Maizy's Dedication, Friends and Family

Maizy Grace turns 1!

The big show

Last weekend, Maizy's attended her first wedding. Her second cousin Christine was married in Grafton to an awesome hubby, Andy. The wedding was absolutely beautiful!! We had too much fun dancing the night away-melted our heart dancing to our wedding song, holding our baby girl, and then to see Matt hold his little girl and dance with her, of course, made me cry. Maizy was loved up by her Great Aunt Claudia while we danced, and cuddled right into her arms. We've definately discovered that Maizy is a party girl-she couldn't miss what was going on, from the bouquet toss, to the electric slide, to her favorite-the rotating disco ball. That's the secret to keeping her behaved-put a disco ball in her room and she's totally hypnotized by it!! The same thing happened when Maizy, my mom and i went to the my little ponies tea party downtown on friday-she was in a trance watching everything. I was a little nervous at first about taking her, since the show was starting at her bedtime. But, little miss can't miss anything loved the show! She was clapping, and dancing and waving at the ponies when she was in a trance watching the ponies! And then she discovered the disco ball!! It was a blast reliving my childhood too!!

Blessings!!

Getting too big!!

It never ceases to slow down here! Matt's dad had a heart attack last week, and we drove down to be with his family. Everything's fine-he was released two days later, with 5 stints in an artery to help. He'll go back for 2 more surgeries to put up to 10 more stints in to alleviate blockages. We praise God for his miraculous healing hand in this process-you'd never know his dad had a heart attack when you see him! Maizy's great grama Judy had her knee replaced Wednesday and was released yesterday, and again, we praise our Healer for she was already walking on her new bad boy the next day! Thursday we woke up to find Maizy covered in puke. Joy. But, much to my surprise, i'm rather impressed with our daughters projectile capabilities-like the kid in the exorist! We did take a step back in her eating due to the bug she had-super finicky about eating period, so we just are keeping our eye on that. Matt had to go out of town for a football convention, and then all day track meet on saturday, so luckily i only caught a bit of Maizy's bug. So now, after our whirl wind week of travel and sickness, i'm really hoping that we'll be able to just take a breather!!
With so much going on, i forget that Maizy is doing so much each day. She dances and flails her arms when her little monkey music machine gets a beat going-shaking what her momma gave her!! I love it! Last night she started to give kisses back to Matt, but they were a little too open mouth for us to handle after a while! It's so fun to walk in a room and have her call out "momma"-melts my heart! Or our little shadow just following us around.
Hoping this finds you well. Enjoy the pix of our own "curious george". if it's laying in plain view-it's up for grabs! Blessings!

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!!