Blessed

Today I didn't get to sit down.

My Grandma and several Aunts and cousins are coming to town on Saturday. My mom and I went to Costco this morning to buy a bunch of food, then we went to mom's house for lunch, and I came home to put Madeleine down for a nap.

After she went to sleep, I got busy. I had to bake a cake for Saturday. I had to look through all my dairy-free/vegan cookbooks so that Madeleine could have a piece. I settled on a recipe and got to work. If it tastes half as good as my kitchen smelled, I think we're in for a treat! While the cake was baking, I cleaned up the kitchen, did two loads of dishes, three loads of laundry, folded diapers and put them away, put all the clothes away, and vacuumed underneath the table where food was thrown from breakfast. Then I steamed and pureed some carrots and cut up some sweet potatoes fries for dinner. I heated up a snack and ate it while I cooked. I picked up a sippy cup to move it out of my way and it hit me. Not too long ago I wasn't sure I'd ever have a baby. Ken was always optimistic, but sometimes I wasn't sure. (He likes to point this out to me now too!) I get to move sippy cups out of the way. I am privileged to have to bake dairy free cakes and cookies for my daughter. I get to stay home a lot now so I can cook and clean and help out my mom. Wow.

After all of this, I was just about to sit down on the couch when I heard a sweet little voice through the monitor. "Mama! Mama!" the voice said. And she was calling for ME. I am so blessed.

Hail Mary at 16 months

She sure impressed everyone with this this weekend!

Frassati Conference 2008

This past weekend was the Frassati Conference. We had a great time! I decided to bring Madeleine for the day on Saturday and then leave her with my mom on Sunday. I was a little nervous about bringing her, but she did GREAT! I did have lots of help though. Two very good friends of mine came - one of them was a speaker at the conference and one of the best! Madeleine just loves them. She also loves my friend Jenny. She gets so excited when she sees her! Of course she always lets Madeleine wear her jewelry - that could be part of it. Jenny was in charge of the whole conference but still found time to spend with Madeleine :) Jenny especially loves showing off her "Catholic tricks" which I'm trying to get on video! She loved Father Dan too.

If you ever have a chance to hear Deacon John Lozano speak - don't miss it. He was really great. I felt renewed after hearing him. It was so much fun seeing all the Seminarians and new priests.

This is Dominic - he's one of our favorite Seminarians, who has been praying for Madeleine since before she was born!

I did not get many good pictures but I enjoyed this one. She kind of yapped through some of the talks but when I gave her the sunglasses it kept her quiet for a while!

I was a little worried about her nap on Saturday, but it turned out that I didn't have to be. I had to introduce one of the speakers after lunch, so about 15 minutes before his talk, I decided to lay her down in her stroller with her silky and walk her around the block. She was fast asleep before I got halfway across the parking lot! So I just parked her in the corner of the room and got to listen to his talk in peace. She slept there for about an hour and a half!

I made her a shirt that said "Frassati girl" and it was a hit, but unfortunately I did not get a picture! Anyway, we had a great weekend, especially spending time with our friends after the conference was over. Thanks for hanging out with us!

Madeleine demonstrating her kissing skills

This is her friend Kallyn from Atlanta. We went to Sakura (sushi restaurant) where we learned that Madeleine loves miso soup with rice, AND edamame. You might remember the last time we went to this restaurant with Kallyn. Madeleine is a kissin' fool. Whenever we leave anywhere and say "bye," she wants to give a kiss. The financial guy at the car place, the checkout girl at Michael's today, the cat, the frightening froggy, the toilet. The kid is free with her kisses!

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

32 years! Pretty good so far :)

Hello

Here's the new ride. I really like it! Of course we had to see how it worked through the drive thru Starbucks today, and how my iced chai fit in the cupholder. I'm happy to report that it passed both tests! Also, I do have to report that whenever we go through the Starbucks drive thru (more than we need to, I know), we pull up and Madeleine yells "Iced Chai!!!" She is hilarious!

Yes, it was snowing in that last van picture! We had it "on the market" since January. It finally sold for what we wanted - so we were free and clear to buy this one with no negative equity! Woohoo!

My good friend asked to see the "frightening froggy." One day this froggy, which is supposed to protect little heads from falls on the faucet, got wet in the tub. I put it up in the window to dry out. Madeleine saw it later and freaked out like I've never seen. She was actually shaking she was so scared of that froggy. So we had to give it LOTS of kisses and hugs and show her how "nice" it is. Now she's half scared/ half obsessed with it. She likes it to be in the window at all times, and every time we go up or down the stairs she has to give it a kiss and hug. She does NOT like it to be in the tub when she's taking a bath. She asks for it, I get it down and then she says "Window! Window! Please!" Weird kid. I think he looks pretty friendly, myself.

So long.....

It's been nice knowin' ya! Unfortunately, you were bleeding us dry, so we had to get rid of you! :)

Ken picked me out a great used Chrysler Town and Country. We picked it up tonight and it drives really nicely! I think I'm going to like it a lot. It'll fit both carseats and a single and double stroller, which was a requirement. It also has automatic doors, which is a definite plus! The VERY best part.... we cut our payment by over $250/month!!! Oh yes, Dave Ramsay would be proud.

Another phrase

To add to the list of things I never thought I'd EVER say before I had a kid.

Last night, Madeleine went to the potty, and then followed Ken into the bathroom while he was pouring it out. As they walked into the bathroom, this is what came out of my mouth,

"Don't let her kiss the toilet!"

You see, whenever we say "Bye bye pee, or bye bye poo," she says "Kiss" and "Hug" and tries to kiss the hug the toilet, making that phrase a necessity at our house.

Wordless Wednesday

TMI warning

OK, remember how you all encouraged me to "encourage" my 16 month old on the potty? "Go for it" you said. Well, here's what happened today.

We went to the grocery store and when we got home, I put my groceries on the floor in the kitchen and then Madeleine said "Poo poo Mama!" So I sat her on the potty and read her a book, and nothing happened. So I let her run around without a diaper for just a FEW minutes while I put the groceries away. Then I gated her in the family room with me - with the potty and just a shirt on. A few minutes later a friend called me and I answered the phone - still in the same room with little naked girl. All of a sudden, she comes over and HANDS me a little piece of POOP. I hang up the phone immediately and survey the scene. She has poop on her shoe and a little on her dress, but I couldn't find the rest of it. So I sat her on the potty and stripped her down. Nothing happened so I cleaned her up, put a diaper on her and went on a poop hunt. Yes this is what my life is like these days. Remember it was on her shoe, so all I had to do was follow the POOP footprints. Yes you read that right. Little footprints from the family room, through the dining room, through the kitchen, through the living room, where I found the offending pile, next to the garage door, IN MY SHOE.

There will be no more "naked time" for a while.

Could she BE any more excited?

We went to a friend's wedding last night. She was up past her bedtime - can you tell?

However, she was VERY good. She kept running after the little boys and girls and trying to kiss and hug them! One little boy was running away from her unwanted advances! I hope this is not a sign of things to come....

It's Saturday Morning

Around 7:30. Everyone is still asleep. Madeleine went on the potty 3 times yesterday. It's raining outside and so I think we won't make it to the Farmer's market. Maybe we'll hit Confession instead.

Could you all please pray for my Grandma Irene? She fell and broke her hip on Wednesday and she had surgery yesterday. Her heart is really weak but they said risking the surgery was better than NOT doing it. Anyway the surgeon said that she did well. I'm not sure the recovery time or anything, but I do know they said she'd have to use a walker for 6 months and she's already giving them a hard time about that!

Day of firsts

Today Madeleine tried to make the Sign of the Cross for the first time. It was SO cute. She also tried to say our prayer before meals. She always says "Amen" but this was the first time she's tried to say the prayer.

Today, every time I handed her something, she said, "Thank you Mommy." She always says Thank you, and she usually calls me Mama. I thought this was so endearing that I just wanted to grab her and hug and kiss her whenever she said that today!

We went to Story hour today, then over to Grandma's house for lunch. On the way home, she said Poo poo. I said, "Try to wait until we get home and you can sit on the potty and go poo poo." She said Okay! And when we got home, she went on the potty!!! Sorry if this is TMI, but I of course made a huge deal out of it, and we carried the little bowl into the bathroom, dumped it in the toilet and said "Bye Bye Poo poo!" And because the purpose of this blog is to record my memories of this time with my baby, I'll tell you what she said next.

"Kiss."

(This is what she says when we say Bye Bye to anything or anyone. She wants to give them/it a kiss.)

I called Ken and told him, and he was wondering what the purpose of getting her to go on the potty was... he said he thought dealing with poop on a diaper was better than dealing with it in the potty. Plus he wasn't too happy that I just ordered a dozen more diapers. Oh well!

So, should I really try to potty train her? I mean, I didn't even know a 16 month old COULD be potty trained! She's interested though.

Again!

She did it again! I took pictures. She'll thank me later :)

As you can see, she enjoys reading books on the potty. Like someone else in our family - I won't mention WHO.

I can't believe it.

Today, Madeleine told me she had to go potty. So I took off her diaper, sat her on the potty, and she WENT!!!!

16 months old. Pretty darn good if you ask me :)

16 months old!

I can't believe it, but my baby is 16 months old today! This kid gets cuter and and funnier every day! Here are some new things she is doing. She has a little table next to her crib - between her crib and our rocking chair. We keep a pile of books on the table to read before bed (and when she gets up too!) She has been getting books into her crib somehow. So last night I watched her through the crack in the door. She reaches through the slats as far as she can, uses her fingers to pull the book closer, picks it up and then has to turn it a certain way to get it through the slats. She read them all, then when she was ready to go to bed she put each one back on the table!

She can say SO many words. She especially loves animals. I bought her a Little People jungle with an animal for each letter of the alphabet. She can say elephant, giraffe, flamingo, rhino, hippo, penguin, yak, zebra, etc. It's just amazing.

She loves to hug and kiss everything - when we tell her something is nice, she kisses and hugs it and then says "Aw!" Sometimes if she really loves a book she likes to kiss every page as we're reading it! Reading books is still her favorite thing in the world. She'd read books all day.

She finally graduated to facing forward in the car today! Surely she's over 20 lbs now? If not, close enough.
She loves to talk on the phone, well, at least have pretend conversations! She'll pick up my phone and say "Hello?" and then proceed to have an entire conversation. Whenever I ask her who she's talking to, she usually says Ava or Grace!
We went to McAllisters today. They have the BEST sweet tea, although I wouldn't go THIS far....

This year

Sorry, didn't get any good ones today! But it's funny, I think her face in the first one looks just like the one in the last post :)

Happy 4th!!!

We're doing compare and contrast today. This was last year, and we're going to a little festival tonight so later you'll get a picture from today! Hope everyone has a great day!

Madeleine made a new friend

Well, it looks like my kid knows a good guy when she sees one! My cousin Nick stayed with us for the past few days, and Madeleine LOVED him. She learned quickly how to say his name, and it seems to be her new favorite word. Last night she gave him all her little animals and you can see what he did with them! She was fascinated by him and asked for him all day today. Nick says he doesn't want kids - we're hoping to change his mind! He'd be a great dad. You can see my kid working her magic!


She does NOT go to just anyone - especially someone she's just met. She knows you're special, Nick!! He looks a little more comfortable here than he did here, doesn't he? :)