Grandma Gini and Maddie Mae

Here are a few pictures we took today of Maddie Mae and Grandma Gini

Christmas Presents

Maddie Mae loving her present from Grandma and Grandpa Grissom.

Maddie's first Christmas

We had a lot of fun today. It started with americanos for Jeff and I and a latte for Mom. We then proceeded to open gifts and stockings. Maddie was blessed with some wonderful toys and it was so much fun to see her face light up and interest in her eyes as things lit up and played music. She is just growing and changing every day :) Jeff and I were just going to get each other items for our stockings but he surprised us with a very special gift, a Canon 7D! We have been playing with it quite a bit today and are including some of the pictures below, very exciting!

Today we remember the amazing blessing of our Savior coming to earth and are so very grateful that He came! Merry Christmas!!

Birthday dinner

My birthday was on Monday and Jeff did it up right. He made reservations and the three of us got dressed up and went to dinner. Jeff had sea bass and I had beef tenderloin with apple crisp and pumpkin creme brulee for dessert. When we arrived at our table the restaurant staff had signed a birthday card for me and our desserts came with candles. I must say that I preferred their way of doing things over the entire staff singing their own version of Happy Birthday at the top of their lungs so that the whole restaurant stares. We had a group at the table next to us that was incredible impressed with our little Maddie Mae and were kind enough to take a picture of the three of us. It was a great birthday and I must say this has been a great year :)

Caught on Camera

Our sweet little girl is smiling more and more these days but we have had trouble catching them on camera... Jeff was finally successful today :)

mmm mmm good

Yesterday a box was delivered to our house addressed to Jeff. He has been grinning about my birthday present for days just waiting for it to arrive so I assumed that the contents of the box were the source of the grin. He was flying in from Utah and when I texted that it had arrived he quickly texted back "open it!". I am the type that usually makes people wait until their actual birthday or Christmas to give them their gifts but Jeff just gets so giddy about it that he can barely contain himself. I did not open it until he came home last night but I also did not wait until my birthday because of his excitement. He bought me an espresso machine :) So, today I had 2 americanos and am currently sipping some hot chocolate that was steamed with my new toy and it has all been so very tasty. I am pretty impressed with this little machine, even though I am used to working with the big daddy machines at my old job, everything has come out beyond my expectations and it should be much easier to stick to our new coffee budget now :) It is such a sweet gift and I am so grateful! Especially because my sweet husband was so excited to bless me with it.

We also finally decorated our tree today. It is actually leaning quite a bit, we had trouble when the hole was drilled for our tree stand when we bought it, but I must say that the leaning is actually endearing and I love it all the more for the flaw.

Here are a couple of pictures. My new toy and our tree:

Talk Time

Maddie Mae making dinner conversation.

Merry Christmas

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Thanksgiving 2009

This year's Thanksgiving was so special for a number of reasons. It was Maddie Mae's first Thanksgiving and our first time ever to host a Thanksgiving. We felt so very blessed that Jeff's family came for an entire week. We had good times and they really served us as well. They helped us make progress on our renovation and helped with the clean up project we had out back. I must also say that it was wonderful to be able to cook for so many all week and have almost every bit of the clean up done :)












Thanksgiving Table


Thankgiving Day just before dinner


Grandma and Madeline


Grandpa and Madeline


Michala and Ruger


Michala and quarter round


Grandma and Michala

Dedication

Last week we realized that we had an opportunity, we were going to have family here on a Sunday! So, we made a phone call to our church and they graciously allowed Madeline Mae Grissom to be dedicated on very short notice. Our head pastor was out of town with family which was very disappointing, but Pastor Ben did a wonderful job. We have included a video for those of you who would like to see the ceremony. God has graciously entrusted us with this little life and we take this stewardship seriously. Our prayer is that she would come to know God's saving grace as soon as possible and dedicate her life to serving Him. The dedication was our promise to do our best to reflect Christ and ask others to hold us accountable to that promise.

We also have a short video below of Maddie "playing", she just loves to spend time on her play mat and is really studying the world around her so intently. The picture below is of Maddie in an outfit that Grandma Gini gave to her, it finally fits and she wore it for her dedication (and looked so precious in it!).

4 lbs WOOHOO!

Monday we went to the pediatrician and here is the latest. Our little girl has gained 4 lbs!!! Yay Maddie Mae :) She is now 8 lbs 12 oz and 20 inches long. She is in the 5th percentile for weight but has not even made it on the charts for length or head size. Her doctor was impressed that she made it onto the charts at all and said that she does not seem to be far behind her full term 2 month old patients. The down side of the appointment was vaccinations... so sad to see those tears but she seemed to bounce back pretty well. With her weight gain and development we can now work on her sleep at night without worrying about waking her before she wakes on her own, very exciting!

Below there are a couple of pictures I took today of Maddie, a picture of Maddie taken yesterday in her sweet camo shoes, a picture of Jeff's work in our back yard mid-project (a much needed project that is HUGE evoking the words "what have I done!" repeatedly from Jeff's mouth) and a video of our little girl.

Chubby Cheeks

Here is a little update on Madeline. She is holding her own head up now, not completely stable but getting there fast. She seems so much more alert, watching everything so intently, studying our faces and responding to our voices. It seems as though she is getting bigger by the moment (check out those round cheeks!). Tomorrow we go to the pediatrician, time for vaccinations, and we will have an update on her weight.

Maddie meets Uncle Randy and Aunt Emily

My brother Randy and his wife Emily traveled all the way to Billings to meet our little Madeline Mae this weekend. We had a wonderful time :) Most of our time was just hanging out around the house eating and talking but we did venture out on Saturday for Randy, Emily and Madeline's first trip to Red Lodge. Montana has so much beauty but Billings is not the best representation of it so we like to take people to Red Lodge when they visit because just beyond are the Beartooth Mountains, one of the most beautiful ranges I have ever seen! Emily was kind enough to help get some of the decorating done in our house, one of those things I was planning to do after I was done working and before Maddie showed up, and now our house has so much more of a home feel. We do not miss our bare walls at all! I think that Uncle Randy and Aunt Emily were pretty impressed with their new niece and, if the little almost smiles you get from a 7 week old are any indication, she was pretty impressed with them as well!





As an addendum to our last post, here are a couple of pictures that were not downloaded yet but that we feel you should see:

10 31 09

We had a lot of fun yesterday! It started with lunch out at Grains of Montana, we love their sandwiches. After a quick trip home to feed Madeline we headed out to Norm's Island with the dogs, it was just to beautiful outside to stay at home. We have an extra dog this weekend because some of our friends went out of town, he is a basset hound/rottweiler mix... yes it is just as odd a mix as you might be imagining. His name is Yogi and he is a very good dog, the island was almost too much for him with our 2 young puppies but we think he enjoyed it :) After another trip home to feed Madeline we decided to do a last minute search for a costume for Maddie. I had looked a little bit when out over the last couple of weeks but there just is not a ton of costumes for a baby in between preemie and newborn size. We ended up getting her a chili pepper costume that swallowed her but was still really cute :) Jeff and I just couldn't resist a couple of the wigs we saw when buying Madeline's costume so we dressed up with her... although I am not sure either of us could tell you exactly what we were, I would say we were both from the 60's/70's. Hope you enjoy our pictures, we had a lot of fun taking them :)

A collage of the dogs



The Grissom family on a walk at Norm's Island


Costume fun