1 MONTH

Home from the hospital. 7/6/11

Wow, Madison is officially 1 month old today. Time has just been flying by. It's hard to believe she has already been here for 30 days. She has grown and changed so much already. I know this newborn stage will be long gone very soon, so I am cherishing every (sleepless) second of it.

We introduced her to the dogs the day she came home from the hospital and everything went suprisingly well. The dogs just sniffed her and went about their business. It has been that way ever since. They don't bother her at all, and they know not to get too close. I am so relieved, I admit, I was a little worried. Yay!!

She loves to try and get her thumb, so she has to wear mittens now all the time because she was scratching her face and gouging her eyeballs. :)

At Madison's 2 week doctors appointment she had gained almost a full pound more than her birth weight. She was at 7 lbs 6.5 oz and grew 1/2 an inch to 19 1/2 inches. She is beginning to fill out and get those adorable chubby cheeks that are so fun to kiss. In fact, she just outgrew her newborn size diapers and went up to a size 1 now. I would assume she is over 8 lbs now.

She loves to make this face!! It's sooooo cute!!

She is FINALLY starting to get into a little bit of a routine now too. It doesn't always happen, but it is better than it was the first couple of weeks. Some nights she will even sleep in 4 hour stretches for me, so I can get a little bit more sleep at one time now. However, she is such a LOUD sleeper. It's hilarious, she makes all sorts of grunting and straining noises while she sleeps. Which, for me, is totally impossible to sleep through, so even though I'm not getting out of bed quite as often, I am still awake listening to her snooze away. Funny girl. I would loooovvveee to know how Chris can sleep through it? 

One more Stagge added to the grandkid count. 7/16/11

We have been getting adjusted to having her home now, and it is so amazing to look back at the time we had before she was here. Goodness, we thought we were busy then. Ha! Not even close compared to now. I absolutely LOVE being home with her. I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to see her grow and change every day. 

Madison is such a good baby. She is starting to be awake a little bit more during the days now which is way fun. I love spending time with her. She really only fusses when she needs something, and other than that she is content to sit with me, or in her bouncy chair or swing.  

Oh how I love this little girl. She has brought so much sunshine back into our lives. It's been a bit bittersweet though, seeing her grow and change before our eyes. It has definitely opened my eyes to what we missed with Waylon and will continue to miss out on. I miss him so much, but I am so grateful for her. She makes me so happy.

I love you Peanut!!

LIVE & LEARN

Ok, so what do you get when you cross...

One of these

With one of these?

Answer: A mangled door!!

So here is the story... Hopefully someone will use this as a learning experience for themselves. LOL

Chris was out of town all last week so I was pretty frantic about having every single door and window doubled locked and secured. Those of you who know me are probably wondering why I didn't have booby traps set up as well. ha ha  Because....I don't have time to construct booby traps with a newborn at home now. LOL  Anyway, Thursday morning I had been up since 3:30 am because Madison decided that she wanted to fuss and stay up instead of going back to sleep after a 40 minute marathon feeding. So, while feeding her I could hear Doc barking in the garage and sounding like he frantically needed to go potty outside. He had done this the night before too. Ahhh, what a week. So I went down to let the dogs out and caught a whiff of why Doc NEEDED to go out. Goodness, there was S*@T everywhere in his kennel!! Fun right. So I let them out in the yard and came back up to finish feeding Madison. Afterward, she FINALLY wanted to go back to sleep so I thought I was in the clear. I was wrong.

I could hear the dogs outside barking non-stop at the horses because they were by the gate waiting to be fed. I hadn't even had time to feed myself yet, let alone them. The dogs wouldn't be quiet despite my screaming at them out the window. Imagine that. I was fuming mad and ran downstairs to go out and feed everyone so they would be content and quiet and maybe, just maybe, I could get some sleep. When I came back in through the garage.....wait this is where it gets good....

The door from the garage into the house was locked. Seriously? I just came out that door. Oh wait, I locked the stupid small lock on the doorknob and forgot as I came out and shut the door behind me. Now normally this wouldn't have been a problem if I had a spare key somewhere outside right? Well, I didn't.

So now Madison is inside and I am locked out. Like really really locked out. Crap!!!!! I didn't have my phone or keys or anything. I had to run next door to my neighbor's house and wake them up, ask to use their phone and then about have a nervous breakdown in their living room. 

Yes, my first thought was to break a window, but I figured I had better call Chris first and see if we had a spare key I didn't remember about before I started breaking things. No key, he said. So I called everyone in the family that has one, no answer. This was at like 6:30 in the morning mind you. Then I called every single locksmith the phonebook listed. No one was open or available. Finally, enough was enough. I was on the phone with Chris and he told me instead of breaking the window, break the door. Hmmm.....ok. So I got the sledge hammer and broke the doorknob clean off the door. 

I got into the house and RAN upstairs. I think my feet only touched like 3 stairs total. I got to Madison and she was just snoozing away in her bouncy seat. Whewww!! Thank goodness she was ok. I was sweating from head to toe and shaking I was so upset, I have never been so frantic. I sat there thinking to myself, what kind of crappy mother locks herself out of the house at 6:30 in the morning with her 3 week old baby inside. Me!! An exhausted, stressed out, starving new mom who was only trying to shut the dogs up and feed the animals that are my responsibility while trying to lock extra locks to protect my family. 

I can laugh about this now, but at the time I felt like the biggest bonehead on the planet. So FYI to all.....don't go breaking doorknobs or windows if this happens to you.....call the freakin fire department. They can help. Good to know......now. 

Here is the aftermath.....

Live and learn. :)

3 YEARS AGO YESTERDAY....

I married my best friend. I can't believe 3 years have already flown by and I am more in love with him now than ever before. I have always heard that "the first 3 years are the hardest" and though we have had some very hard times, I believe we conquered them hand in hand, growing and learning together. I don't really know why so many people say that. After we lost Waylon, I heard story after story and read statistics about marriages ending as a result of losing a child. I am so proud to say that we never even came close to falling into that category. Chris and I grieve in very different ways, but we have never been closer to each other. We both have a deep respect for the other and continue to grow in love every day. Our marriage is so incredibly strong. I believe we can make it through anything that comes our way.  

I am so incredibly lucky to have such an amazing husband. He is without a doubt my best friend, and the love of my life. I can't imagine a life without him. He is truely a remarkable person, and such a good daddy. He loves his family more than anything in this world.

I remember thinking, "How did I get this lucky?" the night of our wedding. We were sitting out on the beach of Bear Lake around a camp fire and Chris was playing the guitar for me. I literally had tears in my eyes I was so happy. I always imagined what my "perfect for me" man would be like, and he has far surpassed everything I could have ever imagined.

Since our anniversary fell on a Tuesday this year and Chris had to work today, we decided to go out to Sushi this last Saturday night. We took Madison with us and we had so much fun. It was nice to get out for a bit. We don't ever eat out really, so it was extra nice to not have to cook for a night. :)  Thank you handsome for the fun date.

Every year we have gone up to our camp for our anniversary, but sadly we didn't make it this year. :(  Bear Lake always has Raspberry Days going on the weekend around our anniversary, so we go get one of the famous shakes and drive around the lake. Maybe we can make it up there next year.

This year, we went to Starbucks and BBQ'd at home. :)

Happy Anniversary to my handsome man. I love you more than words can say. Thank you for everything you do for me and our pack. XOXO