A New Addition to the Family!

And No, it's not a baby!! For as long as I can remember Maddi has always wanted a kitty. So a few weeks ago we got one for her! She is a Bengal kitten, which means that she is part Asian Leopard. She is going to be the normal size of a regular cat, but she is colored beautifully because of her grandparents! Because of her bloodline, we decided to name her Raja, the name of Princess Jasmine's Tiger in the Disney movie Aladdin.

Maddi absolutely loves her and she has quickly become a part of the family!

She treats Brandi like her own personal, mobile bed! Brandi doesn't seem to mind!

It's Official!

Sadie is officially a walker now! For the last 2 weeks she has been walking more than she has been crawling. It's so cute to see her waddle her way around the house!! They're growing up too fast!

Fun to Come!

Today I signed Maddi up for Pre-Ballet class and a Sports Class put on through the city of Topeka!
She will start ballet towards the end of October, it is every Saturday morning for 5 weeks, and she will begin her sports class, where she will learn a new sport every week, towards the middle of October and will be going to that every Tuesday night for 4 weeks! She is super excited!
Pics to come soon!
Two friends of mine and I are also going to sign up to be in the city's Christmas craft fair the 5th of December! I am going to make all kinds of burp cloths, Christmas hair bows, and even a few diaper cakes, it should be fun!

Maddi's 1st Day of Preschool!

On Monday Maddi went to preschool for the first time! She only goes 2 days a week, and for only 2 hours a day, but I couldn't help but wipe away a few tears as I dropped her off. She really enjoyed it though and couldn't wait to go back!

We arrived at school a little too early, so I took her (and Sadie) to a nearby park and took some beautiful pictures of her to kill some time!

Sadie's 1st Birthday and More!

August 19th was a very special day for us this year, not only was it Sadie's 1st birthday, but my parents and niece also flew in on that day to spend Sadie's birthday with us! It was SO wonderful having family here to make her day extra special! After picking them up from the airport we went to the T-Rex restaurant to have a special b-day dinner for Sadie! She loved it, and they even sang to her and brought her a birthday cookie!

The next day we celebrated Sadie's birthday by having a small party. Although she was tired, she had no problem digging into her cupcake! She got it all in her hair requiring an immediate hair washing as soon as she was finished!

A couple of weeks after Sadie's birthday I started a part time job at Gymboree in the mall. I work nights so that Matt is home to take care of the girls, and occasionally on weekends. I don't make much, but the little bit of extra income is nice, although it is SOOOO hard to not spend all of my paycheck on the clothes that we sell! I really like it though, everyone that I have worked with so far is very nice, and the 40% discount on clothes is a wonderful bonus!!

Today while playing with Sadie in her room she took 19 steps in a row! She is really getting more stable, she even stopped to clap after taking about 10 steps and then kept on coming! I am so proud!

Maddi's New 'Do!

Maddi has been wanting to cut her hair to her shoulders for a while now, and I kept trying to wait it out, hoping she would change her mind and not cut off all of those gorgeous curls, but yesterday I gave in. I nearly hyperventilated when the hair stylist put Maddi's hair in a ponytail and then *SNIP* it was gone! Of course if you know me you know that I was prepared with a Ziploc baggie and I kept that pony tail!!

Maddi's new 'do looks absolutely adorable! It's a little shorter than I wanted, but Maddi loves it and can't keep her fingers out of it! She has already asked me when we can go back! Hopefully with time her curls will come back, her new cut makes her look so much older!!!

I know I haven't posted an update in a while, I'll try to get on in the next few days and update about Sadie's 1st Birthday and my new job (yes, you read that correctly!)!

XOXO

May for a minute!

I can't believe that the month of May has already come and is nearly gone! Where does time go? All in all though, it has been a great month. After arriving back in Kansas on the 6th, we had Maddi a little birthday party the following Saturday. She wanted to have a Minnie Mouse party so she could wear her new Minnie outfit and the party turned out really cute! We had about 12 people over (including my mom and dad who were in town visiting) and all of the kids had a great time playing in Maddi's new pool that she got for her birthday.

The following Sunday was Mother's day, and although it was a bummer that we had to take my mom and dad back to the airport, we had a very nice day. The girls got me flowers and a card, but being the mother of those 2 amazing little girls was enough of a gift for me! After dropping off my folks we did a little shopping at a nice outdoor mall in KC, then we headed back to Topeka and went to Outback for my Mother's Day dinner. YUM!

The rest of the month has flown by! Sadie turned 9 months old and went in for her 9 month check up last week. She seems to have slowed down on the growing, and is now just under 20 pounds. Instead of being in the 90th percentile on height and weight like she has been at the last few check ups, she is now in the 70th percentile. I think her constant crawling and pulling up is giving her a good workout because even her clothes (and diapers!) that were beginning to get a little tight on her are now fitting her perfectly again. Here's Sadie on her 9 month birthday:

Some close friends of ours are leaving today to move to Florida and it seems like we have been doing something with them almost every day for the last week and a half. That's one of the hardest parts about being in the military, it seems like you are constantly saying goodbye to friends and family. We did have a nice Memorial day weekend though, we didn't do much, but we spent a lot of time outside because the weather here has been amazing! We ended Memorial Day weekend by going to "one last" dinner with the whole gang last night.

Jen (the one who's leaving today), Echo, me & Angelica.

Sadie and Maddi on Memorial Day!

Playing Catch-Up!

Oh goodness, I am so far behind! So much has happened in the last 2 weeks, so I will attempt to briefly sum it all up!

On April 4th we all loaded up and headed to visit Halie in Gainesville, the girls had a great time playing in her neighborhood's pool.

The next day we went to Palm Sunday service at Deidra's church, took the girls to see the Easter bunny and then Halie, Maddi, Sadie and I headed to Palatka to spend a few days with Grandma Jean!

This is proof that Sadie can and will hold her bottle when she wants to, she just rarely wants to!

The next day Grandma Jean took us to the Alligator farm in St. Augustine! We all had a lot of fun checking out alligators and crocodiles up close. Maddi and Halie even got to touch a boa constricter!

In this next picture, Halie and Maddi were standing in front of an albino alligator. As we were taking the picture he started walking towards the glass! Maddi will tell you that he was trying to eat her!

After heading back to Jacksonville with Deidra on Wednesday, we decided to take the girls to the beach on Thursday. It was Sadie's 1st time being let loose to play in the sand! She had a great time, but she kept trying to eat the sand the whole time! YUCK!

On Good Friday we headed to the creek house. While all of the girls were playing with toys on the floor, Sadie pulled up onto her knees for the first time!!

Sunday was Easter. We all went over to Grandma Jean's house for a wonderful Easter feast and the girls had an egg hunt! Maddi found 45 eggs!

Sadie's 2nd tooth broke through!

On Tuesday the girls and I were supposed to fly back to Kansas, but that morning we were hit with a bad storm. We were under a tornado watch, we had strong winds with 60 MPH gusts, we saw hail come down for a few minutes, and we lost power! I took the bad weather as a sign that the girls and I should not be traveling that day, so we cancelled our flights and booked a new flight to come home on the 6th of May, because that is when my parents were going to go to KS to visit us, so now we can all just fly together.

On Wednesday Mom and I took Sadie to the mall and got her ears pierced. I have been putting it off and dreading it because it was very hard on me when I got it done to Maddi. So my mom stayed with Sadie while I took Maddi into a store, and needless to say, now my mom knows why I have been putting it off for so long! It's heartbreaking to see your baby cry SO hard because of something you are causing, but after a loud cry followed by a short nap, Sadie was feeling good and back to her normal, happy self! She looks so adorable in her new diamond earrings!!

Ok, I think I am finally all caught up!!

Life's a Beach!

Maddi had a great time playing at the beach today!

Sadie can REALLY crawl!!

Sadie began REALLY crawling today! Check out the video (Ignore Maddi and my loud mother in the background!):

In other news, her 1st tooth broke through on Tuesday! She made sure her daddy was able to be with her for the experience before jetting off to Florida the next day. It is her bottom-right tooth, pictures coming soon!!

Sisters by Chance, Friends by Choice!

I am so blessed that my little girls love each other so much!

Maddi is the best big sister that anyone could ever ask for, she is a big help with Sadie and is always finding new ways to make Sadie smile! Every time Maddi walks into the room Sadie's face lights up and she instantly starts to "Coo" at her.

The love that they have for each other melts my heart, and I am so grateful that God gave Matt and I 2 beautiful, amazingly sweet girls! I don't know what I ever did to deserve them!

Cleaning out the basement...

Or at least that's what we were supposed to be doing today! With tornado season quickly approaching my goal for today was to get the basement cleaned out, but instead of the rainy day that the weather man predicted it was a beautiful 72 degree day without a cloud in the sky, so we just HAD to spend it outside! We took the girls to the lake, fed the ducks and walked around, we all had a great time!

Sadie's 7 Month Birthday!

On Thursday Sadie turned 7 months old, I can't believe how fast time is passing! This day was a milestone for her for more than 1 reason, she also pushed herself into sitting position by herself today! She's been sitting up for a while now, but I always had to position her, and now she is doing it by herself! Yay for Sadie bug!

Later that night we went to Family Night at the local hockey game. Maddi had a blast and is already looking forward to going again!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We hope that everyone had a great St. Patrick's day, because we did! The weather was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky and temperatures nearing 80 degrees, and Matt took the day off to spend with us.

We started the day off by waking up and going to the "bed races" at 9am. The bed races are where a lot of crazy people build a bed on wheels, decorate it, then push it down the street competing for the fastest time. The Coast Guard was competing, but unfortunately they didn't qualify for the finals.

After the bed races we walked around downtown Topeka for a while. People were selling St.Patrick's Day hats, necklaces, ties, you name it! Around 11:00 we found a place to sit for the parade that started at noon. I have never seen so many people in Topeka as I did that day! Kids were everywhere (shouldn't they have been in school?)! At noon the parade started and dozens of cars and floats made their way down the road throwing candy and necklaces at the screaming children as they passed. Maddi had a lot of fun, but after an hour she was getting tired and was ready to go home.

After we ate a little lunch and rested for a few minutes at home we were off again, this time we all loaded up and went with Matt to play 9 holes of golf. Maddi loves running around with him while out there, and Sadie and I just enjoy being outside and soaking up some sun!

After Golf we headed back home, and since we were unable to find a babysitter we just stayed at home and grilled hotdogs. Some of our friends came over and we all just hung out and had a great time!

Needless to say we had a great day, and now I am trying to convince Maddi that there is NOT a parade downtown every day that she is missing out on!

Sadie said Mama!

Ok, so I know that she was just fussing, but let me believe for one second that my 6 month old is going to say "mama" before she says "dada"! Watch the video and listen right after the 1:20 mark and let me know what you think, she said it twice!

Picture Time!

Today Matt and I took the girls to Portrait Innovations in Kansas City to get some new pictures made. Unfortunately the studio was running about an hour behind, so Sadie was totally ready for a nap when our time to take photos came up, but I still think they turned out pretty well!