four months

My baby turned four months old a couple of weeks ago. I haven't had the chance to write a special blog all about her, but here I am doing it now. Like always, I can't believe how fast time flies. I can't believe Macee is already four months old. I honestly can't get enough of this little angel. She continues to get more and more fun everyday.

Macee is now 14 lbs 7 oz and 25 inches long, and sitting happily
in the 95th percentile...again. She is doing a lot of new things these days:

• Talking, a lot. She gives us darling squeals all of the time, especially in the mornings.
• Smiling and giggling. Macee loves being bounced on the bed, thrown in the air, turned upside down, being tickled on her feet and sides, and getting her bare belly blown on. This girl is a dare devil and completely loves her daddy pushing the limits with her. Scares me to death.
  
• Rolling, when it's convenient. She is the best at rolling from her back to her belly, towards the left. When she gets on her belly, she will let us know that she is so not happy about it. She rolled from her belly to back when she was three months old, but it has been a challenge for her since. She may end up sitting before she masters rolling. She's getting strong!
  
• She is a pro at eating. Wow, this girl eats a lot. She eats so much that I finally decided it was time to give in to the spoon. She started eating oatmeal and is doing great with it. She knows how to open her mouth to the spoon and keeps most of it in her mouth. Her hand is the only thing that distracts.
• Her hand eye coordination continues to improve. She grabs anything and everything within her reach and brings it straight to her mouth. This includes poor Zoe. Zoe never knows what to think about Macee when she's got such a tight grib on her ear. She usually reaches with her left hand first. We may have a lefty on our hands!
• Her little toes are too stinking cute. She just recently discovered how cute they are, and holds onto them every time she's in her bumbo.
• Macee now puts herself to sleep completely on her own. She pulls her blanket over her face and sucks on it...which I don't totally love. It actually gives me nightmares that her blanket is over her face and I have to check on her often. Maybe the respiratory therapist in me is coming out in my parenting, who knows.
• Since we're on the sleep subject, she still sleeps great at night. She sleeps from 7 to 8:30, only waking up once to eat. Naps on the other hand, those are a different story. We're lucky when we get an odd nap of 45 minutes.
• She is starting to really recognize who her mom and dad are. She will only trust a few people to hold her without us being close by. It's a love/hate thing for the both of us.

Just what I'm talking about...her daddy is always pushing the limits. Macee trying out her new shelf in her room.

Macee's first time eating oatmeal. I have the hardest time catching her smile, so this is all I could get.

Macee has blessed our lives in every way. We feel so lucky to be her mom and dad, and love watching her grow. We are starting to see her personality more and more all of the time. It seems like we have a little spit-fire on our hands. I like to blame this on her red hair, but I think if we're honest, both Ben and I have to admit that she probably got it from her parents. She is either smiling and giggling or screaming. This girl is dramatic. Even dropping a toy can throw her into a frenzy. Even with the fits, the girl is perfect to us.

Thank you, Macee, for being everything that you are. I am so proud to be your mommy and can't wait to continue watching you grow. We love you all the way to the moon and back!

2011

I know that I'm slightly behind on the new year post. I wanted to make sure to do all of my posts in order of occasion and with time always being short, here I am only a week after the new year has started. 2011 was such an eventful year for both Ben and I. Probably the most life changing year of each of our lives. With that being said, I have to quickly recap the most exciting events of the year.

January, we found out we were pregnant! I have some pictures of the pee stick and all, but I will save the blog world from seeing that. I was about 5 weeks along and quickly began showing. We could only fool our families for a couple more weeks. We made the big announcement in February and everyone was so excited for us. We were so excited for what this year would bring. Even as sick as I was, I was ecstatic to become a mom.
March, we made one of the biggest decisions of our lives thus far. We decided that the place our family needed to be was Arizona. Ben was accepted to Arizona State University and we both felt so good about it. Putting full faith in the Lord, we began our plans to move our little family to a completely new place. We were both nervous. Moving with me being pregnant, quitting both of our jobs, and leaving our families was so scary. We are now officially Sun Devils and love it here in Arizona.My best friend, Jan, also got married in March. I was a chubby bridesmaid with acne, but I was still happy to be a part of her big day! We are happy to welcome Spencer into our group.On April first, the Hardings welcomed Carston into the family. Tiffany and Carston's wedding was darling. They're so in love. We love Carston too.
The next day, on April 2, we were surprised with the early arrival of our first niece, Harper Susanna. She's a darling little girl. She's the first grandchild for the Ashdowns, so we were all so happy she was here. It is fun to have a cousin so close to Macee. We love her. We found out that our new addition to the family would be a girl. We were even more excited now! Ben had had many dreams about our little girl joining our family so this was just another confirmation from the Lord that she was really meant to be ours. Ben's wrestler will have to come at another time. Also in April, Ben graduated from Weber State. Yay! What an exciting month. Once he really started working on a degree, it only took him three years to finish. During his commencement ceremony, he found out that he had been selected as the outstanding graduate for the school of Social Work. I'm so proud of him for his hard work and dedication. It was a hard three years, but so worth it. Now on to grad school.On May 10, we made our move to Maricopa, Arizona. It was amazing how much we brought down with us. But, with the help of both of our families, we got all settled in just in time for Ben to start his Summer semester of school. Sorry, I can't find an exciting picture of our move.

The summer just brought us a whole lot of heat. We swam and stayed indoors as much as possible. I loved swimming and feeling buoyant and staying indoors worked out nicely so my ankles didn't swell. I got my job at Arizona Heart Hospital in a PRN position as an RT. It has been a nice job to have because it is flexible around our current busy schedules. The anticipation of our baby girl coming was almost unbearable.

September was obviously the most exciting month. We had been anticipating Macee's arrival for what seemed like eternity. She was finally here and we couldn't be more proud. As her mom, I can tell you she was perfect in every way. We were both in love with her more than we ever knew was possible.With Macee's arrival, we got some great visits from our families. We were excited to show Macee off, as well as our new home.

October and November just consisted of getting used to our new family life with work and school. We looked forward to our Christmas break in Utah.

December was our long three week visit to Utah.
Macee was blessed by her daddy. He did an amazing job and Macee looked beautiful.We also had a great time spending the holidays close to family. We went to many family parties and showed Macee off to more people than we can count. She's too cute not to show her off.

Ben and I are looking forward to the year 2012! We already have some fun plans made for our family. We're excited to watch Macee continue to grow, as she is already growing so stinking fast. Ben will be graduating in the first of May with his Masters. With that hopefully comes a good job with a stable income. We plan to take a trip to Cancun in May with the Ashdowns, Ben is going to Alaska with his dad in July while I visit Utah. And hopefully among all of that excitement we will be able to find a perfect little house to call our own. I hope that the new year will bring all of you joy as well!

family pictures

We took full advantage of being with our families and got pictures taken. With new additions, we will need to be getting these regularly! Ben's cousin took all of them and I thought she did an amazing job. I stole a few pictures off of her blog: maikaimemories.blogspot.com.






I must say, we are all a pretty good looking bunch! Thanks again Jessica!

pictures and more pictures

Looking through my pictures from our vacation, I realized that there are way too many from different occasions. So here you have it. I will just post some cute pictures that have no special occasion to write about.Our family picture by the Christmas tree. Macee should have been long asleep. But the craziness of Utah has since made her believe that bedtime is 11:30. What a horrible mother I am to let my baby go to bed that late! Four generation. Not the most photogenic picture of the four of us. Mom...I know you're looking at your neck right now, but I can promise you that it looks fine! Maybe we should try for another picture when we're all together again without the TV on for Macee to zone into.

Macee zoning into the TV again. This girl could watch TV all day if I'd let her! It doesn't matter if there is anything else going on if the TV is on. She loves it. My all time favorite picture of Macee. She usually just stares blankly into the camera, but this time I was finally able to catch her darling smile. My grandpa was doing a good job at entertaining. These two grandparents of mine truly do love this girl. I can't believe that they have enough room in their hearts to love as much family as they have, even when they don't get to see them a lot. Ben refinished his parent's shower for a Christmas present. This was the first shower that Ben has ever tiled. With a few pointers from my dad, he did an amazing job. This man can really figure anything out. I love that he is so handy! One day, we might have a shower this nice in our own house.So cute with grandpa Ashdown. I can't wait until Macee is old enough to really play with him.Macee rolled over! She surprised us all and acted like it was easy.I love seeing grandpa Ashdown with my baby. I can't wait until Macee is old enough to play with him. It will be so fun!Saying goodbye on our last night. It's the part that I really hate the very most. It was even harder this time knowing that Macee will be so different the next time they see her.

We drove straight home, with no overnight stops. It was a long 12 hours, but everyone did so awesome. Macee only freaked during the last 30 minutes, when she decided she had had enough of the car seat. I don't blame her though. We had the car packed full with a rack on top, and loose things at our feet. On top of that we had two dogs in the car with us. A little insane. We were all stir crazy when we finally were able to be done with the drive. It was nice to get home where everything is our own and all of our stuff can be put away. We brought Ben's big dog Ammon home with us, which has been an adjustment for all of us. He really is a sweet dog, it has just been hard for him to have to watch us from the back porch. Arizona welcomed us with amazing 75 degree weather. Going on walks in December reminded us why we love Arizona.

I can't thank everyone enough for the fun. We can't wait until we can see you all again!

merry christmas!

We had such a good Christmas this year. It was so fun to have a baby during the season...even though she has no clue what's going on. It was fun for us as her parents to see how excited everyone was to give her her presents. Everyone was so thoughtful and of course she got spoiled rotten. She got a whole bunch of toys and books and a nice savings account opened for her. She stayed awake for part of Christmas, but eventually decided it wasn't entertaining enough and took a nap. We just finished opening her presents for her. She'll never know. Ben and I also got spoiled. Ben finally got the IPad that he has been saving for. His parents and I helped him get it since it was so stinking expensive. I have to say though, Macee and I have felt slightly neglected from him since he got it. I guess that's more entertaining than us these days. :) One day it will get old. I got a beautiful picture of Christ holding an infant from Simon Dewey from Ben's parents. It's going right in her room so I can see it every time I rock her to sleep. I love it so much. My parents got us some essential oils and another tablet that immediately became only mine since Ben just go the IPad. In all, we had an amazing holiday spent with a lot of family. I wouldn't have had it any other way.Aunt Crystal got Macee her first pair of Christmas jammies, complete with reindeer feet and snowmen.Christmas morning with the Ashdowns. For some reason I don't have any pictures of Christmas morning with the Hardings. We're lucky enough to see both families on Christmas since they live so close. My parents got Macee the cutest book. They both recorded themselves reading the book to her, so every time she turns the page, their voices will read the story. It's all about how much they love her. It will be so special for her to have so she can remember how much grandma and grandpa love her, even if we are living far away. I only got a little teary eyed, but Macee got so surprised! Look at those eyebrows. It's the cutest surprised look I've ever seen.

Thanks to everyone for our fabulous Christmas! Macee may not be able to remember it, but Ben and I sure will.

lunch with the girls

I hated having to split up all of our time in Utah. It felt like there were so many things we wanted to do in the 3 weeks we were there. We didn't have time for everything, but we were able to see some of my high school friends. We went to dinner at Mimi's Cafe. It was quite delicious and it was so nice having Ben there to help me take care of Macee while we ate. A lot of my friends don't see each other a lot anymore, which is understandable with how busy life gets, but we did have a lot of fun times in high school. I have to point out how stinking cute Macee is in her warm coat. Thanks to cousin Harper for letting her borrow it. :)