Our Beloved Tyson

Here are some new pictures of our favorite feline...our big boy Tyson. He's such a great sport! This is especially for our great friend, Dan Henderson. :)

Madison 7 months

First trip to the library
At our first library class - 12 Mommies/Babies attended, but this was at the end of class.Mark and Danae at Exxon party (I'll post more pictures soon)

What is this big pink bow on my head?
Closeup of those pretty blues!
So happy I am 7 months old!
Okay, let's have a chat about this woman with the camera.
I love to play!

Today, we are getting ready for Sarah and Dave to visit. They fly in tomorrow and we have a busy week/weekend ahead of us, full of many celebrations. Why? Well, I turn the big 3-0! Can't believe it. I used to think 30 was "so old"! But, instead of getting ahead of myself, let's back up...

Two weekends ago (Jan 19), Mark had his Exxon Annual party. It was a blast! It was at the beautiful Hotel Zsa Zsa in the museum district. We had great food, great music, and a couple fun casino themed rooms. Last week, Madison and I started a great class at the Library called "Mother Goose Time". Here, we do exercises, stretches, read a story, sing songs and play with a great big parachute. She loves it! We went twice last week. (We attempted to go again this morning, but as I was opening the door...madison threw up her breakfast. I was jostling her way too much too soon after she ate. Needless to say, we both needed a shower and didn't make it to the class.) Madison is finally scooting around a little and rolling all over the place outside of her crib now! However, lately, instead of scooting to get from one side of the room to the other, she just rolls over and over again until she makes it. It's pretty funny. I hope she crawls soon! However, it's still nice to be able to go out to a restaurant with her just sitting in her seat contently. She behaves so well when we go shopping and run errands...which we had a lot to do last week. Her new favorite DVDs are the Praise Baby series. She also likes the Baby IQ DVD that Great Uncle Tom and Great Aunt Becky gave to her. Better go for now, but here are some new pics!

Happy Birthday shout-outs to my DAD (Jan 27) and to Courtney Latta (Jan 29)!

Prayer Request

Please pray for this family. What a testament to faith. I don't know them, but they are from North Carolina. This link was sent to me by my friend, Anna.

www.cfhusband.blogspot.com

Children's Drowning Prevention

Take a look at this video:
http://www.childdrowningprevention.com/index.html

It's never too early to enroll your child in swim lessons!

Madison's Zerberts

New Tricks!

What a great week we've had...and it's been filled with Madison doing many new "tricks"! She continues to scoot/crawl around, especially active in her crib. However, she has been waking up every morning with rug burns on her forehead! She really needs to lift up her head more when she "scoots"...poor thing. Also, Madison is now turning over both ways - from tummy to back and back to tummy - but only when she wants to. Madison has also learned to blow "zerberts" with her mouth - and she just loves doing this all day long, especially in the morning and when Mommy is feeding her... It's so funny, for now, but let's hope she doesn't make this a habbit when she gets older.

Since Madison was about 3 -4 months, we started teaching her sign language. We don't expect her to actually sign back to us right now, but at least familiarize her with the signs. We do very basic signs right now - eat, milk, cereal, more, mommy, daddy, all done. For the past weeks, if I do a sign, I think she recognizes them because she's started smiling at the sign she wants. Of course, this could be my imagination...

Every morning, Madison and I have "school" for about a half hour. Of course, we're learning while we play all day, but this is serious school time. :) We review colors, shapes, counting, animals and their sounds, and names of body parts. We have books and use examples for what we're learning and everything. After that, we just have fun playing. I've never been a teacher, but I'm just winging it. I figure that I can do this until our kids enter into higher level math at a real school - like Algebra - and then Mark will have to take over!

Finally, we just love our new Sunday School class, "What Kids Need Most From Parents". I'm going to start posting notes from the class. It's awesome!

Life is great!

We had a great morning at church! Grandma Chipley gave me this pretty outfit!

Helping Daddy with the grill!

So happy in my jogging stroller! Watching Daddy work in the garage.

Out shopping with the folks

Me and Daddy

I'm a big girl!

We've had a great week! The weather has been really nice here, so we've spent a lot of time outside. Madison absolutely loves the outdoors - she just smiles and is so content. We met Hayden for play time, lunch and shopping. We also got a lot done around the house. Madison has been eating really well. Thank goodness she's a fan of Mommy's baby food! She can sit up for a few seconds on her own and is also doing the "army crawl"! Well, she especially crawls all around her crib...but not yet around the floor - strange, but I guess she'll start soon. She's talking with consonants lately and just babbling. Really cute. She also loves to pet our cat. Mark and I have been enjoying ourselves lately. We had a cookout on Saturday evening, which was fun. Mark and I are taking this amazing parenting class at church and we just love it.

Some products that I just love:

- "No slippy hair clippies" for babies

- Mabel's labels - they're awesome

- Jogging stroller

- Pedipeds

- Baby food blender

Big news lately...
Sarah and Dave are flying out to visit us for my thirtieth birthday!!

AND...Mark and I are taking a vacation to the Cayman Islands at the end of March! We are so excited!

Madison and Hayden love eachother

Our Christmas Vacation

The Girls' Team...playing Lacross (L-R) bottom row: cousins Nicole and Sara Rebecca; top row: cousin Rachel, Danae and sister Sarah

Guys playing lacross at Uncle David's house = (L-R) Dave (Sarah's BF), Pat (cousin Nicole's husband), Uncle David, Mark, Uncle Gary

Snowing on Christmas Day!

Christmas Day

Family at dinner before Christmas Eve service at church.

Madison and Boatie (Sarah and Dave's (her boyfriend) new puppy)!

We had a wonderful Christmas vacation in the Northwest this year. We enjoyed lots of shopping, seeing Christmas lights, a lovely Christmas Eve and a fantastic Christmas Day. We opened gifts Christmas morning in Portland. And guess what? It snowed!!! It couldn't have been any more perfect! Late morning, we drove up to Seattle to visit my Dad's brother and his family. It was so great!! My cousin and her husband from So. California flew up - and she's 4 months pregnant, so it was so nice to see them! Also, my Dad's sister, husband and daughter from California flew up as well. We all had a fabulous time together. Mark, Madison and I returned to Houston before New Year's Eve...but we all were really sick with sinus infections and so we rang in the New Year together at home in our p.j.'s. We hated having to cancel our former plans for the holiday, but at least we could be together!

Report on Madison...when I took her to the doctor this week for her cold, she now weighs almost 19 lbs!!! She is also 28 inches long - 10 inches longer than when she was born! The doctor said she's very tall...and is in the 97th percentile for height. She has very long legs and REALLY enjoys jumping in her Jump & Go, reading books, eating her toes, and she is talking up a storm. For the past several months, I've been making all of her food. Her favorites are green beans, peas, sweet potatoes, carrotts, turkey and chicken! Not a big fan of fruit yet, but hopefully that will change. :)