Easter Baby

Hi all!! We've had quite the week or two. Matt has now been named the head football coach of Wauwatosa West!!! We are so proud of him!! He had his first interview this past week, and tomorrow he has his first photo shoot-that's the big leagues baby!! Praise God for the goodness he's given!

Matt hit up a snow goose trip in South Dakota for Easter, and i believe on their last day alone they shot 23 geese. So while he was off having fun, i decided i didn't want to get stuck in the 14 inches of snow that was about to fall, so i headed down to Iowa for the weekend (where there was no snow!). We had a ton of fun (as always!).

Maizy is growing like a weed! I now understand what my mom meant when she'd say "i just want to bottle you up and keep you this way"! She is 10 months today, and it is so hard to accept the fact that she is such a big girl already. Not only is she a speed crawler, but she walks along anything that is (semi) stable-the round coffee table, the entertainment center, the toilet, our legs, everything! Maizy just talks and talks and talks in her own little language-marble mouth is what i call it. It's so fun to just talk along with her. I wonder what she thinks she's saying?!

Blessings!!

Hammy Ham Bone

We have quite the character in our house! It amazes us the discoveries she makes each day as her world continues to expand. I'm looking at a picture of her from around november where she's sitting in her exersaucer playing, happy as a lark. I'm just laughing because when we put her in it now, she looks at us like "what are you doing?! I can't believe you're sticking me in this when i can crawl everywhere and play with the rest of the house!". Yep, that will get packed away soon! The swing just did. Everything is of interest to her, our little sponge. Sometimes i feel so inadequate because this little life has so much to learn, and we're the ones who are responsible for showing her, and it gets a little overwhelming trying to pack all of it in when we're together. Maizy really loves exploring everything for herself though, drawers are opened, the entertainment center now has nothing on it because it's a climbing wall/jungle gym for her. She has become our little shadow too. I'll run into the kitchen for a second and go back to the family room where she was, and the little crawler is already headed into the kitchen. It's kind of funny-walk in a circle, and she'll gladly follow! We're just so blessed with Maizy-she makes us so happy, and lights up our lives. It's just incredible. I feel bad that we haven't updated the blog lately, but she really keeps us on our toes!! Matt realized the other night that we didn't have a picture of her sleeping, so he snuck in and took some of her (i thought you were supposed to leave a sleeping baby alone?!).

This past weekend, Maizy's grama Ginny came to play while I was on a women's retreat. It only took a minute or two for Maizy to pull out her hammy ham bone charm, and once the switch was turned on, it stayed on!! Matt, Maizy and Ginny shopped till they dropped and we are fully ready for the summer weather-now, all we need is the weather to change!! Maizy showed off all of her skills-clapping, so big, crawling, pulling up (and even letting go!), climbing, mimicing, and our favorite-chatting up a storm. We had her 9 month check up (i know, i can't believe she's 9 months already!) and she's a petite one, weighing in at 16 pounds, and 27 inches. Carol, who watches Maizy during the day, has lovingly deemed her "half-pint", and Maizy is beginning to take on a Napolean complex, overcompensating for her size. She has no quams trying to be a big kid already, and will do whatever she can to keep up with the rest of them.

Enjoy the pix!!

Building an Ark

Hoping this finds you warm and dry. We, on the other hand, are getting there. We had ice damming on our roof which leaked in through our crawl space, down to the family room, down to the new basement on sunday when all of that terrential rain hit. After poking around at the bubbling paint on the family room wall and ceiling, we slit it open and water drained out of it for the day. We are so fortunate though, this could have been totally worse. Had the rain seeped in 12 inches to the right, our storage space would've been soaked, then onto our couch and then down to top of the poker table (yikes!). The damage is fixable, and this just means the priority list of house projects bumped "new roof" to number one now. Oh, the joys of home owning!!

It's very interesting the perception children have of their surroundings when something is going on. Maizy could tell something was "off" with the house (and us for that matter), and kept looking at the hole in the ceiling. Fortunate for us, my dad came and helped Matt, and my mom got Maizy and I out of the house.

Other than that, it's rather obvious that i havent' blogged you lately, and i do apologize. Now that we have a completely mobile child, there is no such thing as turning your back for a minute to type something up quick! No joke! Maizy's really into everything, which is good. She is just a ton of fun and brings so much joy to us. This past week, her top two front teeth came through and she has fun bringing her lower jaw up and out to touch her bottom teeth to her top teeth, making a hysterical face. When she eats, we're giving her more of our food. Not a fan of ground beef (much to her dad's dismay), but loves green beans, carrots, chicken noodle soup (courtesy of great nana!), cookies (courtesy of grama kim!), and whatever else the little vacuum can find laying on the floor-especially non-edible items.

Diaper changing time used to be so quick and easy for us. Now, someone thinks it's fun to sit straight up or roll over the whole time. So what used to take a minute, now is a battle of the wills for about 8 minutes (again, the determination and stubborness of matt and i combined into her is ever so funny of god!). But bath time has become very interesting as well. No longer do we want to sit in the tub, or just lay there. Oh no, Maizy must crawl all over the tub, trying to pull herself up on the side, smiling at her reflection on that metal thing in the tub, pulling at that fun drain knob, etc. Bath time used to be only a few minutes, and last night it was 25 minutes! Someone is definately a water baby.

Many things are striking her curiosity as she explores her newly expanding world. For one thing, she is just baffled by sound when she doesn't see someone speaking, ie, the radio or speaker phone. Then try to explain to her about music and where the sound comes from, or that it's grama on the phone trying to talk to her. Way to complicated!! So instead of trying to say hi to someone on the phone, she just waves instead. Gotta giver her credit though. When she is scooting around exploring, surprisingly she's not getting into our things, like the potted plants or vases. However, when the neighbor boys came over to play, they discovered our shelf on the coffee table and that's when she sparked an interest in the items on there (which are now off of it!). So aside from banning the boys from coming and playing (just kidding!), if we don't make a big deal out of it, she could care less about it.

Much more to come!!! Blessings upon you all!!

Full of Fun!

Well, we officially have a crawler!!! Maizy's been rocking on her hands and knees, and last night i dangled the carrot in front of her and got her going. Crazy what a cell phone will get you to do! She still prefers to roll everywhere, which is totally fine with us. She's getting into enough already (ate a leaf off the hibiscus plant this weekend). So for now, it's fun and cute to see her creep around. During her rolling and creeping, she found matt's goose calls on the floor, picked them up and started blowing like a kazoo into them-monkey see monkey do! Here i though i'd have a little ballerina, now we're apparently going to have a champion goose caller!! She's also doing this new smile where she scrunches up her nose and juts out her bottom jaw and dimples appear on her cheeks. Enjoy these pics and have a blessed week!!

Snowgirl

Thought you'd get a kick out our little marshmallow! Her snowsuit puffs her up so much i couldn't even buckle Maizy into her car seat. At least she's laughing about it with me!!

Blessing and bundle up!!

Clap Clap

I can't believe all the "tricks" Maizy can do! This week it seems like she all of the sudden can do so much. It dawned on me the other night to show her how to clap so Matt and i started clapping beats to hear and singing. An hour later in the tub she just started clapping on her own, without us doing it to prompt her either. Now she's a clapping machine! We also started giving her cheerios and crackers. At first we had to feed them to her, now Maizy's all over it herself and determined to get the little cheerios mashed in her fist into her wide open mouth, or else she just gnaws all on the crackers. I laugh because the time it takes her to eat one cracker i could have the whole box eaten (but don't tell anyone!). We've had to lower her crib now because when we come in to get her in the morning, she hiding somewhere in her crib-not so stationary anymore. She's either in a corner hiding or playing with the bunny in her crib. It's a riot because when we go in to get her, she looks at us as if we're interrupting her, as if she were to say "can i help you?". We'll hear her lying in her crib saying "mamamama or babababa". Of course its "mama" when she's getting ornery! And, we're anticipating the big crawl to start soon. NOt that we are pushing it though-as soon as she's mobile, it's all over! It's just hard to see her getting frustrated that she can't move. But, she is quite the rolly polly though. For not being able to crawl, she somehow gets from one side of the room to the other!

Blessings!!

A Week of "Firsts"

Merry Christmas! What an incredible Christmas week for us (key word being week, not day!). On friday i took Maizy to the doctor because all she ate was 4 ounces by noon, and normally she has 12 at that point in time, plus fruits and veggies. She's had a cough for about a week and a half, and i was starting to get worried once she wasn't eating. So i took her in and her doctor said she has croup and bronchitis : ( But, thankfully her medicine brought her appetite back and she's Maizy again. The hard thing is that she never seemed sick, and i don't want to be one of "those parents" who rush to the doctor over a sniffle. But the doc reassured me and said he was glad i listened to my intuition about her because her cold was beginning to settle in her chest and could lead to pneumonia had it not been addressed. He also said that in the next day or two her tooth would pop. Boy was he right!! By 8 that night, she had not one but two teeth completely surface and they are sharp little daggers!!

Once we got Maizy taken care of, we headed out that evening to Iowa for Christmas at the Good's, but turned around once we hit Lake Geneva-the fog was so thick we couldn't see more than 15 yards in front of us, and it was rather scary. Early the next morning we hit the road and finally made it to Iowa. We had a great time at Maizy's grandparents. Her Aunt Debbie even made it home for Christmas! The two had a blast together-Maizy loves having the attention paid to her, and Aunt Debbie loves just chatting away and having someone (anyone!) listen-so we put Maizy in her jumper and wheeled Debbie over by her. The two had the best of time-Maizy had all the attention in the world while Debbie had the best listener. Maizy ended up jumping herself to sleep!! Tons of gifts were exchanged amidst an incredible snow and ice storm that hunkered us inside for a few days. The car was totally iced over and we couldn't get out of the house!! Grama and Grampa Good spoiled us and we had such a great time with them.

Christmas Eve we headed back home, and were able to make it to church and then off to the Lechner's house for dinner. We haven't been able to spend Christmas with the Lechner side for a few years now, and it was such a treat that we could. Maizy was passed around and loved up by her cousin's and great-Aunt's and great-Uncle's. Even though Grama and Grampa Lechner are in heaven, it's a blessing that we are able to come together still as a family with the same love for each other.

Christmas day was a long one! We had fun opening gifts just the three of us at home in the morning. Matt and i agreed we weren't going to get Maizy gifts this year because we knew she'd already be getting spoiled as it was, plus we'd like to save up for next year when she kind of understands what really is going on. Well, Maizy has her daddy wrapped around those little fingers and he surprised her with bunny slippers that she can't get enough of. Plus, he bought her a pink sweatsuit with matching pink and silver tennis shoes!! Daddy's little girl for sure!!

After the morning at home, we headed over to Nana and Bomps for quiche and presents with Drew, Bekah and Great Auntie Jane and Great Uncle Phil, and then to grama kim and grampa ralph's for more Christmas. That evening, more family came over to celebrate over a ham and turkey dinner. There was so much that went on, and so many gracious gifts!!!

Not only did Maizy get her two front teeth for Christmas and the croup and bronchitis, but she started waving hi and bye regularly, and says momma non-stop (especially when she's frustrated!). This was a big week of first for us, but i'd have to say the wave was my fav.

Now that Christmas is over, it's off to Daddy Day Care for this week and next-lucky girl!! I wonder what daddy's little girl willl have him buying/doing by the end of Christmas break-i got him on camera admitting he almost bought her leopard print shoes!! Crazy how a baby changes you!!

Blessings!!