the past. I mostly walked around (great place to people watch), shopped, and ate delicious food! I was ready to get back home to squeeze my baby by Wednesday though :)   

I wanted to share a couple of videos from this past weekend :)

Madeline is becoming a good little eater. As I've mentioned in the past, the high chair and surrounding area is a total mess after dinner :) She also finally got her two bottom teeth this weekend.

9 Month Check-up & Bath Bombs!

Today, Madeline had her big 9 month check-up at the doctor. She is growing fast and on track with everything. She was pretty average on all of her measurement....in the 50 something percentile on weight and head and 70 something on height. She got just one shot this time and bounced back quickly. The thing that I found interesting was that she was scared of the doctor. When she did the stethoscope on Madeline, she looked frightened and started to cry (Madeline, not the Dr). That was really the first time I have ever seen her get scared.

This past weekend, I was determined to do a craft/project from my Pinterest site. I haven't had time for much craftiness recently and have been missing it. When we were in Las Vegas, we passed a shop with bath bombs. Basically, they're just little balls that you can throw into the bath. They fizz and make the bath smell nice. They contain stuff like epsom salt and baking soda. Anyway, I believe they run for at least $7 or so, which is a complete rip-off. I had pinned a pin that had a DIY version so I decided that it would be my project for the weekend. AND...they turned out AWESOME!! I did a eucalyptus mint version, which smells very spa-like. I used one and I gave the other to my sister-in-law, Terrisa, for her birthday (which was on Sunday). If you're interested, here is the site with instructions: http://www.intimateweddings.com/blog/how-to-make-bath-bombs-diy-wedding-favors/ They were actually really easy. The hardest part is tracking down all of the ingredients. If you are interested in making them, email me and I will tell you where I found everything. I also took some pictures of the finished product....

The "recipe" makes two large bath bombs. In order to get them in a circular shape, I used a plastic Christmas ornament as a mold.

They would be very cute for a shower favor or little gift. Here are two different options for wrapping them...

Madeline was overseeing my "experiment" :)

In other news, Terrisa, Hannah, my parents, and I went to see Jersey Boys last night at Gammage. Hannah works at Gammage as a "Floor Manager"...pretty big title, huh?! She got some discounted tickets for us. I really enjoyed the show!!

And a few random pictures....

 Madeline was really tired on Monday night and actually let me hold her for an extended period of time. I try to take advantage of those opportunities in the evening since I don't see her during the day. And now that she is mobile, she prefers to be roaming around, not relaxing on the couch :)

My Grandma Clark got Madeline this beautiful dress that I just love. I tried to get a picture of her in it, but she was looking everywhere except toward me! Oh well, the pictures turned out cute anyway. 

HAPPY GIRL!