Alright, we've got 2 months to cover, let's get to it!

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!

So December basically flew by... I think I was actually in my house for like 11 days... I have a lot of updating to do so I'll be doing a couple of posts. This is the video post. So here's the last month via video for your viewing enjoyment...

Maddy can finally roll over. Now anytime she is on her belly, she rolls over. Crawling is going to take forever!



Ethan graduating and receiving his hood. Unfortunately it took the camera too long to load so I missed them saying his name.



Christmas was in NJ and Melissa got little Lucy a new toy, apparently she liked it!



After practicing in Iowa, Maddy was a pro at opening her gifts.



Maddy had fun in NJ, she sure likes pony rides for her daddy.



Lucy really loved her Grandma Archibald, would love to eat her that is... I call this one, when babies attack! Grandma received a few scratches after the scuffle!

So I'm back for what seems to be my monthly update. Since a lot of things have happened, I'll try to keep the blog semi-short, I don't want this to be a novel!

Iowa is funny. I'm not sure yet if it is funny haha or just kinda ya know funny. For example, we had to go buy a snow shovel. Every shovel was either black or yellow, Hawkeye colors. Oh, and Iowans take the passing lane seriously, so seriously that you'll see a line of cars pile up at a light in the right lane with no one in the left lane. That's for passing only! I do love all the church signs everywhere. I look forward to the updates every week. Here are a few of my favorites.

"Forgive your enemies, it messes with their heads."
"Trouble sleeping, try counting blessings."
"Give Satan an inch, he'll be a ruler."

Ahh.... gotta love it.

Other going ons...

Ethan flew to California where he finally took his last set of National Board Examinations. Hooray, no more tests and studying! BTW, shout out to the Reddings for letting the guys study at their place, so sorry they trashed it! We will be making a trip to Cali in a couple weeks for graduation. It is going to be crazy, we fly to Vegas, drive to LA, go to graduation, drive back to Vegas and fly home... all in 4 days! FUN!

Maddy has been teething. You can see her two bottom teeth poking out. I haven't been able to get a pic, I'll keep trying. It's been a cranky time for her. Now I've noticed she has a runny nose... there maybe more fun ahead yet. Maddy has been growing like crazy and although she can be cranky she is also a crack up. Here are some videos of her eating, playing with the penny saver, and laughing a my singing.







What was really fun was Ethan's cousin Kelly and her daughter Mariah came for a visit! We hung out, hit the outlet malls, and unfortunately Mariah got croup. A very eventful visit. Maddy and Mariah became BFF as evident by these pics.


We also had the opportunity to give talks at church, where I played a nasty trick on Ethan. I always go overboard on my talks and end up talking for too long. So, I told Eth I wrote a short talk and let it in the printer. It was two paragraphs long and I summed up my topic in one sentence. I had Eth going for 2 days. I gave the talk as is to the whole congregation who freaked because they thought my talk was going to be one sentence! I'm sure the Bishop was sorry he asked me to talk! I did say just kidding pulled out my real talk, and spoke for my allotted 15 min. Ethan was relieved and everybody had a good chuckle!

So, as I mentioned before we bought a shovel, we had about 3 inches of snow and Ethan enjoyed shoveling OUR driveway! That will probably be the last time he enjoys it. I did also suit Maddy up and take some snow pics. Unfortunately I lost the mittens that match her hat, sad day! So she couldn't stay out side for too long.

Finally, Ethan begrudgingly agreed to take our Christmas family pics. It was rather difficult with Maddy, so Lola didn't make it into the final cut. Sorry Lola, we still love you!

So, there's life in Iowa. We are excited for the next few weeks. Walter is coming, flying to Cali, and I'm going home to NJ for Christmas. So my next post should be real good! Love you all!

So things have been busy here in the land of the corn.

Earlier this month we went to a pumpkin patch. It is actually just down the road from us. It wasn't very big, but it had cows, so it'll do. I think next year we'll drive a little further and go to one with a corn maze, petting zoo, etc. Unfortunately, we realized that we didn't have very much cash on us, so all we could get was $3.00 pumpkin. But as you can see, it was a pretty good size pumpkin. "We" meaning me, carved it later on for FHE.


Maddy is now working on her sitting skills. She can sit for a while if she has a little support like with the boppy. She can sit on her own, but only for a very short time. She still has no interest in rolling over. She just lays there during tummy time and arches her back when she is laying on
her back. She got really close once, but of course that was in the bath tub where I had to stop her!


We also went to Nauvoo for their annual pumpkin walk. They line the streets with hundreds of carved pumpkins. Some are pretty cool. It also gave us an opportunity to dress up Maddy. She was a very scary flower. Everybody thought she was so cute. It was really fun. As you can see Maddy eventually got pooped out. Our poor little wilted flower! Ethan's parents took Maddy back to the hotel and we went to a really lame haunted house! I didn't get scared at all. Ethan jumped once, a guy creeped up behind him and started him. What was really funny was there were all these black lights and we discovered that Ethan had a stain on his shirt! HA HA! The next day we went to church and Maddy got to wear her fancy Halloween dress, and our course that meant another photo shoot!


So we got to dress Maddy up again when Halloween came. We took the opportunity to trick or treat with Maddy and meet our neighbors. One neighbor had their house decked out, a fire going, and a buffet of chips, hot dogs, onion rings, etc. They like Halloween! We also met a neighbor that made cupcakes for the parents and handed out candy and glow sticks to the kids, safety first! Maddy loved her glow stick, she stared at it all night! Earlier we met one of our neighbors, he actually went to high school with Ethan, they played trumpet together! They have a little girl named Charlie that is only 5 days older than Maddy. Looks like we found her a best friend!



Maddy has a new toy, boy is she spoiled! Karen was a Sam's and found this Baby Einstein exersaucer for only $27. What a steal! As you can see she really likes it. I was amazed to see how coordinated she was, pressing buttons, spinning dials, moving pieces, crazy! Sometimes she does get mad at it because she can't get all the toys in her mouth!



Maddy's been growing and eating up a storm. She loves to eat anything and everything, well she did have a rough time the first time she ate protein! Since she's been eating solid foods, she's having even more problems pooping! So every day Maddy has to drink prune juice. Poor baby! We've also been working on holding her bottle and sippy cup. Her progress has been promising.



Maddy and I still go on our walks, when the weather is warm enough. I discovered a path that goes to a small park. There is a children's play area with a climbing wall and pond. There is a little building there the exhibits art. I can't really call it a museum, because it's tiny. The current exhibit is of Haitian art. There was some really cool pieces, but also some weirdo scary ones!

So that's about it! Oh, BTW I'm working on a blog for the office. It's still in the works, it's drzmoos.blogspot.com let me know what you think I should add/change.

Love you all!

OK, so I'm totally a liar, I do have some pics. I forgot Karen had a party for her friends to meet Maddy here are some pics. BTW I opened a flickr account to post more Maddy pics, my user name is ezmoos, this email might work too http://www.flickr.com/photos/31397628@N03/

Oh... here are new Maddy quirks...
1. She is ticklish now, thighs, tummy, and armpits
2. She loves to yell
3. She loves to eat, she basically inhales the solid food
4. She wants to stand all the time, and loves the exersaucer a lady in the ward lent us
5. She loves to watch Lola
6. She laughs when you scare/startle her
7. During tummy time she crawls with her feet, but can hold herself up with her arms so she plows her face into the floor.

Ok, so no pics in this blog, sorry. If you are on face book you can see the last few I posted. It's just Maddy in the corn and Maddy after eating. For some reason my phone is not syncing up with my computer, so I can't download the pictures! So I hope you keep reading even though there are no pictures.

So I'm trying to get into a routine. I'm super anal and have to-do lists and need to have order! So here's what I'm trying to do..
1. Wake up with Maddy and feed her, if she wakes up before 7, try to put her back to sleep.
2. When she wakes up after 7 feed her (again) including solid food.
3. Do our baby and mommy exercise. I'm out of control and need exercise!!!
4. Put Maddy down for a nap and eat breakfast
5. When Maddy wakes up, usually about 30min later, feed her then go for a walk.
6. Put Maddy down for a nap and eat lunch
7. When Maddy wakes up, usually about 30 min later, feed her and play.
8. If Maddy lets me get things done around the house.
9. Maddy goes down for one more 30 min nap and I cook dinner. Which I'm now using the healthy living cookbook and trying to eat/cook more healthy.
10. Ethan come home, we eat, and Ethan and Maddy play while I pick up.
11. Maddy heads for bed about 8:30 and Ethan helps me finish up with whatever I need help with.
12. RELAX!!!!

Well that's life. Every now and then there are trips to the grocery store, clean the office, I've got some flowers to plant... and so on.

The walks are usually fun. It's funny watching Lola run around. I'm going to have to take the camera next time. She chases bugs, runs like crazy, she even runs and slides and rolls in the dirt. Which reminds me, Lola needs a bath! But the other day we were walking and we came up on a scarecrow that someone had in their yard and she growled, whimpered, and then ran away from it! I guess scarecrows really do work.

Ethan has been really busy lately. Last weekend he had a campout, this weekend he has a seminar, and next weekend he has more scout training. So it's me, Maddy, and Lola!!!! It looks like we are going to have a hard time finding a day to go to the pumpkin patch and corn maze.

So like I said, I'm trying to exercise and eat healthy. Maddy isn't the only one getting bigger around here! So I made a low fat/calorie dessert the other day. Eth really liked it, so I'm going to make it again tonight. It's really easy, and pretty tasty. Here's the recipe...
Mix and bring to boil in a sauce pan:
3c unsweetened applesauce
1/2 water
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Mix until moist in a bowl while applesause mixture comes to a boil
1c reduced fat bisquick (yea Rachel!)
1/4c sugar
1/2c skim milk
Drop spoonfuls of the dough into the boiling applesauce, cover and reduce to simmer for 12 min. Serve with fat free icecream or frozen yogurt.

Ok, not the most exciting blog, but that's life right now.

So, out of nowhere Maddy got huge. I thought it was my poor perception as a new mom, and that all babies just get big, but... Maddy is huge! She suddenly went from 3 month clothes to 6-9 month clothes. BTW she's wearing 12 month clothes now! We finally got into see a pediatrician and got an update on her stats. Since birth, Maddy has been nice and average, always in the 50th percentile. So about a week and a half shy of her 5 month mark, the doctor measured her, she just said in a weird tone, your baby is measuring normal, but didn't tell me the percentile. So being the good science teacher that I am, I looked up the growth graph and plotted her height and weight. Boy oh boy did she have a growth spurt! In a month and a half she went from the 50th percentile to the 95th percentile for both height and weight! Babies are crazy, they grow so fast, in less than 5 months she's grown 6 1/4 inches! Image growing more than an inch a month. No wonder she's hungry all the time! The doctor also said we could start feeding her more than just rice cereal. Ethan was very excited to hear that. So we got all the first foods and got out our camera ready to record her funny faces... So we feed her some green beans and... nothing! No faces, she just munched away, apple sauce, nothin', sweet potatoes nothin'. Ethan even sneaked her icecream and gave her a pickle to suck on. NOTHING!!! She just eats and eats!

She is laughing a lot more now. You make a funny sound or face, and you can get her goin' real good. Here she is seeing Lola fetch for the first time.



Lola has been adjusting to Iowa too. At first it freaked her out to be out here. Hearing all the bugs, being so dark, even her shadow scared her. The first couple weeks, she wouldn't even walk down the street at night, we'd get about 3 houses down, and she'd turn around and start pulling me back. She doing better now, Karen even put her to work.



We officially had our first visitor. My sister Melissa came to Iowa and saw Maddy for the first time. We had some photo shoots, went to the Amanas, shopped, and just enjoyed hanging out. It was really fun. She even had fresh Iowa corn from the farm, and it was good!!!! Here are some of here pictures. So professional!



On Saturday we went to the last farmers market. It was fun, and colder than expected, uh 48 degrees, hello fall. I dealt with it well. But poor Maddy...

Everyone commented on how cute she was, but you can't really see her face, so... I guess she had cute accessories!? She did get filmed by the local new, but didn't make the final cut onto tv. Bummer.

We got callings at church. I'm on the activities committee and Ethan is an assistance scout master. He's got a camp out this weekend, sucker! He's trying to find his thermals but no luck yet!

Today has been a sentimental day for me... first it was conference, which brings back memories of our conference shmorgazborgs (sp?) with the Reddings and Olsens. Then they announced a Temple in Rome, and that reminded me of Kendra. And finally Eth had his computer out and it went into a slide show of our trip to Yosemite! Sigh, good memories, boy do I miss my friends.

All in all... I really like Iowa. You just have a have a good sense of humor about it. I need to take more pics of the "Iowan" things I see. Here's one for you... the Hawkeyes (football team) are HUGE, so I just had to take a pic of this guys Hawkeye Hummer! Maddy doesn't know it, but she's even a fan too!

Life is good. I hope it is good for all of you too! Love you all! And as always, here are cute pics of Maddy!