First Day of School

Yesterday Madeline started her first day of two year old preschool! She did MUCH better than I ever imagined! She is going every Tuesday and Thursday. I am so proud of her! One day down, twenty more years of school to go!

First Official Weekend of SPRING!

Our weekend started out like this..


I had started running Madeline's morning bath before Taylor got home from work and I walked back into her room to set out her clothes. By the time I walked back into the bathroom I found her in the tub pretending to shampoo her stuffed pug! It was so cute but she about died when I had to take her pug away to put him in the dryer!

Saturday and Sunday it was so beautiful. We spent the days on our back porch (Taylor used his new drill to put up the baby "fencing" all over the deck. We also cooked out with friends and had a relaxing time!

Sunday morning I got to sleep in while Taylor and Madeline played "PJ dress up." Haha I'm not sure how they put this outfit together!

Madeline entertained herself for the LONGEST time with these two empty bottles.

She also had her first popsicle of the summer.. which she shared with Otis of course!

These weekend made me so excited for the cookouts, pools and the ocean. Mainly I can't wait to spend the quality time with our families and friends! Summer come soon!!

Mommy and Me, Climbing, Snow

Well I finally joined Mommy and Me! I have went to a group from 1-2 year olds and 2-3 year olds (Madeline is 18 months!) I actually preferred the older group for her because I feel like she will learn more from kids who are slightly older than her (most of the kids in the group were ALMOST two!)

Madeline is a monkey.. literally. Today we drove home from Lynchburg, we were back for a few minutes and she was climbing into her crib! UGH crazy kid! So that tells me soon she will need a toddler bed, I don't know how I will make her stay in it. She loves to climb up her climber or on the couch (anything really) and then JUMP onto something else.. give me a heart attach maybe? Its hard to believe this rough and tumble kid started her life out as a two pound baby. I guess it shows God works some crazy miracles! My mom holds her in a recliner and says "rock, rock" so now Madeline likes to "rock, rock" in everything! The entire trip home from Lynchburg she was going "rock, rock" pretending to rock in her carseat haha. My dad got her dvd players and they have been a God sent on car trips! She loves to watch Dora and Backyardigans. When we get in the car and the tv isn't on she screams "DOE DOE" meaning Dora haha. I don't let her watch hardly any tv while we are home so riding in the car is a special treat. Its like you have to fight her to get her out of the carseat when the car stops!

Last time I was home it snowed almost two feet.. this time it snowed atleast one! We had went home so my dad, brother Joe and I could go to our annual George Strait concert which was canceled. But we still had a good time!

My Baby..

is growing up on me. I knew it would happen, but it is just going by too fast. She now does the "sounds" for a dog, kitty and bear. The last two nights I have put her in her crib she gives me kiss and doesn't even cry when I close the door. Before I know it she will be in a big girl bed. Oh it just breaks me heart..

Goooodbye Lynchburg!

I got back to Lynchburg yesterday afternoon to pick up my little love bug. She was none too excited to see me! She loves to be with her grandmas! Last night I went and had a few margaritas with my good friend Brittany and today I had an eye doctor appointment. He said my eyes look great although they are still a little dry and to use some artifical tears! I am so happy I had Lasik done although I was disappointed my eyes hadn't improved since last week. But hey I can see!! Tonight Madeline went and spent the afternoon with Grandma Sharon and wouldn't even come to me when I went to pick her up haha!

Here are a few pictures of the last few days.. Madeline got a Rose Petal Cottage (and a princess tent which you can see in the background) and she thinks the nursery furniture is for her, not for her babies! She is so silly! I have missed her so much but am ready to be back in the OBX with our little family tomorrow.







Oh and if you have never had a pineapple upsidedown bundt cake from Panera.. you need one. They are fabulous!

I'll be home for Christmas..

In case you didn't know, I have an amazing husband. We have been together five years now and through all that time he has never said anything nasty to me and he still treats me like a queen every single day! No matter how much nonsense I have talked to him, he just looks me in the face and says "I want to be with you forever, so lets figure this out." He does anything he can to make my daughter and myself happy and he doesn't get enough of the praise that he deserves!! I love you John Taylor!

Taylor got stuck working for ten days in a row so Madeline and I headed up to Virginia to spend the week before the holidays with our family! Hopefully Taylor gets off for Christmas Eve so Madeline and I will go back to spend the night with him! Before we came home my friend Mallory took some amazing Christmas pictures of Madeline on the beach! Smart ol' me forgot the cd with the pictures on them in OBX so I will have to post once I am back at our house, but once I do you are in for a treat! Thank you Mallory for doing that for me!

They are calling for between 9 and 18 inches of snow tomorrow so we will be stuck at home for a few days. Luckily my mom bought a ham dinner and turkey dinner for a make up Thanksgiving and Christmas so we have plenty of food at the house! On a not so lucky note I did not bring any of Madeline's fleece hats or gloves so unless I sneak out to Old Navy in the morning she won't be able to play in the snow!

Eventful Days

We got back home on the beautiful Outer Banks on Wednesday evening. I have been battling allergies since last Monday and it has been horrible! Madeline hasn't had a bottle in about a week and a half! She fussed the first two nights but has been fine since. She was digging through her diaper bag this morning and spotted a bottle and immediately stuck it in her mouth, so I quickly replaced it with a sippy cup filled with apple juice. She was more than happy to exchange!

Last Saturday we went to Taylor's cousin Steve's wedding. It was pouring all day and since it was an outside wedding I was dreading the 45 minute trip to stand in the rain! It rained until we got there, but once we got out of the car the clouds cleared up and it was beautiful and sunny! It was an adorable ceremony and Taylors uncle Brian took a bunch of beautiful pictures. Madeline sat quietly in the grass during the vows, occupied with her little basket of roses and my mom's David Yurman bangles. She wore a beautiful "princess dress" my mother-in-law bought her with cream ballet flats. She was such a doll baby!

Tonight we went to the North Carolina Aquarium for their Trick or Treat Under the Sea party. It was a lot of fun! I coulnd't believe they had sold 1,500 tickets! It was packed and hard for our little family because Madeline wasn't really interested in what was going on, she was just trying to run away haha. All of those people made it difficult, so we ended up leaving about an hour before it ended. She had her first few lollipops and was an adorable bee. I will be sure to post plenty of pictures very soon!

What a Day!

This morning Taylor had to head back to work! He leaves the house around 6:30 and usually ends up waking up Madeline, but this morning she went right back to sleep! I had to be at the doctor at 10, and the doctor is an hour away from my house. I got up, took a shower, packed Madeline a lunch, got her dressed, walked Otis and we were out of the door at 8:35. I had a good doctors visit, she suggested a few reasons my blood pressure and other issues may be happening. Hopefully my family doctor will be able to look into some of those suggestions and my health concerns can be resolved! If anything comes of this of course I will be blogging about it. Already on some of the preeclampsia blog sites I am a member of I have gotten so great feed back about similar stories. Thats why I love reading blogs. Most blogs I don't comment on, I just read. It is a form of story telling. Just like I am telling you my story, I enjoy reading other peoples stories. One thing that excites me about writing this is that one day I know Madeline will sit down and read all of my blogs!

Madeline was a handful today! She is getting her 7th tooth on the bottom right side of her mouth. That and taking her bottles away have made her very very cranky. Today the doctors trip was right at her nap time, plus she was in the car for two hours. So she was just off all day. Hopefully tomorrow she will return to her sweet loving self!

Wohoooo!

Tonight was the first night Madeline went to sleep without a bottle! We cut out her daytime bottles about two weeks ago, but she was still getting one in the morning and night. She did have trouble adjusting to going to bed without her "ba" though. She looked at me like aren't you forgetting something and she cried for probably 5 or 10 minutes. I just kept telling myself at one year old they don't need to eat right before bed! Hopefully she will sleep through the night..

Update.. Madeline did sleep through the night, but she woke up at 6am! We usually sleep until about 7:30, so I did give her a bottle and we got to sleep until almost 8 when Taylor called me to tell me he was playing football! But I would call that a sucessful first night without the bottle!

We have made it..

I've been reading other "mom blogs" for a while now and am constantly inspired by them. I'm not exactly sure that my blog will be inspiring, but since so many (okay or most) of the people who love us live so far away, this will be my outlet to update everyone on our exciting life happenings!

My daughter is fourteen months old! Its hard to believe when she was born she weighed a tiny 2 pounds 9 ounces, because now she is running around with the big girls. I am trying to get her completely off of bottle. She has four ounces when she first wakes up and about an hour later she has "breakfast." This morning she had a scrambled egg and some banana. She'll have snack at 10:30, today was goldfish and a pickle. The child loves pickles. I buy whole pickles because if I want pickle slices I will cut them myself and if I want a pickle spear I just quater them myself. I think it makes them taste fresher and I don't have a million pickles jars in my frig. Madeline likes hers in spears and peeled haha. Nap is at 11 on the dot, lunch is between 1 and 2. Then another snack followed dinner between 5 and 6. Bedtime is between 7 and 8, although she wants to sleep most nights by 6! She is such a blessing in our lives and I secretly (okay or not so secretly) can't wait for our next baby! Hopefully my body will catch onto that soon!



Okay world I guess that will do it for my first blog entry. I will figure out how to set this thing up at some point, but for now I am doing motherly things (ie dishes and laundry!)