Play Time in the Snow

We had been promising Maggie some time outside in the snow, so we took her out to play today. She loved every minute of it and didn't want to come in!

Merry Christmas

We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas! Here are some photos we took from last night before church and from this morning.

Potty Success: Days 3 & 4

Maggie continues to do really well with potty training. She has had no accidents for the past 2 days! I wish I would have just gone to straight underwear a long time ago rather than still using diapers and trying to potty train!

Potty Success: Day 2

We had another pretty successful day today! There were only 2 accidents, not counting the one where she went pee on the floor because she coudn't get the bathroom door open in time! :)

Potty Success!

Today we tried underwear again with Maggie and she did fabulously!! She went pee and poop (almost) everytime on the potty. We put a diaper on her for nap and put the underwear over it, but she still woke up dry! We did the same thing when we had to go to Wal-Mart, too, and the diaper was just barely wet once we got home. She made it all day without any accidents until 7:30 tonight. She ran up to me and said "potty, potty!", but unfortunately it was too late. Not too bad for an underwear novice!

Jacobs Family Christmas

We celebrated Christmas with the Jacobs side today. It was a great day overall...great food, great presents, great family!! Maggie had a blast opening presents, including everyone else's! She would get so excited with each one, too. Her expressions and reactions were absolutely priceless.

Max and Ruby

Maggie has never been much of a TV watcher. She will watch a couple minutes here and there, but mainly it's just on as background noise while she plays. Well, that was until she discovered Max and Ruby, a cartoon about 2 bunny rabbits. It's based on a series of books. If she could, she would watch "bunny rabbits" all day! Thanks to DVR, she is able to watch the episodes we have recorded. Unfortunately, she wants to watch them constantly!! Maggie will sit and watch 2-3 episodes back-to-back! I don't know what makes this show so special, but it's definitely Maggie's favorite right now. She could care less about watching any other cartoon!

Santa

We took Maggie up to see Santa today at Bass Pro Shops. She did really well, too. The whole time she was so excited to go up and see him. As soon as it was her turn, I did have to give her a little nudge, and finally just pick her up to put her on his lap though. Once she was there, she sat, took some photos, and even told him she wanted a baby doll for Christmas!

Too Quiet

Whenever it gets too quiet in our house when Maggie's around, it means one of two things:
1. she's doing something she's not supposed to
or
2. she's hiding somewhere to go poop

For the past month or so, her hiding place has been behind one of our kitchen cabinets. See below.

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day! We went up to my brother's new house. Christiana and Brett hosted a great meal, spent with some great people.

The day after Thanksgiving, Rob had the day off, too. So, we went to Wal-Mart to do some Christmas shopping (we did not go at 5am however). We even got our Christmas tree and decorations up. Maggie did a fantastic job of helping to put the ornaments on the tree and setting out all of my snowmen decorations. She even picked some out to put in her room!

Walking on the Treadmill

Potty Training Update

Maggie still has her good days and bad days with potty training, but she is definitely progressing more and more. A lot of times, she will initiate going, too. We still have to ask her if she needs to go, but most often she tells us when she needs to. Tonight, she even went into the bathroom on her own, turned the light on, pulled her pants down, took her diaper off, and went poopy on the potty! I think, and hope, we are getting closer folks!!

Emporia Visit

Rob, Maggie, and I drove down to Emporia today. It was great to go back and see the places Rob and I used to hang out at, live at, go to, etc. Nothing has really changed either! The memories came flooding back of when we met for the first time and all the great times we had together. It was so neat to share this with Maggie, too. She really enjoyed walking around the campus and checking things out. We'll definitely need to make our next trip back sooner than this one was though!

Endocrine Lab Results

First off, the endocrine clinic nurse called to let us know that all of Maggie's labs came back normal.

She also told me that at her next appt. in March, they will reevaluate her growth in height. She said that if Maggie's height doesn't increase, they may want to look at growth hormone testing as a possibility. Here's the part that kind of angers Rob and I though: he specifically told them her growth was a concern of ours when they asked him and they said they were pleased with her growth. They said they were happy that she was on the growth charts now and even showed them to Rob. Her doctor told Rob that Maggie's growth rate is actually increasing at a faster rate than other children her age, too. So, how can they say how pleased they are one minute and then say growth hormone testing is a possibility the next minute?!

I guess we will just cross this bridge when, and if, we come to it.

Endocrine Appt.

Rob took Maggie to her endocrine checkup today. Her doctor said she looked really good. In fact, she is in the 10th percentile for height. The best part though is the fact that she finally made it on the growth charts for her weight (6th percentile). She is up to a whopping 24 pounds! They drew labs to check her thyroid levels. Luckily, they only had to stick Mag once this time. We don't have results back from these labs yet. We will go back to the clinic for another checkup in 6 months.

Halloween Candy

We were pleasantly surprised at how much of Maggie's candy was actually okay for her to eat (contained no peanuts). We thought for sure she'd be left with very little. It was really nice how most of the candy had the ingredients listed, even on the individual pieces, and companies like Goetze had it specifically posted on their website that their candy contains no peanuts. The picture below shows 2 different piles, the one on the left is the "can't eat pile" and the one on the right is the "eat pile".

Halloween

Rob, Maggie and I went to a Halloween Party last night with Uncle Brett and Christiana. We also got to go around the neighborhood and trick or treat. Maggie loved every minute of it and brought in quite the load of candy, too! This year she actually said "trick or treat" and "thank you" each time. One funny from last night: We went to one house and she said trick or treat and then said thank you, but she said it so soft, I asked her to say it a little louder. So, she said it again, but it was still pretty soft. I told her to say it so they could hear her and she shouted out "bye bye" instead! There's never a dull moment with Maggie around!!

Potty Training

Maggie continues to have good and bad days with the whole potty training thing. Some days she'll stay dry for the most part and go potty all day. Some days she'll go in her diaper just as much as the potty, and some days she wants absolutely nothing to do with the potty!

Well, today, not only did she use the potty consistently, but she walked up to Rob and told him she needed to go. Normally we have to initiate the process. Not only did she go pee, but she also told him she needed to go poop, too!

Albert

During our trip to Indiana, our guinea pig, Albert, died. I wasn't so much upset for myself, as I was for Maggie. Albert stayed in her room with her and she absolutely loved him, too. Every morning, the first thing she'd do is go over to his cage, tell him hi, and check his food and water. Anytime she was in her room playing, she would go over and play with him. Anytime we had carrots in the fridge, she insisted on feeding them to Albert.

Rob and I decided it would be best if he took his cage, food, and everything that belonged to Albert out of sight. Last night, we took her up to her room to see if she'd notice that his cage was gone. At first she didn't notice a thing, but after a couple minutes, she walked over to where his cage used to be and asked where he was. Rob simply told her he was gone. She then replied "Albert gone, town?" (translation: Albert is out of town?) So, we just said yes and she was okay with that. She continued to ask about Albert last night and asked again multiple times today, but overall seems to be taking it just fine. Time will tell. We thought it was probably a blessing in disguise that he died while we were gone, so she was never the wiser about any of it.

Indiana Trip

Our trip was so great! We left on Friday, had the Jacobs' family gathering on Saturday, the Gadlage (my mom's side) gathering on Sunday, and drove home yesterday. Maggie was wonderful the whole way in the car, too. In fact, we didn't even make our first stop on Friday until 5 hours in and it was to gas up the car and for the rest of us to go to the bathroom! Grandma's little present idea helped out a lot. She bought Maggie a bunch of little presents to open up along the way in the car. It was such a great distraction! It was so nice to see all of our family from both sides and especially nice for Maggie to meet the Jacobs side for the first time! Here are some pictures from the trip.

Panther Pride

Maggie and I went to a tailgating party last night and then stayed for the first half of the Paola football game. It was Bleacher Creature (young girls practicing cheerleading) night and Maggie decided she needed her face painted to look like a Paola Panther just like the older girls!

Maggie Funnies

I just had to share some recent things that Maggie has done that were too funny!

Recently, she has gone through her stuffed animals and found her Santa again. So, she thinks he is coming soon. She has been asking (multiple times a day mind you) "Santa coming?" "Santa coming...DS?" Somehow she has it in her mind that when Santa does come he's bringing her a Nintendo DS. She loves playing with Rob's DS, knows how to turn it on, get to the drawing screen, draw on it and everything. She can even make a mean stick figure on it! I'm guessing she's decided she just needs to have one of her own. I was kind of hoping we'd last a couple more years before we'd get into asking for the big, expensive presents though!!

The second funny thing that's happened this week is that Maggie got in my purse, got the cell phone out, and proceeded to call our house phone. Unfortunately for me, I didn't realize she had the cell phone. So, I looked at the caller ID confused as to how our cell phone number was calling, answered the phone anyway, and then looked at my daughter sitting on the floor with the cell phone held up to her ear ready to have a conversation with me!

Happy Birthday

Maggie and our family wishes Uncle Brett a very happy birthday today!!!

The Potty Training Saga Continues

Well, Maggie has good days and bad days with the whole potty training thing. Sometimes she goes all day being dry and other days she wants nothing to do with the potty. Tonight, she even sat on the potty for about 15 minutes, decided to get up and run around the house naked, go into the kitchen and pee in the middle of the floor. Luckily, she did it there and not on the carpet I guess!! She did go poopy on the potty for the first time when we were up in Omaha this past weekend, but hasn't done it since. We'll keep you posted on the saga! :)

Omaha

Last weekend, Maggie and I drove up to Omaha with my mom and dad to visit my aunt. We had a blast! On Sunday, we even got to go to the Omaha Zoo with my cousin. Here are some of the pictures from our zoo adventure.

One Little Monkey Jumping on the Bed

Even though Maggie decided to wake up Grandpa at 2 this morning, and keep him awake until 5, she was still a ball of energy today!!!

Happy Anniversary!

Four years ago today, Rob and I got married. It's hard to believe it's already been 4 years and even harder to believe we've been together for 10!!

Grandma and Grandpa Jacobs watched Maggie for us tonight so we could go out to dinner. Then, we decided to let her just spend the night, too, since we'd be bringing her home to sleep and turning right around to bring her back up there again tomorrow. It was pretty hard to leave her (this is only the 2nd time I've been away from her overnight), but we knew it'd be easier on her this way.

So, tomorrow when I get off work, I will head up there. Maggie and I will spend the night at Grandma and Grandpa's again tomorrow because we are leaving bright and early Saturday morning to drive to my aunt's in Omaha.

The Thinker

Maggie, Nana, Papa, and I went to the Roots Festival here in Paola for a little bit tonight. She really liked walking around, checking out all the booths, and listening to the music. I took this photo of her when we were sitting and eating. It was too cute to let the moment pass without a snapshot!

Maggie...lately

I realized I hadn't updated about what Maggie's up to these days for quite awhile and that it was time again!

She's been able to count to 10 for a few months now. She also knows her colors. She's singing more and more, too. She'll actually join in, and even initiate, singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", her ABC's, and other songs. She absolutely loves playing with other kids. She is really good about approaching them to play. Maggie thinks nothing of walking up to another child and talking to them. (I'm not going to say who she gets this trait from, but anyone who knows her namesake should know the answer to that one!!) She can put on/take off any clothing item on her own. She is all about taking care of her babies. She loves to jump, play hide-and-seek, dance, read, play outside, swim, swing, clean, and so much more. Potty training is going really well. She's been averaging only one wet diaper a day (other than waking up in the morning and waking up from her nap). She loves to sit on the potty and loves to give high fives when she goes. She's even woken up from a couple naps and been dry, too! This girl can recognize any restaurant just from the sign, but is especially fond of Pizza Hut for some reason. :) Her favorite commercial is the Dell commercial that sings the Lollipop song. She stops whatever she's doing when that commercial comes on so she can start singing the song. She loves anything Barney, Mickey/Minnie Mouse, and Pooh.

Well, that's all I can think of right now, but I'm sure I'll think of more!

Birthday Party!!

Maggie was invited to a birthday party today. It was at a gymnastics/tumbling place and she had the best time!! Luckily some of the older girls at the party took Maggie under their wing and helped her out with some of the things. She was so worn out, she took a 3 hour nap this afternoon! Here are some photos from the party.



Happy Birthday to the Cole girls: Aly, Maggie and Greta!

Busy, Busy, Busy

It's been pretty crazy here this week since I went back to work! It's definitely going to take some getting used to again, too. It's so hard to say good-bye to Maggie every morning especially when she wakes up to see me dressed and ready for work and says "mommy school?" because she wants to go with me.

Grandma and Grandpa Jacobs have started watching Mag again this week, too. She had a pretty fun-filled day today. They went to Louisburg Cider Mill and had cider donuts and cantelope. Then, they went to Miola Lake, played at the beach, and in the water. After they got home, Maggie even got a wagon ride! Needless to say, both mommy and Maggie are tired after their busy days!

Mmmm....watermelon

Here's a picture of Maggie with a mouthful of watermelon at dinner tonight!

Maggie shopping

Maggie and I spent the day with Grandma and Grandpa Jacobs today. She even went grocery shopping in their pantry!! Here's a pic of the shopper in action!

MRI results

The hospital already called with Maggie's MRI results and said everything looks normal!! We don't have to take her back for 6 months for her regular ultrasound checkup now. Thank you for all your prayers, they truly worked once again!

MRI

Well, we are home and Maggie is finally asleep!

They ended up sticking her 3 times (once in the hand and twice in the foot) to get the IV started for the sedation. Maggie was not too happy either! It was kind of funny though once they gave her the medicine, she almost immediately relaxed. Her head started to droop and her legs just hung there. Plus, when they were getting ready to take her back, she began to giggle and laugh. It was so cute and great to leave her on that note.

The MRI took forever! They told us about an hour, but it took about 2. Needless to say, Rob and I were getting pretty anxious. The nurse said everything went fine and that Maggie did really well. In fact, she said they had a hard time getting Maggie to stop talking once they took her back!! She was pretty chatty when we got to see her in the recovery room, too. After about 15 minutes though, she got pretty cranky. She fell asleep in the car, but woke up fussy as soon as we got home. I finally got her calmed down and she is asleep in her bed. The nurses said that's the best thing for her right now, to just let her sleep it off.

We don't have any results yet, but they said someone will call us by Friday. We'll keep you posted.

Thanks for your prayers!

Cardiology Appt.

We had Maggie's cardiology appt. today. We haven't seen this doctor for a year! Her cardiologist said the ultrasound on her heart showed that everything is normal. We don't have to go back for another checkup for 2 years now!!! We'll keep you posted on how Wednesday's MRI goes and what the results show.

St. Louis

We had a great time in St. Louis! Here are some photos from our vacation.

Maggie's 1st Royals Game

Today, we met up with Grandma and Grandpa Smith, Uncle Jim, Aunt Jen and Nathan, and Rob's aunt and cousin. We had a busy day, too. First, we started out at Nebraska Furniture Mart. Then, we went to Mimi's Cafe for lunch and over to Oak Park Mall for some shopping. After that, we headed out to the stadium for Maggie's first baseball game!!

Now she didn't really nap all day, so we weren't sure what to expect. She lasted the first 3 innings, but they were pretty rough. So, we went to eat and walk around for the next 3 innings. Kauffman Stadium has added a lot of things to do in the outfield, including tons of activities for children. Maggie had a blast playing on all the equipment they had. Then, we headed back to our seats for the last 3 innings and she did pretty well. Grandma Karen really helped out though!! Plus, the crowd got really excited since the Royals were doing so well!! They even won!!




Tomorrow we head out bright and early for our vacation to St. Louis! We are so excited to be able to get away for a little bit and spend some time together before school starts up again!

What Child Labor Laws?

Maggie was quite happy to hear that minimum wage went up today!!!

Happy Birthday Nana!!

Happy 60th birthday to Nana Jacobs!!

Love,
Maggie

Positive Note

Today I called about Maggie's lab results from last week's appt. The nurse practitioner said that all of her results showed normal levels with her liver functioning. Now, we still don't know (and won't until Mag's MRI on Aug. 5th) if the lesion on her liver is a new one or not, but these results are one more reason for us to believe she is okay. On top of the lab results, she is eating okay, acting okay (ie. not overly tired), pooping okay, her liver felt normal when Dr. Lewing examined her, and her external hemangiomas haven't changed any either. We are looking at all of these things as positive signs. We just pray that the MRI confirms that this lesion has always been there.

Commenting on Posts

A few people have asked/wondered how to comment on any of the posts from Maggie's site. All you do is click on the "0 comments" (or whatever the number is before "comments") link and fill it out. If you do not have a Google account, you can leave a comment without registering by clicking the anonymous button under the comment section.

Maggie's Doctor's Appt.

Today Maggie had her 6 month checkup with the hemonc. clinic. She also had a follow-up ultrasound. She did so good during the ultrasound! She just laid there (once she remembered it didn't hurt). She even ended up putting her hands behind her head for a little bit and looked so relaxed. I wish I had my camera for that!!

After the ultrasound, we headed up to the hemonc. clinic. She weighed in at 22 pounds and is 32 inches tall. Dr. Lewing did her physical exam and thought everything looked great. She went over the ultrasound results with us, too. One of the larger lesions on Maggie's liver that they've been watching continues to be stable. However, they did find a lesion they've never seen before. Dr. Lewing told us she doubts it is a new hemangioma since it is highly unlikely for Maggie to grow anymore at this point (they usually stop going through their growth period by 6 months old). She also said since it's on the back of the liver, they could have just missed it before through ultrasound. Dr. Lewing gave us 2 options: do a follow-up ultrasound in 3 months (instead of 6 months) or do another MRI. Dr. Lewing said she felt completely comfortable with either choice. Rob and I chose to go ahead with another MRI because it will give us more definitive results. We want to make absolutely sure of what we are dealing with here. Plus, Dr. Lewing said the last MRI Maggie had done was 2 years ago so it would probably be good for us to compare results anyway. The downside of doing an MRI is that Maggie would have to be put under again, which is so agonizing.

Also, Dr. Lewing decided to go ahead and draw labs to double check Maggie's liver functioning, etc. We do not have the results of these yet, but Maggie did so good for this, too. She did cry, but I had prepped her for what was going to happen before we even went to the hospital this morning. I told her she would get a shot, that it would hurt a little, and when it was done she would get a Bugs Bunny band-aid, which she loves. As long as we reminded her of this, she was fine. In fact, she kept repeating what the nurses were saying (ie. "almost done", "just a little more", "no more ouchies").

Rob, as usual, had to paint the big picture for me today and reassure me that everything will be okay. Honestly, my head keeps telling me that it can't be a new one, and that they just missed it before. This proves once again that we still have a long road ahead of us.

Maggie's MRI is scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 5th at 9am. Please continue to keep our family in your thoughts and prayers. They have already sustained us through so much.

Big Girl Bed- Night 2

Last night Maggie went to sleep fine and slept the whole night! She never once fell out of bed either! :)

Today's nap was a whole different story though. She cried and cried, kept getting up, laid there for a very long time before she finally went to sleep, and woke up soon after, too! I think grandma and grandpa being down here had a little something to do with it though because she does not want to miss a single thing.

Tonight however, she laid right down and went right to sleep, never even made a sound.

Big Girl Bed- Night 1

Well, Maggie started off well, but about 1:30am I woke up to her screaming/crying. She had slipped out of the bed and was laying half on/half off of it. We fixed that pretty quickly by comforting her and adding another side rail to her bed. She woke up again about 2:30, but quickly went back to sleep after some more comfort time. She woke up one other time, but was quiet again within a minute or so (we did not go up this time).

Naptime today went fine other than being a little shorter than usual. I'm wondering if she's waking up slightly, rolling over, etc. and seeing that it's something different so she wakes up. Who knows!?

If you look at the pictures from yesterday's blog, you'll see the side rails that came with the crib were 2 short ones (which left a nice, long opening in the center of the bed). Rob took those off and instead left just the 1 long side rail that we added last night. We figured it gave her less of a chance of sliding off again. :)

So far so good, she is still sound asleep at 11:00, but the night is still young!!

Big Girl Bed

Tonight was Maggie's first night in her "big girl bed". She was pretty excited at first, running in her room and jumping on the bed to check it out. Once she realized she was going to sleep in it that way though, she wasn't too sure. I held her for a minute and we talked about it some more. Once I laid her down, she got up once, but quickly laid back down. Then, she cried for all of 30 seconds before she quieted down and fell asleep. As of now (11:30), she is still sound asleep. Hopefully she'll stay asleep!! We'll see what she does when she wakes up tomorrow morning, and how she'll be going to sleep in the future.

Fireworks/Fourth of July

Paola had their fireworks last night, so Rob, Maggie and I went out to see them. This year was definitely different than last year! Maggie got into them even more by pointing to them and saying "pretty", or reaching out for them. It was so cute!!

Today, Maggie and I went up to my parent's house for a cookout. Grandpa even watched Maggie for a little while so Grandma and I could go out to see a movie!

We hope everyone had a safe and wonderful Fourth of July!!

Squeeze Painting

When our school had it's PTO auction, I bought a basket full of arts and crafts ideas and supplies. I figured it would be fun for Maggie and I to do some of them while I was home over the summer. Yesterday, she did some squeeze painting. We mixed flour, salt, water, and tempera paint (for some reason she chose brown as one of her colors) in squeeze bottles and she went to town! It took her 3 sheets of paper before she discovered she could put her fingers/hands in the paint to create a totally different design! She loved every minute of it and since we didn't use all of the paint, she got to do it again today. Notice the glob of paint on her nose in some of the photos, too!

*Anyone that knows me knows this was a big step for me because I really let Maggie go free and get as dirty as she wanted! :)

Uncle Brett's New House

Uncle Brett and Christiana were finally able to get their house laid on the foundation today. The 2 parts have been sitting on their property since April, unable to do anything but sit there because of all the rain we've had (the ground was too wet to get the crane back there). So, today, we went up to see it put on. Maggie thought it was pretty cool, too. We are all very excited for them and can't wait to celebrate Thanksgiving in their new house!! :)

Lenexa BBQ

This weekend was the Lenexa BBQ and despite the EXTREMELY hot temperatures, we still had a great time! We even placed 14th out of 188 teams in sausage. Maggie only spent a couple hours out at the park on Friday before grandma took her back to her house to cool down, but she lasted the entire afternoon on Saturday. We were really cautious to make sure she drank a lot of water, stayed in the shade, etc. and she did fabulously!!

She even managed to sqeeze in a little power nap!

Posing for a group photo

Troy and Beth's Wedding

This past weekend we drove to Liberal (about a 6 hour trip) for our friend Troy's wedding. We left Thursday evening and got back yesterday. It was great to get together and see some of our friends we don't get to see very often. Maggie did really well the whole trip, too. She didn't really nap because she didn't want to miss any of the action, but she slept every night the whole night through! Congratulations to Troy and Beth!!

Maggie vs. the Booster Seat

We went out to dinner tonight and Maggie sat in a booster seat. I've never really felt too secure about these and tonight proved why. She was moving around, the booster seat slipped out from under her, and she fell face first onto the ground. The redness didn't show up at first because she was crying so hard that her whole face turned red, but after a few minutes you could definitely see it. Poor baby! Of course Rob and I felt absolutely terrible, too. We'll see if it looks better or worse after a few days!

This Week in Review

Another week has just flown by!! Maggie continues to absolutely love her swimming time!

Friday, Maggie and I had lunch with Grandma and Grandpa Jacobs and met up later with Grandma and Grandpa Smith, Aunt Jen, and Nathan. After we met up with them, we did a little shopping, walked around the Overland Park Arboretum (which was beautiful), and headed to dinner, too.

Saturday, Rob's family came down here for lunch. Then, Grandma Smith, Maggie and I went for a drive around town (a little nap time for Maggie). Grandma, Grandpa, Maggie and I decided to take a walk since it was so nice out. Afterwards, we went to church and had dinner at Pizza Hut so we could see Rob for a little while.

Tonight, Maggie will get to spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa Jacobs while I go out to dinner with some friends.

This coming week isn't really going to slow down either! Maggie will still have swimming lessons each morning and we will leave this weekend for Liberal, Kansas for Troy and Beth's wedding.

Swim Lessons: Day 2

Maggie didn't get to swim in the big pool today for swimming lessons because it started raining. As soon as she figured it out, she pointed at the pool, said "Swim, please. Swim, please.", and started to cry. So, I told her when we got home, we would swim in her inflatable pool. I even filled it with a little water! She seemed okay with it after that (see photo below for evidence)!!

Step 1: Dunk head/hair in the water

Step 2: Drain water from head/hair

Step 3: Lick dripping water from head/hair

A Watched Pot Never Boils

Here's a photo of Maggie cooking in her kitchen, apron and all!

First Swim Lesson

Here's a photo of the swim pro ready to go!!

Maggie had her first swim lesson today and did pretty well despite how cold it was. Of course it was cooler today, and is supposed to be the rest of this week! At first, she wouldn't let me put her down in the water, not even her feet. After only a few minutes, she was playing/walking around on her own though. We only stayed in the water for 15 minutes because it was too cold. As long as your body was in the water, you were fine, but once any part came out, it was really chilly. Maggie's arms/hands started turning purple, so we were out immediately!

Another Weekend Bites the Dust

This weekend we had 3 of Rob's friends in town for a bachelor party for one of them. Needless to say, after I cleaned and got the house ready, I recleaned today after they left!! Maggie didn't want to miss any of the fun yesterday, so she decided not to take a nap (despite all my attempts) which made her pretty cranky and whiny the whole day. She took pity on me today and took a 2 1/2 hour nap though and was in a good mood all day, too!!

Tomorrow is Maggie's first day of swimming lessons. I will be in the water with her. From what I understand, it's pretty much just about getting her used to the water. She is soooo excited to wear her new swimsuit, too!!

Reading with Grandpa

As I've said before, reading is one of Maggie's favorite things to do. In fact, she would be fine if we read to her all day!! Here's a photo of her and Grandpa Jacobs tonight sharing a story.

Donkeys and Kung Fu Panda

I know, strange title, but the video should explain! Sorry it's sideways. I couldn't edit it to rotate it.

We taught Maggie what a donkey says after she saw, and heard, Grandma Smith's miniature donkeys this weekend. The karate chopping started when Grandpa Jacobs showed her how. :) Notice Kung Fu Panda is on in the background, too.

Maggie's Doctor's Appt.

Well, last time Maggie was okay in the doctor's office as long as we were in the waiting room. This time she wouldn't even let me put her down while we were there and she immediately started crying when the nurse came to get us. Luckily, the shots were very quick! It was kind of funny though because she was crying the whole time, but as soon as I pointed out to her that they put Bugs Bunny band-aids on her legs, it was like nothing at all had just happened!! On the plus side, Maggie is completely caught up on all her immunizations now and won't have to have anymore until kindergarten!!!!

I asked her pediatrician whether she wanted Maggie to continue drinking whole milk and Carnation Instant Breakfast and she said yes. We kind of figured she would want her to just to give Maggie some added calories/fat and help her put on more weight. So, her doctor told me to keep her on both for another 6 months and then we can switch over to 2% milk and we won't have to add the Carnation Instant Breakfast as often.

Maggie's Weekend, Part 2

This weekend was a whirlwind to say the least!! On Friday, Maggie and I went up to my parents because my aunt and uncle were in town. Then, we drove to Marysville yesterday for Great Grandpa Smith's 95th birthday party. It was a great party with great food and family! After spending the night last night, and afternoon today, we headed home.

Tomorrow, we are going back to the pediatrician's office for more immunizations. Maggie is supposed to get 2 live-virus shots (she hasn't had any yet). We'll see how she does once she realizes where she is!

A Day with Grandma and Grandpa

Maggie spent the afternoon with Grandma and Grandpa Jacobs because Rob had to work and I drove to Arkansas to see Shelley, a friend of mine (it's hard to believe, but it's only 3 hours away). It's amazing how much patience had returned in less than a week of being off school, too, because I spent some time with Shelley and her 2nd graders today and loved it!

Grandma got a little taste of Maggie at bathtime tonight when Maggie splashed the water all over her!! :)

Maggie's weekend

Yesterday, Maggie and I went up to Grandma and Grandpa Jacobs' to see them and Uncle Brett and Christiana. She loved playing with Uncle Brett's dog, too! Angel got lots and lots of kisses!!

Today, we went shopping and Maggie quite enjoyed trying on shoes (she does seem to have a shoe fetish). After shopping, we met up with Grandma and Grandpa Smith for dinner at the Melting Pot on the Plaza. By the time we got to the Plaza, it was absolutely beautiful out to walk around for awhile, too. As seen in the picture, Maggie needed to relax from all the shopping and walking so she kicked her heels up at Grandma and Grandpa's hotel!!

Maggie and Bubbles

Maggie absolutely loved playing with the bubbles I brought home from work today, as witnessed in the video of her and the neighbors!

First Post on the New Site

Okay, I finally got the new site up and running. For those of you that followed Maggie's updates on her old site, thank you for following us to this new one. I plan to update you on the latest on our family, but probably not daily like I did before. Welcome!!