Cute pics

The other day Madison decided to squeeze behind her elmo table. I thought it was super funny and so I took some pictures and they actually turned out to be really cute shots of her. (And the shirt was made for her by my friend Paula as part of the previous blog craft exchange (see post Giving Makes the Giver Happy). Thanks, it turned out super cute!)

The last one is my favorite. Her face just cracks me up!

Ok, I guess I'll admit it.

I've never really felt like a creative person. Several people lately have made comments to me though about how creative I am. I guess I just don't see it since I usually take my ideas from someone or somewhere else. I realized the other day, though, that I almost never copy an idea in its entirety. There is usually some tweaking that goes on. After making these cupcakes, though, I felt creative. For Madie's birthday I want to make her an Elmo cake, since she loves Elmo. I wasn't sure if I would be able to make it look as cute in frosting as it was in my head. I saw on a food network challenge recently someone make a cake of Sully from Monsters, Inc. and he used this grass tip to make the fur and I thought that would be way cuter than using a star tip to make Elmo. So I went out and bought one. This was my first round. The second round I did the nose a lighter orange so it shows up better. I thought they turned out way cute and I knew I must not have done too bad when I showed one to Madie and asked her who it was she just laughed and reached out for it. She knows its Elmo and that's pretty much all that matters. For her birthday I'm going to try and do several of the Sesame Street characters. I'll post pics of those. 

I didn't feel like making 2 dozen Elmo cupcakes so this is how I decorated the rest. I stole the idea from a cookbook, but they rolled the edges of sugar cookies in sprinkles. 

Sorry the pictures are upside down. We have been really trying lately to get Madie to fall asleep on her own at nap time. She is doing much better, she only cries for about 10 minutes, usually, and then it out. This is how I found her the other day. I thought it was a pretty interesting position. She is laying across her crib the short direction with her leg bent and pushed up against the edge.

Then Zach put her down on Saturday while I was getting my hair cut and this is how she fell asleep. 

Madie's new favorite thing is to help me clean. She loves to carry around the swiffer. She bangs it on the floor and sometimes even drags it across it.

Oh, and despite the pictures on this post, my child really does wear pants. 

Easter Egg Hunt

The Saturday before Easter, Madie went to her first Easter party at my parents' house. All of her cousins were there. She did pretty well, despite the fact that it was nap time for a decent chunk of the party. The kids all ate some mac & cheese for lunch, hunted for eggs (inside since it had been raining and was all gross outside), decorated cookies and took turns hitting the Easter pinata. 

Madie giving her new bunny a kiss. 

Madie with most of her cousins and their new stuffed animals.

And the race is on...

Madie got sidetracked on the way to the hunt by this 5 gallon bucket. She thought she would see if her basket fit inside of it. 

Taking a break from trying the eat the egg to play with the dog. She spent more time at the door near the puppy than she did looking for eggs.

For some reason, Madie decided that she needed to crawl under the step ladder and sit underneath it for a while. 

Madie wasn't too fond of the pinata but she did enjoy walking around with the candy hanging out of her mouth.

On Easter morning, the Easter bunny had brought Madie a new Elmo movie. She went right for it and after unsuccessfully trying to open it, did with it what she does with everything - put it in her mouth. 

Zoo trip

Madison and I went to the zoo with some friends of ours a couple of weeks ago. At first, Madie was more interested in watching the other people than the animals. She did enjoy the otters and the monkeys. She would have enjoyed the petting zoo more but I wouldn't just let her run around, so she kept getting mad at me.  

Here she is with her friends. It was actually chilly for the first part of the morning. 

Madie & Ethan

Madie & Andrew

All three toghether.

The baby orangutan was playing in a sheet. It reminded me of when Madie plays peek-a-boo with her blanket..

Thanks, Jessica for inviting us! We had a good time.

Time for some major updating

So we never tried to recover the pictures from the camera. I knew how many had been deleted and there wasn't anything on it that was worth trying to recover. It was pretty much all stuff that I could retake. Zach and I are almost done with the semester. He will probably be done before me, but that is ok since his classes take up way more time than mine. Here he is planting a tree for one of his classes. Yes, he really did go on a little "field trip" to plant trees with other students. 

The next two months are going to be super busy. There is only one Saturday between now and the end of May that we don't have something written on the calendar. I'm looking forward to next Saturday. I'm having a Stampin Up party. I made a second blog with the things I have made: http://ashleysstamps.blogspot.com. 

Our car is broken :( Hopefully my dad's car guy can fix it for a decent price. Until then we are borrowing my mom's car. Thank you mommy! Apparently it is time for my family's cars to break. My bro-in-laws truck is broken, my dad's truck had a dead battery earlier this week, my brothers car broke a week or two ago. There must be something in the air.

As for Madison, she is as cute as ever! She is growing so much. She turned 11 months old yesterday. I still can't believe that she is almost one! 

Zach took the shower doors off in our bathroom so that I could bathe Madie in the big tub easier. The first time I put her in she thought it was the greatest thing! She has been in the tub before with her cousins and I think she was excited to have the whole thing to herself. 

Does anyone else's child sleep with her eyes partway open? I still find it kind of creepy.

Here you go Lori, this picture is long overdue. ;)

So I made some cookie nests to send to Tyler and Nick & Lindsay. This is what they looked like before I shipped them. I can't guarantee the state they were in when they got to their destinations (hopefully they have arrived by now!). If they were kind of smushed this is what they were supposed to look like. Oh, and Lindsay, the piece of bread was to keep them soft.

Madie is waking up so I'll post again later with Easter pictures and our trip to the zoo.

Lost pictures

So I was going to post some of the fun things I have been doing lately but all of the pictures on my camera got deleted. Most of them had already been transfered to the computer and I was deleting those off of the camera and somehow all of the ones left got deleted, not just the ones I had highlighted. :( :( :( :( :( Seriously, you have no idea how bummed I am! This was going to be my super fun random update post with pictures of Madie and of the cute cookie nests I made and the newest card I made and my new vinyl wall hanging (in case you didn't know, I signed up to be a stampin up demonstrator and have created a second blog just to showcase my work, there is a link on the right side of this page). 

I googled for half an hour to see if I could download some software to recover the images, but it looks like without an sc card reader its just not going to happen. Zach said they have some at work though, so hopefully on Monday he can get my pictures back for me. 

*tear*

*sniffle...tear*

Happy, Happy Birthday!

Sunday was Zach's 26th birthday!!! That seems so weird to me because he was only 22 when we met and it doesn't feel like it has been that long. His family was down last weekend so we celebrated his and Lexi and Adam's birthdays on Saturday. I wasn't very good with the camera so the only pics I have are of Madie playing with the streamers. She enjoyed pulling them off of the wall. 

On Sunday we celebrated the March birthdays with my family, which consisted of my grandma and cousin and of course Zach. For his birthday dessert, Zach requested brownie schlop, which is really a brownie triffle with pudding and whipped cream and caramel and nuts. 

Madie wanted to help me make it. 

Here it is in all is beauty.

This is why we call it brownie schlop; in the bowl it is pretty but once it is dished up it looks like schlop.

My family is doing gag gifts this year for birthdays, here are some of the gifts Zach got: 

A shovel, rake and gloves (for the garden we will have some day? Since he won't need it for his job. Landscape Architect is not the same as landscapper)

Yes, those are in fact pull ups. My nephew, Curtis, thought our baby needed them. Curtis is 3. 

Did you know that Dr. Pepper comes in a bottle? Neither did we, but apparently in Texas it does. 

Zach asked for this book, it has been sitting under our bed since before Christmas. 

He also got some tv on dvd from his family and my sister and a bucket full of tools from my aunt. Thanks everyone for all the fun and interesting gifts!