ONE YEAR OLD!!!

I can't believe little Maggie Grace is a year old already!!! I must say this past year was the best of my life so far!!! I look forward to new milestones as Maggie learns to walk, talk, and do all that other "big girl" stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Maggie has been doing great! She's not walking independently yet, but I don't imagine it will be much longer. She has grown her first two teeth, and we think she's working on some top teeth. Soon she'll be chomping away. She loves to dance, sing and clap, and is just a silly silly girl. It's hard to believe she'll be a year old in less than a month!!! I love her so much!

Cute photos

Maggie has her first tooth now, and is working on the next one! She had a rough patch after that first tooth popped through because we decided it was time to take the pacifier away. She didn't use it much anyway, but her sleepy time routine was different without it. In spite of sore gums, and a few fussy moments, she has been quite the trooper with this whole teething thing!!! Her favorite thing to do now is to "cruise" from couch to couch. I think she'll be walking soon enough!

Goofy Girl

Maggie loves the camera!

Has it really been over a month???

Well, what a month it has been! This little girl sits up all by herself, and can crawl! Not up on her hands and knees yet, but she sort of "inch-worms" or "army crawls" her way all over the room. She is so smart, too. She loves trying to figure out how things work, and she even gets frustrated when she can't make her toys do what she wants them to do!!!
At her last visit to the doctor, she was in the 25th percentile for weight, but she had jumped up to the 90% for height! She's getting tall.
Maggie loves playing outside, looking at the trees and nature, and she also loves dogs. Nothing gets her giggling like watching a dog play. She has the sweetest little laugh, and almost always has a smile on her face. What a blessing she is! I never realized how much joy a baby can give to EVERYONE!!! People in the store, people at restaurants, people wherever we go always end up smiling when they see little Maggie. I guess her smile is contagious. Get ready to smile!

Cutie pie

Maggie just keeps getting cuter!!! She is so much fun. I just love being her Mommy!!!

6 months...That's half a year!!!

Well, this little one just keeps growing, no matter how I tell her to stay little. But each month just brings new fun little developments. Maggie likes to roll from one end of a room to the other...her favorite mode of transportation. She also loves playing "airplane" where she's on her tummy and flaps her arms and kicks her legs. We're still waiting on those little teeth to pop through. Maggie is quite skilled at grabbing things and putting them straight into her mouth. I had to retire her swing last week. She kept trying to roll over while sitting in it. Her bouncy seat is still a favorite, though. She's eating like a champ! Fruits are still a little sour for her, so she's not a fan of those yet. Sweet potatoes, peas, and her cereal are her favorites. She just finished TWO bowls of cereal. Yeah, I know!
I just want to take a minute to say how much we appreciate everyone who has helped us with Maggie at one point or another. We are so fortunate to have so many people willing to take care of her if we ever need them to, and we have had so much given to us! It has made things SO easy for us, and gotten rid of a lot of potential headaches. Maggie has never been sick, except for after shots, and I feel that is mostly due to the GREAT care of Grandmas, Grandpas, Great Grandmas and Grandpas, Aunts, Uncles, and so on down the line. We are so grateful to all of you for the love you've shown to Maggie and to us. I can't express how much it means!
Here are some pics and videos!

Father's Day

Brian is SUCH a good father to little Maggie. She sure loves him!!! I know she can't say so yet, but I can tell.

Summer's here!

Maggie had her first dip in the pool last Monday when Aunt Amy and the girls were in town. It was a little cold for her yet, but she seemed to like it a little bit! She's been eating cereal and orange veggies like a champ!!! She's starting to get chunky in her little legs and arms.
Maggie is just too much fun!!! She loves to reach out and grab things...hair, cheeks, Penny, etc. This week she had been doing really well about laying down in bed and going right to sleep at night. She's growing up!!!
Here are some fun pictures of the little sweetie pie!

Giggles!

We caught Maggie giggling on film! She's been laughing a lot more often these days, and it is the best thing EVER!!! I just love hearing her laugh. Penny is her favorite thing to laugh at today. Friday it was an egg shaker that Danny from work gave to her. That's when Brian caught her with the camera.
My flowers are doing well! Some still haven't bloomed, but the ones that I thought weren't going to make it are looking fine now! Penny has only gotten into the flowers once since we planted them, so that's good.
Saturday we took Penny and Maggie to the park. Penny was so excited when we came through the entrance that she started shaking. There were lots of people there having graduation parties, and she of course wanted to say "hi" to all of them. Maggie was only awake for a few minutes in her stroller before the nice breeze and outdoor sights and sounds put her right to sleep. I got some much needed exercise, and we hall had a great Saturday.
Last weekend I decided to take my easel out onto the porch to paint. It was a good idea until the rainclouds rolled in and blocked out the sun. It's not easy to paint in the dark. Everything is still sitting out there, waiting for me to finish!
I tried to upload the video of Maggie laughing, but it is too long...I'll get a shorter one soon.
Instead I'll post a cute picture of Maggie visiting with her cousins yesterday!

We did it!!!

We planted all the flowers! In the back yard, we had to clear away some grass to make our flower bed bigger. We have two pampas grass plants, some white vinca, dahlia's, gazanias, snap dragons, and more. A few of the snap dragons look a bit wilted but hopefully with some good watering they will look better. Brian's job was to clear the spot, which turned out to be quite a dirty task, and my job was to plant the plants.

As you can see in the photos below, there is still some work to be done. There are lots of weeds by the fence that need pulled, and we need to put down some mulch.

I have some planters on the front porch, and I decided to plant some wave petunias in them this year. They are looking good so far. I have also included some pictures of my house plants. My spider plant had a baby, and my aloe plant has been revived. Maggie watched us plant the flowers, and Penny tried to help. She's been really good about staying out of the new flower bed!

There were some plants sprouting in the back yard last year that Brian usually just mowed over, but this year we let them grow and discovered that they are peonies! They are blooming now, and look very pretty! I'm glad we let them grow this time.

It was so nice to spend the day outside. One of my favorite things to do when I was growing up was to help Mom plant her flowers. I look forward to Maggie helping me someday! I can't get enough of this beautiful weather. I am really loving our porch this week! I could just sit out there and listen to the birds all day. It would be better if there weren't noisy cars driving by 24/7.

Daddy's Graduation, Mother's Day

Hooray for Daddy! Brian is done with school, and has TWO degrees to show for it! We are so proud of him. He is now taking trombone lessons from Mr. Stewart at Indiana University, and is sending out his impressive resume to several job leads in the Packaging industry. I know it won't be long before someone snatches him up!

What did I get for my first Mothers' Day? I got to hear my little girl laugh for the first time! I wish I could bottle that sound up and store it for a rainy day. There's nothing better for lifting your mood than hearing those giggles! Apparently Roger and Brooke's dogs are hilarious. Maggie thinks so, anyway. I haven't caught her laughing on film yet (it is a rare occurrence when it's just the two of us...I guess I'm not that funny) but when I do, I will be sure to share it!

I plan to plant flowers today. I have to pull weeds first, so we'll see. Mom brought me some perennial seeds, black-eyed susans and coreopsis, that I will start in some pots, and I bought a flat of annuals on Friday that need planted. Hopefully Penny won't destroy the flowers in the back yard. We'll see.

More fun toys!!!

I put Maggie's highchair together this week. She felt like such a big girl when she sat in it for the first time!!! We also put together the rain forest bouncy seat thing we got from Jaime. She LOVES it. Here are some videos and pictures of little miss Maggie enjoying her life!!!

Easter dress and more!!!

Little Maggie is going to be 4 months old this week!!! It's just going by too fast! She looked so beautiful for Palm Sunday and Easter. On Palm Sunday we had Maggie's Baby Dedication at church. Family came to the special event, and we had a wonderful time.
Maggie is talking to her mobile in her swing right now...It's pretty hilarious. She loves to gurgle!!!
Brian is graduating on May 9th!!! Hopefully God will provide a good job for Brian and we can stay close to friends and family! He's been really busy this week preparing for his final trombone recital. Next week he will be busy finishing up his senior project for his packaging degree. I think he's ready to be done with school.
Three people were laid off at my work last week. I think I'm safe, but there's no way to know for sure. I do work hard while I'm there, so hopefully that means something! I love that place...It's sad that they had to let people go.
I'm looking forward to the warm days ahead. I just feel more motivated to do things when it's sunny out! Plus, I'd like to take Maggie on walks outside. It was so cold when she was born that she didn't get out much (Mommy didn't either) but now that the weather is warming up, we can get out and see some nature!!!
Well, here is a video of some Maggie talk.

Sleeping

Maggie and I are mouth-breathers...hehe!

3 months old!

Maggie turned 3 months old yesterday! She becomes more fun every day. She came to work with me for about an hour on Saturday, and everyone loved her...of course! She is recovering from the busy weekend right now by taking an extra long nap. Here are some silly pictures of Maggie!

Super Daddy

Brian watched Maggie two days in a row, and she is still in one piece! Not that I expected anything different, but he did a great job. She's definitely going to be a "daddy's girl." They watch golf together (Maggie through her eyelids), and she just loves to snuggle on Daddy's lap! It's too cute. Then when she starts to fuss, it's Mommy's turn. I don't mind. She's just too sweet and cuddly!!! Brian watched her yesterday while I cleaned the windows on the porch. That took forever and a day! If you haven't seen the windows, they're sort of like blinds made of glass. They open up with a crank to let air in on the porch, which is really neat, but made them very difficult to clean. And boy were they dirty!
Maggie loves to lay in her crib and watch her Winnie the Pooh mobile. She does what I call her "exercises" where she flails her arms and kicks her legs super-fast! It looks like she's dancing to the music of her mobile. She breaks out in a big grin whenever she hears it start to play. She's watched some more of her Baby Einstein videos...I think I enjoy them as much as she does...I'm watching one right now, and she's not even in the room!
I'm getting really excited about my sister-in-law Amber having her baby!!! She's going to have a girl probably any time now! Her due date is April 6th I think, but her first two kids were born 3 weeks early. I can't wait!!!
Well, I have some serious cleaning to do!!! I better get started while Miss Maggie is nappin'!