Drum Roll Please!!!!!!!!!!!

Here it is...the announcement you've all been waiting for!

BOWutiful Bows is now open for business.

That's right, I'm selling hair bows!!!! I've always loved making bows for Madie and have always received good reactions from those I have made bows for, so I thought, what the heck I'll give it a shot!

Please check out my site: http://bowutifulbows.blogspot.com

And if you all would be so kind as to do me the favor of passing the word along that would be super fantastic!

A Tribute to a Wonderful Woman

Three years ago today I married a Wonderful Woman. She is someone I can talk to and laugh with. She works hard to keep the house clean while at the sametime take care of an indepentant 15 month old who always wants to have someone follow her on her adventures (most of the time it's mommy). I love to watch Ashley and Madie interact with each other, there are times that I have no idea what Madie wants and Ashley simply without a second thought is able to verbalize what Madie wants, sometimes it amazes me! Even though I did not enjoy my 3 weeks of unemployment, I very much did enjoy the time that I had to spend with the two of them.

I admire her determination to have an idea and persue it, her ability to understand what others are going through and offer help when needed, and see insights into how others are feeling that I do not see. I am greatful for her ability to love me despite my faults and see the good intents. I am greatful for her willingness to allow me to persue my dreams and asperations in life and support and rejoice with me in my triumphs. She is a wonderful wife and mother who does so much for myself and those around her. Finally, I count myself blessed to have her in my life and to have the opportunity to tell her I love her, this is my tribute to my wife as we embark on the fourth year of marriage and on into the eternities.

I Love You Ashley!!

On Hiatus

So it will probably be a little while before I post to this blog again. I have a Stampin' Up! open house on Saturday - which anyone reading this is invited to, so if you want the details just leave a comment - and I'm in the process of something new.

What, you ask???

I can't quite bring myself to spoil the surprise and tell the whole world just yet. I'm hoping to have everything ready for the big announcement (and I don't mean that we are having another baby!) within the next week or so.

So unless something major happens (let's hope not) I will post recent adventures at a later time.

Madie's Boyfriend

I have a lot of things to post but I burnt my left index finger on the gift I made for Rachel for her baby shower, so this will be a short post.

So Madie has a boyfriend at church. His name is Austin. The first week we went to our new ward, Austin and his family sat behind us during Sacrament meeting and Madie instantly fell in love...I think the feeling was mutual.

Last Sunday in nursery, one of the other little boys put his hands around Madie's neck, so my mom went over and put that little boy in time-out, after which she picked up Madie and sat her on her lap. It was at that point that the prince charming in Austin came out and he came over to his damsel in distress. He gave her a hug and patted her on the head to make her feel better. As soon as I walked in the door to pick Madie up after church was over, Austin came over and three times told me how the other boy had his hands around her neck and he gave her a hug to cheer her up. I thought it was pretty sweet.

Again, since comments have been made in the past that I am not supposed to post with out any picture...

This is three months before I had Madie (I'm at Kristi's right now so my picture options are limited and I don't think there are any pregnant belly pictures anywhere on here). Yes, that's right, I still had three months before Madie was born when this picture was taken. What can I say...I was aaall belly!

Boys and Their Toys & Big Girl

Zach's phone is supposed to arrive today. He is just a bit excited...

At 7:30 this morning before he left for work he checked the door to see if his phone had come yet. I told him that it wasn't going to be here yet and his response was "I heard a truck and so I thought I would check." I proceeded to tell him that it was probably the garbage truck, since it usually comes around 7:30 and that UPS doesn't deliver before 9 and the earliest I have seen them deliver here is 12:30. I thought it was kind of cute how excited he is for his new toy.

We finally did it...we took away the pacie. I started by always putting the same blanket in bed with her when she would go to sleep. I noticed she was starting to take a liking to it when she would pull it off the chair in her room and drag it around the house. So I decided that was it, it was time to take the plunge. I cut off the tip of the pacie so that she couldn't suck on it like she used to and gave it to her. She immediately pulled it out of her mouth and looked at it funny and tried it again and again and again. I told her it was broken and yucky and that she needed to throw it away (she is way into throwing things away right now) and then she would be a big girl like Katie. So she did. Going to sleep fine but waking up, not so much. So spent from 4 to 6 in bed with us this morning after screaming for about 5 or 10 minutes and when she woke up from her nap this afternoon I could not get her to calm down. I had to put her back in her bed and leave her alone for a few minutes so that she would calm down when I picked her up. She spent the second half of her nap on the couch next to me with Elmo in the background.

And since I'm not allowed to post w/o a pic...

What can I say??? She likes her milk.

Monkey

It's official...my child is a little monkey with no fear. Guess what she discovered she can do this morning???

That's right, it's no longer enough to climb onto the couch by standing on the little rocking chair, she wants to climb to the top of the couch. What am I going to do with her???

She has also decided that she likes to bathe herself. This video is a couple of weeks old, so she has gotten a little better at it since then.

This is what my new phone looks like. It is the Samsung T349 (their version of the Blackberry Pearl (Zach's phone shipped separately from mine and should be here tomorrow, so no review of it today)). So far I like it. It has a lot of neat features, most of which I will probably rarely, if ever, use, but nice to know I have the option. It has a partial QWERTY keyboard and so it has taken some getting used to but in the 4 days that I've had it I'm already getting much faster at messaging with it, and since I have to look at it to type, maybe now I'll learn where the letters are on a traditional keyboard (not to confuse you, I can type pretty well (around 65 wpm) but I just go by feel and it takes me twice as long to type if I look at the keyboard because I don't know where all of the letters are if I look). So far the only thing I don't like is the camera, but that's ok because I have a nice digital camera for real picture taking.

So Julie & Julia...it was a cute movie. The first half was really funny! I think Zach laughed more than I did, so definitely not a chick flick. The second half was kind of sad, but in an effort to not spoil the movie for anyone planning on going to see it I won't say why. Overall a good movie, there were a few scenes that I could have lived without, but for the most part it was pretty clean. Now, the super awesome part. So Zach got us the tickets through the KTAR auction so we didn't have to wait outside in the super long line with people who got their tickets other ways, we got to just walk straight into the theater and check in with a guy with a clipboard with a bunch of names (one of which was ours). When we went to do that there was an older lady in front of us who got her tickets the same way and the guy asked if she had gotten her package yet. She seemed very confused and so he said he would point her out when the girl got their with her gift. She and her husband ended up sitting right behind us and so she asked me if he had said anything to us, which he had not. We were both very intrigued and ended up talking with them for about 15 or 20 minutes before the movie started. Then in walks this girl with two bags on her arm and they guy points out the lady behind us and then tells Zach to come up too! Surprise, we were special winners too!!! We got a little tote bag (I'm guessing to do grocery shopping with), two movie posters, a book light and an apron! Of course everything has the movie name on it, but who cares. Zach was excited for the book light and I was excited for the apron, since the only one I currently own is of Santa Claus (which was kind of funny when I was pregnant because then Santa really had a belly!). We'll probably post the movie posters on Craigslist, since we're never going to do anything with them, or if any of you want one let me know. This is what it looks like:

Delivery & Silly Girl

Madie and I went over to play with our friends Jessica & Ethan this morning (more on that to come) and since I'm expecting my phone to arrive today at some point I decided to check the door when we got home. I opened up and there was this huge package and at first I thought, oh that must not be for me, but as I got closer I saw my name on it. It seemed a little big to be my phone, but people ship things in all kinds of crazy packaging so I thought, well maybe??? Then I noticed the return address. Not my phone...

...laundry soap!

(I don't actually know what brand the soap is, but I'm not supposed to reveal any of the info I have so I can't post a pic of the actual bottle.)

I know, that might seem kind of weird so let me explain. I fill out surveys online and earn points that I cash in for money (it is totally legit so if you're interested let me know). At some point I filled out a survey that said I was willing to fill out surveys and try test products at home. I have been more pleased with that part of it than with the online surveys, because who wouldn't like to get free useful items?!?!?! Right now I'm taking part in a 12 week survey of this mystery laundry soap and so they sent me 2 more bottles of it today! I've also received free diapers (and they were pampers, so not some random cheapy things!) and something else that I can't recall at the moment.

On a completely different note, Madie once again found something interesting to entertain herself with while I was in the shower this morning. I'm not sure why I even put a movie on for her...

Yes, those are pantie-liners surrounding my child. I don't know why but she is fascinated by them. She is always trying to get them open and so I put the package on the counter where she can't reach so that she wouldn't play with them. She discovered that if she stood on the scale next to the counter that she is just tall enough to get them down and proceeded to open all but three of them. Oh, well, what are you going to do???

Do you like the position in which Madie watched her movie the other day??? It made me laugh, I just had to take a picture. She can just barely see over the arm of the chair like that.


So about going to visit our friends...

My friend Diana had a baby almost two months ago and she also came over the Jessica's house. Madie was so fascinated by that little girl (who is so tiny and cute) and was convinced that she needed to hold her. She was so worried when they first got there because the baby was just sleeping in the car seat, but I managed to finally convince her that she was ok to nap there but once that little girl woke up, it was a whole different story. So I asked Diana if we could take her little girl out and I helped Madie hold her. It was so cute, I wish I had gotten a picture. I'll have to remember for next time! It just amazed me how she is already such a little mommy to babies smaller than her and she is only one!

Zach's Silly Ideas & Other Randomness

Zach gets these silly ideas when it comes to Madie and sports. Yes, that's right. He is already introducing her to the world of sports, and not watching, but playing. I have two pictorial examples below:

Zach teaching Madie how to slam dunk.

Zach teaching Madie how to play Wii Sports (I can't remember if this is golf or baseball)

While I was involved to the extent that I took the pictures (and allowed the aforementioned to take place) these events were solely Zach's ideas. :)

On a different note...

Zach started work this week. He didn't go in Monday like we had originally thought he would (the people weren't ready for him I guess), but he went in on Tuesday and worked for a couple of hours. Yesterday, however, he worked all day and guess who was in a bad mood all day??? That's right, Madie! Of course, the first day he is gone all day and can't take a shift so I can have a break is the day that Madie whines all day. I think she isn't feeling well, probably because of her allergies (mine have been acting up a little bit and so have my dad's and she has had a runny nose all morning today). I should say that I KNOW she wasn't feeling well yesterday because even over at Kristi's house she was being fussy and she usually loves to go play with Katie.

But we are grateful that Zach is working again and I'm grateful that Madie is sleeping right now! Don't let my complaining fool you, I LOVE being a mom and wouldn't trade it for anything, but sometimes it helps to just complain to the anonymous blog world.

I'm thinking about doing a Stampin' Up open house. Basically I would just have all of my stuff available for people to look at and experiment with and demonstrate any techniques people wanted to learn and have a card ready if people want to make it, kind of like a come and go workshop. I'm still debating doing it. Any input from anyone would be greatly appreciated.

Zach and I ordered new phones, since ours are three years old and the little hands that are constantly playing with them are starting to do some damage. This kind of sucks, but the cheapest way for us to upgrade was online, which meant we had to pay shipping and we couldn't upgrade both phones on one order so we had to pay shipping twice. Between that and the $18 upgrade fee, Zach's "free" phone cost $25 and my "$10" phone cost $40. Oh, well. It was still cheaper than going to the store to get new phones. Hopefully they should be here tomorrow. I'll post pics and initial reviews once we have them.

There was something else I was going to say...

Oh, yes, I remember now. Zach and I are going out tonight! This has become a rare occurrence since Madie joined our little family, however, it is getting a little bit easier to leave her each time. A couple of weeks ago Zach got tickets to go see Glenn Beck with his points he earned from listening to KTAR and I, being his loving wife, went with him. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Anyway, being the loving husband that he is, he decided to make things even and get us something with his points that I would enjoy. So he got us tickets to a prescreening of the new movie Julie & Julia, which I have been saying I would like to go see. I just hope that I can stay awake through the whole thing tonight! What time does it end??? A little after nine, but when you've been dealing with a grumpy one year old for two days, nine o'clock is late (at least for me!). I will try to remember to post my thoughts tomorrow on the movie.

With that, I leave you with this video clip of Madie dancing on the light table at the Arizona Museum for Youth. Enjoy :)

Arizona Museum For Youth

A few weeks ago we went to the Arizona Museum for Youth with Kristi and her two girls. Four of us got in for free with the culture pass that we checked out from the library. We had a good time, but decided that it wouldn't be worth it if we had all had to pay, so hooray for free stuff! Well I was going to just put a slideshow from photobucket with all 30-some-odd pics but it froze after only uploading 10 pictures...

So instead you get blogger uploads and therefore they will be in no order whatsoever!

The girls enjoyed some coloring time.

They had these neat chairs that had a cover on them. So you could read in peace???

Where's Madie???

There she is!

(these two girls did that over and over for probably 10 minutes)

Madie LOVED the slide they had, which kind of surprised me given how steep it was, but not that much.

Jenny being crazy on the slide.

When she wasn't being crazy she was giving the little girls rides on her lap down it.

Madie didn't want to share the slide with anyone :)

Katie coloring on the white board

The girls got to make a little pop up card. Madie kept trying to eat the supplies.

So we tried to show her to do it properly (of course it didn't do any good, but at least we tried)

Katie and Madie dancing on the light table. I'll have to upload the video of it later, it's pretty cute.