IA/MO Vacation

Last week Maddox and I went to Iowa for 6 days to my sister Suzy's house. My other sister, Jennifer came up too with her daughter. We had a houseful of sisters and cousins and no men (except Matthew). No adult men. Then we all headed down to St. Joe, MO for 3 days to attend the Hatten's 50th anniversary party. Jeremy had to stay home by his lonely self. We're going to FL in a couple days so he couldn't take 2 vacations that close together.

Maddox played in the dress-up box with Katherine.
Maddox was trying to be Katherine's helper while K was trying to build something.

This one's just for her big blue eyes (which look gray here but when the pic's bigger they look blue.)

One night we went to a campground to cook out. Emily and Maddox had their own little chairs by the campfire.

Then Maddox started doling out kisses.

Getting lazy in her chair. "I wish it reclined!"

M with silly Aunt Suzy.

Storytime around the campfire, at least for the little ones.

Now let's all read a book, quiet time. That lasted for about 30 seconds.

Another day the little kids and Matthew played in the backyard in the pool and with water balloons.

The last night in Iowa my sisters, a couple of Suzy's friends, and I went out to a dueling piano bar called Blue Moon. We all shared a fish bowl and luckily the bar is a couple blocks from the house. Just kidding, one fish bowl for 5 isn't bad. We drove the 2 blocks. It was a fun night of singing out lungs out though!

Emily and Maddox playing in the bathtub.

Back in MO we went to a Royals vs. St. Louis game. I wanted to check out the K's renovations and see the rivalry game. Here's M putting the hat on her own head.

We met Jeremy's brother James and his family, Angie, Gabbie, and Hayden for lunch on Saturday. At least two out of three are smiling . . .

Sunday morning in church Maddox went up with Katherine for the children's sermon. It was her first children's sermon so I had to take a picture. I'm sure she learned a lot.

The trip was fun and it was so nice to see some family. Sorry we didn't get to see more but between limited time and not having a car we did what we could. We had a lot of late nights and Maddox refused to sleep in ever so she got pretty tired toward the end of the trip. Luckily, even when dead tired, she doesn't get very grumpy. Just a little more clingy. Maddox worked a lot on her animals sounds (moo, baa, cack cack, woof, a high pitched meow) and a few other words like fish and shoe during the week. She still says none of those consistently unless she's in the mood and it's just me around. She's so shy and doesn't want to be put on the spot. Oh yeah, she also went to her first movie! We saw UP. She saw about half of it and slept the other half but sat quietly on my lap. She also loves to ride in the red wagon. We don't have one yet, but IA house does and she loved it. And on the plane she did great, read a magazine, books, or slept both directions.

Friday night we leave for 9 days in FL so lots of naps and quick recovery from the last trip. We'll probably have more pictures then!

Fun in the Sun

We'll start with her love of animals. One day last week she was really loving toward the dogs and kept following around and hugging them or laying on them. Luckily they both tolerate it and sometimes even like the attention. She does this to Gabby all the time too. (the cat) Pets her or just lays her face on her. Gabby just meows but never leaves. It's really nice that maddox has such good animals around her. This one's Bella, the Bacon's dog.

This morning I decided to go for a wog (walk/jog) and push Maddox in her jogging stroller. In the seat was one of those tiny Bibles someone on the street gives you. The whole time I ran she turned the pages and "read" the Bible. She would even point to the pages, talk, and then point to houses or up in the sky and talk. Maybe a little minister! When we got home I decided to wash the car and the dog so Maddox helped me. Gotta start by organizing your things:

Time to get the car clean. Gotta get her squeedgee wet.

"I'm doing a tire, got a problem with that?"

After washing the car it was time to wash the dog.

She knew she had to get water on her squeedgee then rub Jessi.

She's such a good helper. She puts things away in the kitchen, pulls laundry out of the washer to hand me to put in the dryer, picks the clean clothes that I drop off the floor and into the basket, follows me around and closes all the doors and drawers, and loves to wipe things down. If I keep training her right she may turn out to be a big helper! Maybe she does need a little sister or brother!

In this video she's washing the dog. It's so nice to have a dog that will stay when told to0000000000:

And lastly, this video is from last week when apparently Jeremy was training our daughter like a dog. "Lay down . . ." and she would and they'd tickle and laugh. She loved getting the laughs and did it over and over!

Camping Mem. Weekend

Saturday night and Sunday night we went camping at Fort Hamby Park by Wilkesboro, NC. It turned out to be a rainy weekend. When we left the chance of rain was 20-30%. That changed overnight to 80% according to our RV neighbors with a tv. But most of the time the rain was a light, easy rain which was lessed even more by the heavy tree canopy over our site. So it wasn't so bad. It was just annoying that we couldn't hike much for fear of heavy rain and everything just felt so damp and sticky. But at least we bought our new tent that doesn't leak! It was SO nice to be able to take refuge if need be and actually stay DRY! And we did hike a few short trails in between rain, or sometimes in the light rain.

Here Maddox is putting rocks on Jessi. Jessi didn't care. She's getting more laid back about Maddox these days it seems. Maddox was perfectly content to play with rocks all weekend. Give her a toy shovel and a frisbee to fill and she's happy. What's up there? Not stars certainly. Trees?

Hey St. Joe-ers! Remember these? At Krug Park? Maddox loved them!

So did Mom . . .

Relaxing by the fire

So we had some excitement the first night there. It's kind of a long story so I'll leave out a lot here to shorten it. We were woken at 12:30 by someone running out of the rv across the street screaming and screaming so loud! I thought for sure he was just having a terrible dream and someone would come wake him and tell him it wasn't real. Well, it turned out he had been fighting with his step-dad and just lost it. He was a 16 yr old kid. He really, mentally, lost it. He was cussing up a storm F this mother f that, b word, c word to his "grannie". I mean I've NEVER heard so much language and screaming and yelling in my life. Not even in a movie! Grannie supposedly slapped him 4 times. He kept screaming, then sobbing, then sounding like he was having and asthma attack. Trying to leave, get someone to drive him away, and they wouldn't do it because he wasn't safe to leave with. Banging on cars, I thought on mine but it wasn't. Threating that if the police (whom he finally called himself) didn't come take his step-dad away he would f-ing slit his throat. If he had a gun (which of course we didn't know WHAT he had) he would have used it I'm sure. I mean, he LOST IT! We were scared to death! At one time I turned on the flashlight to find a number to call, he saw it and said something about it so I quickly turned it off. We were afraid to do anything but lie low and play dead. I was so scared he would have a gun and it would shoot us or Maddox accidentally. My car was blocking our tent a little bit but that didn't ease our minds. We just laid there for almost an hour and prayed so hard. Finally the cops came and arrested him (which he didn't understand why) and I got out to make sure they took him and go pee. We finally fell asleep about 3am. We found out in the morning when our nice neighbors came to check on us that they had called the police too after him. They said we could have come to their RV. Well, thanks a lot! We all talked to the park rangers the next day to make sure that he wasnt' coming back or we would have left. He couldn't be bailed out until Tuesday morning. Grannie came and apologized the next day,"Just remember what is like to be a teenager . . . you know how they can be . . .so sorry he scared you . . . wouldn't have let anything happen . . ." Yeah right. If he had had a weapon you wouldn't have been able to control it! So we made it ,the next night was uneventful, and we're alive. It was probably the scariest night of our lives so far! And more so because now we have this beautiful 1 yr old to protect. And a dog who got scared too!

Okay, so that wasn't much shorter, but a little bit . . .

We'll end on a good note. Today we're at the Bacons all day because Camden is sick so this video is from this morning. Maddox LOVES to read books. Have them read to her or read them herself. She'll sit around and read with her baby jabber like this:

As a matter of fact she's sitting in Camden's chair reading books again right now!

Oh yeah, a 15 month check up a couple weeks ago . . . 30" long (about 25%ile), just now 20 lbs (about 10%ile), and 17.5" head (almost 10%ile). She's little! She got a couple of shots which she had a reaction to the next day. Just a fever for a little over a day but it was really high for her. At the highest it was about 103.5 which is the most she's had. We forgot to have her iron levels checked again so we'll do it at 18 months. She still doesn't want to start using real words but she can identify all sorts of things when you ask: where's the cow, where the cat, where's the chair, where's the fire, where's the bears, where's the kittens, where's the balloon, etc. Can you guess what book I'm thinking of? She's also got 9 teeth now. All 8 front as of a couple days ago and 1 molar showing now as of a week or more ago. That other top molar is close and the bottom two are both swollen.

Whew! That's enough for now! Missy's ready for a nap after such a hard weekend of camping. Later!

New stuff for M

I just have a few pictures to update so I can clear my camera off and start all over again! Last Saturday Jeremy watched Grady and Maddox while I was at work. Two one year olds! Grady stayed the rest of the afternoon too so that's how I got pictures.

The neighborhood hanging around my door to see the babies. The one kid, Jacob, has his backpack on because he heard his dad say he was coming over to our house later for a couple hours then spending the night with his aunt. It was 2 hours later . . . but he was so excited that he got ready, got his bag, and sat outside the door.
My neighbor Susan found this car and a plastic slide somewhere getting ready to be dumped. I cleaned them up a bit and they work great for us! Free toys!
"Get outta my car woman!"

We set up a little makeshift, cheap sandbox for M last week. So far she loves to pick it up and throw it out of the box. Next time I'll have to put the box on a sheet and then dump it back into the sand when she's done. Otherwise we'll end up with a beach on our back porch.

Her cheeks are dirty from helping me dig in the dirt earlier.

Sitting in her little car.

This morning we went outside for our first fingerpainting session. Since she's now past trying to eat everything . . . . But she wasn't so sure what to do with it. She definitely did not like getting hosed off afterward!

Walking

It's been brought to my attention by a couple of people that I failed to tell you all that Maddox is walking! She pretty much gave up crawling a little over a week ago. She may fall, but she'll stand right back up and keep going. It's been hard to get used to! I put her down next to some boxes at Sports Authority while I was looking at tents thinking she could crawl around them and give me some time, and she took right off walking away. Oops, forgot she's mobile now!

This is her daily activity outdoors. She moves my mulch around. I sweep it back in and she moves it again. When I pick her up to go inside she screams her head off! She could play with her shovel and mulch all day long.

She also loves her "kitty kitty". Gabby has taken to sleeping on Maddox's changing table so when we go in to change I lay Maddox right on top of Gabby. Maddox loves it and giggles and smiles, Gabby meows annoyingly but won't move. I eventually have to push Gabby off. She's very tolerant of Maddox. She lets Maddox "brush" her with her toys and crawl over her and ocassionally yank on her tail. Hailey (my other cat I put to sleep last summer) would have never let that happen! I just took this picture because Maddox's new pj's are adorable. She loves the pig on her belly!

We were just having lunch and I just had a light bulb moment! She's had a runny nose for about week now so I figured she had a cold. She's also been a very picky eater at meals and agitated like grabbing her thighs and pulling the skin like she's got a crazy itch or something. Well, just now she screamed her head off while eating and I thought she bit her finger. But then I happened to think, maybe she's getting her molars . . . she is! Both sides on top have teeth pushing through! Maybe that explains a lot of these things going on!