Our Friend Kade!

These pictures are two and a half weeks old, but I had to share our first visit with Kade with our faithful readers. =) Kade Michael was born on January 12th and Madi and I went to visit him. Matt had a basketball game so he couldn't come =(, but my mom went up with us!

Sweet baby Kade has got his Mommy's lips, but he looks like his Daddy, at least that's what I think. =)

Here's John looking at his little boy. (And Kari picking her teeth in the background =)

Kari and me with our babies - I had a yucky cold so I wore the cute mask and didn't touch Kade. =)

Madi loves her new friend already! =)

And here's a picture of Shannon listening VERY intently to what Kari has to say. =)

We're so glad Mr. Kade is finally here! We've played with him a couple of times, but I don't have any more pictures.

Stay tuned for an upcoming posting of Madi giving her new friend a kiss... it's pretty cute! You won't want to miss it! =)

Zippidee Doo Dah, Zippidee Day...

My oh, my, what a wonderful day! Saturday was B-E-A-utiful, as anyone who lives in the valley would know! Matt was supposed to work on his homework all weekend (beloved Master's), but he couldn't resist taking a quick break so that we could go for a little family hike. It was a wonderful day and we were in the best of company! =) We jumped in the car and headed up to Shellburg Falls.

This is how Madi started the trip off... (Note, she is in a very similar state at the end of the hike as well.)

My baby girl and me setting off.

If you are already wondering why I'm packing the load, ask my husband that.

Just kidding - I offered to pack her up so that he could take pictures! I know. I'm that nice!

Wildlife!!!

Yup, they're cows. The road takes you through an open range area.

The first fall...

Dangling our legs off the bridge - this would be the part of the hike where we lost precious cargo into the waterfall. Don't worry! It wasn't the baby! It was Matt's water bottle! He wasn't very happy with me, but it was an accident and I pointed out we were all still alive, so things were better after that!

Gorgeous Day!

More beautifulness...

The second fall...

A blurry family picture =(

Madi and me underneath/behind the big fall.

The sun peaking into the darkness...

Matt's turn! =)

Happy girl on Daddy's back!

And folks, in case you didn't know, hiking can be absolutely EXHAUSTING! Especially if you are being carried in a backpack!!!

So.....

Sometimes you just have to let those eyes slip closed!

And thus the hike ended the same way for Madelyn as it began...

... looking at the back of her eyelids!!!

Hopefully this won't be the only sunny day this month, but if it is we certainly did our share of enjoying it! Thank you Jesus for such a beautiful place to live!!!

One more pic... =)

Eating Out...

So, we had a wonderful weekend with Matt's family. On Sunday morning Grandpa and Grandma wanted to take us out for breakfast before they left town. We had a delicious meal at Neufeldt's... mmmm, ham and cheese eggs with fried potatoes. I can almost taste it again now.

While we were sitting there it dawned on me that we have not been to a restaurant with Madi before... at least not in the last 2 - 3 months, so of course we snagged a few pictures to document her first restaurant experience - or our first restaurant experience with a child. Yeah, I think that's more appropriate.

Madi thought her spoon was pretty cool.

She tried sharing it with everyone!

Grandpa is a pretty funny guy...

Wow, Madi looks like her cousins in this picture!!!

She was telling us all about how funny Grandpa is...

High-fiving!

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the floor beneath Madi, but it looked pretty much the same as the table in this picture. One of Madi's newest "milestones" is feeding herself, which she is pretty proud of doing! As you can see, she does an excellent job of breaking small pieces of food into even SMALLER pieces. Don't worry, I found the little motorless vacuum and cleaned up after our meal. I just felt too bad leaving such a mess. The waitress told me I was her favorite customer. =)

... working her magic - charming!

And this would be her, "are you seriously still taking pictures of me?" look...

Yup, it's hard not to take pictures of someone this cute! What can I say!?!?!

Two-Thirds of a Year...

Well, (tear, tear) Madi turned 8 months old yesterday (tear, tear)... We spent the day with people that we love so it couldn't have been any better, but it is still sad to admit our baby girl is 2/3rds or a year old! How can time go by so quickly?

We went and watched cousin "Crameron's" basketball game. You can tell Madelyn enjoyed showing off to her aunties, uncle, and cousins. =)

Hanging out with the cool people! =)

Cameron working hard!

It was so fun to watch him play!

Madi got a little pooped out and decided that she was going to fall asleep eating cheerios in the car on the way home!

The end to a dramatic - progressive yawn!!!

... see ya later folks! I've had plenty of basketball in the last two days!!!

We ended the day by going to Uncle Kyle and Auntie Katie's house for homemade chimichangas (which are absolutely to DIE for)!!! Unfortunately, I forgot our camera. =( Super sad, especially because Madelyn played with her big cousins FOREVER (until they flat wore her out!) and she was having SO much fun! For some reason when big cousins throw pillows at her head she thinks it is funny... maybe because she is secretly planning the attack she will strike her revenge with someday. Yeah, that's probably it. She has something a little harder than pillows planned. Watch out boys, she won't be 16 lb. 13 oz. and 8 months old forever... she may be small, but she's got big plans!!! =)

My Two Favorite People!!!

Okay, so I was sitting here checking a few friends' blogs and my two favorite people were playing in the background. I couldn't resist grabbing our little camera and taking a few seconds of video. They were doing this for a long time before I actually realized what was going on... =) It's not very clear because it's just from our little "PowerShot" camera, but they're still pretty cute... not that I'm biased or anything.

I have to admit though, my favorite part was when I left to head into the kitchen I heard Matt say to Madi, "You wanna watch a video? Look, that's us. Look how much we love each other!!!" Aww, I know... that was the best part of my day! =) I mean seriously, if they're your two favorite people too, I totally understand!!!

Snot and Smiles!

Our weekend turned out a little different than planned... I'm pretty sure every article of clothing in our house is dirty and we may or may not have consumed meals that only contained a total of three ingredients. Okay, so only one meal contained three ingrediets... the quesedillas. Other than that we had toast, and some more toast, and oranges, and peanut butter and jelly, and some more toast... This weekend was full of snot, kleenexes, textbooks (Matt), coughing, pajamas, typing, and some more snot, BUT I spent it with my family, so I am thankful!

Matt started his masters' this week, so he practiced his multi-tasking skills and enjoyed his baby girl while reading 175 pages of blah, blah, blah. I must admit, I'm pretty impressed he actually did the reading! I encouraged him (more than once) to just read the conclusion to the seven assigned chapters and then write the paper, but he insisted on being a good student! We have both rubbed off on each other WAY too much. Ugh. I guess there is never a happy medium! =) Oh wait, together we make the happy medium, that's right!

Anyway, I documented our weekend to um, prove that we never got out of our pajamas?!?! Or maybe because we have the cutest little girl ever. Yeah, that's probably why. Please excuse the cute little girl's momma's looks. She bathed, but that's about it! =)

Madi's first bubble bath!!! Mommy laid there while Madi tried eating all the bubbles! =)

Madi has also learned a new "trick"... well, that's what we like to call the new things Madi learns... don't judge!

She can give her Mommy and Daddy kisses now!

Giving mommy a kiss!!!

Madi giving Daddy a kiss! Yeah, she may or may not just come at you with her tongue out... we're working on that one. Give us time!

We did a lot of this... snuggling, which is probably why our weekend was so wonderful!!! =)

... And a lot of this...

Daddy felt left out so we had to take his picture too! =)

We cut Daddy's hair! Okay, fine, he lost a bet to a middle schooler and had to shave his head... we're hoping we can get away with this being "shaved"! Um, he also had to shave his legs, but I forgot to get a picture of that!!! I'll try and sneak one in here sooner or later. If you're sympathetic, you can give Matt your condolences the next time you see him. Not because he had to shave all the hair off of his body, but because this was the first time he has EVER lost a game of PIG to one of his students. =( He blames it on two things: 1) He played the first game left handed and usually wins that way. When he didn't win, he switched to his right hand and he thinks his left hand had thrown him off. 2) Right before he was about to shoot his last shot his student said, "If you miss this you're going to have to wear shorts on Monday," and he started laughing so hard that it threw him off.

Excuses, excuses... I know! =)

Madi was absolutely fascinated with watching us shave Matt's head... she just sat there and stared... until she realized there was hair on the floor. Then she tried to crawl over and eat it. Don't worry, we swooped in and ruined all of her fun!

Madi digging in her toy box...

She looks so guilty doesn't she! =)

And... we had a perfect end to our lazy, snotty, unproductive weekend...

We enjoyed our favorite cold treat and watched the Blazers (almost win)! ... all because I had a buy-one-get-one coupon, of course! =)

Enjoying our cold treats!

And Madi experiencing her first bite of Blizzard!!! Yes, we're "those" kind of parents! =) And, she kicked her little feet and squealed in delight. It's official. She has her mother's ice cream genes!!!

Things I should have done this weekend: laundry, laundry, laundry, ironed, mopped, church, watched our nephew's first BASKETBALL game (he scored his first basket too :(! ), a whole bunch more house "chores"... blah, blah, blah!!! =)

Things I did do this weekend: went to school for a few hours, okay, twice, snuggled my baby, attempted to take naps, layed around in my pajamas, watched 4 playoff football games (yeah, that's a record), watched A River Runs Through It, vacuumed,

Reasons why I'm thankful: I spent almost every second this weekend with my two favorite people (minus the grocery store and school-time). I have a warm home to lay around in. I have a wonderful husband who doesn't care that I didn't do his laundry this weekend and who made me quesedillas for dinner on Saturday! I have a beautiful baby girl who always smiles even when she can't breathe! God is sovereign!