just a cute baby in a swimsuit and sunhat

"who me?"

"ok mom... that's enough..." 

everybody poops

Pooping.  It's a part of life.  I hope you don't mind if we talk about poop today.  The story goes that when my niece Meaghan was in potty training, her mother, Maria, bought the book Everybody Poops.  After reading through the book, little Meaghan was amazed to learn that she wasn't the only one.  She looked up at her mom and asked, "Even grandma poops?"  Hard to believe that even wonderful grandma has to make a trip to the bathroom every once in a while. 

But it's true.  Everybody poops.  Even cute little babies.  We started feeding Madeline rice cereal and some simple solids over a month ago, but other than thickening up a bit, her poops remained pretty consistent.  Much to my surprise Sunday morning there was a nice big lump in her diaper and man did it stink.  pee-eew.  She's probably had four or five poops since then and bless her little heart, they hurt.  She looks at me with those beautiful blue-green eyes just wanting to know what the heck is going on and why she feels the need to grunt and groan and be so uncomfortable.  I suppose it's better than being constipated... 

To be honest I don't know why in the world I'm sharing this.  But there you go. Pooping. It's a part of life.

sometimes....

Sometimes you have to get shots. Like your six month shots.  And sometimes shots make your legs sore and you just don't feel so great.  So sometimes you just have to get in the tub.  And your daddy will make your the alphabet baby.  And your mom will let you just chill in the tub for a long time.    And you drift off to sleep with dreams of rubber duckies.  And suddenly life is good again.

arches national park

Over a year ago husband and I were sitting in our little tree house imagining a trip to arches national park.  Just the two of us. Turns out if you want to camp in arches national park you need to make a reservation way in advance.  So we wiped the tears off of pregnant wife's cheeks and promised to take a family trip with the three of us right after graduation.  And that's just what we did. We're so glad Madeline could make it.  

I was simply flaber-gasted by the beautiful piece of heaven we got to explore.  I wasn't sure what to expect, but my imagination sure didn't come up with anything close to the amazing beauty we experienced.  These pictures are from day one of our couple days there.  We had planned to leave our empty apartment early that morning so we'd have lots of time day one.  I think we got there at about 5:00pm.  But it turned out great.  We set up camp, went for a little hike that resulted in the most beautiful sunset I have ever beheld.  We actually hiked to see the arch that's in only two of the sixty-something pictures I just bombarded you with, but everything else took my breath away just a little bit more.  

I think we learned two important lessons that day.  Make that three:  (1) It will take three times as long to finish packing up your apartment and clean it and get on the road for vacation so don't even plan on getting out of the house early (2) If you want a family picture to be in focus, put it on auto before handing it to some random person who kindly volunteered to take it for you otherwise you and your family will be out of focus (3) When hiking at sunset, hike quickly if you don't want to attempt making dinner in the dark.  It's a lot easier with daylight than a teeny tiny flashlight.