Rock ON!

I have lots of catching up posts to do (especially over on HoneysuckleDew), but unfortunately laundry comes first! I did want to get this one posted before I forgot. We celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on Saturday, and Madeleine had a blast playing with her cousins while Mommy and Daddy were celebrating - I came back to find my transformed child. She was loving Rock Band and couldn't get enough of the drums, she was cracking me up - especially in that oversized t-shirt Savannah put on her after she gave her a bath.

Santa - Take Two!

The cute smile Santa picture ain't happening this year! That's okay - I'm rather amused (isn't that totally EVIL!!!) at how she is so fear stricken by Santa, whom she adores on TV and lifeless statutes - but when it comes to the real thing HOLY COW! This Santa was much better than creepy Santa (aka daddy :) - he was the real Santa making a stop from the North Pole.

This one was my favorite!!! The real Santa sure knows how to ham it up for a picture.

Other noteworthy pictures - too cute!

I can't wait until she's old enough to appreciate why I was torturing her!

Our Christmas Kick-Off

This weekend is definitely the kick-off of our holiday season.


We shot family pictures (or Melinda attempted to) with my cranky bunch! It was cold and windy and neither Daddy, nor Maddy liked it very much! Melinda is an awesome photographer in my ward - we're photography nerds, and I shot her and her husband last week for their Christmas card picture (see the HoneysuckleDew blog) and she was returning the favor (see Melinda Murray Photography blog).


On the way to get pictures taken, we heard that Clark Howard was at the Wal Mart in Lawrenceville doing his annual Clark's Christmas Kids, which is a program where you adopt a foster child for the holidays and buy their Christmas presents for them. We had wanted to do this last Saturday when we were in Woodstock visiting my sister, but it just didn't work out. So when we knew it was close to our neck of the woods, as soon as our photo shoot was done, we headed to Wal Mart. Upon arrival we chose a child to adopt for the holidays - for us we wanted to pick a child close to Madeleine's age so we picked an 18 month old caucasian girl. On the sheet lists 3 items suggested for that child's Christmas presents. After we picked a child, Andrew went back to get a cart for our shopping when this lady from CNN approached me wanting to know if she could interview my family about our desire to participate in this program - of course! I'm sure I looked like a total ding dong, but it was fun - so we'll see tonight how good we look (as luck would have it - thank heavens we came straight from our photo shoot and I actually had on decent clothes, we coordinated, and I had makeup on!). The interviewer told us the spot was going to be on CNN tonight either at 10 or 11. After our few moments of fame (hee hee), we started to shop. We bought the little girl a Fisher Price Ride-On toy a Vtech Little Town, a baby doll (it wasn't on the list, but we knew she would like it when Madeleine went crazy over it!), and a sing-along cd. You select your presents, take them to the front and check-out and bring them back to Clark's table to drop it off. Christa (Clark's executive producer) came right up to us and told us she had seen our interview spot and wanted to meet us - so nice! I was excited to meet her, she was so nice! We met Clark Howard a couple of years ago at Costco one night while he was shopping and he was so nice then, and yesterday he couldn't have been more of a gentleman. He has to be one of the most genuinely caring persons in the world, he always takes the time to ask your name and make it personal, I really like that! We were on such a high from that experience, but also so saddened when we saw the stacks and stacks of profiles of foster children who still needed to have gifts for Christmas - it made us wish we could buy for all of them. I was also tempted to ask if I could take those poor children home with me, it breaks my heart.

That night we were invited to attend the Collins Hill Ward Christmas Party (me as the photographer and Andrew as the jolly old elf). We had a great time! Andrew did a fabulous job - he cracked me up as the big man. Madeleine was TERRIFIED of Santa, somebody even mentioned how funny that was with her mom standing right there (me, taking the pictures), they didn't know that it was her daddy holding her! I took her to watch him undress so she wouldn't be afraid - we'll see if that scars her for life.

Here's the few shots of our family with Santa :)

Steve (Andrew's brother) and Santa

Steve, Santa, and Dad
Hannah and Santa

Jenna and Santa
Me, a terrified Madeleine, and Santa

Kaitlyn, Santa, and Anne (Andrew's sister)

Isn't she the best elf EVER!?!

Tanner with Santa

Again, Madeleine - poor baby! See... It's really Daddy - She's thinking, "Dad, it was you as the creepy guy in the suit all along?"

Baby Legs

I love Baby Legs - aka leg warmers :) I have been wanting to buy some for a while now, but luckily I stumbled across how to make them your self - I bought some knee highs at Wal Mart and went from this: To this (well different pattern - I forgot to photograph the stripes BEFORE I started):

I love the way the turned out. You can find the instructions here. If you are not too much into sewing you can buy the products from Baby Legs here or even cheaper from a WAHM Knotty Baby Wear here.

Also, I've been thinking about putting a wholesale order in for pettiskirts like these, the price would be around $45 let me know if you would be interested :)

Here's a few more pictures of our Miss Mess...

P.S. In case you were going to make these from the instructions included note, I did not trim to 2.5"

Ornaments that make me smile :)

I love Christmas decorations. I get so excited each year to pull out my Christmas tree ornaments and reflect how I got each precious one. Andrew's not much for trimming the tree, so I get the joy of handling it all on my own. He was out of town last night, so as soon as I got Madeleine down to sleep I headed downstairs to begin my task. I turned on Christmas with the Kranks and built a nice big fire to get me kicked off right. I really wanted to have it all done so that in the morning she would be greeted by her Christmas tree.

It took me until after 1 in the morning, but success! This morning it was priceless to see Madeleine's reaction - I really wish I had set up a camera, she LOVED it! I've been really worried about how she would handle the tree with the ornaments, luckily I have a lot of non-breakables I could put in the lower portion of the tree for her to enjoy. She has (so far) been great with the tree.

I have had the tree lights on all day. There's just something about the soft glow of Christmas lights that make life just seem all rosy and warm inside. I love the memories associated with my tree, they remind of great people, places I've been, or childhood stories. These are probably my 10 top favorite ornaments (in no particular order).

This "love" ornament is actually part of a set of three that also say peace and joy. Our good friends June and Jorgen gave us this beautiful set a few years ago and it reminds me of the wonderful friends that we have in our lives.

This is probably the cheesiest ornament on our tree and again actually is part of a set. I think it was the first Christmas we were married that Burger King was selling these Cat in the Hat ornaments at a special price. So these ornaments remind me of how Andrew was eager to make sure we had the whole set and how precious those early years we spent together were as a newly married couple.

This was probably the first of our now many outdoorsy themed ornaments. Every year we go to REI to see what the latest ornaments are that we can acquire for our tree. I almost have enough to have a separate outdoorsy type tree. I love these because this represents our time we love to spend hiking and camping and enjoying being outside.

I have lots of bells on my tree. For a few reasons - one, I grew up watching "It's a Wonderful Life" every Christmas and it always touched me with the line, "Teacher says, 'Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings'." If you haven't seen "It's a Wonderful Life", you need to so you can fill that missing void in your life that you never knew you had! The other main reason that I have bells on my Christmas tree is it reminds me of my wedding. We got married 2 days after Christmas and for our send-off we gave out bells as party favors and our guests rang them as we whisked off as husband and wife.

We honeymooned in Helen, GA, which was actually quite wonderful. We had an excellent cabin with such a cute, quaint little alpine village close by. While we were there we perused an antique shop in the Nacochee Village where they had several Christmas ornaments marked down after the holidays, and a new tradition was born! We now buy ornaments for our anniversary presents and it helps us to remember the year. This star was one of the firsts we bought together (the other is the pickle mentioned below - keep reading!). This star is extra special because it has just recently been able to hang on our tree. We had three stocking holders on our mantel, and hung the star in the middle stocking holder with mine and Andrew's stocking on either side. It informally represented the hope we had to move that star to hold a stocking for a child. Our prayers were answered after 4 long years with our Madeleine being lovingly placed with our family. The star now is placed on our tree, but I will never forget the significance behind that special ornament.

This icicle is special because it is identical to icicles my Mom would place on our Christmas tree when I was younger (and even still today!). It reminds me of my happy childhood and how my Mom has always worked so hard to make sure the holidays are magical for our family.

My Aunt Martha is extremely special to me. She is about as close as you can get to being a saint on this earth. We like to joke in our family that Aunt Martha is saving the world, one person at a time. She really is in tune with other people's needs, and instead of waiting to ask she just does! Every year she gets us a special ornament to put on our tree, obviously this one was received when I got married, but I also have one for when we bought our house, our baby, and one's that represent our interests. When I look at these ornaments, I think of my dear Aunt and am reminded of the many opportunities to serve and help others around me and hopefully carry on her legacy of caring.

Awww, the pickle. If you are ever in treated to spend a Christmas morning with the Mills family you will be in for a treat! My Mom thrives on Christmas traditions! I was always tortured Christmas morning because we had a set time that we were allowed to finally be awake (act like you are awake any earlier and beware of the consequences!). This killed me! I never could sleep Christmas Eve, so I would usually give up my quest for sleep around 3:30 a.m. and pester my other siblings until 7:30 a.m. when we could finally go into Mom and Dad's room for family prayer, then for Dad to turn on the Christmas lights, get the camcorder ready, and us kids to line up at the top of the stairs (used to be youngest to oldest, 'til I became the shorty and now we line up shortest to tallest) then Mom would call downstairs to Dad, "Steve, did Santa Claus come?", which he would make some smart alec reply and then we were able to attempt to make it down the stairs without anyone getting seriously injured. Here's the pick catch and the reason for my long rant about Christmas mornings, there was a pickle. The tradition is that Santa Claus hides the pickle somewhere in the tree and the first to find the pickle receives an extra present. Cassidie and Kayleen used to be serious brutes about it and I've only been able to successfully locate the pickle only once in my life, but again, I love the significance behind this silly ornament and it makes me smile every time I see it on my tree.

This is my ultra special Madeline ornament given to me by my Mom when I was a teenager so it has been around for a while (explanation for the poor severed hand!). I loved the Madeline books by Ludwig Bemelmans when I was a child (I especially loved the line, "She was not afraid of mice, she loved winter, snow and ice. To the tiger in the zoo, Madeline said, 'poo poo'.". My Mom could just about recite the whole Madeline book to me, I loved it so much. I loved the name Madeline as a little girl and when I was in high school, my foreign language teacher required us to take French names listed in our textbook, Madeleine (pronounced Mad-uh-lyn) was the closest to Madeline I could get. Yep, so that's how our little Madeleine got her name!

We love to collect ornaments from places we've been, so if you've been a loyal blog reader, you'll remember our trip to Chattanooga a little over a year ago when we saw Rock City. I love looking at these ornaments and remembering the fun places and times we have spent together as a family.

I hope your Christmas season is filled with as much joy as mine has been reflecting on all the things that I am so grateful and happy with the hope of a better tomorrow. Thank you for being a part of my life and for sticking through this long nostalgic post.

Work it baby

I can't wait to get some "real" newborn shots of this baby - I need to convince her mom that I PROMISE not to overstimulate her baby - I mean come on - look at her, she's screaming "Aunt Kara, take my picture!" She's already a natural model. I can't wait to get a good shot of her adorable strawberry blonde hair (just like her mommy's), and I wish you could record smells, because she is yummy! Madeleine can't wait for her to get big enough so she can "play" with her.

Cammie Jane

Cammie Jane was born to Scott and Cassidie last night (or this morning) at 1:48 a.m. Weighing 6 lbs. 13 oz. and 18 inches long.

Who Doesn't Like to EAT?

A short answer - Madeleine.

A long answer and update, keep reading!

I have been up to my eyeballs lately with processing images and making tutus - I've been feeling like Madeleine's updates have really taken a back burner.

She has been an interesting toddler - hmmm, that is the nice way of saying she has hit her terrible twos way to early. She wants up - you pick her up, she starts screaming (we're thinking she's saying, "why the heck did you pick me up?" you put her down, the cycle continues! We were really spoiled with such an easy baby so I'm sure she may seem perfectly common in comparison - luckily the one thing we still have going for us is her ability to be an excellent sleeper. She still naps twice a day for about 2 hours each and sleeps from 8-8 at night. On the opposite scale, she is a TERRIBLE eater. Any ideas from you creative moms? I am all ears - I would stand on my head at dinner time if it would get her to eat more. I don't know why she's had such a dropoff interest in food. As a baby she ate EVERYTHING! There really was nothing I would give her as a baby that she wouldn't eat. We went to the doctor for her 15 month checkup (this was the followup after we had that nice kidney scare), she was weighed and again she is not even on the growth chart for weight. She is 17 lbs 12 oz and 29 1/2 inches long (at least the 25% for height!). I was really hoping it would be now tagged as genetics - nope! Now they want to do allergy testing. Okay, back to the foods she will eat. She loves just about any fruit and could really eat that all day, vegetables are another story - it's difficult to get her to eat any of them. She will do some chicken (depends on her mood) and some bacon, but meats in general aren't what she would go for. She does okay with breads - obviously loves crackers, cakes and cookies, and does okay with beans. I've been giving her two packets of instant oatmeal with the complex carbohydrate supplement the doctor gave me to give her and she loves that because she is learning to feed herself, but it makes a royal MESS! She's just started doing better drinking milk - the doctor reccomended giving her Pediasure or Carnation Instant Breakfast so we do the latter (it tastes like a milkshake so she downs those!) which reminds me - she LOVES ice cream and milkshakes. She is hit or miss with cheese, and I used to give her the Yo Baby yogurts, but recently stopped because I think it is causing her to have more than the normal diaper changes (if you catch my drift). I dread mealtime because it is such a battle (even though I don't want it to appear as such for her - I don't want her to have any negative connotations with meal/snack time). The parent I thought I would be with giving food is totally a lost thought. I thought I would be a tough love parent when it came to food - I did not want to raise a picky eater, now I think whatever will work to give her nutrition, I am game for. I try to give her a variety of foods each mealtime, but most end up on the floor with her screaming holy terror - leaving me a good 30 minutes of cleanup. I've really tried to limit her fruits to give her an opportunity to try other foods - it doesn't work, she just won't eat until she has something she will, and as soon as she gets down, she immediately runs to where the snacks are kept begging for those. Can you sense my frustration? The doctor said to continue to give her variety (I do) and when I asked about her pickiness he told me to be firm until dinner time and if she hasn't eaten anything all day then be more lenient. Could someone please tell me where I can pick up the instruction manual for being a parent?!?

Okay - off my eating rant :)

She is absolutely the joy of our lives, and we couldn't imagine what life would be without her in it. We keep working with her on her language development, so far she can say: uh-oh, momma, dadda, hot, hi, all gone, tickle, and bye. At the moment she thinks all animals sound like a dog - and she could find a dog in the most remote places. She used to say boo for the cow, but lately it's still a oo oo for a dog. We ran into a little girl at the park that was born the day after Madeleine, and she knew the duck said quack quack (this personally had me in disgust because I have been working on that one for MONTHS!!!) the other day she said kack kack for the duck, but it has made an appearance since.

She is a dancer - if you know me, you know how near and dear this is to my heart! I love it and I can't wait until she's old enough to get in dance. If she's not running, doing her frankenstein walk (both arms outstretched in front of her) then she's doing her moves. If she hears the Sesame Street theme song, she starts bouncing to the beat. Or she'll do her dancing walk where she moves her elbow back and forth while twisting her wrist - I love her rythm :).

She's such a big girl and can climb and scoot down the stairs, and can get down from mommy and daddy's big bed all by herself. Luckily she's not tall enough so we don't have problems with her climbing on the furniture or tables (yet!).

At night night she sleeps with a blanket (no particular one), her baby doll (Daddy wants her to call it Dolly, Mommy just calls it baby), and her stinkin' pacifier. Oh the things I swore I wouldn't do as a parent - call me a complete hypocrite - the paci is here to stay for the immediate future.

She can find her belly button, head, hair, teeth, toungue, eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

She loves to be outdoors and likes to pick up leaves. She can go down big slides and has a big smile when she comes down at the bottom.

We love our little girl and our so grateful that she is able to be a part of our family.

My Backyard

I can complain a good bit about my house not being done, but one of my most favorite things about my house is my yard. My kitchen faces the backyard and every year I think about taking pictures from it to remember the change in seasons, but I always forget or I get caught up in other things. I was walking by today and was stunned yet again by the beautiful trees in my backyard and today I thought I would share :)

Tagged!

Thanks Melinda! I guess this is an update to this tag :) And if anyone missed it :) click here for my quirks post.

Five things I was doing 10 years ago:
1. Just graduated from Ricks College
2. Working at my most favorite job EVER - Marketing Assistant at Trammell Crow (I loved Roxanne, Michele, and Jack and all the wonderful, fabulous people there) - I cried when I left that job to go back to school and I wonder to this day why I ever left
3. Partied (in the nice Mormon sense of the word) way too late at night with Heather and gang
4. Started dancing (clogging) with Scotty Bilz
5. Driving around in my dad's Ford Taurus

Five things on my to do list:
1. I'm with Melinda, I also have to work on some photo processing
2. Go to WalMart to buy a trash can with a lid (my toddler found out how much fun it is to play in the trash)
3. Take Madeleine to the park
4. Cassidie's coming over to get some maternity shots before that baby comes (she's dialated to 2 cm and the baby is very low so it should be soon!)
5. Make a hot pink and green tutu for a repeat customer (yay!)

Five Snacks I Enjoy:
1. Shanna I hear you LOUD and clear about the chips and french onion dip - that is one of my favorite munchies!
2. My dad's chocolate chip cookies
3. Boiled peanuts
4. Chik-fil-A french fries and lemonade (this is my fix for a bad day!)
5. Liquid gold (aka white cheese dip) and chips

Five things I would do if I were a millionaire:
1. Invest it so I could make sure my family never had to worry about money.
2. Give and give - I love that feeling you get when you are able to help others. Kayleen and Isaac were eating out one time with Dylan really acting up, and an anonymous stranger paid for their meal - I would love to be that anonymous stranger.
3. Buy a house in the country that didn't need ANY remodeling - same house for 5 years and I haven't been able to use my master shower for that long (not to mention the unfinished kitchen) - hmmmm, can you say wife of an extremely busy carpenter
4. Bribe my sister to move back to Georgia - I don't know how others do it, but I HATE not having ALL my family close.
5. Pay for the best medical care so that I could (hopefully) carry my own child, and if that wasn't in the cards - adopt a million more children

Five places I have lived:
1. Lawrenceville, GA
2. Loganville, GA
3. Rexburg, ID
4. Salt Lake City, UT
5. Athens, GA

Five jobs I have had:
1. Teacher
2. Video Clerk (thanks to my parent's OZ Video I couldn't get fired if I wanted to!)
3. Marketing Rep
4. Mom
5. Garden Nursery Assistant/Cashier

I tag anyone who wants to update your blog!

Halloween!

For Halloween we (Kayleen, Mom, Dad and I) invited ourselves over to Cassidie's house for her to make dinner for us (yummy chili with all the fixin's, jalapeno cornbread, and brownies for dessert) and enjoy having Dylan and Madeleine trick or treating together for their first official door to door experience. We brought a wagon for them to pulled around - they were so cute! Kayleen made Dylan's precious lion costume - Kayleen and I almost dressed up as zoo keepers, well, Kayleen wanted to be a lion tamer. At first when we set out, we thought we weren't going to get anyone to answer their doors. We went to about 7 doors and no one was answering. Cassidie lives in a humongous neighborhood and most people go to the front to trick or treat, so a lot of the people in the back just don't even bother! We were able to get a few people to open their doors and then bundled in the car to drive to the front of the neighborhood. The little animals were trick or treating champs! They would (with help) walk up to the front door and collect their little candy treasures. So cute and so much fun having a little one to take trick or treating - just another joy I have from finally realizing my dream to be a parent.

Skunk tracks...

Ready to go!

In the wagon, Daddy's pulling with their loyal subjects following!

Maddy's thinking, "This lady is really giving me candy? SWEET!"

Madeleine doing her own redistribution of wealth...

Holding her prize!

Trunk or Treat

Our church always has a Halloween celebration around Halloween, but this year we decided to hang out with family and went to Anne and Shaun's ward Trunk or Treat. I didn't know ahead of time, but Andrew's brothers Steve and his kids and Aaron and Becky came with their kids as well as Andrew's parents - we all ended up crashing the party! It was so much fun; I'm so glad we went! We had a chili cookoff (I entered and lost to a white chili - hmmm, does that really count as a chili?) so lots of yummy things to eat. Then we had a special appearance by the "real" Jonas Brothers (my bro-in-law Shaun, and his neighbors (brothers Tim and Chris) as well as friend Grant) - their "performance" can be viewed here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM8ka77-pi0. We then had a parade of costumes with awards for the best, then a haunted house, hayride, and of course the trunk or treating. Madeleine could not quite understand why people were giving her candy, but she wasn't upset by that! She loved holding her little bucket and going from car to car.

My nieces and nephews were so cute in their costumes, but I have a special place in my heart for my little stinker. Madeleine was a skunk this year for Halloween, so fitting, not because of her smelliness, but because of her innate ability to get into EVERYTHING! I was delighted to find her whole costume, brand-new, at a consignment sale for only $5!

Here's the pictures from our fun night:

Cydney, a voting box

Kaitlyn and Jenna

My stinker with my big stinker

Savannah and friend

Aunt Becky and the skunk

Gavin

Hannah

Cooper and Tanner

The Real Jonas Brothers

Shaun at his finest - such feeling!

Madeleine with Nana

One happy skunk

Daddy Skunk
Mommy skunk (love the look I'm getting - Mom, do you really think you can pull that off?)

Mmmmm, candy is GOOD!