11 Months

On the October 26th Madeleine turned 11 months old.

In 3 weeks, on Thanksgiving Day, she will be one year. Unbelievable!

We are so in love with this darling girl.

She has the sweetest face, softest skin, and is just plain irresistible.

Want to know what else? She waves. Constantly. At everyone.

It all began when we were saying good-bye to Amy & Joseph in Texas...she waved good-bye to them. So tender. A week or so before it I thought she did it to someone else but had yet to do it again. Then as we were walking through the airport she was waving at all the people walking by. On the plane as people were coming down the aisle, once again, her little hand flapped up and down at each person. Precious is a huge understatement.

Now, no matter where we are as soon as someone starts cooing at her, looking her way, smiling or whatever she starts her wave. If she doesn't, I tell her to say, "Hi!" She breaks into a big grin and starts waving. Some old ladies have even gotten teary over her.

Sleeping has been a challenge lately, plus daylight savings. Let's just say I have not slept past 5:00am in almost two weeks. Some mornings it has been 4:00am. But, she 's so funny and cute it's hard to hold it against her. Even Aaron who HATES mornings starts to laugh when she crawls on top of him (in the dark), starts her giggle/growl and pulls on his nose.

She is getting even better about going off and playing on her own, even made a few messes along the way! But still follows me around crying while I try to side step her a lot of the time. Sometimes I just have to get a few things done! But eventually she gets a hold of the back of my legs, pulls herself up and I am stuck. She'll be walking soon!

We love you Sunshine Girl!

Thank you for all the love, fun, and laughs.

Amazing

Madeleine fell asleep on the way to pre-school this morning and she slept in her car seat all the way until.....you're not going to believe this....11:00!

I think I had to most productive 2.5 hours of my life!

4 loads of clothes washed, folded and PUT AWAY

Picked up whole house

Cleaned kitchen counters

All the floors swept and mopped

Removed, washed and replaced all the bed sheets

Dusted downstairs

Cleaned bathrooms

Made phone calls

Scrubbed out the kitchen sink

Had you been at my house you may have confused me with:

Noelle-ism

I have not been good at writing down these lately but this made me chuckle and melt inside at the same time.

I do believe I have spoken of how Noelle likes to talk about her, 'bodily functions.' When something on her body makes a noise she giggles and asks me, "Who/What was that?"

A couple of nights ago:

Noelle: *Giggle* "What was that?"

Mommy: "Did you burp?"

Noelle: *Giggle* "Noooooooooooooo!"

Mommy: "Did you pass gas?"

Noelle: *Giggle* "Noooooooooooooo!"

Mommy: "Well, then what?"

Noelle: "My tummy squished. That's all." *Giggle*

Trick-or-Treat!

Man-Oh-Man, was this year FUN! We had all kinds of festivities and Noelle was having the time of her life at every single one. Madeleine spent most of her time hanging out in the stroller, but next year she'll be right in there.

Tuesday night started out with our ward trunk-or-treat. We began inside (the decorations were awesome!) with a chili cook-off (I won 2nd place!) & hot dogs, an awesome slide show, carnival games, and a spook alley. Then the kids had a costume parade and finally it was CANDY time. Noelle did this last year but did not really remember, it took her all of about 3 seconds to get it again. Poor little M had not really gotten a chance to nap during the day and was miserable. I finally got smart and put her to sleep in her stroller. She missed out on all the fun. :(

Noelle could not wait for Friday to come so she could dress up in her Pony costume again for school. She loved everything about it - the hood, the mascara, the pink nose. It was so much fun! Parents came for the last 10 minutes of class for a costume parade (to the tune of Ghost Busters) she was so excited to see me there she almost burst!

Saturday was finally the real deal. She talked about dressing up all day but fell asleep in the car while we were running errands. I could NOT get her to wake up, I tried everything. It finally took us walking out the door without her. We had a soup pot luck (yum!) with some friends and then were off to terrorize our neighborhood. It was a big undertaking going out with 10 kids and their parents but the memories made were fantastic!

I love living out my suburban fantasy life!

Our Halloween Girls

My darling friend Kelsi made her daughter Georgia, my girls, and Melanie's daughter Norah matching Halloween skirts. They are to die for. I've taken pictures to post but my blogging habits stink these days. So here's this! We took them to Picture People and this was the best shot we got, can't see the skirts too well, but under the circumstances not bad.

Can you stand how cute they all are?

Some Fun Times...

We've gotten to eat out a couple more times at Friends & Family nights at brand new restaurants that Aaron sold. The only thing better than eating out is eating out for free!

No, Aaron would not be caught dead wearing this hat. I mean, seriously, that would mess up his hair. Noelle begged him to put it on and I snapped this before he could get it off.

Noelle asked our server if she could have a pink balloon and he gave her the whole bouquet. It seriously made her life! She was so excited she fell asleep holding onto them.

Murmuring...

Last Wednesday when Madeleine woke up from her nap and her little body was on fire. I took her temperature and it was 104.8, GASP! The raging fever continued through Friday and although she had no other symptoms and Motrin would knock it right out, after 48 hours of it, I wanted to error on the side of caution. We called the doctor but she was out of town so they sent me to her back-up, it was just a virus (always!) but he asked what our doctor thought of her heart murmur. "Uh, What? She doesn't have one." He said he absolutely heard one and they can be brought on by fevers (because the body has to work extra hard putting off all that heat) but at the time she'd had Motrin so was her fever was down. He said to make sure we talked Dr. Kasel about it.

It was a slightly disconcerting but I knew it was somehow related to the fever, plus kids have harmless murmurs all the time. And, she had an Echo done the day after she was born because her PDA did not close right away. So, her heart is fine.

Let me just give a shout out to Dr. Kasel's office. She was out of town at a conference and her office manager called back at 7:00pm Friday night to say that she had gotten a hold of her in Boston to ask her how she wanted to handle it. Who does that? Seriously awesome. She thought it was probably fever related, give her a couple of days to get better and have us come in.

We followed up yesterday, I thought for sure it would be gone but nope. We see a Cardiologist on 11/13 for another Echo.

Wish us luck. Madeleine can't stand for me to hold her still to change her diaper let alone this!

Pumpkin Patch

On Monday Noelle's preschool had their first field trip - to the pumpkin patch! Noelle had the best time ever.

After she picked out her perfect pumpkin she could not get the stinkin' thing in the bag. But, she did NOT want any help from me. Oh, this age is such fun.

Noelle loves her friend Sean. She is so glad they get to go to school together (and he now lives across the street.) We tried to get them to stand together for a picture but it wasn't easy. Eventually Noelle just went straight for her man. That's my girl! :)

Here is a not so good mothering moment. Madeleine was miserable pretty much the whole time we were there and I did not have a stroller so my arms were killing me. It was tough for everyone. At breakfast I tried to feed her some banana and cereal and only wanted a couple of bites so I figured she wasn't hungry. While we were there I tried to give her some of Noelle's sandwich, again, after a few bites she was done. I chalked the misery up to her being really tired. After she slept in her car seat for a little while and we got home she was almost inconsolable. Crying, crying, crying. Finally, I put her in her chair and fed her some some dinner I had blended from the night before. She inhaled two bowels of it and was my happy girl once again. Poor girl was starving.

So Relieved!

As most of you guys who read this saw on Facebook - I did it! I ran a half marathon. I'm so happy! More than anything, the anxiety of the unknown is gone. Everyone was telling me to just enjoy the experience but I really wanted to get a good time. I guess I'm competitive! I reeeeeeally wanted to run it in two hours, although I knew that since it was my first one that would be unlikely. A girl can hope though!

Saturday we had to drive down to Long Beach to pick up my packet and bib (too many people to have you pick up your info on race day.) And coincidentally there was a VIP night for a new Buffalo Wild Wings that Aaron sold in Lake Forest. So, afterwards we headed over for a free night of fun and wings. I, obviously, was not eating wings but we sure had fun! Just look at these sweet faces.

Aaron's going to kill me when he sees that I posted this picture but it's too funny. Two cheerleaders from the San Diego Chargers were there raising money for charity.

After dinner we drove to Manhattan Beach to stay the night with Marin. Being the awesome cousin that she is, gave us her room and hit she the couch for the night. I hardly slept a wink, kids coughing, potty breaks, husband snoring, toilet leaking, you name it. Just as I began to drift off my alarm sounded at the awful hour of 4:15am. The drive to the race was short but the traffic was crazy. They estimated 35,000 participants and spectators. That's a lot of people!

We parked and got down to the starting area to use the bathroom - the lines were insane! They have people start the race in waves according to their estimated finishing time, the faster people in front. Given our wait at the bathroom we missed our wave and started at the back of a wave with thousands of people who would be mostly walking. Ugh.

They need to make rules for races just like when you're driving! Faster on the left, slower on the right. Not only does it slow you down but it's frustrating and uses up precious energy to jump curbs, run through grass & gravel and around cones to get by people. Don't even get me started about the people who would box me in.

I felt great the first half running on the road. Seeing my family at mile 6 was awesome. Little Noelle running beside me screaming, "Mommy! Mommy! You're running a race!" was emotional. Then we turned and ran through a marina and down to the beach which I thought would be awesome but, for me, was difficult. The bike path seemed to drag on and on. We turned back out onto the road around Mile 10. This is when it kind of started to get suck-y. My big toes were rubbing against my second toes causing blisters, and in order to go easy on my really painful bunion on my right foot I was compensating with my left leg, which caused a shooting pain in my hip. At mile 10.75 there was a hill until mile 11 and that took a lot out of me. I really wanted to start walking, my head started telling me I could probably speed walk faster than I was jogging, but I just tried to lose myself in the music and push ahead. Then I couldn't remember if I was coming up on mile 11 or 12. I could see the mile marker sign but couldn't tell what it said. I was never so happy to see the number 12 in my life! My music stopped so I had to get it out but I dropped it and it went sliding through the crowd and I had to chase it down.

My cheerleaders. Noelle told me how much she loved ringing that cowbell.

Finally, I came running down to the finish line. I saw Auntie in her pink shirt plastered against the chain link fence. Then I saw Aaron & Noelle, Julianna, and Jo all screaming, hollering, and jumping up & down. I have the most amazing friends! Can you believe they drove all the way down? They even made me an awesome sign!

Crossing the finish line was the best. All I remember thinking was, "Goodness gracious it's over! I did it!"

Afterwards, I felt pretty good. My stomach was upset, my legs were tired, knees ached and I wanted an omelet. Bad.

According to Aaron's calculations my finish time was 2:12 but I looked it up and my chip says 2:19. I'm really happy given all the traffic I encountered. I say, "Not bad" when I still need to lose 20 pounds and less than a year after having a baby. Here are my stats:

Overall: 4788 out of 10675
Women: 2158 out of 6420
F 30-34: 376 out of 1033

Overall, it was a great experience. Noelle keeps saying "Mommy, you ran and won the race! You crossed the finish line and won the race." I tell her, "Yes, Mommy did win the race!"

A big shout out to my darling husband who was such a great support through training and race day and to my Auntie & Unc who went through so much to be there for me during my first race. And lastly to Marin, this was all her big idea.

Here We Go Again!

The same question I seem to be constantly asking these days.....do I blog backwards or pick up right here?

Noelle is doing really well in pre-school, I don't think she could love it any more and I am so pleased with all she is learning. I'm still wondering if I will ever get over the feeling that comes over me when I see her running off to school as fast as her little legs will carry her. Any one else know the feeling that your heart is literally running off outside of your body? She is so interested in the world around her and I at times find myself wondering what her passion in life will be.

Today I am wondering if it will be photography.

She got the camera on the black and white setting herself!

~~

And then there is, Madeleine, my sweet girl. She turned 10 months old on 9/26 and I did not get any pictures. Horrible. The pictures from out trip to Texas will have to do. Just she and I made the trip out to see my brother, Joseph, and his girlfriend, Amy, for a few days. She was not in the mood to impress and I'm afraid their eardrums will never be the same. Despite her sudden affinity for SCREAMING we still love and adore her more and more. She is finally feeling confident and crawls off to play all around the house instead of being glued to me. Every day she is more animated and is such a character with the funniest laugh. To sum her up in one word: LOVE. She falls asleep like a dream, most nights without a peep. Her middle of the night wakings are very loud, though. I usually would just wake up, feed her and stick her back in bed because I am too tired to do anything else. But, Friday and Saturday night she slept all night and I vowed she is done with nighttime nursing. Monday night she was up from 2-4am but I stuck to my guns (even though she had a runny nose) and we both survived. Last night she slept all night again.

~~

I am getting ready to run my race this weekend and getting sooooooo nervous! Why?

When I think about it too much I regret making it public news because now I really have to go through with it. That and the fact that I already paid the ridiculous registration fee.