Back, back, way back in December, Ethan graduated from Southern California University of Health Sciences. It was a a great experience. We blew in and out of Cali in one weekend. It was very fun and very quick. Too quick! We saw the Olsens, the Luces, the Reddings, Lozano's, Escalantes... etc. I wish we had more time to spend with them. We tried to make the most of the short time so we hit, In n Out, Sandwich Bar, Cheesecake Factory, and Berry Cool. Maddy even got to meet Santa AKA Robert and great Uncle Steve.
After getting back to Iowa, we celebrated an early Christmas with Ethan's family and then we were off again to New Jersey. Maddy is a pro-flyer now. She did great even with a cold. One time she sneezed and a HUGE snot bubble came out, everyone in the airport started cracking up!
We enjoyed our NJ time! It was so fun just to be with family. It's not often you can everyone under the same roof. Maddy LOVED all the attention. Everyone cuddled her, played with her, and she loved her little cousin Lucy. She would stare at her and try to hold her hand. The fire truck even came by with Santa and gave her an elf hat! Dad even enjoyed the hat too!
I didn't get a pic of the Christmas turkey, I wish I got one because it was huge. We all love turkey, especially my mom. For 9 adults, she got a 36 lbs turkey! It barely fit in the oven. I even got my cliff's icecream fix in. So after Cali and NJ, I need to get exercising! So, if you don't know my parents and my sister are into photography, so Maddy and Lucy had a quite a few photo shoots! As you can see from all the smiling faces, Maddy really enjoyed Christmas.
I even tried my hand at photography, I'm proud of this one.
I don't know what she liked more, Christmas or bath time with grandma!!!!
We did go on a major outing to the Bronx botanical gardens. They were beautiful, even in the winter. They had a special exhibition that was a huge model train set up of New York. We also went to a puppet show, which for adults was totlly lame, but Maddy watched then whole thing. We were so surprised. She laughed, followed the actors on the stage and in the audience, and screamed in delight! I think I under estimate Maddy skillz sometimes! :)
There are a ton more picutures, of course! You can check them out on my flicker page, just click on the slide show to the right.
Well, that was December. As far as January goes, Maddy hit 8 months and 23 lbs! She is rocking to music, which is hillarious. And now she does what we call the flap n' clap. When she's excited, she'll flap her arms and then start clapping. It's pretty funny. Her favorite food is cheese!!! Sometimes we have to bribe her with cheese to get her to eat other food. She is WAY into books now. We'll just sit and read book after book, literally we'll read all of her books on her book shelf. And her likes her alphabet flash cards. We are trying sign language, but Maddy hates it when I grab her hands to try to make the sign, she pulls away. But she loves the videos, of course! She still has no interest in crawling, but she LOVES walking and standing with support. Enjoy her "walking." Love you guys. I hope you survived my super long blog!
