At Home in the Mountains

We got the pool out for the first time yesterday evening. I didn't fill it up soon enough and the water was freezing. We thought Maddy would just be in and out in a couple of seconds but she absolutely loved playing in the pool. She was losing her breath at first in the cold water but I guarantee we would have had a Tasmanian Devil level fit if we'd tried to make her get out. Thanks Aunt Tam for the cute swimsuit and robe. Here is a video of Maddy enjoying the water: Happy Memorial Day weekend to all!

What a whirlwind weekend and week so far! We started out last Wednesday night putting in another flower bed in our front yard. It turned out great. We didn't get started on it until about 7 at night and worked til after 9 to get everything done before we headed to Louisiana the next day for Jessica's graduation. We are going to put a birdbath in the back of this flower bed. A picnic at the park in Monroe! This park was by the river. It was so fun to do something outside and get to spend time with the Skidmore girls. This is by the bayou that runs behind where Jessica did her graduate studies. We went to her department picnic on Friday night. They honored Jessica and had some of the yummiest fried chicken I've ever tasted. It was so hot out that night (apparently). Maddy and Aaron were sweating like crazy. I guess my Beaumont genes kicked in and saved me because I felt perfect almost the whole picnic. Maddy is a cutie. The celebration dinner after graduation. This is Aaron w

I feel like this saying has applied to us this week. I think all of us are just worn to a frazzle after the past week. Some activities were fun and some weren't. I had a great time going to Jenna's brunch and shower and the DBU baseball game but not such a great time going to doctor's appointments and class and all the driving that I did this week. Thank goodness that graduation, school, and doctor's appointments are over for a bit. I am so ready to just have nothing on the calendar. May still has a few doctor's appointments and events but June is looking blissfully blank until Ethan and Jenna's wedding. Here are a couple of pictures of our flowers. They are looking amazing. I am sad that the heat is coming soon and most will probably wilt and die. Aaron and I have talked about several ideas we have for further landscaping on the yard and hopefully we can do those soon. otherwise we will have to wait until fall because it is going to be way to hot to work outsid

m DP visits always make me want a DP. Despite how great our developmental pediatrician is and how much I like her these appointments always stress me out. First I have to drive 635 to Medical City and it seems that there just isn't a time when 635 isn't an absolute traffic nightmare going both ways. Today it took us an hour to get home. Maddy got a good report. Her gross motor skills were at 7 months. So she has made progress, slowly but surely. She is doing better on her tummy but still has a lot of catching up to do. But the doc was really happy to see her moving around so much compared to last visit. He best score was on receptive language. She tested at 14 months for receptive language skills!! Smart girl. Her expressive language is slightly behind at 11 months. The doctor said that receptive is the most important part and not to be too worried about the expressive language right now. She also said that talking may be taking a back seat to learning new motor skills. Her cog

Did you notice something looking kind of funny about our flowerbed on the last post? If you did, you were right. We put the bricks backwards. It kept bugging me so I took Maddy on a walk around the neighborhood and found some landscaping with the same bricks. So we switched them around last night. Tada! Our monkey in a cage. She had her craniofacial appointment today. We waited 2 hours to see the doctor 5 min. He thought there was nothing concerning and she will probably just have to have braces. So that is a blessing. On another note, I was so excited to find out today that I will have a little niece in September! I'm so excited for Maddy to have a girl cousin. Also, my friend Beckie had her baby today. A little girl as well.

Bookshelf Aaron made for me. We converted the useless space wasted by this ledge in our dining room to a bookshelf. I love it! It was my Mother's Day gift from Aaron. I have some boxes of books I need to dig out from under the stairs and see what other books I'd like to put out. Arrggg! wrong order! This is the flowerbed we made on Saturday. It turned out great. Maddy helping out. Planting the flowers Putting in the dirt and weed blocker. Weed blocker on bottom of bed before putting dirt in. I put on sunscreen twice and still got burnt on my shoulders. Anyone know if there is such a thing as SPF 500? My Mother's Day gift from Maddy. Playing in the laundry basket. Now if I can only teach her how to run the washer and dryer and fold everything! Faking a drink from the sippy. Don't know what we are going to do to teach her how to use one of these. Hanging out under the crepe myrtle and watching us work. They gave us these hats for Mother's Day at church. It is supposed

Maddy wearing the Warrior helmet we got from the race. Stephanie and I at the start line. If only we'd known what we were getting into our smiles might not have been so big. Aaron jumping over fire. Ben and Aaron right after the race. Mud men. Me crawling through the barbed wire mud pit. We are only two days into May and we are already rolling along at the speed of a race car. One more week and school is essentially over. Finals end for both of us on May 12th I believe. So we have both been overwhelmed with writing papers, grading papers, etc. Yesterday we did the long anticipated Warrior Dash. It is an approximately three mile race/obstacle course. We did the race with our friends Ben and Stephanie. I didn't really know what to expect from this race since it was so different from anything we'd ever done. I don't know what it was about this event, but it brought out some strange folks. For some reason about half the participants showed up in costume. Some were warrior t