December: The Birthday.

 

It's official, she's two.  And she likes to tell people as much, so if you get the claw hand from Maddi, that's what it means.  Still working on getting those two fingers to stand up on their own!

To celebrate, we took a stroll on the Riverwalk.  Madison loves watching the mariachi bands and waving to the folks on the riverboats as they pass by.  This time of year the whole place is decked out in festive lights.  But her favorite part, hands down, is the little gelato shop where we let her have a whole cup of ice cream to herself. But only because it was her birthday (and now that I'm looking at the photos I'm thinking, Really? We let her eat THAT much ice cream?? She did share a little). 

Welcome to Texas, where the boot of Italy has a spur. Of course.  

Afterwards we took her to the Five and Dime store (Breakfast at Tiffany's, anyone?) and let her pick out a toy, then went by the Alamo to see the lights. 

Maddi also had a "Little Chef" themed birthday party, because cooking is one of her most favorite things to do.  We found a good deal on a play kitchen and food and planned the whole event around it- watching Ratatouille, "baking" with play-dough, chef hats for everyone, the whole shebang.

We had so much fun with all Maddi's little friends! 

Annnnnnd... the proverbial singing happy birthday movie: (Notice the way Madison dives into her cupcake after the song.  Way to go, girl- have your cake and eat it too!)

November.

Madison's First Haircut:

Maddi had been modeling this lovely mullet look for a little too long, so I decided it was time to do something about it.  She sat perfectly still (thank you, Toy Story) and the process was quick and painless for her.  I, on the other hand, just about cried seeing all those little blond curls on the kitchen floor.
But really, sometimes you just have to let go of things.  And mullets are one of those things. 

Thanksgiving:
We were able to fly to Salt Lake to spend Thanksgiving with my family.  I've never lived more than an hour away from them, so to put it mildly, I've missed them.  It was a wonderful week.  It went MUCH too quickly.  I even loved that it was cold (12 degrees the night we arrived, to be exact).  It was too snowy to go much of anywhere- we tried one day and ended up turning around- but we loved just relaxing, napping (hooray for free babysitting at Grandma's house!), eating good food, playing games, and watching movies all night. In fact, we were too busy vacationing that I forgot to take pictures of anything.  Except this:

We don't get a whole lot of that in Texas.

While we were there, we spilled our exciting news, even though it was still very early (thanks Mom and Dad, for keeping our secret!).  Luckily, the effects of first trimester didn't really hit me until the plane ride home.  Literally.  I mean, never thought I'd actually have to use one of those doggy bags...

And then Maddi got the flu.  And then I got the flu. And then we got colds, and some nasty allergies.  And the next several weeks are kind of fuzzy.  (Thank goodness for a comfy couch, Disney movies, and a wonderful husband who can cook.)

And now all my friends know why we suddenly became very anti-social. Sorry friends! I'm pretty sure we're through the worst of it now and are ready to resume life as normal!

Year-end Review.

The last few months of 2010 kind of flew by. Zoomed by.  Funny how the holiday season always seems to do that.  This year in addition to all the usual festivities we had a little birthday celebration, too, and a few other escapades.

(We also managed to catch just about every bug and virus going around, and that on top of a little thing I like to call morning allllll-day-long sickness made for a whole lot of time spent in bed doing, well, nothing. So forgive me if our blogging's been a little sparse!)

Posts to follow.

In the meantime, enjoy Madison's rendition of "Once there was a Snowman" (wishful thinking for our neck of the woods):

P.S: Thanks to everyone for the nice comments and well wishes!

Secret's Out!