A Sunny Monday Stroll

Matt FINALLY got a day off so we decided to take a little walk down the "dead end" road near our house. Pretty land out that way. It was a nice walk. Very peaceful and enjoyable! We took our dog Ranger with us. He's such a great dog! Never strays too far from us, and we don't ever have to have him on a leash. :) I just want to say how much I love being out in God's Creation ... it makes me feel so full and content somehow! Going out with the whole family today was really a blessing. Anyhow, here's some pics from the day.

Poor Maezie

These pictures are from BEFORE she got sick. Look, Maezie's very first set of pigtails!! Woo hoo! I didn't get to put pigtails in Ky's hair until she was 19 months old ...

Maezie has her very first stomach flu. In fact, this is the first time she's ever thrown up (except for once when she was about 3 weeks old and got her tummy just TOO FULL of milk) and it's been pretty terrible.

I was terrified at first that it was food poisoning and that it was my fault. Night before last I made chicken for dinner, and left it out for several hours before I put it in the fridge. I reheated some for Maezie for lunch, and she started throwing up at about 8pm last night. Anyhow, I did buttloads of research about food poisoning and although I'm not 100% sure, I think this is a virus instead. She's running a fever, and is still sick today, but doesn't really have diarreah (a very prominent and classic symptom of foodborne illness). She's only thrown up once this morning, all her other episodes were last night and in the wee hours of the morning. Even though I'm pretty sure it's NOT my fault and I didn't poison my kid, I can guarantee you that from now on whenever anything is cooked, it's going in the fridge PRONTO!!!

She's been sleeping most of the day ... just woke up from her 5th nap of the day. She wants to be held almost all of the time that she's awake, and she's definitely miserable. Poor baby. Keep her in your prayers.

Chocolate Cake Calamity

So we're doing a new sleep arrangement with Maezie, started last night, which naturally meant that I got little to no sleep. Anyhow, when Matt was leaving for work this morning, I was still in bed trying to get any tiny extra bit of sleep I could. He kissed me and said, "Ky's awake, she's up watching TV." That didn't register for quite a while - I was just too groggy. When it finally did, I sprang out of bed to go looking for her, and found that she had crawled over the babygate that's supposed to keep her out of the kitchen. She had found a laundry basket and was standing on it to reach the counter so that she could get into the chocolate cake I had made the other day. While she didn't eat any of the cake, most of the frosting (also chocolate) was gone. *sigh*

I later found frosting on the walls, my laundry, and my kitchen floor.

These are some pictures of Kyleigh helping me make the chocolate cake when I made it a few days ago. Ok, so they're mostly pictures of her licking the utensils AFTER the cake was made, but anyway. :) I was too tired/irritated to take pictures of her after her illegal frosting fiasco.

I Heart Faces Beginner Photography Contest Entry

This is Kyleigh's "messy face". The category for the I Heart Faces photography contest this week is messy faces!! This one has always cracked us up! You can take a look over at http://www.iheartfaces.com/ and see all the fun, messy faces!!

Some of my favorite "photographic" pictures ... haha

These are some pictures I've been taking with my new camera, and then editing them (sometimes) as well. I'm really enjoying my new hobby!

Pictures of Recentness

Maezie walking in her Valentine's Day outfit.
Sweet Kyleigh

Kyleigh having a discussion with her animals.

Playing at the Children's Museum.

Maezie walking.

Random Happenings

So ... I keep not posting. Just usually don't take the time to post here AND on facebook - facebook usually wins.

But anyhow - in the last month and half .....

Maezie started taking steps on February 9th, and is full-fledged walking now. She's getting pretty fast now, but still looks somewhat like a penguin waddling around. Pretty darn cute!!

I got a new camera ... FINALLY. A Nikon D40. I'm wishing in my heart that I had gone with the Canon Rebel XS, but ... the Nikon was about $100 cheaper, plus I got an extra lens, so ... if you add all that together, maybe about $250 cheaper or so?? Anyhow ... someday maybe I'll own a Canon, or perhaps I'll just stick with Nikon (and get a D400 when I'm ready to move up!) I'm enjoying taking pictures. It brings me great joy to have a camera fast enough to keep up with my kids and get the shots of them that I've been aching to get for their whole lives!

Kyleigh and Maezie's second cousin (on my Dad's side) was born a few days ago. Caden Jacob was happy and healthy, and Meghan birthed him with ZERO pain meds!! :) The girls have another second cousin on that side, Max, who they'll meet when they get to Heaven. Max is learning how to fish with our Grandpa right now. :)

Maezie is working on her top two teeth. They're through the skin, but are slow in coming down all the way. It's sad though, because Maezie has a rare oral deformity. It's not too serious, but it's what is known as a "tight labial frenia" which means that the little flap of skin that's normally up between your top gums and lip extends all the way down and wraps around the bottom of her gums. So it will keep her upper lip tight to her gums, and also her top two teeth will have a big gap between them. :( Once her baby teeth fall out, she'll have minor day surgery to "clip" or "remove" this extra piece of skin. Then I'm sure we'll get her braces as soon as possible so that we can correct the gap. I don't want her being self-conscious of the gap and not smiling, you know?

Matt's job is ... well, he's miserable. He desperately needs a new job. Right now, because his store is struggling to meet their payroll numbers and pass their audits (due to being severely understaffed) his district manager got angry and told Matt and his senior store manager that since the two of them are salary, that they have to work 7 days a week until further notice. You heard me - NO DAYS OFF. Please, please, pray that either his job will miraculously get MUCH better or that another job would open up somewhere else!

My mom is coming out to see me in a few days. And my longtime best friend, Shanna, might be driving out to see us too! Hooray! I love having house-guests. And I miss my friends and family back in Texas.

Kyleigh is really starting to get the grammar thing down. "I want to eat a snack." and "Can you help me?" and things like that. Smart girl. I just watched her dip her kiwi slices in ketchup at lunch though, and that's grossing me out. She's climbing all over everything though. I really feel like it's only a matter of time before I hear a "thump" on the roof and run out to find she's climbed up there somehow. She's incredibly athletic. Got that from her Daddy, I assure you.

In other news, I'm beginning to feel that itch to have another baby. I wish I could just snap my fingers though, because I'm not looking forward to being pregnant again. (And NO, I'm not pregnant.) We want to make sure that Matt is happily settled into a good job before we get pregnant again. And I really hope we get to have a boy next time. I think I would feel complete then. :) C-sections are about $30,000 each, so having good insurance is key.

Anyhow, I'll post some pictures now.