Burns Night!

Madigan had her first Burns' Night! Fun was had by all. 

Here is our "Family Picture". Madigan was wearing her first kilt, which matches her dad's kilt and my skirt. 

There was also a bagpipe rendition of "Madigan's March" which my dad wrote and Paul played seconds on. (Never mind the confusion with the second verse...) It was very good! And of course, Madigan loves having grandpa write songs about her. One poor hunter who happened to be a witness to the evenings events stopped Brett & said "Is this whole thing all about the baby?"  YES! Ok, well- No. Brett was

 kind enough to explain who Robert Burns was, but I would have just said "yes" and kept walking...  We enjoyed it quite a bit. (Maybe Brett enjoyed it too much- we couldn't get him out of bed before 10 the next day...

Saturday we went to Hays and finally saw Suzanne & Willy's new house. I want to steal Suz's kitchen! I'm not sure how I got out of there without any pictures... but Madigan played hard with her cousins and I think she has quite the sweet spot for her cousin Max especially! 

Thanks to her cousins, we now have a jumperoo, and quite a few new toys to keep her entertained. I will try to upload a video later in the week of her in the jumperoo- she has gotten the hang of it, and is very impressed with herself!

Madigan loves to watch me cook in the kitchen- she needs to be right up in the mix, banging spoons and grabbing for everything that comes past her. Usually I let her just smell the ingredients, but last week, I gave her just a drop of the juice of a lemon I was cooking with. 

I know, it wasn't terribly nice... but it was kinda funny. 
Hope everyone is having a great day!

Love,

Sarah

Orange Veggies Delight!

Carrots, and squash, and sweet potatoes, oh my! We have an all out orange veggie eater! She loves her carrots- and squash- as much as her sweet potatoes. She continues to grow so fast- sometimes I do a double take when I see her in Brett's arms because she looks so BIG.  We were lucky/un-lucky enough to have visitors last week. Grandma and Grandpa Gibbs came to stay, and even though Grandma had to spend a few nights in the hospital (hence the unlucky part) we still enjoyed hanging out with grandpa and going to visit grandma. We're all happy that Amy is back home and doing well- although we hope they know they're allowed to visit when doctors aren't on the schedule! Madigan continues to be the highlight of our life- she is going from sitting to all-fours and shows absolutely NO desire to crawl (which we're encouraging- a placid child won't last long!) We did figure out that she does a lot more things at daycare than she does at home.... Hmm. I'm not sure if it's seeing other babies do it, or realizing that mom & dad are pushovers, or both. She is working on using a sippy cup a bit, and seems to be adjusting to the change in routine with Brett's final semester and her daycare schedule. We will be back in WaKeeney on Friday for Burns' Night at the Saloon. Hope to see you there! 

Sweet Potato!

We have ourselves a sweet potato eater! Incidentally after we fed her sweet peas, she had a hard time sleeping at night. Coincidence? I don't know... but we stopped the peas and back to sound sleeping! So... moved on to sweet potatoes. MMM.... Grandpa Randy would be SO proud!

She attacked them! She even wanted to lick out the bowl. Brett kept telling her, "If you like them this way, just wait until you can have them with butter and marshmallows!" 

We also had a good new years eve, and went over to a friends house for board games and baby talk. I have 2 friends who have babies born in July too. So here is a pic of Madigan and her little baby friends:

Giana is on the left, and Ryleigh is in the middle. Madigan is the oldest (by 6 days) and the biggest (by about 1 1/2 pounds!). This picture just cracks me up, because it completely defines how these babies are- Giana is such a go-getter and up crawling around. Ryleigh is so sweet and quiet and encouraging her. Madigan is just smiling and oblivious to it all! Too cute...

We will be back in WaKeeney again in a few weekends for "Burn's Night", so I'm working on my Toast To the Lads".

Lastly, Brett will start his LAST semester on Monday. His LAST first day of school. HOORAY!! Graduation is May 10th, so mark your calendars right now!

Hope everyone is well! 

Merry Christmas!!

A Christmas Prayer

(Robert Louis Stevenson)

Loving Father, help us remember the birth of Jesus,

that we may share in the song of the angels,

the gladness of the shepherds and the wisdom of the wise men.

Close the door of hate and open the door of love all over the world.

Let kindness come with every gift and good desires with 

every greeting.

Deliver us from evil by the blessing which Christ brings,

and teach us to be merry with clean hearts.

May the Christmas morning make us happy to be Thy 

children

and the Christmas evening bring us to our beds with

grateful thoughts, forgiving and forgiven, for Jesus' sake. Amen

Christmas has come at last! It seemed like we waited forever for Christmas, and it went by so fast once we got home to family and friends!  We made it home to WaKeeney on Wednesday, and got to see a lot of family in the whirlwind of Christmas activity that came that weekend. Madigan had been sick with fevers and a virus early in the week, so we were thankful that she got over it pretty quickly and seems to be back to herself by the end of the week. Madigan of course enjoyed opening presents (especially the ones with tissue paper- her favorite!) and she got so much neat stuff! Clothes, toys, stuffed animals- we had to leave her wagon behind for grandma and grandpa to bring up later since we couldn't even fit everything in our car! Most of all, she loved seeing all her family! I think our favorite part of being able to go home is to just be able to spend time with everyone. The first video is proof of that! Madigan giggled so much at grandma Dana!  

Miss Madigan also got to eat her first vegetable! Green Beans were the veggie of choice (for us, apparently, and not HER!) She would open her mouth, take a bite, pucker up and shiver, but then she would come back in for seconds and thirds! We think she must have liked them because she has had them again, so the face and the pucker must be from the "new" taste or the texture. She did a lot better with them once we heated them up a little bit and diluted them down with a bit of milk.We hope that everyone had as enjoyable of a holiday as we did! Lots of love to everyone until next time! Thought we'd end the post with some pictures of our great holiday times!


  

 

Snow Bunny

Just a couple cute pics to give some holiday cheer! We are counting down to Madigan's first Christmas! We are so excited. The red dress is her "Christmas Dress" courtesy of Grandma & Grandpa Hille. Too cute! The pink picture is of her first "snow day". She didn't seem to mind the snow because she was all bundled up. We can't wait to see everyone over the holidays!

Cereal Video...

I have tried a couple times to upload the video of the cereal-tasting, so I hope this works... I'm not sure how else to do it. Anyway, here's the video of her eating cereal. Pretty cute- she's so excited for it. (I think all you have to do is click on it to play.) 

Christmas...here we come!

Nothing like curling up in a comfy chair with a good book, is there? 

Ok, so we may not have an "accelerated reader" on our hands as of yet, but she sure does enjoy the bright colors and squishy pages of her "water, water everywhere" book!

 Good thing it's water proof, because she loves to chew on the pages...

In other exciting, big news, we are now sitting up by ourselves!! :) She can't sit up for long periods of time, but she can sit up for a minute or two without getting too tired. She grabs her feet to steady herself. It is pretty funny to watch her get so excited  about being upright, then she gets too excited and tips over! She still isn't rolling over very consistently but I think that will come when she stops getting so frustrated about being on her tummy and not being upright like the rest of us. 

Of course, the highlight of our week was giving her REAL food!! She started single-grain cereals on Saturday with our pediatrician's blessing. I thought I'd finish the blog with a picture a of her eating her first few bites of cereal. She is SO excited to be getting real food. After her first few bites, she looked at me like "How long have you known about this stuff and been holding out on me?" We even gave her the spoon and she likes to lick it off. (and yes, in the last picture, that is cereal in her eyelashes.)

Ps- feel free to leave a few comments so I know that someone actually DOES read what we write!