Happy Easter!

We enjoyed a trip to Des Moines to celebrate Easter with Ethan's family at his Aunts house. We stayed over night at a hotel so Maddy got to enjoy some swim time.

Gotta love those rolls!

We can't believe that Maddy is almost 1 year old! It's crazy how quickly time has passed and how big she has gotten. I recently put her is size 5 shoes and a toddler dress. Yeah, I wasn't kidding, she's gi-normous! She is also increasing in skillz! Here are some recent videos...

Maddy shaking it...

Maddy walking on her own...

Slurping noodles... (ps not a cool diaper change after that!)

"Swimming"...

"Jumping" into the pool... (she did much better the first two times, by the time I got my camera, I think she got cold)

She will also play ball with you, babbling a ton (no words), understands no (but doesn't always listen!), and getting into all sorts of trouble now that she's mobile. I went to the bathroom and when I came out there was dirt from the potted plant on the floor, her hands, and unfortunately her mouth. Ah, baby proofing. She's our crazy girl and we love her! Hope you enjoyed the videos, pics, and most importantly I hope you enjoyed your Easter.

Love
Liz

As requested by my mom, here is a quick update.
Since my last update we went bike riding...

And been enjoying the good weather...

Most importantly in the past week Maddy took her first steps, started crawling, and can sit up on her own. CRAZY!!!! She's cruising really well now and is falling a lot because she is becoming a little more daring. Enjoy the videos. Love you all!

So, I've been avoiding doing my blog, but when it was pointed out to me that it's almost spring, and I still have Christmas pics up on my blog, it was time for an update. I know it's another long one... but keep reading, there are some funny gems...

OK, Maddy's 9th month has come and gone and now she is in her 10th month. It's funny how time flies by, she's so big, literally! Still in the 97th percentile, Maddy is a whopping 24 lbs and 31 inches. We've made some baby friends, they're about 18 mons, and all smaller than Maddy. It's pretty funny.

Here she is wishing you a belated, Happy Valentine's Day.

Well, she has increased in more than just size, she still doesn't crawl, but she has scooted backwards, she can go from sitting to all fours and reach things, and she can rotate around in circles while sitting to reach for things. Here she is faking me out like she's going to crawl.

We've also been doing baby signing time. She can't sign at all, she'll get made and pull her hands away if you try to grab them to make the signs. But she LOVES to watch it. She rocks, claps, talks, laughs, etc. Nothing will get in her way of watching it! Here she is watching it intently!!!



Oh, whats funny, is when she rocks, she rocks on beat, we'll play different songs and she'll stop and and adjust how fast she is rocking.

So, Maddy's not crawling, but she loves walking... with help. When she starts going, she barely holds on to your hands, but as soon as you let go, she stops. She has stood on her own for a few seconds only a couple times. We need to get going on baby proofing, while leading us around she stops and trys to go down the stairs to the basement or points at the outlets. She is cruising. She likes to go around and around her little play table.



She loves that toy. She plays on it everyday! It's a life saver. What's weird is recently she started waving but will only do it while playing with this toy. Here's the video...


Bath time is still one of her favorite times. I thought these were funny, so here you go. Even a little video of her laughing at animal noises. She hasn't laughed at them since.




It has come to my attention that Maddy loves to watch other kids. I mean she cracks up watching them run around. So on the few days of nice weather we've had, I've taken her to the park, here she is swinging. She likes to swing most of the time. We got a little swing and hung it in our basement. Here she is trying it out for the first time.... Ethan started swinging her a little too high at first!




Ok, other random Maddy updates... Ethan likes to sit her on the counters or couch and let her fall off into his arms. Needless to say now she just throws herself off of things. Thanks Eth! She's started really babbling and making lots of new noises. I tried taking her on a bike ride, to which she cried and screamed almost the whole time. When I say scream, I mean it. Neighbors came out to see what was happening and you could her the screams echo around the neighborhood. She has 4 more teeth coming in for a total of 6. Oh, and she loves earrings. She grabs your head and twist it to the side so she can look and touch your earrings. Uh, last random fact, we are going to start her on the My Baby Can Read program. Being a paranoid first time mom I've been worried about how I'm going to teach Maddy something so important. So we are going to try it out. Ethan and pretty skeptical, but it's worth a try. Eth's dad joked that we are going to turn her into a freak nerd child, everybody point at the 18 mon old that can read. Anyway!!!

So if your still interest in Ethan and I here's how we are doing...

Things are pretty good. We are still coming to grips with being home owners, man there's a lot to do. We are about to order flowers, put up an invisible fence for Lola (I'm going to make Eth get shocked and video it, so coming soon...), we painted the bathrooms (thanks to the help of Eth's really tall bro Jesse, we didn't even need a ladder! We are looking a tiling a backsplash in the kitchen, doing a brick patio in the back yard, and on and on.... it's pretty overwhelming once you start listing it all out!

Eth is doing well at Zmoos Chiropractic. This weekend he is at a seminar with his dad, that's why I'm blogging (bored and lonely). He feels great when he sees people literally walk in crooked and walk out standing up straight. He is starting to prepare to take his last board exam, which he has been stressing about. He's got a review class starting in a couple weeks which will help him prepare and be a little more at ease. Eth's little bro Jesse just left for the MTC to go to Santiago Chile. It was bittersweet and Eth got a little teary eyed, but everyone was so happy for him. What's random, is that my parents ran into him at the airport, weird I know!

As for me I'm spending my days keeping the big, little one happy. I also am the teacher of the CTR 8 year olds at church. Boy o boy do the wear me out!!!! Ten, eight year olds, that is a recipe for chaos!!! Let's see what else... I've also tried to make my own cheese, I'm still waiting for the gouda to age. Once I taste that one and most likely learn from my mistakes, I'll make another one. I'm also finally reading books. I'm behind with the bestsellers and most people have read them, but if you haven't, some really good books are... Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and the Poisonwood Bible. Both by Barbara Kingsglover. Oh and for all you peeps with kids a great fun book is Kid Concoctions. These are really cool projects you do with your kids. Make your own chalk, slime, "fossils", ball launchers, etc. and most of it is made with stuff around your house! Cool. Maddy is too young, but I'm excited to eventually do them!

OK, so if you've read this far, I congratulate you, even if you skimmed. I'd like to end with a scary and hilarious story one of ladies at the office told us...

So some friends of theirs has a really big boa constrictor, which "normally" sleeps at the foot of their bed. Yeah weird... just wait. So recently its made its way up the bed and sleeps in between them, which they were ok with. They started getting worried because it stopped eating, so they took it to the vet, very concerned for their loving pet snake that would cuddle with them. When they informed the vet of it's behavior and their worries, he told them that that was the least of their worries. The snake had gotten so big that it was starving itself and emptying out its stomach for a larger meal. You know, like when you fast before thanksgiving, you have to make room! However, the large meal as you have probably guessed, was THEM!!!! CREEPY. So they had to get rid of their snake! UH. Moral of the story, don't have a pet that can eat you, they may love you, but I think they love eating more!!!!

Love you all!

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!