First 3 day weekend with Raymey!!!

I'm really excited because we have a 3 day weekend with Raymey for the 4th of July!! He had a 3 day weekend for Memorial Day, but Madeline and I were in Colorado so it doesn't count for us!! We'll be heading back to Nashville on Thursday night to see if our apartment is still OK!! It is kinda silly, but I'm really looking forward to being in our apartment with our STUFF! Not that we have great stuff, but I miss it. I think it will be fun that Madeline is old enough to pay attention to fireworks this year. Last year she was a month and a half old, and Raymey and I sat on the car in downtown Nashville while Madeline slept in her carseat.
We've had a good weekend so far. On Thursday night we went to a Peruvian restaurant with some of Raymey's coworkers and we stopped at IKEA since it was in the area. On Friday night we found a Little Caesar's and had a $5 pizza!! Yea! Why don't they have more Little Caesar's around? There is something wonderful about eating a gooey pepperoni pizza and knowing that it only cost $5. On Saturday we went to the aquarium with Raymey (Madeline and I have been several times, but we finally got to take Raymey) and saw the "shish". Then in the afternoon we went to a Greek festival in northern Cincinnati-it was delicious!! We had spanikopita, gyros, baklava, kataife, shish kabobs, and some other things that we can't remember names for. There were kids dancing, live Greek music, and a lady even said "Opah!!" to Madeline when she was waving to the music. I saw a lady walking around with Windex and it reminded me of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". We had a lot of fun. It is an annual celebration so hopefully we'll be able to go back next year! We didn't take any pictures of anything. We've been really bad about that. We'll have to put some up next time.

Life in Covington

It has been forever since I posted something. Raymey's been enjoying his internship here and they've been keeping him busy. He walks across the bridge to downtown Cincinnati and gets to work in about 20-25 minutes. He usually leaves before 7:30 and gets home around 6:30, but we do get to have him to ourselves over the weekend. Madeline and I have been checking out different things in the area. We've got an year long pass to the aquarium that is about 5 minutes away-Madeline likes to see the "shisshh". We had our first visit to Ikea-that store is so cool! Also there is a Gap clearance center here and I found 6 nice polo shirts for Raymey for 12 bucks-how is that possible?? I have a membership to the YMCA here, but it is not nearly as nice as the one in Bellevue. Madeline has had a hard time adjusting to the new child watch. For example, today they came and got me because she was crying so much and pulling her ears (they thought she must be sick, but she actually has always pulled on her ears a lot for comfort or when she's tired) so when I got down to the room Madeline was screaming bloody murder because she was strapped into a bouncy chair (like the vibrating kind for infants). It shouldn't be funny, but it kinda makes me laugh because she hasn’t used one of those since she was 4-5 months old. She hates being strapped into anything (she likes to walk all over the place), and probably thought she was being tortured. So, instead of looking like a 13 month old girl, I guess Madeline looks like a 5 month old boy (everyone tells us how cute our little boy is). She needs to get taller and grow some hair! Don’t worry Madeline, I love you the way you are!!
We went to the free day at the Cincinnati zoo on Friday. I think Madeline’s favorite was the rhino. We were pretty close to it and she kept pointing at it so we said “rhino” and she said “nana”. So I said “rhiiiiinoooooo” and she kept saying “naaaaaaanaaaaaaaa”. She was really trying. It looks like a neat zoo with a lot of animals-we didn’t get to see everything because we went late and it was really crowded, but I think we’ll go again sometime.
So now a list of Madeline’s current words: Mama, Dada, duh (duck), nana (banana, or more generally, food), shish (fish), teee (tree), teee (teeth), juuuu (juice), maaa (more), cheeee (cheese), keeee (keys), no no no no (she thinks several dangerous things in our house are called no no no), dih dih (get it), maimee (her baby doll), beebee (baby), bah (ball), buh (book), sah (star), beebee beebee (belly button), shoe (sheeeeeeee), doh (door), buh buh (bye bye), surrr (circle-I don’t know that she know’s it is a shape, but she has a circle book she calls surrr consistently), and kah (cat or car). She has a lot of other things she tries to tell me, but I have no clue what she’s talking about. She says “sheeesh” to us all the time and at the perfect moments.
We love to hear Madeline say words. For a while she was saying “she” for shoe. I started emphasizing the ooo in shoe (shoooooooooooooooe) and now she thinks that a shoe is a “sheeeeeeee”.
She’s also really into brushing her teeth. If we say “teeth” or “brush your teeth” she starts crying longingly and goes to the bathroom door saying “teee teee teee”. Then she gets really excited when we put toothpaste on her toothbrush and brush her teeth. She’ll let us do it for about 10 seconds, and then she has fun chewing on it. It’s so fun! Well, I’ve probably gone on enough about the baby, this is just a good way for us to record what she does.

Madeline's photo shoot

We've been in Colorado for a few days and we decided to take pictures of Madeline. Here are some of the highlights. You have to take so many pictures of babies to get a few decent ones! But it was kinda fun. We asked Madeline "where's your nose?" and sure enough, she showed us! We had to tie Madeline to the bench for a few pictures (wherever she has a black "sash"-this would explain some of the sad faces) We'll be heading back to Cincinnati on Tuesday and we'll start to settle into life there. We miss Raymey and we're excited to go back to see him! Oh, and P.S. my sister Maren wanted me to mention that Madeline spit up string cheese on her during Relief Society today. Poor Maren.

We lied!

Yes, we lied, we'll post if we have internet access! Maybe no one will check since I said that we won't post, but this is as close to a journal as we get, so I'd better write something! I'm visiting Colorado this week for my sister's graduation and other sister's NONhomecoming. Madeline's birthday was yesterday, and we spent half of the day in airports traveling from Cincinnati to Denver. She was pretty good, but I think that her time schedule is all off! We got up at 4:30 ET and she went to bed at 9:30 MST. She slept a little on the plane, and had a nap here, but it was a long day for her!
We actually celebrated her birthday on Monday with Raymey and had a cake and presents. Madeline had her favorite foods for dinner-string cheese and banana! Then she got to dig into a cupcake all by herself. It was pretty funny and sticky! She was really funny with opening presents. She just liked the ribbon. It was like pulling teeth to get her to rip the paper-and it was only tissue paper. So, I wrapped all of her presents, and I pretty much opened all of her presents too! She got 3 dresses (one from us, one from grammy, one from the Barnes family), a talking ABC caterpillar, a baby doll (maymey like baby-her new best friend!), and a knock-off $1 magnadoodle. She also had another birthday last week where she opened toy boats, socks, 2 outfits, a dog puppet, and a puzzle from her granny. She got dresses from Jesslyn and Molly, and a duck from Maren. I think we covered it all! She's had a lot of fun playing with her new stuff. We've had fun thinking about the last year and how fun it has been to have Madeline around. By the way, the night before we went to Cincinnati we went over to our friends' house (the Robisons) and their daughter Lindsey inspired Madeline to start walking. So, since last Thursday she's been walking all around!
Raymey started his internship this week and I think that so far he's feeling good about it. He feels like it would be a good company to work for. We live in downtown Covington KY and Raymey walks 20 minutes across the bridge over the Ohio River to downtown Cincinnati OH where he works. Our apartment is pretty good, it is much bigger than the one in Nashville, but it is up 50 stairs (which is tough with a baby!) and doesn't have a washer, dryer, or dishwasher. It will be a pleasant place to spend the summer.

Probably last post for a while!

We're off to Cincinnati for the summer, so we probably won't be posting regularly. We won't have the internet in our effort to cut costs.

Here are pics of Madeline and aunt Molly, Madeline playing with groceries, Madeline helping me fold laundry, and Madeline sporting her new hairstyle:). Actually, I just wanted to fluff it out to show that our baby actually does have hair-it's so funny!

Madeline had a doctor appointment this morning and she is 29" tall (46th percentile), weighs 20lbs (33rd percentile), and has a head circumference of 47cm (94th percentile!). So, she'll be cryin' herself to sleep tonight on 'er huuuuuuuuuuuuge pillow!

I WON"T wash your mouth out with soap!!

3 fun things. First, on Tuesday when I was making dinner, I noticed the deafening silence and that Madeline was not around. I followed my intuition and sure enough, she'd been drawn to the bathroom, and this was about the only time that it wasn't closed. She has been eyeing the toilet paper for weeks, but I don't ever let her get it, but this time she got a good 3 feet unrolled (that really isn't that much, but for her it was a lot, and I think she was proud!). I think she may have a tp addiction.

Second, we went to the park tonight with Raymey's sister (Miriam) and afterwards we fed the ducks. We told Madeline the word "duck" and she was fascinated with them and kept saying "duh, duh, duh!!!" Raymey got her out of the stroller and she loved getting close to the ducks. This is such a fun age!!!

When we got home we gave Madeline a bath and while I was talking to Raymey and Miriam, Madeline started to do some little coughs. I looked down and she'd taken a big bite of squishy bar soap!!! There were little pieces of chewed up soap all over the bath. She didn't cry or anything, and she makes worse faces when I try to feed her canned carrots! So, I think that the threat "I'll wash your mouth out with soap!" isn't going to be scary enough for Madeline-when the time comes I'll have to get creative!

It's been a while!

So, it feels like forever since we've (I've) posted anything. Madeline and I went to Colorado from April 19-May 1 to help out a little (and Madeline provided entertainment) during my Mom's second round of chemo. We also got to see my sister Maren for a couple of days after she returned from Guatemala. Madeline is taking steps alone now, but she still thinks that crawling is better. We had fun trying lots of Mom's hats on Madeline. It was really fun for us, not so much for Madeline!

I was talking to my mom about this-it has really changed my view of cancer patients to see my mom go through her breast cancer. I think that before her experience I would have seen someone, or heard of someone with cancer or doing chemo, and just felt weird around them or felt bad for them. Now, to have seen my mom go through things and so much change-she's still the same person, that means that other cancer patients are also just regular people who maybe a few months ago didn't even think about cancer. It seems that now there are so many more treatments for cancer and the outlook is so good-it isn't necessarily such a final diagnosis. That isn't to say that it is easy or anything-my mom has been such a trooper, and I know that every diagnosis is different. I guess that it has been good for me to get a new point of view, and hopefully a type of empathy. My mom is doing well for what she's going through, and she has a great likelyhood of full recovery. So, that is what is on my mind.

It was great for us to go to Colorado to spend time with Mom, Dad, Jess, and Maren. I don't know how we're going to manage posting this summer though. If I couldn't post for a month while I had internet access, I don't think it will get better when we don't have the internet this summer!