Nana's visit

Last weekend (now officially the weekend before last,oops) we had a visit from Madeline's Nana. It was the first time they have met and I think the first impressions were positive on both sides! Yvonne fed Maddie Mae almost every meal, spoiled all of us with Christmas gifts and really spoiled Maddie Mae with her first birthday gifts by helping her out with her winter wardrobe. Jeff and I went on 2 dates while she was here which was such a blessing! Over all ate some good food and spent quality time with our precious baby girl! It was a good weekend.

Goats

Yesterday I went hiking in Jewel Basin near Kalispell MT between flights. These mountain goats were kind enough to hang out with me for about ten minutes before I headed back down the mountain. That was a pretty cool experience!

Feeling far away

Our sweet Maddie Mae recently turned 11 months old. This event has taken me through some unexpected emotions. When I say that she is more fun all the time and I would not wish to return to her former stages I am speaking the truth... and yet there is a little piece of me that is always wondering if I am enjoying these moments enough, will I remember her sweet baby time well enough? While these questions have been a part of my emotional ups and downs the primary trigger comes when I try to figure out what we will do for her first birthday. I know that she will not remember this day but it is just getting harder and harder to think that none of our family will be around to celebrate her first year. Regardless, I will be baking cupcakes and making a special meal, we will have that picture of her tasting cake for the first time and allow her to make as big of a mess as she wants... but I am shedding some tears and feeling the miles between Billings and our families. My solace comes in the fact that we serve a great God with great plans and I have no doubt that we are here for a reason.

On a lighter note, Maddie Mae starting pulling up on everything taller than she is as soon as she started crawling and now has the ability to stand unaided for quite a while. Jeff has been wanting to capture this before she starts walking and here is what he just got :)

Look How She's Changed!

It's hard to believe that Madeline turned 11 months old yesterday. She will be walking and talking and graduating from college soon. Crazy!

 

We're Back

We're back in two regards. First, we are back from our trip to Boise where we got to visit with my family and friends. Second, we're back on the blogosphere as we finally got fed up with our old mac and bought a new one. . . the 27" iMac specifically, it's quite ridiculous but completely awesome too!

First our trip to Boise. It was hot, it was brown, it was smokey, (like most places in the Northwest in August) but it was home and it was nice to be there. My brother Mark and his family were there and they finally got to meet Maddie. She was the center of attention as usual and seemed to enjoy it, but she did get overwhelmed by all the new faces from time to time. We went bowling and ice skating which neither of us have done for years. We also cooked a salmon feast for everyone as Mark and his Family had just come from Alaska with copious amounts of said fish ( there was also halibut which was honestly better but we didn't cook that). Most of our time was spent just hanging out with family and friends it was a nice break from the daily grind. Maddie was a great little traveler and we were able to travel 300 miles between stops!

Now for our new toy / necessity. After sending our macbook out for repair for the third time and determining that it would need yet another costly repair, we decided to stop dumping money into it and just get a new computer. We contemplated many options, having my brother Tim build one for us, buying a new PC ,or just getting the old one repaired. We just couldn't stomach the thought of going back to a PC and we didn't want to spend anymore money on a dying machine, so we bought a new Mac and we love it! It will be super awesome for all the pictures and videos we like to take, plus I'm pretty sure it could launch the space shuttle if we wanted it to. At any rate it'll be nice to be connected to the world again. Unfortunately I have to get back to the daily grind at 5:00 tomorrow morning so here are some pics and I'm off to bed.

Oh yeah, an aside to the mac buying story. We went to Costco to look at computers and buy groceries today and Maddie had a little (actually not little at all) puking incident. We had just passed the fresh fruit section and she was acting like she wanted to be held, so of course I obliged. Soon thereafter she proceeded to projectile vomit all over herself and the front of my shirt. Everything went into slow motion and I remember thinking how is she still puking it's like a vomit fire hose! so that was fun.


Daddy Dressed Me


Cousins!


Michala and Maddie


Michala and MADdie

Can You Give Maddie Her Binki?