Havasu 2011

Our second annual Havasu trip was so much fun this year! We miss our Arizona friends so much and we had such a blast on the lake with them for a weekend. October is the perfect time of year to go to Havasu - it's cooled off to the 90's by then instead of 120 degrees.... much more manageable with babies. This year, it was our family, the Mays, Mulleneauxs, and Derrick too.

Easton & Maddie always love playing together. It's good for Maddie to get some boy time in... she has a sister and lots of girl cousins to play with, but no boys.

This was Macey's first lake trip. Macey is a bit sensitive anyway, so she fussed about the life jacket, the heat, and the unfamiliar surroundings. Despite all the upheaval, she did a lot better than I expected.

Flashback two years ago to Maddie in the same life jacket...

I can't believe how much she looks like Macey!

Macey loved playing on the shore and kicking her little feet in the water... even though she looks like she hates her life in this picture.

Macey went wake surfing with Brandon for the first time and didn't mind it too much. He is such a fun dad and always takes the girls out for a ride. I love these pictures of my water babies.

Maddie has always loved the boat, the water, and wakesurfing with her dad. I don't know what these two were talking about, but I loved this sweet little moment. They have such a special relationship.

The kids were all happy to get off the boat and run some energy off. Maddie practiced writing her name in the sand while we were there.

A lake trip is not complete without Derrick. He is so much fun. He helps out so much with anything that needs to be done and always has a smile on his face.

Here is my little three year old teenager. It scares me when I get little glimpses of her in ten years. All that (boys, make up, teenage drama, driving) can wait!

 Maddie & Mommy

 Macey was much more contect on dry land. She had a lot of fun playing with the very handsome Asher May. They are 9 days apart - so much fun!

I love little baby feet in the sand! Here are Maddie's feet - her and I got new matching Roxy flip flops at The Flip Flop Store while we were in Havasu.

And here are Macey's little chunky baby feet in the sand :) 

We always have such a fun time with our Arizona friends! We sure miss them and our weekly Sunday dinner parties. We got to laugh a lot, play the Newlywed Game (a tradition that guarantees lots of laughs and funny stories), and eat lots of yummy food. We miss you all already and we are so looking forward to next year's Havasu trip!

Fall Photo Shoot!

I had a quick photo session done with the girls earlier this month because Macey is changing so much and Maddie is growing up too! Before we got to the studio, I bribed Maddie with a big cupcake from Martha Green's Bakery on State Street if she would smile for the pictures. I should not have done that. She tried so hard to smile. It turned into a squinty-eyed grimace instead of her beauitiful big, brown eyes and pretty smile. What you can't see in the photo is what we call "Maddie's happy hands." Since she was 6 months old, whenever she is super excited about something, she extends her arms, balls up her fists and then stretches her fingers straight out and then back into fists again. Her aunt Laura says she'll do this on her wedding day. I hope so :) - that's when you know Maddie is really happy about something.

Macey did not think anything was even remotely funny at the photo shoot. She is normally a pretty happy girl with big, gummy smiles showing off her 2 little bottom teeth .... but not this day.

This was the end of the photo shoot. By this point, I told Maddie to stop smiling. That's why her face looks the way it does. Macey had started to clap a little, but still was very skeptical of the whole situation. Not the best photo of my two girls, but I still love it.

In conclusion, I do not think my girls do well with ten minute mini-photo shoots. They have never smiled on command and in order to evoke the real smiles and laughs that I see every day, we need more than ten minutes. So, we'll be doing a longer family photo shoot in the next few weeks that will hopefully capture those big, gummy smiles and happy laughs I love so much.

Sister Love

One of the greatest joys of being a mom is watching my girls be sisters with each other. They seriously LIVE for one another. Nobody can make Macey belly laugh like Maddie does and no one can make Maddie instantly happy like Macey does. I know they loved each other before they came to this earth. It's almost as if their spirits remember each other somehow. They inherently know they are each other's sister and are fiercely protective of each other. If a cousin starts to be a little too rough with Macey, Maddie senses it from a completely different room. She comes tearing in there and saves her. If Maddie is sad about something, Macey crawls over to her and smiles and laughs at Maddie until they're both laughing and happy again. I love watching them and imagining little snapshots of time in the future - first days of school together, boyfriends, slumber parties, sister fights, etc. Our sweet girls are literally a piece of heaven in our home and we are so blessed to have them in our family.

Here are some fun pictures and videos of the girls...

Maddie is very careful to always include Macey in whatever she is doing, without any prodding from us. She has always been very concerned and considerate of her sister's feelings. Maddie loves to play with the Little People animals and line them up. This was a sweet moment one morning when Maddie kept handing animals to Macey to make sure Macey had one to play with too.

Maddie & Macey are extreme couponers in training. Look at Maddie's face ... she was super excited when her Macey was finally big enough to graduate from her car seat to actually being able to sit up in the front.  

:) Oh my goodness. Is there a word to describe moments like this?

These are older videos from when Macey was just a few months old.

Here are those Maddie-induced belly laughs I was talking about...

Stay tuned for more updates on our busy lives .... the ongoing renovations to our house, potty training, Halloween, fall photo shoots, and more :)

Macey - 8 months!

Macey is 8 months old and is so much fun! She is a little sensitive sometimes, but we still love her.

Macey had her 6 month check up in August. These were her stats then, I'm sure they have increased by now!

WEIGHT: 17 lbs, 12 oz. - 80%

LENGTH: 25 3/4 in. - 47%

HEAD: 17 1/4 in. - 83%

Macey likes to just be part of the action. Whatever is going on, she is content to watch it happen. Sitting in the shopping cart, watching me cook dinner from her high chair, or crawling after Maddie, she is happy to be part of our family. And we are happy she is part of ours!

She loves her Uncle Derrick so much! She kicks her feet and flaps her arms and squeals when she sees him. He is so wonderful with our girls and we are so lucky to have him in our lives. He took Macey out to draw with sidewalk chalk on the porch one morning - so fun!

Macey's first ponytail! And the first picture of her bottom teeth! 

Macey shopping at JoAnn's Fabrics! She feels like such a big girl now that she can sit up in the front of the cart by herself.

Macey loves to splash and play with toys in the bathtub! Can you tell?

Macey sitting up at church! 

She is a happy girl and has accomplished a lot in her short life...

• sits up on her own
• crawls
• pulls herself up on everything
• says Mama, Dada, & baba
• claps her hands
• raises her hands above her head and say "Tada!" - my favorite!
• throws a ball - and she has a pretty good arm!
• stands on her own
• walks if she can hold your hands
• has her two bottom teeth

We love our sweet Macey bug, but no one loves Macey as much as Maddie does. These two girls LIVE for each other and can't stand to be apart.

We are STILL working on getting Macey to sleep through the night (don't ask) and when she fusses a little on her way to dream land, Maddie gets big, wide eyes and says, "Mom! Macey's awake! Can we go get her?" I have to physically restrain Maddie from running in Macey's room and thwarting my efforts of a full night's sleep.

This video is from a few months ago, but I love it. It shows Macey's true personality. She is content to just play on the floor by herself as long as she has toys to chew on.

Macey's other favorite past time is jumping. She loves to jump on your lap when you hold her hands, but she really loves to jump in the jumparoo Grandma bought for her to jump in. She literally will jump for 40 minutes straight. It seems like quite a workout and she is thinning out from her jumping sessions. She is so thrilled to be able to jump independently.

We feel so blessed to have our two beautiful little girls who bring so much happiness into our lives. They are so sweet and loving and bring the spirit of Christ into our home every day.

Maddie!

Maddie is at such an entertaining age right now. She has a wild imagination, loves to sing her own original melodies, dance to any type of music, and her favorite past time is making her little sister belly laugh.

 

She is able to articulate how she's feeling - "Maddie's not happy." "Maddie's tummy hurts." "Maddie loves you too." - that's my favorite one :)

Maddie loves to:

• go to gymnastics on Monday evenings with her cousin Jasmine
• go to the park and run as fast as she can
• go to church on Sunday and see her friends in the nursery
• get doughnuts with Dad on the weekend mornings
• be the first one in Macey's room when Macey wakes up from her naps
• do all her floor puzzles at once
• organize things by shape, color, and size
• be outside
• color, draw, paint, and play with Play Dough
• eat pasta, beans & rice, corn, peas, apples, pineapple, peanut butter sandwiches, yogurt, & "cold milk" 

Here are some fun pictures and videos from the past couple of months:

 

Maddie is a very curious girl and is always discovering things. This morning, she discovered how much fun it is to play in Grandma's flour.

 

 

Maddie recently got her hair cut. It was long and stringy and in need of evening out. Fantastic Sam's was not as much fun as Cool Cuts 4 Kids was in Arizona, but there aren't any places like that out here. She sat still and her hair looks a thousand times better. Her hair is getting thick and more blond. We wonder if it will turn dark like ours or stay light. We'll have to wait and see!

 

Robin & her boys came out for a visit from Utah and we had so much fun playing with them! We went to Pharoah's Lost Kingdom and the kids had so much fun playing in the water park. Kristen worked as a lifeguard there over the summer and got us in for free! Thanks Kristen!

 

 

We had another fun visit with the Hinckley cousins from Texas! Katie, Tyler, & Jamie came to visit for a few weeks and we had lots of fun playing with our out of state cousins. One night, I took Maddie, Tyler, & Annie to the park and then we went to get ice cream cones. It was so much fun! My back seat had three car seats with three cousins singing and laughing and playing. We rolled down the windows and stuck our arms out the window and ate ice cream cones - so much fun!

 

Maddie turned three in August and we had an ice cream themed birthday party for her at Wildwood Canyon Park. She had a great time with all her family.

 

She is such a little girl now - there is no baby left at all!

 

Here is the birthday recap from the birthday girl herself-

 

One of Maddie's favorite things to do is hang out with her dad. She loves to water the citrus trees with her dad at our house.

 

Maddie loves to read. We love to go to the library and find new books to read together. She asks to read the same books over and over again until she can read them to me. I am thrilled that she loves reading as much as I do. I snuck up on her one day reading to herself and it just makes me happy to hear her little voice.

 

Maddie still loves her tumbling class and asks to go several times a week. Here are some videos of her on the trampoline-

 

Maddie loves life and is such a sweet girl. We adore her and can't wait to see what she'll do next!

Photo Shoot!

For those of you non-Facebookers, here are the pictures from the photo session I had done with the girls a couple of months ago. These are Macey's 3 month and Maddie's 3 year photos...

Maddie was bribed with a cookie from Martha Green's bakery next door and she gave some great smiles out. I am not ashamed to admit I bribe my children.

Macey and those cheeks! I love her dimple and I love that she's sitting in a miniature leather chair. So cute. 

I don't love this picture of the girls together, but with a 2 year old and a 3 month old, I guess you get what you get. Just prior to this photo, Maddie forgot she was supposed to hold onto Macey. Macey toppled over & the crying started. Neither one of them was very happy at this point. Oh well. I do love that Maddie's cheek is resting on Macey's head. She loves to snuggle her sister and she is very protective of her.

I love having girls and I love that they each have a sister. I thoroughly enjoy hunting around for matching clothes for them - they are so adorable and fun to dress up!

Happy 3rd Birthday Maddie!

Three years ago today....

On Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 at 12:05am, I became a mother. We were happy before we had our girls, but we never imagined how full our lives would be with them in our family.

Maddie is a little piece of heaven in our family. She has summery blond hair, big dark brown eyes, and the thickest, darkest, longest eyelashes I have ever seen. She looks like me, but is 100% Brandon. She is super intelligent, very stubborn, and extremely independent. She is constantly happy, innocently curious, brutally honest, filled with Christlike love, is in love with her little sister, is smart as a whip, notices and remembers EVERYTHING, and has us wrapped around her finger. When she is happy, the joy in our home is indescribable. When she is sad, our hearts break and we want to fix it to make her world right again. Maddie is such a gift from our Heavenly Father and we are so blessed to have one of his sweetest spirits in our family.

Happy third birthday love bug!

You are our world and we love you so much!

An Ode to Blankie

Blankie is a dear member of the family. Maddie and her blankie are inseperable. She has loved this blanket since she was 3 months old. She refuses to go to sleep without it. She likes to "wear" blankie... as a shawl wrapped around her neck and shoulders, as a cape, and as a turban around her head.

We are trying to help her seperate a little from blankie, so we have her leave it in the house if we are going to run an errand. She runs and tucks it away behind a couch cushion or under a table and proclaims, "Blankie is alllll safe. You stay right there, Blankie!"

 

I've noticed Blankie is present in a lot of her pictures....

On road trips- 

At Grandma's House- 

Watching TV with Dada - Love her little hand in this picture :) 

At Target in the freezer section-

We have to wash it 3 or 4 times a week because it gets so filthy being dragged around the house and outside. As it's going through the cycle in the washing machine, she frequently stands in front of the washer and reassures everyone that blankie is in the washer getting "Allllll clean!" In reality, she's really just reassuring herself. She is in charge of moving the blankie from the washer to the dryer. And it is a glorious time when Maddie and Blankie are finally reunited. They hug and snuggle and celebrate!

This blog is our family journal and I want to remember her love affair with Blankie, so thanks for indulging me in this silly post.

Macey - 5 months!

Macey is 5 months and is working hard to catch up to her sister. She loves to watch Maddie play and can't wait until she can run around with her sister.

Macey had her 4 month check up!

Here are her stats...

LENGTH - 25.5 inches (90%)

WEIGHT - 15 lbs, 7.5 oz. (77%)

HEAD - 16.5 inches (86%)

Maddie decided she should eat the "mollipop" for Macey. I love this picture! Look at those rolls and her wild hair. She is such a jolly baby!

Maddie was very upset about Macey getting shots, even though we talked about shots the whole way down to the doctor's office. She does not like it when Macey is sad. Anytime Macey starts crying, Maddie says, "Oh no Mama, Macey's not happy." And then she yells over Macey's crying and says, "Macey Kay-yate" in a sing-songy voice to calm her down. Amazingly, it works!

Anyway, Macey is a happy healthy baby!

Here's what she's been up to:

• Sleeps 9pm to 6am (most nights)
• Eats 5 ounces every 3 hours during the day
• Has had rice and oatmeal cereal, prefers oatmeal
• Everything goes in her mouth
• No teeth yet, but she is a drool monster
• Really, really, really wants to be a thumb sucker
• Loves her Cloud B Gentle Giraffe Sound Machine
• Does not like sitting in a dirty diaper and will let you know it!
• Still will not take a binky :(

She is always smiling, laughing, and talking. Her eyes are a very pretty light blue. We're interested to see if they stay light or if they'll turn dark like Maddie's.

Macey & Adeline are less than 3 months apart, but it looks like a lot more than that! Macey outweighs Adeline by a few pounds :) We were over at Bennett & Gwynne's house for dinner one night and left the 2 babies on the floor to play. We heard Adeline fussing, so we went in to check on them and found Macey's big Pillsbury Doughboy arm laying over Adeline's neck! Poor Adeline was flailing her arms and kicking her legs. Even after I took Macey's arm off Adeline, she put it right back on her. They love looking at each other and making silly baby noises at one another. 

Some more Macey smiles... such a happy girl!

I'm pretty good about taking pictures of the girls, but I have been making a real effort to take more video of the things they do. They change so often and so fast, I almost want to follow them around with a camera & document their entire day.

Macey loves her exersaucer and spends a lot of time playing in it during the day. Our family members lovingly refer to it as her command center. It kind of is like a command center. Macey loves sitting upright in it so she can see all the action. One of Maddie's favorite things to do is make Macey laugh. Here's a fun video of Maddie running around like a lunatic & Macey loving every minute of it. Grandma was sleeping so I had to keep shushing Maddie. I love watching these girls with each other.

This is a video from the first few days after Macey started laughing...

And this is more recent. She has a great belly laugh! Maddie always made us work hard to get a laugh out of her and even then, it was a courtesy laugh. Macey is always ready to give a real laugh.

Macey found her tongue while we were on our way out the door one day. So funny.

In exciting Macey news, she has mastered rolling over from back to tummy! I've seen her roll from tummy to back a couple of times, but most often, she just gets stuck on her tummy and yells until someone comes to roll her back over. Then she flips right back onto her tummy and yells some more.

We love our sweet Macey bug and can't imagine our family without her!

My Baby Sister Graduated!

Times like these make me so happy to be living back near family. That and the fact that temperatures have been soaring above 115 degrees at our house in Apache Junction, AZ this week. Definitely don't miss that extreme heat.

My baby sister Kristen graduated!!!

My mom was able to get us graduation tickets at the last minute and we were so happy to go! Here are some pictures while we waited for the ceremony to start-

Grandma Eatough & Macey

Me & Maddie

(classic Brandon look on Maddie's face)

Me & my mom - sunglasses picture!

Maddie playing around in the grass

Here she is! It's official!

Kristen with Mom & Dad

Me & Kristen!

We are so proud of Kristen! She is a hard worker and is super smart - we can't wait to watch her go to college and change the world!