Easter visit with the Whiteds

Over Easter weekend, we had our first house guests!  Bryce's parents and older brother, Brad, came in to celebrate Easter.

Easter Sunday

Let me just sit back and relax for a bit

They were eager to help with things around the house, which was a huge help.

Roger and Brad helped paint the kitchen (TWICE!).  We wanted to go with a green.  In our last house, our kitchen was an almost avocado green.  This time, we wanted a more muted, neutral green.  First of all, picking paint colors is hard.  I didn't want to have too dark of a kitchen, so I opted for a lighter green which turned out to be mint.  I like mint chocolate chip ice cream, but thinking about it everytime I looked at our kitchen?  No thanks.  The black countertops, white cabinets, and mint walls...  Bryce didn't like it and the more I looked at it, I didn't.  So unfortunately, we had to paint again.  Fortunately, Bryce had help :-) This time, I went 2 shades darker to a sage green.  I love it now.  It's exactly what I was hoping for.

Painting the first time.

They loved playing with Madison.  It was such a treat for her to have playmates, especially during the day when I have to work a few hours and she gets used to playing by herself most of the time.

Making Easter dinner.  Madison has her eyes on those mashed potatoes.

Uncle Brad let her try some 'taters

We took them in to Portland to see the city on Saturday.  The weather was so beautiful during their visit, sunny and in the 60s/low 70s.  It was a nice change for them from the snowy east coast April weather.  But they did experience some overcast days and Portland rain.

Such a fun day outside

We went to Pittock Mansion to overlook the city, we went out to eat, we walked around downtown and found an awesome market with fresh produce, we walked along the waterfront, and to complete the fun, we had to get an ice cream cone.

Fun at Home Depot with Brad while we looked at backsplashes

Brad helped put Madison's dresser together

Connie and Roger stayed for 9 days visiting.  To say Madison was spoiled is an understatement!

Connie helped clean a lot, painted a ton of trim on the main level, pulled weeds in the front, and cooked pies at my request :-)

Roger did our entire tile backsplash in the kitchen, painted the hall bath upstairs, and painted the [black] ceiling white in our half bath downstairs.  Just to humor you, check out our sweet bathroom.

At least the ceiling is white so it's a little brighter in there.  The black ceiling literally made it dark along with the dark busy wallpaper.

Kelly's Knob

Sooo I wrote this post back in December and just realize I never posted it!

We went on our first hike with Madison last Saturday afternoon.  It was...an adventure.  The hike up was mostly uphill and difficult, Bryce with a backpack and me with a baby.  She screamed and cried in her carrier for the first 15 minutes.  Then she was out cold until we were *almost* to the top.  She woke up fiercely hungry and began screaming again.  She was so hungry that her scream was echo'ing off the trees.  I quickly handed her to Bryce, mainly because my thighs were burning and I was exhausted.  We made it to the top just as the sun was going down, gave her a bottle, snapped a couple pictures, and started down the mountain as fast as we could.  Multiple times we said, "We should've left an hour earlier."  Yes, this is true.  We hiked the entire way down in the dark.  With a 3 month old baby (who was sleeping most of the way down).  With headlamps on (thank goodness).  It was a 6.8 mile hike in total.  The next day, I could barely walk.  I felt like I had run a half-marathon.

Hopefully our next hike with her is better thought out and in warmer weather.

But we made it!  Hopefully it is the first of many family hikes (in the day light).

Hungry girl!

It doesn't look that dark

But the sun was just setting.  It was really pretty.

New house

We have been crazy ever since the day we moved in.  We go to Home Depot every weekend.  So much for my "limit the house projects" idea!  I think we are in the mode that we just want to get the main updates finished so we can enjoy them while we're here.  We have been able to do some pretty big updates since moving in which we are so excited about!  We knew that once we moved into a house, we wanted to do the major updates soon after moving in so we could enjoy them before/if/when we resell the home.  Not saying we are moving soon, but resale is always on the mind of a homeowner.  I can't believe we are homeowners.  I feel like we are not just too young to have a baby but also to own a home!  Haha.  We are true adults now, I guess.  We are turning into our parents...we go to Costco and Home Depot on the weekends.

I'll start showing some "before/after" pictures soon!

A few of the paint colors were nice and neutral, like a light tan color in the entry and hallways, but most of them were pretty intense for our taste, like mustard yellow and brick red in the play room upstairs and green toothpaste mint in the master bedroom.

We were also blessed with a good amount of wallpaper that I've had the joy of trying to take down.  If you have ever experienced the process of removing wallpaper, you are probably with me in saying "I will never put wallpaper up in my house ever."  The funny thing is, wallpaper is becoming trendy again!  But that still doesn't deter me.  Painting is such an easier thing to deal with.

We absolutely LOVE our house.  It's basically more than we could've ever dreamed of and more than we need right now, but we're hoping to fill the rooms with kiddos over the next few years.  (I'm not pregnant.)  I have really been appreciating the small things like having a fan in the bathroom that keeps it from getting really moist while taking a hot shower, having more than one bathroom when guests are over (!!!!), having a garage to keep the stroller in so it's not sitting right next to the front door inside the house and so I don't have to haul it up and down stairs to go for a walk, a kitchen sink big enough to wash a pan in, having cabinets high enough that our coffee pot fits on the counter beneath them, and more storage space so we can actually find things in our closet.  In other words, we have a lot to be thankful for!

But thinking back, we loved our house in Blacksburg with all the quirks and it will forever be so special to us.

Madison meets Nanny

Now to catch you up on our crazy life the last couple months.

We closed on our house on February 28th.  We moved in on March 1st.

On March 10th, Bryce went on his first business trip to Switzerland for 12 long days.  I decided that it was the perfect time to visit Nanny with Madison.

For a long weekend, we ventured down, on our first flight just the two of us, to San Francisco.  You should've seen us in action.  I checked one bag with the pack n play, had a stroller, a carseat, a diaper bag, and a carry on bag with all of our clothes.  Yes, I carried all of that except the pack in play.  Oh, and a baby in an ergo carrier strapped to the front of me.  Oh wait, I carried ALL of that from our car to the shuttle bus, to the ticket area until I could check the pack n play.  AND I got lost on the way to the airport because my trusty cell phone froze while on my way to catch the flight.  So much for cell phones and gps systems that are reliable.  Somehow, I held back tears of stress and frustration and made it on the plane.  Then I got to do the same thing with all of those bags+baby to the rental car area, then sit in 2 hour traffic at 4:30pm from San Francisco to Nanny's house.  Sorry, just had to get that out.  God was definitely with us, though, because we made it, and there were angels helping us along the way like the man who carried one of my bags from the shuttle bus to the check in, the woman at the gate who let me gate-check one bag so I could walk (fit) through the aisle on the plane to my seat, and the other mom on the way back who was also traveling alone with baby and gave moral support.

Meeting for the first time

The first day we were there, we got to see not only Nanny but Aunt Judy too!!  She gladly babysat Madison while Nanny and I had a day of lunch and shopping.

Four generations!

Nanny got to soak in the smiles and joy of our sweet little girl.  And of course, I got to catch up with Nanny, go out to eat, and go shopping.  I'm so thankful that we are closer to her!  Hoping for more long weekend trips to visit her.

All gussied up in her new dress, bow, and shoes

She was insisting on buying Madison some cute clothes, especially a fancy outfit.  She was so excited to show Madison off to her friends at a 60th wedding anniversary party of some Bible study friends.

 And it just so happens that Nanny's sink is the perfect size for a warm bath after a long day.

Until next time, have a blessed day!

Madison: 6 months old!

I have a ton of updates on the blog to catch up on, but right now, I've got to tell you about my little girl!  Today, she is actually 7 months old, but let's back up and talk about 6 months because it's been a huge month for her.

This is how the photo shoot turned out: I lay her on her back, she turns over, I lay her back, she turned over.  She started squealing when I would flip her to her back because she thought it was a game.  Can't get her to sit still!

Mom, just let me crawl around, okay?

First off, she is so so so active.  She can't sit still unless she's tired.  She's CRAWLING.  Not only is she crawling, but she is pulling up on everything.  She only crawls because she wants to get to things that she can pull up on.  She is so happy to stand up on those little feet.  She started by leaning forward on her hands while sitting up on the ground.  Once she was more confident after a few days, she started leaning so far that she was on all fours.  Then she started rocking on all fours.  She did this all the time for maybe a week straight.  It wasn't long until she was crawling all over the place around 6.5 months.

Sleep:  When Bryce when on a business trip for 12 days, I decided to sleep train Madison.  With the move, she had been waking up 2-3 times a night and I was more than ready for a full night of sleep.  Plus, at 6 months, she didn't seem like a helpless baby to me anymore.  I know that sounds weird.  She is still a baby.  But with her developing social awareness and an opinion of her own which I began to see, I knew that she could handle sleeping through the night.  Most of the time, she was waking out of habit, which the doctor pointed out, or because she just wanted to hang out with me because I am so fun.  I'm flattered, but not at 3am.  However, you can imagine what a self esteem boost it gives you when a person is crazy about you so much that they want to be around you all the time!  It is really sweet.  Anyways, sleep training for us consisted of me taking a benedryl and putting ear plugs in.  It was hard.  Especially the first couple nights when she woke up 3x at night and would cry anywhere from 10-40 minutes to fall back asleep.  That first night, I was on the verge of sobbing myself as I debated in my head whether I was a good mom or a horrible one.  Every couple days it got better and easier.  Soon she was waking up 2x, then 1x, then none at all.  I put her down between 7-8pm and she wakes up between 5-6am.  If wake up is closer to 5am and I am lucky, she'll fall back asleep until around 7am.  By the time Bryce returned, she was doing great and he was pleasantly surprised (although it was never a big deal for him because he would just poke me until I got up and fed her or he would not even hear her crying!).  Occasionally she will wake up randomly at 9:30pm or 11pm, but she usually goes right back to sleep within a few minutes.  I don't really mind feeding her again when I'm still awake, but if it's after 11pm, I do not get up.

Naps are getting a little longer.  Depending on her wake up time in the morning and our schedule for that day, she takes 2-3 naps, anywhere from 40 minutes to 2 hours.  Usually it's 3 naps about an hour long.  It's just not that consistent.  Maybe I should be better about making her schedule consistent, but it's tough when you have coffee with a friend one morning, which sets naps later, and then Bible study another day, or a doctor appoint another day.  I tell myself that it's fine, as long as she sleeps when she needs to sleep.  It is obvious when she needs to sleep.

Eating:  She is becoming a little chunk!  At the very beginning of April, we started giving her puffs and baby cookies that remind me of dog biscuits.  She actually chews (or gums) them until they dissolve.  She also gnaws on chunks of bread when we are out to eat which is great because she stays occupied.  She eats 2-3 "meals" a day, usually oatmeal and a pureed fruit, then a pureed vegetable in the afternoons.  I thought that I would be making my own pureed baby food all the time.  Well, I was dreaming.  In between working on job work that I have and the full time job of being a mom to a crazy crawling girl, I don't make my own baby food.  I buy the Gerber pureed fruits and vegetables.  Maybe for the next baby?  Or maybe never.  I guess as a mom, with limited free time, you have to pick and choose what you do with yours.  Either way, she's healthy and happy which really is all that matters.

She loves being in public.  There's so much to see and take in.  People constantly comment on how content she is.  She's also great at making eye contact with people that talk to her.

She's doing a lot of baby talk.  Babbling and saying new sounds like bababa, dadada, gagaga.   She says dadada a lot.  She also squeals a ton.  She does this fake cough thing still (she learned awhile back how to make herself cough, so now her and daddy cough to each other).  She'll squeal back and forth with me.  One time, after having wandered off, we were squealing at each other in Home Depot and that's how Bryce found us...just listened for the loud squeals.

Her hair is getting longer!

She waves her arms up and down when she gets frustrated and slams them down on the tray of her high chair when she wants another bite.  She likes fruits and hates anything green (green beans, peas).  She has been drinking from her sippy cup of water more often and seems to like it more.

She chews on her hands and fingers, but doesn't really put everything in her mouth like a lot of babies. Still no teeth yet.

She had her first sick visit at the doctor a couple weeks ago.  Turns out she just had a bad cold with really bad congestion and stuffy nose.

She doesn't take her pacifier at all anymore.  She giggles when we tickle her.  She loves books and holding paper in her hand.

I'm sure I'll say this every time, but this age is SO FUN.  Seriously.

Growth:

Birth - 6 lb 3 oz , 20 inches

1 month - 8 lb , 21.5 inches

2 months - 8 lb 14 oz , 23 inches

4 months - 12 lb, 4 oz, 24 inches

6 months - 15 lb, 12 oz, 25.75 inches