No I'm not dead, and no I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth...well I am in Iowa living on the edge of town across the street from corn and a horse farm!!! Not kidding. But in all reality, it is very beautiful.

Life is good. I'm sorry to all my friends and family I haven't been good at calling it's been very busy out here. Here's what has been happening in the last almost 2 months.

We packed up all our stuff in CA and crammed it into a moving truck with the help of the missionaries, a neighbor and Robert. My sister Kathy even came up from San Diego to watch Maddy and help us clean. It was a lot of hard work and we couldn't have done it with out our friends and family, so a BIG thanks. After all was said and done we fit our lives in 10 feet of truck space. Here's how it looked in the end. Pretty scary! But besides some nicks and dings and one broken dish, it all made it here.


It was bittersweet to leave CA. We loved the friends we had made there and it was hard to go our separate ways as we moved on to the next stage in our lives. I was actually the first of all our friends to leave, it was really hard. I cried and cried. Heather gave me a card and I had to wait a couple days to read it, because I was so upset to be leaving. Of course I cried again when I read it. Thanks!!!! I couldn't resist, here is one of the last few pics we took in CA, Rex is such a crack up! :)



Traveling worked out well. I flew with Maddy and Ethan drove with Lola. Besides a blowout during our layover, Maddy was great over the whole day of traveling. Everyone thought she was so cute so lots of people wanted to hold her and help. I think Ethan (and Lola) just barely survived his 3 very long days of driving.

On August 25th, we signed away our lives and maybe our first born, purchased our first home. Maddy was so excited she pooped and stunk up the whole office! So here it is our new home. It's so crazy to think we are actually here in a home. We are getting pretty close to being moved in. W still have pictures to hang, shelves to put up etc., that's not too bad. I took video, but blogspot is freaking out, so maybe next blog, you'll just have to enjoy this pic.


Ethan is working at his dad's office and is doing great! He really likes it. But now that he's back he has to clean the office and mow the lawn every week. I don't think he likes that part!

As for me I'm offically 27 now! Yikes, that 30 mark is getting closer and closer. Looks like I'm finally growing up just in time. A kid, a house, and an employed husband no longer in school! Here's my party. We went out to dinner then had family and some friends over for icecream cake. Yum, icecream cake, maybe I'm not so grown up!


Maddy is now 4 months and huge!!! She is wearing 6-9 mon old clothes! She is always hungry, so I started her on rice cereal. She took to it right a way. She is finally sleeping in a crib, hallelujah she's out of our room. She moves around a ton at night, we usually find her in the morning facing the opposite direction of how she was put down the previous evening. After a rough time zone adjustment, she's back to pretty much sleeping through the night. Naps, however are still a challenge we are working on.



So friends and family, please forgive us for not staying in contact better. We will try harder now that we are more settled. We love you all and miss you!

Maddy's had a big week, so I thought I'd update you!

First... she has slept through the night 3 times. Asleep by around 8 or 9 awake at 5 0r 6! Crazy! While this is great it does pose leakage problems! The first night her diaper leaked and I leaked too. So to avoid this, we try to change her diaper right before she falls asleep and I have to get up in the middle of the night to pump. So everyone gets to sleep through the night but me! Hummm...

Next... she has become more conversational. She will listen and "talk" and mimic you. My favorite is when she says "hello" aka "eh oh" we tried to get a little on video, but blogger is freaking out and won't load it! I'll try again next time.

Third... she is holding her head up much better and is now sitting in her baby chair. She'll only sit for a few minutes and gets mad. Also, she has become more "sturdy" for Ethan to play with so here is super Maddy.


Last... many of you know Maddy has some gastrointestinal issues. We call them the "Zmoos Guts" She gets constipated if you look at her funny. So here's what happened after 1 day of not pooping! She was workin' hard. Sorry my commentary is lame.

So it's been awhile. Needless to say I've been busy figuring out this mom thing, baby blessing, building a house, paperwork for mortgages, making arrangements for moving, etc., etc... I have time to blog because Maddy is actually taking a nap. As some of you know, Maddy went from being a great napper to not really a napper at all! Since about 3 weeks old, her naps consisted of sleeping 20 min here or 15 min there and boy did that wear me down. So I haven't been able to get out and about and do much. But magically today she took an hour and a half morning nap and is down now for an afternoon nap. Hallelujah! Hopefully this trend continues.

I know everyone just wants to know about Maddy so here it is.

At her last dr. appointment she was 21 and 1/2 inches and 10 lbs. 9 oz. She is nice and average.

We had her blessing on fathers day, it was beautiful and of course I cried through the whole thing. What was truly wonderful was the friends and family that were there. The craziest thing was seen Kendra! It's been probably over 3 years since I've seen her! And she has such a cute family, Alex is a crack up. Here are some pics of the blessing and family. Maddy is almost 6 weeks in these pictures.


Before the blessing we took Maddy to her first baseball game. I think she thinks baseball is boring, she pretty much slept through the whole thing! :)


What has been fun in the last few weeks is Maddy started developing some personality and facial expressions. She is smiling a lot now, but I don't have a good picture, sorry. She's a lot more into looking at things and at about 8 weeks she has started holding her rattles and sticking it in her mouth. She really likes being outside. We try to go on a walk outside everyday. Oh and as you can see, she loves her bouncer too!



We love our little Madeline even though she is a lot of work! It still doesn't seem like we are adult, parent type people! Everyone has been so great we love you all! Enjoy all the Maddy material on the blog! Oh and I have one last video, Maddy was having a grumpy afternoon, check her pout! BTW, that nap I mentioned, 20 min. It's only taken 3 hours but I finally finished my blog, and we are attempting nap 3!

Well Maddy is officially a month, I think... How do you count it 4 weeks? June 7th? I don't know!

She is definitely getting bigger! Newborn clothes and diapers are getting tight, but 0-3 mon are a little big. I put her in some pants today and when I picked her up, they fell right off! She's a pretty good baby, but she recently she has been having day time sleep issues. She just will not sleep! She'll wake up around 7am, and then for the rest of the day sleeping only 10 or 20 min here or there until the evening. She usually goes to sleep around 9:30 and will wake up once at night. So in some ways its good and in other ways not so good!

She has some quirks...
1- When she's falling asleep, she smiles and giggles
2- She already loves baths, she fell asleep in the tub a few times
3- She fights falling asleep (not a good sign)
4- She really likes sitting up, she falls asleep sitting up while you pat her back
5- She loves being bounced and "tossed"
6- When in a good mood she will play with her toy and look at her picture book
As far as things go for me...
I have had a little of the baby blues. But I'm feeling better, Ethan and my Mom were a great help. Physically I feel well, I went bike riding on Memorial Day with some friends, they thought I was crazy. Unfortunately the weight loss has slowed down! Bummer! With Maddy awake most of the day (aka tired and cranky) it's hard to get out and exercise or even shower! I'm amazed I'm blogging right now, but it did take a couple of hours though.

For your viewing enjoyment, a slide show put together by Ethan.  If you can't view it, you can go to youtube and search Madeline Rae, and it should come up!

Love you all!

As many of you know, it's been a little busy around here. Maddy came 9 days early, but luckily we had all our shopping and prep work done! Literally the day before I bought all the postpartum stuff I needed!

So if any one hasn't heard the details, here's a short outline of the events of May 7th.

3:45 am - Wake up to my water breaking!
6:30 - Arrive at the hospital, 1 cm not feeling contractions
8:30 - Start pitocin
10:30ish - Painful non-stop contractions only 2 cm! Got pain meds, only made me nauseous!
12:00ish - Only 3 cm, request epidural, 3rd in line.
2:00ish - Still in pain, jump to 8 cm anesthesiologist shows up, only to called out for an emergency c-section before he can administer the epidural. No joke, I was pretty upset!
3:00ish - 10 cm, but Maddy was a station 0, aka not ready to come out. Anesthesiologist shows up to give me a quick epidural to help me push.
4:27 - Madeline Rae Zmoos born! 7lbs 5oz 20in Yea!!!

So now she's 2 weeks and adorable. No more umbilical stump and no more jaundice. Here she is sun bathing!

My mom is here and boy am I glad. She cooks, cleans, and takes the baby so I can nap. Probably the hardest thing is breastfeeding! Maddy currently is a sleeper! She'll feed a couple times at 2 hour intervals then conk out for like 3-4 hours. And hallelujah, for now she actually sleeps through the majority of the night. Last night she slept from 11:00 to 4:30! I still have to wake up and pump, but that's no biggie. We are completely blessed!

As for me, I'm tired and sometimes my stitches hurt, but that's about it. I try to get in at least one nap a day, usually during Maddy's long 3 hr nap. Well, since the last time I weighed myself while I was pregnant, I've lost about 17 lbs. which is great, but I've got a lot more to go. So for the time being I'm just learning and trying not to get frustrated as Maddy constantly falls asleep everytime I feed her!

Here are some of my favorite pics.


Thanks to everyone for your love, prayers, and generosity! We couldn't have asked for better friends and family!

Love
Liz

So life has been busy and I thought I'd update my blog again. I know, can you believe it, I didn't wait a month!

So I've hit 36 weeks and am into my 9th month. I'm feeling pretty good, just scatter brained, tired from troubles sleeping, and nausea every now and then. I'm not to the point where I'm thinking, Get this baby out of me!!!! We'll just have to wait and see for that one. People keep telling me to have my bags packed and ready, she could be here any time... so they got me paranoid enough that now in the corner of our kitchen is a labor bag, diaper bag, and the car seat all ready to go!

After about 6 or 7 hours of delay, Ethan came home after his trip to Iowa. He got to the Iowa airport at about 5 in the morning and got home in CA at 7 pm! He was sure glad to get out of the airport! He brought home all sorts of housing info. The more we look at our house options, the more it looks like we are going to do new construction. The house we really liked is out of the running, we found out that the builder is a little bit shady, and even though its only a few years old, Ethan could see cracking dry wall, loose banisters, and other problems. Sigh! So there is a new development in Marion where we can pick our lot, customize the home, pick our upgrades, there is a duck pond, a park, and a trail that the kids can walk to the brand new elementary school and middle school! So those are pretty awesome perks. We just need to make our final decisions in about 3 or 4 weeks so that it can be built in time for when me move to Iowa. If you'd like to see pics of the development and the insides of some of the homes go to http://www.danseda.org/ click on virtual tours and then click on Country Club Estates. Here's the contractors sketch of the home. FYI, we'd make changes to the exterior to make it a little cuter. It's 3 bedroom, 2 bath a little over 1500 sqft with a unfinished basement, that once we finish it will add another bedroom, bath and an additional 11oo sqft. So we are getting excited.

Other news, as many of you know my little sister is pregnant and they just found out that she's having a little girl too! Uh, oh... those Archibald genes... the girls are still dominating the family!

Funny story of the day... So today at school I was walking up the stairs (very slowly!) and I had the luck of finding a baggy of pot! So, I was bummed that I found the pot and had to report it, but even more bummed that now I had to go back down the stairs again! Going up and down stairs while preggo, not so much fun. As I was preparing to go to the office, I realized that I didn't have pockets, and I wasn't going to walk around holding a bag of weed, so I threw it in my purse and headed off to the office. As I walked I realized that how weird was I going to look walking into the office and pulling this out of my purse! Oh well... so I got to the office and told the secretary, that I know this looks funny but, here's some pot. She laughed as I told her the story. Then she joked if I wanted to save it for medicinal purposes for labor! Well, she promised not to take it home and to turn it over to the right people. Ahhh... fun times at Whittier High.

Love you guys!

Pressure...

So Ethan and I are feeling all sorts of different types of pressure these days! I just dropped Ethan off at the airport and he's on his way to Iowa to look at homes, work on mortgages, and go to a seminar with his dad. So while he's excited, he's feelin' the pressure of looking at and quite possibly deciding on a home and dealing with bankers, without me. Oh, and on his way into the airport he told me not to go into labor without him! For the past 2 weeks we've been going back and forth with lenders trying to find a good deal. He also has finals next week, and is finishing his last classes. Out of the classroom and full time in the clinics! On a funny note, Ethan is also on a cleanse diet. He has to only drink shakes, limited protein, and only fresh fruits and veggies. While he's feeling great and lost I think about 10 lbs, he's been sad seeing me eat cookies and uh, to put it delicately... he's been feeling the pressure in the bathroom. According to his pamphlet "Most people today have forgotten what a complete bowel movement entails." HA HA!

Together we have both been dealing with the pressures of budgeting and dealing with the changes that are on the horizon. It's a little nerve racking thinking about student loans, me not earning an income, health insurance, moving, baby, birth, and on and on....

Me personally, my pressure involves work, mental, and physical ordeals!!! So while I'm excited that I only have 3 1/2 weeks of work left, these are a big few weeks. I'm fund raising for my AP students to help pay for the AP test, prepping kids for the AP test, finishing units, finishing labs, planning for the long term sub, figuring maternity leave, disability, and on and on.... Mentally I'm a mess! I stare at my students and completely forget their names, I wanted a subway sandwich for dinner the other day and drove the 3 places that I swear they were located, but they weren't, and today I went to what I thought was a taco bell/pizza hut but wasn't and asked for breadsticks and the lady looked at me like I was crazy, no pizza hut, just a taco bell. I don't even know if my blog even makes sense right now! Finally, boy oh boy, physical pressure. Maddy dropped about 2 weeks ago and has been makin' her way south ever since. I pretty much feel like I have a weight sitting right on my lap. One of my friends at school says I'm officially waddling. Waddling at 34 weeks (soon to be 35), nice! I always thought it was funny how people say preggos go to the bathroom all the time and I wasn't that bad... well now that Maddy is constantly punching and headbutting my bladder (like right now) I fit into that stereotype.

Ah... pressure...

Side note, coolest non-necessary baby item we just bought. In a magazine I get they were highlighting cool new baby thing-ies. I showed Ethan and he said we had to get it, it's just so cool. Here's a pic... It's a baby food dispensing spoon. You put the baby food in the dispenser and you just squirt it out onto the spoon. Sweet.


Well, hope you enjoy the blog. I read it to Ethan and this was his take on it. "Most of it is funny but some of it was boring, just like you." Ah, Ethan! Don't worry, he was joking and does love me.

Hi Friends and Family,

Ok, so I know this looks like a long blog... and it is. Hopefully you'll find it interesting and worth the read!

Well, I just have to say, I'm sure grateful for tax returns!!! I went to Baby's R Us and picked up the rest of the necessities off my registry. Necessities are expensive! So I think we may just have everything we need. Well, I'm sure we'll find out soon enough if I did enough shopping. So here's a pic of everything arranged in our "nursery" aka the corner of our bedroom. It makes us really excited for baby time! I'm into my 8th month, so ... hopefully we won't have to wait too much longer for little Maddy.


So other stuff going on... I was grocery shopping the other day. And I just went to the closest one to me as I was out and about. It wasn't in the nicest part of town or so nice on the outside, but it was an Albertson's, how bad could it be!!?? Well, as I was in there I noticed that they let all sorts of "other" customers in the store. I was a little nervous going do that aisle, you can image why. Let's just say, I haven't been back to that store.

This Sunday was Easter. The Reddings were totally awesome and invited us over for a wonderful dinner. Here's Robert with his fabulous turkey and potatoes. Yummy! Meat and potatoes, my fav. He read on the internet that if you brined (sp?) the turkey it would be moist, and it worked. So next Thanksgiving everyone Brine your turkeys!

So remember a couple of weeks ago Ethan went to DC to lobby for Chiropractic. Here are some of his pics. So here's the Jefferson Memorial at night, a view of the Lincoln Memorial from the top of the Washington Memorial, and lastly the Capitol building. It was a crazy week!

Lastly, after Eth's DC trip he then went straight into studying for Boards. It was rough, but he made it through. So to celebrate being done he went lobster fishing with his study buddies. They didn't catch any lobsters, but they got 2 crabs and 3 octopus. Is that the plural form? Anyway, it was a good end to a rough 2 weeks of studying and 3 days of testing!


Ethan's good luck has continued... after his DC trip he got a $400 ticket for a carpool lane violation. It was ridiculous, it was the first time he was on that highway, and to be in the carpool lane at that time of day you had to have 3 people in the car! Sigh. So we were so mad about it that he actually went to court to contest it. Fortunately the cop didn't show up, so we got reimbursed! Yea!!!

I did take my kids on a really cool field trip. We went to Body Worlds at the California Science Center. Ethan came as a chaperone. We got to look at dissected human bodies. As creepy at that sounds, it was amazing. Here's a pic of one of the displays I downloaded. I didn't take any pics myself, because it wasn't allowed. If you have the chance to see it, I highly suggest it!


Lastly, house hunting continues. Here are two of the houses we are looking into. We are pretty excited. Ethan is flying out to Iowa in 3 weeks to check out homes and maybe start some paper work! Scary!!!

This week is spring break for me so I'm heading down to San Diego to visit my sister Kathy and my friend Erika. So that will be fun.

We love you all!