Miss M's Baptism

Last weekend we had a very special occasion to celebrate, Madelyn's baptism! As the day got closer, I grew more excited about spending the weekend with family and close friends to commemorate such a special time in our little family. It was one of the quicker weekends on record as it was packed with fun, but a great time.

One especially neat part to the actual baptism was that Madelyn wore my baptism gown.  It looked pretty good seeing as that it was 30 years old.  All things considered, although Madelyn got hit with the water right in her eyes and the absense of her afternoon nap, M was a champ!

Here are a few of my favorite shots from the weekend:

A can of worms

Is literally what we opened when the "face lift" started yesterday on our walkway.  As we've learned in the 2 short years we've lived in our house, the previous owner put band-aids everywhere. Rather than doing work  correctly, everything they did was just a simple fix, creating lots of problems for us. How nice of them, right? :)

Now, we are even more pleased that we decided to do this now! Our contractor was shocked that the inspector didn't notice some of the cracks and the wooden plank that was placed under our front door. Apparently, these two things are textbook signs of unstable footings and a band-aid to moisture problems. Under our cement stoop was an old brick porch.  I gather its not uncommon to cover a brick porch with cement. However, in order for it to be done properly, the brick needs to be sealed to keep out water before the cement is applied.... and that of course, was not done. What the workers found yesterday was double the amount of cement they anticipated (more than 5000 lbs!) a soaked, rotted brick porch that had damaged a little of our foundation... Oh, and... lots and lots of bugs!

I was afraid to get out of the car last night, worried that as I put my feet down, little creepy crawlers would be on my feet :) Thankfully, there were no signs of bugs, just the remnants of a long days work all in a mound by our front door. This is how it looked this morning and hopefully by the time we get home tonight, everything will be gone and the slate will be clean, ready for an all new porch and walkway! We're like little kids on Christmas, SUPER excited for the work to be done!

face lift!!

It's hard to believe but we're just a few weeks away from our 2 year anniversary in our house.  With all the work we've done inside, we decided the next home improvement project should move outside, to the front yard. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'll be generous in saying our curb appeal is probably at about a 1 or 2, definitely lots of room for improvement. We met with a few landscape designers and masonry experts and decided to jump at an early season discount and do it this month. To say we're excited is an understatement - we cannot wait for the face lift and how it will transform our house!

They'll start on Monday morning and over the next 2 weeks, they'll expand our front porch, move our stairs from the side to the front of the "porch", take up the cement walkway and install a new walkway into our yard. In a few more weeks they'll be back to install a handful of plants and bushes to complete the look.

I feel like using this picture as a before is a little unfair because this was taken last summer. The true before, as in right now, is an eyesore, ha! Don't know about you but all the green in this picture makes me VERY excited for spring/summer :)

Happy (day-dreamy) Friday!

The light of our lives

I intended for our blog to be all about what is going on in our lives and right now, our world and everything we do every day revolves around our little munchkin. In the coming weeks, I'll be sure to include in the blog other stuff that's going on, but right now, we're soaking up all the precious moments with Madelyn!

Miss M will be 16 weeks tomorrow (which is crazy!) and it seems like overnight she has grown and matured! Suddenly Madelyn is a chatterbox and she is always ready to flash a smile. On a few occasions she's squeaked out a chuckle and it makes us laugh so hard, we can't wait for more! She discovered her hands a while ago and constantly has her fingers in her mouth. However, tonight was the first time that she really found, and then started to suck her thumb! We said from the beginning, since she wasn't a fan of pacifiers she'd end up sucking her thumb... and we were right!

Quigley seems to be growing more and more found of his little sister. He is never more than a few inches from her, he accompanies us when we put her down and he sleeps at her bedside at night. It melts my heart to watch my big "baby" protect our little baby.  I just think its the neatest thing ever and I look forward to watching her grow up loving him as much as we do (tear :)

Playing for the first time in her jumperoo!

Watching T.V. with Daddy :)

An unusual expression for this little one, a pout!

There it is... She figured it out and finally got her thumb in her mouth!

Yup, she's hooked!! :)

Earlier tonight after we put Madelyn down, I came into the LR where Quigley was alone, curled up on the couch, in an unusual spot for him. He was propped up on a pillow "watching" Madelyn on the monitor :) It could have just all been coincidence but I fell for it nonetheless - precious

Blink of an eye

It seems as though our baby has sprouted right before our eyes! In the blink of an eye she's gotten so much bigger, she watches everything around her, and she smiles at everyone, dogs included!  We're starting to see her personality emerge and we're looking forward to laughter (we know its SO close!).

We just received our DVD with all of the pictures from our photo shoot with Madelyn just 9 days after she was born. It's hard to believe she was that tiny and it's almost hard to remember already. What a magical time that was for us as a family and I will always look back at these pictures and be reminded of the joy that filled our hearts as we settled into life as a family of 4 :)

A few of our favorites from the shoot:

Be Mine!

What a great day Valentine's Day is... Seeing as that I'm the kind of person who enjoys telling people that I love them, I love this holiday. It gives everyone the nudge to be a little softer, a little nicer, and do a good deed or two. It encourages us to look around at the love in our life - maybe it's from your parents, a brother or sister, a grandparent, great friend, bf/gf, spouse or child. If you are like me, it could be from your dog or cat! Either way, love is great and it's good to appreciate the love that surrounds you. If you are reading this, it's because you are family or friends - so today (and everyday) I am thankful for you and I love you!

Have a wonderful day filled with love, smiles, laughs and good times! XO

Our very special Valentine :)

Daddy's little girl

The only thing more amazing than my little girl smiling at me, is her smiling for her Daddy. Madelyn doesn't even need to hear his voice - once she gets a glimpse of Brian, she just absolutely LIGHTS UP, it totally melts my heart :)

Since Madelyn is definitely Daddy's girl, I made sure to get M all dressed for the game while Brian was at the gym. When spring training comes around, we have lots of adorable Boston Red Sox things for her to wear to show her Boston pride. For Super Bowl Sunday though, this was the best we could come up with to show our support for Daddy and the Patriots! Too bad the game didn't end like we'd hoped, it's on to baseball season now...

A working mom

Yup, that's me :) We are into week 3, which is hard to believe, and so far, so good. Mommy and Madelyn are both doing well with the transition. Actually, I jumped right back into work, as much as I resisted it, it all came back very easy. Could be because things are so chaotic at work, I had no choice but I hit the ground running. I email and text my mom and sister multiple times a day asking for updates and how Miss M is doing, the reports are always glowing, so I guess that means she's doing OK too :)

One thing is for sure, I will do everything I can not to keep up these hours, it's just not practical. Right now I see my baby for about a 1/2 hour a day.  She's asleep when we drop her off at my parents in the morning and she's asleep when we pick her up at night. I was afraid she'd forget who I was but since her face still lights up when she sees her Mommy and Daddy, I don't think that will happen. I know her sleep schedule will change with time, right now she sleeps from about 6pm until 6:30am or 7am when we wake her. How can we not appreciate that? As tempting as it is to wake her, little Miss M just loves her beauty sleep and we know its so good for her.  During our brief time with her each day, I hug and kiss her until I feel like I'm smothering her, but I just can't get enough. (God help this child when she grows up, I'm not sure I'll ever loosen my grip!)

I know that the work-mom balance is good and healthy but what is better than spending every second with your little one? I'm pretty sure nothing. But I guess the grass is always greener ;-) Given the fact that this wasn't a situation where there was a choice, I'm making lemonade. Oh boy do the weekends take on new meaning, it's all about us and time together as a family and it's perfect. Speaking of... is it Friday yet?