Walking

Yes, that's right...walking. Madie took her first real steps today (before she even has her first teeth, she is kind of slow on the whole teeth thing though)!!!! She took about a step and half last week as she was falling forward, but I'm not really sure that counts. But today she took several steps multiple times! I know it will probably still be a while before she is ready to walk well and for more than a few steps by herself, but I am still impressed with my little baby! And just in case anyone was wondering, she just turned 8 months last week and she doesn't crawl. Her biggest obstacle to getting proficient at it is that she won't hardly stand still long enough to get balanced. 

On another note... Nick and Lindsay got us some lovely shadow box picture frames for Christmas and Zach hung them up for me the other day. We put them above our bed to kind of serve as a headboard. We still need to get an 11x14 so for now that has the picture that came with the frame. 

Tribute to Craigslist

Let me just say that I love Craigslist! I recently got something from there and got to thinking about all of the transactions we have made through Craigslist. Zach bought a drafting table for $25 and a couple months later found a better one for $60. So we bought the nicer table and sold the first one we bought...for $50. That's right, we made money on the first table! Craigslist is where Zach found the ad for the Saturn that we bought last year...*tear* may it rest in peace. We also got a freezer (I saw the same one at Costco shortly after we bought it for between $200-300) for $50. That, in my mind, is one of the best purchases we have made. What, might you ask, did I recently purchase that led to this public display of my love for Craigslist??? This...

That's right, we have our very own Elmo table. For those not in my family, my sister, Kristi, has one of these at her house. Every kid that sees it wants to play with it and loves it. Madie is no exception, but there is one problem...neither is Katie. Madie got so excited when she saw the table she kept squealing, but she kept looking around the corner. I think she was looking for Katie to see if she was going to come take it away. I think that is the best $10 I've spent on a toy for Madie. Yes, that's right, I got it for ten bucks (the cheapest I could find it anywhere else was thirty and I'm too cheap for that). 

On a different note, Madie decided that she needed to feed herself the other day while I was trying to feed her prunes. I figured, what the heck, why not? This was the end result. 

This is for you Randi Sue -

I can't promise that I will do a new craft every month, but I do have one for this month. Here it is...

I'm not as creative as some of you might think. I steal ideas off of the Joann website. :)

Picture overload

Zach's parents gave us a check for Christmas and told us to use it on something fun...so we did! We bought a new digital camera, since our old one didn't want to take clear pictures. (I knew it wasn't just me shaking the camera since the pics were still blurry when I would set the camera on the table to take the picture) So we have spent the last few days playing with the camera. It has some really neat features. 

Madie playing with her water baby

Madie trying to be a water baby :) (For those with no water baby experience that pink funnel is the one you use to put the water into the water baby)

Zach playing with one of our filters (this is not a feature of the new camera, we have a few filters)

Cutie pie

more of the cutie pie

ditto

This is not a photoshop-ed picture...this was actually done with the camera

I know, it's pretty cool.

One more of the cutie pie...for good measure

We have this dancing snowman that Madie just loves! She always gets excited when we turn it on (she sometimes gets excited just when she sees him) so we video taped them together. 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! Thank you to our amazing family for all of the wonderful things you gave us today. We truely appreciate it!

I would like to show off a little bit, though. Here are some of the things I made for others this year.

For two of Zach's sisters I made them journals. I didn't actually make the journal part, I just decorated it super cute! I made a cookbook for his other sister, but it isn't very cute just to look at so there is no picture of it.

For my little sister, I made bookends that spell her name and match the colors of her bedroom. I think they were a big hit. :)

I made a wreath for my mom out of picture frames. She likes to hang a wreath during the holidays and I thought this way she could have one up all year long. I know the colors look kind of Christmas-y but it actually matches the colors of her living room.

For Zach's parents, I made the following wall hanging. 

Here is Madie on Christmas morning playing with her slinky and opening presents :)

Zach got me this picture that says, "The greatest work you will ever do will be done within the walls of your own home." Very appropriate for this year :)

Picture time

We took Madie to get her picture taken with all of her cousins on Wednesday. The results were much better than the last time. :)

Catching Up

Brace yourself...this might be a really long post! 

Notice: There aren't any pictures on this post yet. I have to get them off of people's cameras but hopefully they will be on here tonight, so check back :)

Thanksgiving was good. We went over to Zach's aunt and uncle's house for some socializing before we left to go eat with my family. The Saturday after Thanksgiving we went to his cousins sealing, where we ran into the Merkleys. It was nice to see them again. We had to leave Madison, which was kind of hard since that was only the second time we have left her with someone other than myself or Zach. She did pretty good though. I feel a little better leaving her now that she will drink from a sippie cup. Since she would never take a bottle I always felt like if I left her I would need to be back in time to feed her. 

Last weekend we went to Sedona with my family (minus Nick and Lindsay, since they live in California). That was a lot of fun. I realized just how much work it is to go out of town over night when you have a baby. No more will be the days of just picking up on a Friday afternoon and going away for a few days (not that we ever really did that before, but it is not so much an option now). Madison did pretty well on the 2 hour car ride up there. She was a little bit fussy for the second half but we kept her pretty well entertained. Luckily she slept the whole way home, so that was good. We decorated gingerbread houses, went on a little hike (it was more like a walk, but what do you expect when you have 6 kids under the age of 5 with you), and had a guitar hero tournament. It was true tournament style, with everyone playing the same song on the same level of difficulty as a qualifying round to determine who had to play on which level of difficulty for the actualy tournament. We did a double elimination bracket style, and yours truely went undefeated to take the title. I'm still not sure how that happened. 

Madison decided that she wanted to play in the tournament too! :)

Tomorrow is baking day! Hooray for baking day! All day with my mom and sisters baking goodies...what's not to love! 

I love the holidays but they can really wear you out! I still feel like I have so much to do. Sometimes I feel like I am almost done with the Christmas presents I am making for people, but other times I wonder if I am going to finish before Christmas!

Hopefully, tomorrow we will get a cute family picture for the holidays. I am excited to be taking family pictures for some of our friends. It has been a while since I took pictures of something other than Madie and I often miss it. And hooray for getting together with old friends. I can't wait to see you next week, Alissa :)

I am cheap! I couldn't find a baby's first Christmas ornament that I liked for a decent price (I have a hard time paying $15 for an ornament) so I decided to make Madison's first Christmas ornament. Her bedroom, which is pink with purple butterflies, was my inspiration. So for a grand total of $1.25, here is what I made her.

Here is our lovely Christmas tree, all decked out. 

Smarty Pants, Five, Awesome Parking Skills

Zach got his grade back for project 4...he got 12.94 out of 13! It was the highest grade out of all of the students, and there are about 350 students in his class! So that makes at least 2 out of 6 projects that he got the highest grade in the class! I'm so proud of him!!! On Monday he should find out his grade on project 5 and he turns in project 6 (his last one, HOORAY!). So in just a few days I will get my hubby back, for a couple of weeks at least.

Madie has a new trick. She likes to give high five! It is more like a low five, but close enough. It is super cute to see her learning new things. She also got a sippie cup today. I figured since she won't take a bottle I might as well try giving her a sippie cup. She does pretty well with it. I handed it to her and she immediately put it in her mouth and started chewing on it. After a few minutes I could hear that she was sucking on it, so I put some water in and it she drank some of it! Hopefully, this will mean that I can start leaving her with other people and not have to worry so much about getting back in time to feed her. :)

So I took Madie to a drs appt yesterday up in Phoenix and when I got there, there wasn't really anywhere to park that I thought I could fit my mom's Trailblazer into. But I wasn't going to park on the street, since I didn't have any coins to pay for it. So I figured all I could do was try to park in one of the three spots that had cars parked on or over the line. I settled on one and somehow managed to get the car in without hitting or scratching any of the cars. I was quite impressed with myself, so I took a picture of each side so you can see how close the other cars really were. 

There was probably between 12 and 18 inches on this side 

(good thing I was planning on leaving the carseat in the car)

I had just enough room to get out on this side, so maybe 6 inches!

Those of you who drive bigger cars are probably laughing that I am proud of myself for this parking job, but keep in mind I usually drive a neon. 

And because I can't post without a picture of miss Madie... here she is enjoying her squash :)