Pictures!! Finally!!!

Ok, so we've finally got our pictures on the computer! These are just kind of random...but way cute :). Oh, but first, we have some NEWS!! We found out on Friday that we're going to have a little BOY!!!! We're so excited! Maddie will LOVE having a little brother. Anyway, here are the pics :)

Here is Madilyn today before we went to church. She looked SO CUTE in this dress!!! She's such a doll :)


I love Madilyn's beautiful blue eyes! I think this is such a good picture of them.


This is bath time with Daddy. She can't get enough of the bath tub! She splashes and just laughs and laughs. She cracks herself up!


Here's Maddie looking in the mirror at herself :). I guess she liked her pigtails! She usually looks in the mirror and waves and says "hi" over and over.


This is kind of an older picture, before we moved. But Maddie loved to have her morning milk in a basket :)


And by the way, we'll get some pictures posted of our new place once we get a bit more settled. But we're loving it here!

Sorry we've been MIA!

Sorry we still don't have any pictures! We still need to get our office put together, and find the cord that allows us to upload pics. I just thought I'd post an update so you don't think we've disappeared!

Madilyn is doing great! She gets more fun everyday. We took her to the zoo last weekend and she was calling EVERY animal a "doggy" and barking at them. She loved the rhinos! It seems like everyday she has a new word. Today it's "mow" and I'm still trying to figure out what she's talking about. She's been saying it all day! I think it might be Elmo??? She was singing with me in the car today, and it was so funny. She was just blabbing all kinds of words and singing really high pitched :). At one of the stores we went to today, there was a fountain and so she was leaning over the edge and splashing her hands in the water. She was laughing SOOO hard. Everyone was watching her and giggling...she's so cute!

We find out what baby #2 is today!! I have a friend that is an ultrasound tech, and she offered to just do a fun ultrasound to find out the gender. I'm so excited!! I'm thinking a boy?? We'll see if I'm right. During the next post I'll probably be eating my words and it'll be a girl! Who knows??!! We're just excited to find out!

We've been in our new house for about 3 or 4 weeks now and we're loving it. We had to get the whole house painted before we moved in; which was quite the project! But thanks to our great family, it was done in just one weekend! Madilyn likes it here; I think she just needed a change of pace. Mike and I get to go on a date tomorrow, and I'm so excited! We're going to go to lunch and to see Spider-man 3. We don't get out much nowdays...so I'm hoping it's good :).

Anyway, sorry to blab on about non-sense, but I just thought I'd give and update. Hopefully we'll have new pictures uploaded soon!

Fun Pictures

These are just some random pictures from the last couple weeks. Our family is doing good! We found out that we are going to close on our home during the week of April 16th! It's coming so quick! We're way excited about it. Madilyn has been so funny lately. She says "daddy" ALL the time. When she hears the door unlocking in the evening, she says "daddy daddy daddy" over and over. She gets SO excited when he comes home; and has a meltdown anytime he leaves. I guess he's the fun one :). We also found out a few weeks ago that we're expecting our second child! The baby is due on Halloween...SPOOKY :). Anyway, that's all that's going on with us. We hope you all are doing well!!

Here is Madilyn at the pool in the baby area swing. She LOVES this thing. It was so cute seeing her jump around in it. She got this swimming suit from her Great-Grandma Murray for her b-day. She looks so dang cute in it!

Here is when she was trying to escape from the pool to go run around. Problem is, she's so light that she can't walk on the wet floor. She slips everytime.


This is when Maddie was very bored during dinnertime. I love her chubby cheeks!


This is the ADORABLE dress her Great-Grandma Murray gave her for her b-day. I LOVE it and I had to take a picture of the back too, because I love the criss-cross. I felt so bad though, because I had her wear these really cute pink shoes, and I didn't know they were too small for her. When we got home she had blisters on her heels. I felt awful!!



And these are Maddie's very first pigtails!! It'll be awhile before they actually stay in...after they dried her hair was everywhere. But we're getting there!

Happy Birthday Madilyn!!

Here is Madilyn with her cake! She LOVED it. She had a lot of fun at her birthday party!





Here's Madilyn opening her quilt that her Grandma Murray made for her. It's so cute and matches her room great!

Here is Maddie with her balloons. She loved looking at the ballons.


Maddie sure is the boss of my mom's dog. It's so funny! She takes him EVERYWHERE with her. If he's not moving she jiggles the leash to try and get him going. As soon as she lets go of the leash, Sparky grabs his own leash in his mouth and tries to run away and hide from her! But, since they're about the same size, Maddie can go pretty much everywhere he can; so he's out of luck!


This is Madilyn in her pretty Sunday dress today. We just had to add these because she looks so cute! :) Ignore the graham cracker on her mouth.

A Ponytail!

The big day finally came. I was able to put Maddie's hair into a PONYTAIL!! And, although it's almost non-existant, it's still there! It may look like we only formed her wet hair into that formation, but really, there's a ponytail holder in it.






Last week I went up to my sister-in-law's house for the day, and this is her little girl Gracie. Madilyn is only 2 1/2 months older than Grace! They're good friends!


Here are the GORGEOUS flowers Mike got me for Valentines Day. He never gets me flowers for V-day simply becuase they're so expesive (and I'm fine with that!). He usually gets me flowers the next day. Well, I got a BIG suprise this time; he gave these to me on Valentines! I was way excited :). I love fresh flowers!

Random Stuff

Madilyn was REALLY sick last week. She got a bad stomach bug and I was really afraid she was going to get dehydrated. She got a horrible diaper rash, but luckily her bug went away after 3 days. The doctor said it could have lasted as long at 7-10; YUCK!! Madilyn LOVES to "help" me empty the dishwasher. Anytime she hears it open, she comes a running!



Here is our home that we're buying! Completion date is set for May 30th, but they have consistently been 5 weeks ahead of schedule. So it may be sooner than that. We're so excited! We went though our first walk through yesterday (the one before all the sheet rock goes up), and it's looking great!



After our frigid temperatures, we've finally had some beautiful days! Maddie was able to play outside and get in the swing again. She hasn't been in a swing since like October. She's old enough now that she REALLY likes it!

What I do all day (by Madilyn)

I thought I would let you all know what I do during the day! First I wake up and play for a little bit. Here are me and my mom playing peek-a-boo. I hide behind the couch, and when she least expects it, "BOO!". I come out and scare her!! It's a fun game.


Here, I'm showing my mom how to do ballet. I can't wait till I can take dance classes and soccer and stuff. It looks like so much fun.


After I finished dancing, I heard a noise outside! I went to look, but then I decided to look at the blinds. They are fun. I would play with the blinds all day if my mom would let me.


I decided to play with my toy next. I tried to act natural, but it's hard when my mom is following me around with the camera! I like taking pictures; it's fun to look at them on my parents computer.


Here I am after I got dressed; my mom didn't know it but I was tricking her. I acted like I was just going to sit there, but I surprised her and....


...Lunged for the camera! Haha, I'm so tricky!


Then, me and my mommy decided to play pretend. Here I am acting like a MONSTER!


Oh wow, what a busy day. I'm pooped. I think I'll go rest now. Thanks for looking at the pictures and what I do all day!

We're back...and guess who's walking?!

We got back from Qatar a couple of weeks ago. It was a great trip! We rode camels, went on a "dune-bashing" trip in the desert, and had a fun Christmas there. The country is beautiful, like a desert paradise. Palm trees everywhere, beautiful water right next to the city, and LOTS of sand. Maddie had quite a hard time adjusting to the time change, and was up a lot at night and wanted to sleep during the day. But she was a trooper! And she adjusted just in time to go home. Haha :)

Here are Maddie and I in front of some old fishing boats in the bay. The water was beautiful, and boy was it WINDY! Maddie had a good time there and fell right asleep once we started walking.


This is a good view of the water with the city behind us. This area is called the Corniche. It's a beautiful walkway along the water that streches through the city. Maddie had fallen asleep with her hood covering her face :)


This is the pool at the villa where Mike's parents live. It's a gorgeous clubhouse and pool!


Here is our family on Christmas morning. We were happy that Grandma Murray was able to get a Christmas tree!! You don't see very many Christmas trees in Islamic countries!


This is the villa where Mike's parents live. It's a very nice place!! And it's VERY pink! The weather was gorgeous and we had such a good time there.


This is our guide that took us through the desert, his name is Muhammad. They come and pick you up in these land cruisers and take you out there. That's when we rode the camels, which was awesome! Going through the dunes was one of the coolest things we've ever done! They just fly through them, and go off these WAY steep hills. On one of the flat streches we went 170 KPH. (Which is about 110 MPH I think). They take you to a place called the inland sea, which is beautiful. It's only accessible through the dunes, and if you look into the distance you see Saudi Arabia.


These two next pictures are just really cute :) They are in the bedroom we stayed at in Qatar, when Maddie came in a was excited she found us. I LOVE her smile!!



So, this is a new trick that Maddie learned a couple weeks ago! She's quite the walker! I think she started walking a little early (9 1/2 months) because she's so determined to do everything we do! Including eat everything we eat! Anyway, she was quite wobbly for the first week or so, and now she's just walking everywhere. It's so cute to see how independent she's getting. I can't believe how fast she's grown up! Oh, and one of her favorite things in the whole world is Elmo. She can't get enough of him! It's so cute to see her face when she hears the music from Elmo's world come on. She gets so startled and serious about getting to the T.V. immediately!

Christmas!! (Sort of...)

Since we are going to be in Qatar for Christmas, and can't take big gifts, we decided to have a little celebration early. We had my parents over for a nice Christmas dinner and then gave Madilyn her two big gifts. Here are some pictures from the evening! We had yummy ham, twice baked potatoes, rolls and a jello thing. My parents stayed the night and we watched a movie after Maddie was down. My parents brought a lot of gifts, and all in all it ended up feeling like Christmas!! I was happy that Madilyn really enjoyed it. At this age, I didn't know if she's really care about her presents or anything. But she LOVED them and just had a lot of fun. So I'm really excited for Christmas morning!