June 25th pictures

Here she is practicing her TUMMY TIME!

The world looks different from this angle!

Mommy sure takes a lot of pictures

Have keys, will travel....

but where would I like to go???

Sunday Evening Barbeque

Its become somewhat of a summer tradition for Shawn and I to have barbeques every so often. We invite all of our friends over and have them bring something to share... and usually is is spur of the moment which makes it even better because there is minimal planning involved. So this evening we had several of our friends over to hang out and grill. Unfortunately it rained and we had to move the party inside but we still had a great time and it was a nice way to play catch up with our friends that we hadnt seen in a long time. Madalyn got to enjoy some of the earlier festivities, and when it came time for bed she was exhausted but did not want to sleep! I just now have gotten her to bed!

11 Weeks old

She's going for a walk in the "big girl" part of her stroller. She loves being able to look forward and see where we are going.


She was talking to Mommy here.... Im not quite sure what she was saying but she sure was happy about sharing it!


What a happy baby! Its so hard to catch a real smile on camera, but I think I got pretty close this time.


I think I could take a million pictures of her sleeping... she looks so peaceful during her little naps. What an angel.


She's sitting up here, with some help from Mommy. What a big girl!

Today Madalyn is 11 weeks old. I cant believe how fast she is growing up! She has learned to wiggle around in her crib and can completely turn herself around while she is sleeping. She wants so badly to be mobile! Right now she is laying on her quilt on the living room floor and she is absolutely fascinated with her feet and keeps trying to scoot around on the blanket while on her back. If we put her on her tummy then she immediately draws her legs underneath her and lifts herself up trying to crawl. Right now though we are glad she can stay where she is... our house isnt quite childproofed!

We are still in the rental house, getting ready to pack and make the big move one street over. There is so much work to be done at the other house though... Shawn is putting in really long days over there when I am off. Our bathrooms still arent finished (something about him getting bored with that project and moving on to something else for a little while.) We really need to enclose our laundry room, which he is working on as we speak. It needs to be secure so we can put our washer and dryer in it, as well as have a secure place to store his tools. Right now they are all in the house, so once those have a "home" we will have space to move our furniture in. But from the looks of things the laundry room will be HUGE... and all enclosed and insulated so eventually we can run air conditioner out there and include that in the square footage we advertise for the house. There will be room enough for a small workshop area, plus our deep freezer and storage for all of our Sams shopping trips.

Needless to say I am getting excited (and yes, a little bit stressed!) about moving into OUR home...

Madalyn 10 Weeks

Here she is during "tummy time!" Madalyn always likes to look around and see new things.


Allie loves to look baby toes!


Taking a cat nap on her Boppy... what an angel.


Talking to her Puppy.


Trying to get her puppy to sing to her

Well Madalyn is 10 weeks old as of Sunday. She got to spend Fathers Day with Daddy and the Swanson family because I had to work. I think her and Daddy have settled into a good routine on the days that I go to work... it seems to involve a lot of playtime! She has gotten much better at taking a bottle and he is able to get her to take a pacifier from him. Tonight not only did she take a pacifier from me in her crib but all I had to do was get it near her mouth and she pushed it her and held it there with her hand all by herself!

Madalyn is pretty much holding her head up on her own... and she constantly pulls herself to a standing position on my lap and looks around. She is so animated. She loves talking to her toys.

This week Gigi sent her some toys in the mail. One is a Laugh and Play puppy that both her and Allie are infatuated by. She manages to bump the buttons to make it sing when she is moving her arms and legs around and then she coos at it while it sings. She loves to talk and carry on conversations with me and her toys... it is so adorable.

Work is well though it has been an adjustment getting used to working and coming home and having to be a Mom instead of climbing into bed and sleeping all day. Luckily Madalyn loves to snuggle in bed and has been able to afford me small naps during the day.

The house is coming along... Shawn completed some beautiful built in shelves in Madalyn's bathroom. It was a great use of normally unused space. We are getting down to crunch time... we have about 6 more weeks until our lease is up here. All of the plumbing is done for the time being, which is good. Shawn is in the process of finishing up Maddie's bathroom hopefully this week, then on to the kitchen!

Playing on the playmat

Here is a video I took of Maddie this morning playing on her playmat.

Two Months Old

Last Friday Miss Madalyn turned two months old. I can hardly believe how fast the time has gone by! To celebrate her birthday she unfortunately had to get her shots.... three shots and one oral vaccine for Roto virus. It nearly broke my heart when they stuck her... she screamed! Poor baby. She was pretty good for a few hours afterwards but by 6 at night I couldnt even put her down. She was so miserable... all she wanted was for Mommy to hold her, which I gladly did. At the doctor she was 12 pounds, 4 ounces and 22 inches long. She is right where she should be and everyone there absolutely loved her. She seemed to enjoy laying on the table and having everyone come in and talk to her... she "talked" more at the doctors than I have ever heard her. I think she is going to like being the center of attention.



Yesterday was my first day back at work, which wasnt too bad. I had requested to be assigned to a station while I am breastfeeding, but true to my department's stand on not being helpful at all for females, I am stuck on staffing. Which makes continuing to breastfeed more of a challenge then intially anticipated, but it makes me even more determined to make it work. Basically every morning at 7 am I call to see where I need to be by 8 am. Once there I have to describe to a different crew about breastfeeding and my need to pump and then I need to find a place to pump. Yesterday I was at a slow station so it wasnt much of a challenge, but my pumping was done in the womens bathroom at the station, which I cringe to think of how unsanitary that is but it was that or nothing. Needless to say, I am not happy about my work's lack of caring about breastfeeding but unfortunately I need to work to pay the bills.



It wasnt too hard for me to leave Madalyn, mostly because I was able to leave her sleeping in bed next to her Daddy. I am so greatful that we can work our schedules around each others so we can avoid daycare. I feel so much more comfortable with him watching her. They had a good day yesterday, or from what Shawn told me they did. I dont know if he would have told me if she cried all day because that would make it harder for me to go to work! But he does a great job of entertaining her so I am sure they had lots of fun.





Today while playing on her playmat the TV caught Madalyn's attention. Every time a female came on (I was watching CNN) she would turn towards the TV and coo. So this afternoon I went to Toys R Us and bought her a baby Einsteins DVD of Baby Bach to play for her... so she can learn about colors and music instead of all the horrible things going on in the world.

Tonight when it was time for Maddie to go to bed she was too overtired to be able to unwind and fall asleep. Every time we would lay her in the crib she would start crying hysterically. So finally I took her in to bed and layed down with her, and she immediately stopped crying and snuggled in to me. Being a mother is so wonderful. Moments like those absolutely make me melt. The fact that I have gone from someone who used to constantly be going somewhere and doing something to now thinking the most amazing thing in the world is lying next to my daughter while she sleeps shows me how much that I have grown up. And how blessed that I am to have such an amazing husband and a healthy happy daughter.

Tagged by Liz

-What were you doing 10 years ago?
Summer before senior year - hanging out with friends, swimming practices, thinking about where I would go to college, spending time with Mike.

-What were you doing 1 year ago?
Exactly one year ago I was out at XS with Tabetha, Kevin, Joel and Dalton for Dalton's birthday. Then I went home and called Shawn to bug him (at 2 am!) for not having gone out with us. Ahhh.... those crazy days.

-Five snacks you enjoy:
1. green olives
2. Cheese
3. frozen yogurt
4. cashews
5. chips and salsa

-Five songs that you know all the lyrics:
1. pretty much every Counting Crows song
2. "Remember When" by Jack Johnson (I sing this to Maddie all the time)
3. 3 AM by Matchbox Twenty
4. almost every Sister Hazel song
5. The entire first James Blunt CD
and MANY, MANY MORE

-Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
1. Make sure there is money invested for retirement
2. Quit my job
3. Make sure Madalyn's college education is paid for
4. buy a house in Corolla, NC on the Outer Banks
5. Buy Shawn all of the tools that he wants

-Five bad habits:
1. Lack of motivation sometimes
2. Get frustrated with certain things easily
3. Taking things too seriously
4. Negative thinking (Im working on this one!)
5. Having too high of expectations sometimes

-Five things you like doing:
1. playing with Madalyn
2. sunbathing (I dont get much time for this!)
3. reading Chick Lit
4. sleeping
5. I used to like working out

-Five things you would never wear again:
1. a bikini (Im hoping this isnt true, but thinking it is!)
2. biker shorts
3. SCRUNCHI
4. Hypercolor clothing
5. belly shirts

-Five favorite toys:
1. my camera
2. my computer
3. my cell phone
4. my video camera
5. my photo printer

Tagging other people:
1. Jenna
2. Julie
3. Kim

Madalyn Week 8

It is absolutely amazing to me how big Miss Madalyn has gotten over the past two months. Each day it seems that I get to learn a little bit more about her personality. She always seems so eager to learn new things and every minute that she is awake she is taking in all of her surroundings. She hates to nap during the day for fear she will miss something. The tradeoff to that is that she ends up sleeping for 8 hours at nighttime, only waking up once to be fed around 3 am, then she wakes up for the day at 6:30. I always bring her into bed with me then for some snuggle time, and she will go back to sleep until 10 or 11 sometimes. Her favorite thing is when I sing to her... which I am certainly no singer, but she doesnt seem to mind if I am offtune. Tomorrow is her two month birthday and unfortunately I have to bring her to the doctor to get her shots, which I am certain will break my heart to see her get stuck with needles!

More Wedding Pictures

One of these days I will put together a slide show of all of the wedding pictures, but until then I wanted to post some to share.

Just Married

Well we did it and finally tied the knot. Thankfully the weather held out and other than being a bit windy, it was a nice beach evening. We were lucky enough to be able to have my brother in law Brad marry us, which made it even more special. Not to mention that I got to be married barefoot on the beach! No spectacular sunset, but the sunset Sunday evening made up for it. We had an amazing wedding and dinner with our families at the Chart House on Longboat Key, then 2 relaxing days at the beach. We took Madalyn to the Mote Marine aquarium on Monday before making the trek back to Gainesville. She slept through most of it... but she DID seem very interested in the manatees! All in all it was a wonderful weekend.

Tropical Storm Barry

Well it is the night before our wedding... and in the midst of a drought where we havent had rain in weeks.... a tropical storm develops in the Gulf and should make landfall somewhere between Punta Gorda and Cedar Key. Which means.... rain on our beautiful beach wedding! I might be sad if it wasnt so funny... it seems Shawn and I cant do anything the "right" way. But it will make it special, us huddling under umbrellas on the first rainy day in MONTHS!

The ironic part is that Barry is my mother's maiden name, which means that this is my Grandpa Barry's way of sharing our day with us. '

Wish us luck that we dont get rained out... and next time I post on here I will be Mrs. Swanson!

We are hoping that the rain clears up for our "honeymoon." We are staying in Lido Key Saturday and Sunday nights and hopefully going to the beach Sunday and then Mote Marine Aquarium on Monday.

7 Weeks~

Miss Madalyn Jean is 7 weeks old. Well, I am a little late with this post, so she is actually close to 8 weeks old (2 months can you believe it?!) She is so wonderful... an absolute doll. It is amazing how much her personality has developed, especially over the last week.

In the mornings, she wakes up about 6:30 or so and is ready to start the day. Mommy, however, is not so keen on getting up the early. So I bring her into bed with us and feed her and play with her for about 45 minutes or so, then she will go back to sleep. Those morning times are so special... because she will try to move as close to me as she can and snuggle in and fall asleep. I love watching her sleep... and as excited as I am for her to get bigger and be able to do more and explore more... I know that I will miss these days where I can just hold her and watch her sleep in my arms.

When she starts to wake up, usually around 9:30 or 10, she wakes up and is so happy. She is definitely a morning baby. She lays there and coos at me and smiles and will kick her legs and move her arms around and stare at her friend the ceiling fan. Madalyn loves to "talk" and her favorite past time is cooing at the stickers I placed on the underside of her changing table's hutch. She can be crying and if I lay her down to change her diaper she is instantly smiling and cooing at her dolphin and whale friends.

During the day she is very happy in the mornings, and will get a little cranky as the day progresses, mostly because she hates the idea of taking a nap! She will nod off and then as soon as she is laid down in her crib she wakes herself up because she thinks she is missing something.

This evening she was sitting on my lap facing my chest and she had her legs underneath her and she stood up and pushed herself off of my chest to look at me. I moved my hands and she was standing all by herself on my lap... I was so amazed. She looked so proud of herself.

I love being a mom. it is the most wonderful thing in the entire world.