So Much to be Thankful

Thanksgiving should be a nice time to reflect with family over the past year's wonders and a time to be thankful....Not too many have such a quiet reflection. The holidays are so full of hustle and bustle and not too many people take the time to be reflective of the season's purpose. I won't tell you that we took a quiet trip with family and all was so picturesque. I will tell you that as our family's go, it was not a quiet reflective holiday.
We began our Thanksgiving trip by visiting Granny for a couple of days. Those days were full of helping Granny decorate, shop and wrap gifts.
Then Daddy joined us and we took a much too long car ride to Austin. As most of you know, Maddie is not so fond of a car ride, so three hours in traffic was less than quiet. After arriving in Austin we were able to settle in for our visit with Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Mickey. We were very thankful to have been set up in a room at the Four Seasons where Maddie was just as pampered as we were. Our Thanksgiving dinner included cousins of Matthew and their children. We enjoyed cheering for Daddy's team on Friday (and in case you hadn't heard, aTm did actually win)! After the game, it was just beautiful weather and we decided to take Maddie to the Botanical Gardens. Aunt Mickey came along and it was a wonderful afternoon.
We finished our holiday weekend by driving the three and a half hours home. Thankfully Maddie was quite tired and slept most of the trip.
I guess at the end of the day, all the traveling is worth it. It is nice to be near family for the holidays, especially because there will be plenty of holidays we won't make it back for.
Of all the Thanksgiving holidays I've spent so far, this was the most enjoyable by far simply because we have our Madeleine and she seems to make all the hustle and bustle stop when she smiles.
We hope that you all had a wonderful holiday and got to do some reflecting on your year and what you are truly thankful for.

Time flies- when you're havin' fun!

Now that Madeleine is 8 months, she seems to have taken to becoming quite the busy body. Madeleine is getting up and around these days. Last week she started to really crawl around and the next day she was pulling up on EVERYTHING. It seems like no matter how many things I pad or lock up, I still find Maddie into something. I find myself holding my breath every time she pulls up, as I feel sure this will be the time she busts a mouth or head open when she falls. We have been able to keep it safe so far, but boy does she keep us on our toes.

Maddie has three teeth now and is currently cutting two more. We are having fun learning new things everyday. She takes a music class on Thursdays and we have a playgroup on Tuesdays. We have met lots of new friends here on the island.

We look forward to the holidays this year and feel as Thanksgiving approaches, that we have so many things to be thankful for. We are mostly thankful that God has blessed us with such a wonderful child and such wonderful friends and relatives to share her with.

We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and we'll be back to update you on Maddies first Turkey Day!

Fall is here...Kind of

Madeleine will be 8 months old this weekend and we are trying to keep up with her. She has taken to "inching" and rolling everywhere. She really has become quite a determined little girl. I wanted to post some of the latest pics we've taken of her. We decided to skip the whole Halloween deal, mostly because it's not exactly safe to go wandering after dark here in Galveston. We did, however, take a picture of her in pumpkin attire to commemorate her 1st Halloween. Maddie and I have joined a mom and me group and we went on our first outing. The animal pictures are from the Bayou Wildlife Park where we met Jethro. Jethro is a rather unique character as he is a Zonkey, yes I said Zonkey. Apparently his mother was a Zebra and his father a donkey. We had a wonderful time as can be seen by Maddie's smile as we rode the tram around the park. We are excited about the upcoming holidays. We have even let Maddie begin to tear magazines to practice for opening presents. We hope that these words and pictures find all of you well and happy.

Saturday in the Park.....

There are only a select few days each year in Texas where the weather is appropriate for a picnic in the park. We chose this day to take a picnic and take Maddie to the park for her first visit. We had a wonderful time. The fountain and swings were the best part. It's difficult to find places in Galveston that are away from the tourist strand and downtown district and find some place that is just quiet and out of the way enough to afford a good family time outdoors. We have found this place in a park that is only blocks from our home and usually quiet and clean except for the occasional outdoor wedding. We had lunch and played with Madeleine as she got to put her feet in the grass and splash in the fountain with her feet. We got some lovely pictures and wanted to share them with you.

!!! 6 Months !!!

I never in my life thought that 6 months would bring so many things. It was just six months ago today that I got up the earliest any woman in her last month of pregnancy has ever gotten out of bed. I took the rather quiet trip with Matthew to Clear Lake Regional Hospital and worried about every minute of my life that laid ahead. As many of you know, once the labor stuff got started, it was smooth sailing. Before I knew what had happened I was kissing this angel God had bestowed on me. We named her Madeleine. In the days and weeks that followed we just held her close and watched her sleep. Those were the days we wished she would be a little more interactive.
At about 2 months she was smiling and being more alert. We still wanted her to be able to play and roll around and be more active still.
A couple of months after that we endured the wonderful right of passage for parenting known as teething. It was fun and eventful, but this passed and our baby girl was happy again. She still at this time very quiet, always inquisitive, but quiet.
Now we are here a couple of months later and we are in full swing. Maddie has two teeth and trying to cut two more, she loves to laugh and talk to people. She has begun a wonderful shriek of joy that she loves to save for the middle of Mass on Sundays when Father Dennis is praying. She is rolling over and rocking back and forth on all fours and then lunging forward. We know any day now she will be off like a rocket getting into all kinds of mischief and such. There are some days that Matthew and I sit and think of the days and how nice it was to nap with the baby and watch her sleep rather than hold our breaths as she tries to master sitting unassisted and goes to fall to the floor, or when she is lunging forward into a floor face-plant.
I know that we have many, many days before us that we will worry and wish she was still that swaddled newborn we brought home in March of 2006. We will continue to revel in our title as parents and hope to lead her through life with as much love and patience as she has given us the last 6 months. We are so blessed to have shared in such love as Madeleine Renee.

From the Beach to the 'Stros game...Maddie our world traveler

At 5 months old, we decided Maddie was old enough to take her first trip to the beach. It was so fun and she loved the water to splash over her feet and feel the nice breeze off the bay. She wriggled her toes in the sand and enjoyed a new texture to learn.

We are sad to say that our season tickets to the Astros are almost over, but we have enjoyed taking family outings weekly to watch the 'Stros give it a go at another great season...Sadly it doesn't look too promising. We have included some pics from our last outing to the baseball game.

Maddie has cut her second tooth now and we are experiencing all the joys of parenthood with a teething infant. She sleeps much less and whines much more, but she's still our chubby cheek sunshine most of the time.

She is growing so fast and seems to be making new milestones each week. We send our love to everyone and hope to catch up more soon.

Ouch!

Maddie loves to put things in her mouth, as all children do. Her favorite thing to munch on is my finger. This afternoon we were rocking and singing when she reached for my finger. I had just washed my hands so I let her chew on it. I felt a sharp pain on my finger and assumed it was her fingernail since she usually has a death grip on it. Just then I remembered I cut her nails only yesterday and decided to look in her mouth. Yes, it's confirmed, Maddie has cut her first tooth!!! I am so excited for her. I am not sure why I feel so glad about it, especially because I am still nursing. It's truly amazing to watch her grow and learn. I am so glad to have so many people to share her life with. We took some recent pictures yesterday and I will post some here too.

And then, there was one.

Maddie loves fish. Everytime we would go to the store or someplace that had an aquarium, we would show Maddie the fish. She is always so amused by them. Being the good parents that we are, we decided to buy Maddie some fish. We only wanted a little fish bowl that could go in her room for her to enjoy.
Matthew went to the store and came home with the supplies we needed, the bowl, rocks, food and two goldfish. After letting them adjust to the water, we removed them from the bag, and put them in their new home. Our next task was to name these new pets. We decided on names from a morning television program Maddie loves, but as I was assigning them names, I noticed something amiss....One of the fish had only one eye. I was surprised that Matthew hadn't given them more than a once over, but I accepted the one eyed fish just the same.
So now Maddie had her first pets, Tyrone and Pablo. We were doing fine with them and feeding them, cleaning the bowl and giving them plenty of attention.
Of course, as goldfish go, one started to not look so well. Matthew told me that Tyrone was not doing well, but I said he was fine and thought he might just be tired. Well, sure enough Tyrone died today. I thought he was just resting at the bottom of the bowl on the rocks ( I thought they floated to the top when they were dead). Matthew scooped him out and took him straight to the bathroom. He is now resting where all good fish go sometime or another.
And don't worry about Maddie's reaction, she was napping. I am sure we will go through many goldfish in her life. It's just another wonderful step we are taking in life as parents.

Christening Pictures

Maddie got some God

Maddie's christening was so beautiful. It was wonderful to see how many people love and care about our family. We must have filled up half the church for just our family. There was 5 babies being baptized at the same time and each only had around 5 to 10 guests, our family and friends numbered about 30 people. I can't thank everyone enough for being involved in Maddie's special day.

The baptism took place at 1 o'clock, which is prime nap time for miss thing, so she was of course, none too happy. Just as she would drift to sleep on my chest, the deacon had another anointing of some type. We made it through and Maddie got her God. Besides, my friend Traci told me that it is customary in the Caribbean for children to cry during the baptism. Apparently, if a child does not cry, it is believed that the baptism "did not take". So, Maddie cried and let all the evil out.

We had a wonderful reception following the baptism for all the friends and family to eat and be together. At the reception Madeleine finally got to meet her long distance boyfriend Tommy. He's almost 8 months old, but Maddie likes her older man. From the pictures you can see Tommy smiling at her. We know it's a little young to start them, but we just know they'll be life long pals.

Madeleine is waking up from her nap, so that's about all the time I have for this entry.

So now we're on the bandwagon, too!!!

Matthew is correct that not everyone has a blog, but it sure seems like it. We plan to keep up with this every week or two, making it easier for friends and family to be involved in Maddie's life as she grows. Anyone with a small child knows that it is nearly impossible to keep every person in your life up to date with the latest bits of your life. This will be our best attempt at keeping people "in the loop".

This week has brought us to the wonderful experience of infant teething. There is no white caps to be seen, but with all the drooling, chewing on everything in site, and fussiness of our normally perfect baby, we know that teeth are in her near future.....Or atleast we hope.

We have been spending our days trying to teach Madeleine everything under the sun. It's amazing to think how much a person learns in a lifetime, to talk, to walk, to smile, to love. Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed at this huge task in front of me to raise an intelligent, productive member of society. As of yet, she had managed to conquer the art of smiling, babbling, and rolling over.

Next weekend we are having Maddie christened, or as well tell her, we are going to "get her some God". We will update then and put some new pics from the blessed event.

The Beginning

Well not everyone has a blog. My 87 year old grandparents who live in Brooklyn don't have a blog. In fact, Im pretty sure they dont even know the internet is. I do think that this will be easier than trying to post all our picture to yahoo and then sending them out and updating and all that jazz. So, the purpose of this is blog will be two fold. One, we will try our very best to chronicle the life of our beautiful daughter. Second, we can chronicle our lives as parents and talk about the things that are going on in our lives and how we are responding to parenthood. So far all has been terriffic. I think we have the most beautiful daughter in the world. Hopefully we an keep this updated. Well Brandi will be better to tell the story so goodby for now.

- Matthew





Our sweet pictures before our sweet baby was born.........................