My quirky post...

I have been tagged to outline 6 of my quirks. I know I am a very quirky person, but just trying to think of 6 all together has taken me a few days. So here I go...

1. When I unload the dishwasher with the plastic bowls (which are in 4 different colors), I have to make sure the colors are separated - so no pink and pink, it must be pink, green, purple, and blue - or in whatever order so that it's no two of the same together. Weird? Definitely, but keep reading!
2. I talk to all the drivers around me - some say it could be road rage, I definitely would not say it is so harsh. I've been a LOT better with Madeleine with me - so now the drivers that don't do what I would like them to do are now referred to as "ding dongs" or "doofus".
3. I LOVE the mail, it is seriously an obsession, stemmed from being a little girl receiving my birthday cards from my aunt and grandparents at my birthday and fueled into overdrive while 2,000 miles away at college, I take that back, really crazy into the mail when I was waiting for my husband to return home from his mission. I think the mailman must have thought I was pyscho all the colorful mail going to and from my mailbox. The funny thing was growing up I had the most awesome mailman - Dennis, and when we moved into the house we are now in (across the street from the neighborhood I grew up in) we had the same mailman. He was fabulous - so friendly would always stop and talk and would never drive by without waving - I almost cried two years ago when he retired. I understand that evite is super simple and convenient, but there is nothing better than receiving an invitation in the mail.
4. I am slowly outgrowing this next quirk. When Madeleine was first born (and up until she was about a year), I was obsessed with keeping her clean - and from strangers touching her. I still cannot understand what would possess a stranger to come up and touch my baby's face/hands (YUCK!) I was definitely not afraid to tell well meaning strangers to keep their hands to themselves - a little zany, yes, but I credit my craziness with keeping my baby from having any illness in her first year. Now I try to tell myself that it is okay for her to be around a little bit of germs, I've actually read that it actually helps improve a developing immune system and in some instances can possibly help a child from developing food allergies or diabetes - we'll see. So I'm a work in progress on this one.
5. Everynight before I go to bed I HAVE to brush my teeth, wash my face, and say my night time prayer - I cannot sleep until my "routine" is complete!
6. Memories mean everything to me, I have a "memory box" that I've kept with ridiculous memorabilia since I was a small child. I have a hard time throwing away "memories" - like Andrew wanting to throw away our ski tags from this past winter's ski trip. He has helped me to be better on throwing more away, but it is still hard sometimes. That is why pictures are so important to me. Andrew's mom died when he was 10 and there are not a whole lot of pictures from when he was little - it makes me so sad! I know a lot of my friends are surprised sometimes by the things I remember, but it's just because they mean a lot to me and I don't like to forget. Scrapbooking has been a great outlet for this quirk, and I have especially enjoyed diving into the digital scrapbooking era.

So I hope you have gotten just a little bit of enjoyment from my quirks, and I hope your day is great!

October Desktop

I love Shabby Princess, if you are ever interested in learning digital scrapbooking - you would truly be amiss if you did not spend some time at her site. Her designs are probably my absolute favorite, and as a huge bonus she offers several items for free download for you to get started (see here). Another thing I love about Shabby Princess is that monthly they create a new design for your desktop, all you do is plop your pictures in (I use Adobe Photoshop Elements) and voila! you have your own personalized desktop. Desktops can be downloaded off the Shabby Princess Blog (see here).

Will somebody please tell my mommy my bow is too big?

I could not help myself - it is absolutely ridiculous and I LOVE IT! Love Mommy.

13 Month Pictures

Madeleine's "latest" photo shoot! Capturing a 1 year old is always interesting - you take a million pictures in the hopes of a few good ones, I really like these to remind me of her in this stage in life.

This is her "gimmee" hands, in case you were wondering - "Mama, quit standing there taking pictures - come get me!"

A 12/13 month catchup

So I have been very lazy on posting about Madeleine's latest tricks, and even if you don't care - I care to keep it here so that I have it recorded somewhere!

At 12 months Madeleine:

• sleeps from 8-8 (sometimes 8:30-9 a.m.)
• takes 2 naps - 1st 2 hrs after awaking for about 2 hours and 2nd 2 hrs after waking up from the last!
• loves fruit! She would turn into a blueberry, peach, banana, pineapple, or watermelon if it was possible!
• does not like veggies - except corn - this is the constant battle in our house
• started to say Mama and mean it
• 1st word was uh oh! - I also think she can say hot and I used to think she could say Hi!
• will fold her arms to say prayer
• loves to 'read' "Goodnight Moon", scripture stories, and Dr. Suess' ABC's (to name a small few)
• runs everywhere
• can point to her head
• grew 4 new teeth (these were cutting right before her birthday - that was NOT a fun week) - so now there are 4 on top and 4 on the bottom
• loves to 'talk' on the phone
• gave up the bottle entirely - it is sippy cups and cups with straws from now on
• tucks her arms underneath her and snuggles in really close

At 13 months:

• still sleeps the same! (HALLELUJAH!)
• prefers fruit above anything else, but also likes black beans, crackers, ICE CREAM, Yo Baby Yogurts, cheese, Carnation Instant Breakfasts (vanilla and chocolate), Chik-fil-a chicken nuggets, orange soda (thanks to Daddy), pizza, and french toast stcks (a small sampling :)
• loves to play outside - I got her a small bike at the consignment sales for $4, she loves it! We also have a little wagon she likes to take rides in. Although, the outside playing does take it's toll, she has all sorts of scrapes from busting it on the concrete - not so nice on the learning curve.
• barely started to say Dadda
• has rediscovered the bouncy seat as a really fun place to sit
• knows where her bellybutton, mouth, teeth, and nose are
• knows the "Itsy, Bitsy Spider" motions (at least the spider part)
• knows what a dog says (arf arf)
• can spin around in circles and walk backwards
• loves to dance
• can climb up on her new rocking horse (it looks just like this one Kayleen got at a consignment sale - except Maddy's is a darker color)
• can climb stairs like a champion, but thanks to a "supervised" caught fall is too scared to go down by herself, not a bad thing
• when she knows it is a soft surface she loves to "fall down" and laugh
• started with the "gimmee" hands when she wants something (usually to be held)
• loves to play with other kids, it's really funny - at home she is super clingy and has to have me around, but with other kids she is like "See 'ya"
• loves to give hugs - both arms wrapped around my side (I love this)
• loves all cell phones, remote controls and any other object Mom and Dad don't want her to have
• loves to have her picture taken, then look at the picture on the camera - she (like all kids) enjoys the instant satisfaction of seeing themselves

This has been the best 13 months (almost 14 months) of our life - I'm so thankful this little one was brought into our home.

12 Month Checkup - Ouch!

Our most difficult recent news happened with Madeleine's one year checkup. I knew that she was small. We have always been ultra concerned about getting her as much food as possible, but her biological family is petite, so I wasn't super concerned. Well at her checkup the doctor was concerned, and wanted to run some blood tests, "just to make sure". I had to run down Madeleine's eating schedule to make sure she was getting an adequate intake - that was fine and if not above average.

Drawing blood on my baby was the worst thing EVER! I am big on vaccinations, my wonderful aunt contracted polio as a child and while I know there is valid concerns on all the spectrums in regards to autism, I am still very pro vaccinations. So when Madeleine has these shots, I know they bother her, but I feel very strongly that she has them so it makes it a little less difficult, I usually sing to her while she is getting vaccinated and usually she will only cry for less than a minute and is then fine for the rest of the day. Drawing blood was a whole 'nother story! It took two nurses and me to hold her down to insert the needle, and even though she has good veins, her still squirming would cause her vein to collapse, making it necessary to move to the other arm there in term the same sequence would follow with the vein collapsing again - I told them I didn't care what it took, I was NOT coming back to do this again so they better get whatever blood they needed TODAY! Over thirty minutes later with my poor baby screaming uncontrollably the entire time it was finished (and so was I!). I was so exhausted by trying to hold it together while the whole ordeal was being done that as soon as I came in the house I collapsed and cried and cried.


The next day I received a call from the doctor with the news, her blood was extremely acidic and her levels were off directing a kidney problem, most likely Renal Tubular Acidosis, where her body is unable to maintain Ph balance, causing all her intake be burned trying. This has resulted in her falling off the growth curve for her weight (she was only 17 lbs 1 oz). We were then instructed to schedule a visit with the nephrologist at Emory to have them review the results.



Yesterday was our visit with the specialist. I was so thankful that Andrew was also able to be there because I had no idea what the day would have in store for us. We had to first have her put a bag on to collect urine and then we were told to go next door to Egelston to have fresh labs drawn. Yuck, that meant more blood to be drawn. All in all it was so much easier, the nurse did a better job hitting the vein and I think Andrew's presence also calmed her, she still cried but it was NOTHING like last time. We finished up at the lab and went back to the doctor's office to await our results. Fortunately the doctor came back with some excellent news - she was completely normal. Having immediate labs drawn minimizes any skew to the test data and results are more accurate. The doctor figured that by being sent out to a lab caused the Ph in the blood to change by timing and other boring factors - we were just happy to hear we would not be frequenting the nephrologist.



To celebrate a clean bill of health, we took Madeleine to Chuck E. Cheeses for dinner. We had not been since we were both children - it was so much fun! Madeleine loved going on the little rides and we had fun being big kids playing skee-ball and shooting baskets. We even got our family sketch done!




Thanks for all the well wishes and prayers on our behalf during this difficult month in limbo - we are very thankful that all is well.

No longer a baby, but always my baby

Madeleine turned 1 at the first of August. For her birthday I took her to Smoothie King to get a smoothie for lunch - she especially liked being a big girl and sipping out of the straw. For dinner we took her to Chik-fil-a, she loves that place, and we can use all the calories that we can put in that little body. She had her usual chicken nuggets and then got to play like a big girl in the playground.

The next day was her birthday party. We had a birthday pool party at Andrew's parents' home. It was so much fun, Madeleine's birth family was able to come and we had Anne and Shaun, Aaron and Becky, Nana and Grandpa Opp, Nana and Papa Mills, Cassidie and Uncle Scotty-body, Kayleen and Isaac, and all the cousins as well as Erik and Alicia and their cute boys - so quite the crowd! We ordered pizza and swam, I made the best move to turn over my camera and camcorder so that I wasn't worried about capturing memories and was more involved in making them! It was really great to have Steven and Melissa (Madeleine's birth parents) able to come up with Gavin and Aiden (Madeleine's birth brothers), we love them so much and know we would not be able to celebrate this special day without them. I feel deeply indebted to my Heavenly Father for the blessings of such a great family.

I made Madeleine's little princess outfit for her birthday - a tutu, "crown", and princess shirt - I am working on setting up a little business of selling these tutu's - so if you are interested, let me know! I think they are darling and just so much fun! She did great eating her birthday cupcake and blowing out the candle on her big birthday cake and she kept saying Ooooooo after opening each present - so cute!

Thanks to everyone who was able to make it there for her special day!