She is here!

We just got home from the hospital. I will post more later, but Embree is here! She was born Friday night at 10:45 p.m. and weighed 8 lbs and is 20 1/2 inches long. She has chunky legs and her head is normal size! Yeah! If any of you saw Maddox as a newborn, he had (and still does have) quite a head!

Pregnancy Update (and other stuff)

Maddox is in love with the letter "o". Here are a few pics of the "o's" he found while we were at the park over the weekend.

This one is of him drawing an "o" in the sand with his stick...actually I drew it, but he helped and directed me.Here he is going down the slide...notice his mouth looks like he is saying "Ohhhh..." I actually think he is saying "Go" but "O" sounds cooler.
And this is funny cuz he made Jeff go down the slide. That looked awkward, but I shouldn't talk because he usually makes me go down with him and further down you will see that with my big belly it is anything but pretty.
He definitely won this game of tic tac toe...all O's. Big surprise. That one last X barely hung in there for one more second before he changed it.
On the walk through the park to the playground, he discovered this "O." He is really getting smart. He loves to look at signs and read books and identify letters. I think he knows most of them and is starting on numbers. If only we could get him to talk now!
Maddox and I chillin on the couch. It is so fun when he snuggles with me. Mostly it is when he is sick, but this time he was just being sweet. Can you tell I am running out of clothes that fit me?

And here it is. I am eight months pregnant in this...now 8 1/2 and counting! I went to the doctor today and I am officially one centimeter dilated and my cervix is softening. Not much progress, but from two weeks ago it is something! I am anticipating going late and having her sometime in December. My official due date is Nov 28.

Trick or Treating

We went trick or treating this year with Doug and Roz. It was tons of fun because Maddox was old enough to understand that you get candy when you go! He is on a sucker kick right now thanks to the speech therapist. He carries around all the suckers he got faithfully, his favorite one being the red/pink ones, which, as you can tell from him pumpkin basket he picked out, is his favorite color. We were at Walmart and Jeff tried to get him to take a blue pumpkin but he was adamant about the pink one, so Jeff dug down to the bottom of the cage full of pumpkins to fish Maddox out a pink pumpkin. Several people at Walmart witnessed Maddox give Jeff back the blue pumpkin and walk off with the pink very happily. It was really cute and my excuse to get Jeff to go along with it was that our girl can have it next year.
Matthew was a three musketeer with his other brothers and Maddox was a fireman!

Jeff's and my costumes at a Halloween party. The girl who hosted used to hang out with the goth kids during high school even though she wasn't goth, so we just wanted to bring back a few memories for her. Jeff did a great job. He even applied his own make up!

Maddox having an afternoon snack. He lined up all his crackers and proceeded to take one bite out of each and then put them back, as he does with all things he eats...He never eats the last bite. You may think it is funny, but I will tell you it does get annoying and Jeff gets tired of eating Maddox's scraps.
Helping Daddy grill. He loves grilling and using the fire starter and helping Jeff work on his bike. Maybe there is hope for him, even though he loves pink! Did I mention he only plays with the pink cars we have and only colors with the pink markers?

Pumpkin Patch

We visited a local pumpkin patch the other day with Matthew and Roz. Maddox had no idea what a pumpkin what, but got excited really fast when he realized he was supposed to be excited. Even though he wasn't feeling too well, he still had fun!Looking for a pumpkin!
He picked like three pumpkins but this is the one he eventually stuck with and it was the dirtiest. I have to say we did not carve his pumpkin. We ate it instead! In fact, I am eating it as we speak! I made pumpkin bars for Jeff and me. They turned out so yummy and I didn't blow up the kitchen...I only almost did! I softened the pumpkin in the microwave and it overheated and started smelling REALLY bad. Wups! I have to say that is the only time I have ever had anything dangerous happen in the kitchen.

Then when I made the frosting for the pumpkin bars Maddox decided to help. He had never licked a beater, so I gave him one and he went to town! He LOVED the cream cheese frosting and has been asking for it ever since he tried it, carrying around the beaters, which I finally consented to making frosting yesterday morning for breakfast...I would like to note that he first ate oatmeal for breakfast AND it was Halloween, so it is officially a sugar day, right? I couldn't get the picture to move, so the first picture of his eating frosting is when we made it for breakfast.
Playing in the dirt.

The wagon ride.

Long Overdue Update

One night for FHE we made a firetruck with Maddox. I forgot to get a finished product picture, but it turned out awesome! Lowe's does a craft every other Saturday for free for kids. We got this from them. Maddox is really into hammering right now, so it was perfect!And here he is with his fire truck hat he got there. He wears it backwards and loves it!
And I thought I should throw one of these in. I haven't taken many but here I am with two months to go. I am quite a big bigger now and got my first stretch mark. Kind of sad, but oh well. I figured it would happen one of these days. It is still small though so I am crossing my fingers.

Jeff and I are still deciding on a name. We like Embree, Aspen, and Paisley, but are leaning toward Embree.
And here is the series of Maddox's new favorite thing to do...He is doing it right now-watch Baby Einstein!

Curled up in his favorite blanket, laying on his other favorite blanket, watching more Baby Einstein. He won't watch anything else, which I am fine with and calls it his "move."

We tried to let him sleep in his toddler bed for a few nights. He did okay but realized quickly he could get out and that was the end of him sleeping and taking naps! After a few sleep deprived days for him and me, I put him back in his crib for now. I think the baby will actually sleep in his toddler bed for awhile.
Cars, cars, cars! He loves cars! Vroom, vroom is the sound he makes when he plays. Here we are with a ramp built for them. I am not allowed to play or touch them, just hold the ramps. Otherwise he gets really mad. He hoards those cars and can hold up to four per hand! Just dollar store cars but he doesn't know the difference.
Here he is driving his car around the house.

Lexington had a free day for kids at the horse park with free pony rides. Maddox didn't know what to think but we loved it!

Our Little Big Boy

We went garage saling last Saturday and found this awesome bed! The lady gave it to us for just $25, down from $45 because she said Maddox just had to have it and he loves it...as long as he doesn't have to sleep in it for real. He will do all the pretend sleeping you want and loves to climb on it and read books, but whenever we lay him down, he always climbs out and comes to visit us in the living room with a huge grin on his face. We will have to work on that one...Any ideas?


And last but not least, our little boy can't be a true big boy without Batman pajamas, cape and all. He has no idea about any of it, but we think he is just too cute. Of course, with his recent issue with hitting, kicking, and throwing things at people/kids, we probably shouldn't encourage him with any superhero kind of stuff.

Speaking of kicking and hitting, Jeff and I have made it a point to attend nursery each Sunday to protect the other kids from him...the bully. There is a play kitchen in there that the kids love to play with and crawl through, from the oven to the other side where there are cabinet doors that open up. Maddox has recently made it a habit to stand in front of those doors and kick the kids in the face as they attempt to crawl through. I promise we did not teach him these things and we have tried a million consistent time outs to no avail. Now we are just trying to ignore the behavior and distract him and this seems to be helping out a bit. Little stinker, but still cute and we still love him!

Uncle Brian

A couple weeks ago my brother left to go back home to MT and then down to school in Utah at UVU this fall. He came to stay with us right after Christmas and so Maddox grew quite attached to having him around, as did I...and even Jeff will say he misses having someone to make fun of and make play Ticket to Ride. We really enjoyed the time we had with Brian and wish it didn't end so soon, although he might say otherwise. There were times we were pretty hard on him but most of the time we really enjoyed having him around, so we thought he deserved a little present of remembrance for his time served here in Kentucky.FYI: Maddox does have a diaper on in this photo.
While out here, Brian started out working two jobs and finished playing Legion baseball for a team in Danville, KY. He did awesome and the team took second in state. Here he is right after a game he pitched at won down in Knoxville, TN.

We love you Brian and will miss you!