Daddy's Little Helper

Learning construction at an early age! Madalyn is fascinated with our new sink and fixture!

 

 

 

Giddyup Allie!

 

 

 

 

Our New Kitchen

The span of my husband's talent never ceases to amaze me. When we bought this house a year ago the kitchen featured cabinets circa early 1960s. There were bright blue laminate coutertops and old oak cabinetry. Shawn gutted the entire kitchen and then filled in cabinets that were white from Lowes. Over the past year we have added handles and some appliances. Then we added a corner island for more storage and laid black granite tiles for the countertop. They looked so good that Shawn decided to tear up the new laminate and replace it with granite. Add a slate/stone backplash and voila! A new kitchen. Last week we bought a new stainless steel stove, so the only appliance left to replace is the refridgerator (coming soon....) Here are some pictures. The backsplash still needs to be grouted, so stay tuned for the finished product!

 

 

 

 

First Birthday Slideshow

Playing Outside

 

 

 

 

Hammock Nap Time

 

 

 

 

Breathing a Sigh of Relief

Whew. Well a very long day is now almost over, thankfully. This morning Shawn's father had open heart surgery. We originally thought that he was having a triple bypass, but his cardiologist decided that since his fourth artery was 60% clogged they would try to d a quadruple while they were in there, hopefully saving him a trip to the cath lab later on.

So we were up early this morning. (We even had to wake Madalyn up- thats how early it was!) We were able to make it to the hospital in enough time to spend about half a hour with him before his surgery. Then we waited in the OR waiting room until about 1030 when the baby had had enough. So we left for a few hours and waited for the phone call that he was out of surgery and everything went successfully. I think they finished about noon and everything went extremely well.

He is currently in ICU and will be there until tomorrow. The Respiratory Therapists were hoping to have him extubated by this evening, which will be nice! We went by there about 5 pm and were able to see him for 15 minutes, which was about enough time to rotate through and say hi. But it is definitely a relief to know that the hard part is behind us and that he is healthy.

Thank you for all your prayers and support. Shawn and I greatly appreciate it.

Nap time

All tuckered out after a snack of animal crackers.

 

 

Uh Oh Spaghetti-O!

Need I say more? Madalyn loves spaghetti-os.

 

 

 

 

Prayers Needed

In the Swanson family there was a somewhat unhappy start to the morning. My mother in law called to tell me that last night my father in law went to the local hospital with "chest tightness" that he assumed was allergy related. He belived he might possibly need a breathing treatment and therefore went to the ER. Thankfully he actually went to the emergency room rather than just brushing it off as allergy related, because less than 12 hours later he was in the cardiac cath lab having a cath performed. Turns out his chest tightness was actually from him having a heart attack. Thursday morning he is scheduled for triple bypass surgery at North Florida Regional. Please keep him and Shawns's family in your thoughts and prayers over these next few days. I am so thankful that he actually went to the ER last night, because noone could have imagined that this was cardiac related. My father in law works out almost every single day and is an incredibly healthy man for his age, so it has been rather upsetting to him to hear that he had a heart attack.

Hibiscus Flowers

 
 
 
 

Big Girl Car Seat

Well the time has come for Maddie to no longer be in a rear facing car seat. She was so excited to be turned around and to face the front. I have never seen her look more proud!

And... she has taken 12 steps now! The other day she walked all the way down the hall holding on to the wall. But outside yesterday playing with our neighbor's two year old Jace she kept walking all over the place, trying to get him to play with her.

Two more days until her birthday!

Hard to believe this time last year I was driving to North Florida to check in to be induced.