Happy Mother's Day (2 days early...)

Happy Mother’s Day!

What better occasion than Mother’s Day to post my first blog entry and tell everyone just how much I love my wife.

From paying the bills to helping bring home the bacon, and cooking it too (cause we all know I cant cook…), Lindsey seems to be able to do it all with ease. She never ceases to amaze me at how she is able to balance everything that is thrown at her.

Linds, we’ve been through a lot over the four short years we’ve been married. Especially with everything that we’ve gone through over the past year or so. But I want you to know that I wouldn’t want to have gone through it with anyone else but you. Thank you for all your support and love that you’ve shown me and the love and patience that you give to Maddie.

I love you sweetie.

Chris

They grow up too fast...

It seems that Madison has grown up all this last month. She is wearing big girl panties, and she has finally graduated to a big girl bed. I know, I know, she is almost 3 and still sleeping in a crib. What do you expect? She is my baby...I haven't nor do I need the crib, so I didn't really push to get her out of the bed. Plus I haven't really wanted to deal with her not staying in it at night when she doesn't want to go to bed. Well so far so good...She has only come out of her room once in the 4 days she has been in her bed, and she actually gets excited to go to sleep in her big girl bed. I can't believe how fast she has grown up, and how it all happened so fast. She is such a sweet girl, and is very loving to me and Chris. I honestly can't imagine my life without her. If only she would stay little a little bit longer!

WaHOO Madison!!!

Just a quick update... Madison has now gone 10 days without any accidents!! She is amazing! When she wants to do something she does it, and she does it well. I guess she was really ready to be potty trained. She has even woke up dry in the morning(most mornings). We couldn't be more proud of her. She is growing up way to fast, but she loves being a "big girl". Way to go Maddie!! We love you!!

Potty Training!

We have been talking about potty training Madison for sometime now, seeing as she will be 3 the end of May. We tried about 6 months ago, but she would go on the toilet and then pee her pants just 5 minutes later. So I guess she just wasn't ready. Well this past Friday morning when I was getting her dressed, I asked her if she wanted to go try to go potty in the toilet. She got super excited and ran right in. Sure enough, she went!!! I was impressed, and tried to put her diaper back on, knowing we had a busy day ahead of us. She threw a total fit. She didn't want her diaper back on, and insisted on "big girl panties". OK YOU GOT IT! We put her in panties, and she was so happy. I would ask her every 15 or 20 minutes or so if she needed to go potty, and she'd say no, but I knew she did. So in we went. Sometimes she would go, sometimes she wouldn't. She ended up having 8 accidents on Friday. That is NOT what I signed up for... So Saturday, we tried again. This time she had 4 accidents. I thought ok, so 2 on Sunday and zero on Monday... Well Sunday she was AWESOME!! She didn't have not one accident. We were so proud of her. Monday, no accident. Tuesday, no accident. In fact today she started telling us that she actually had to go. I hope that this is the start to the beginning of being potty trained. Hopefully now that I have posted this, she will keep going without any accidents. Its funny the things you get excited about when you have kids. Who'd ever thought I would be so happy about "big girl panties", and "going potty in the toilet". She is awesome, and is getting too big too fast! I love her so much, and sometimes I want to take a bite out of her cause she is just so darn cute! Kids are the best things in life!

Congrats Brandon!!

Just FYI--- My little brother Brandon got his mission call yesterday!! He is going to the Dominican Republic Santo Domingo West mission!! He leaves July 30th, and will be speaking Spanish!! We are so excited for him. This has been quite a fast process, and it almost seems surreal. We are going to miss him soooo much, but wish him all the best! He will be an awesome missionary! WAY TO GO ELDER MOWER!!!!

Tubes..

So if you go back and read my previous posts, you can pretty much assume that we have some issues with Madison and her ears. Her first year of life, she had around 4 ear infections. By the second year she had around 6 ear infections. 10 ear infections in 2 years...ugh! So we opted for tubes in Jan. 2007. The doctor told us that the tubes would probably fall out after about a year or so and that we probably wouldn't even notice them. WRONG!! Madison is pretty in-tune with her ears, and always lets me know if there is a problem. So yesterday we were sitting on the couch watching the piano movers(thanks erica and emily) and Madison said,"Here mom." I look over to see her holding something out for me. As I take it from her I realize what it is. Her tube and 1/2 inch long piece of ear wax!! Gross I know! So I said,"Oh, honey. How does your ear feel?" Her response,"Sooo good!" I'm sure having a 1/2 inch piece of wax out of your ear sure does feel "sooo good!" I don't know if this last round of infection pushed the tubes out or if it had something to do with the ear drops that we had to put in them or what, but I sure am glad I got to see her tubes. It is amazing how something so small is so helpful in preventing infection. I would totally recommend tubes again!

Hogle Zoo

We have been dying to do something fun with Madison for a few months now, but it seems like everytime we could something else would come up. So today we decided to take her to the zoo. She has been talking about it for the past few days, and was so excited to go see "all da animals".

A few of our favorites were:

This monkey was really funny because when people would come by he would turn his body around so all you could see was his backside. Which I have to admit is just as colorful as his face..

This is the newest baby giraffe. It was born in November, and we read that the day it was born it was 6 feet tall and weighed 110 pounds. OUCH!! That mom is a trooper!!

We were lucky enough to be passing through the lion exhibit just in time to see them feed him. It was so cool to watch him. He would sniff it and toss it a little before he would actually eat it. We also got to watch him play with a huge ball in the water. That was cool. Madison kept saying, "Wow mom, that's a big big biggest kitty.." Yes it is!

And last but not least the new albino alligator. That was cool. It almost looked fake. We watched it for a few minutes, and I only saw it move once. Madison was a little scared of this one, but check out those teeth. I don't blame her!

So all in all we had a good time. Did you know that they don't have polar bears at the zoo anymore because last year someone dropped their plastic cup lid into their cage and the polar bear choked on it and died? I felt bad, but come on. A lot of the other animals were either sleeping and we could barely see them or they weren't there all together.

One funny thing did happen though. So we have a very observant child. We passed this very pregnant woman wearing a strapless shirt. Chris and I both found ourselves dry-heaving a little but didn't say anything. Sure enough as soon as Madison saw her, she yelled at the top of her lungs, "Oh my gosh mom. Look at that lady's huge baby in her tummy. Gross!!" So I was officially mortified. I gave a polite smile and quickly told Madison she was going to have her baby very soon, and we needed to be quiet. I guess it happens to everyone, but come on lady. Wear a decent shirt especially when you are about to explode. I know you have all seen someone like that before. I felt stupid that Madison yelled it, but a the same time I hope she thought she looked as gross as we thought she did. If you make it to the zoo anytime soon, I would suggest going earlier than later. The parking was impossible.