Birthdays, zoo, house!

Whew! Right now, things are hectic for us! We're getting to the point in the housebuilding where we're trying to do a lot of the work ourselves...and by "ourselves" I mean 90% Chris and 10% me. (With A LOT of help from our dads!) Anyways, this week we're doing insulation and starting to drywall...because..<drumroll please!> we finally finished the outside!! The roof, brick and stone are complete! 

We love it! 

On Sunday, we spent a few hours at the zoo with Kyle, Danielle and Maddie's best friend, Hudson. 

 Best friends and their babies

 Waving to Hudson! 

 And again!

 Getting a prop up from daddy to see the elephants 

 A little baby belly shot for ya.

Late afternoon treat! 

 Playing with Hudson!

This weekend, we also celebrated Nana Hughes and Uncle Cory's birthdays. We had a yummy dinner at Bonefish and celebrated with everyone on Saturday. 

Happy birthday Nana and Uncle Cory! We love you!

Cape Cod Wrap Up

After our hospital visit, Madeline had several days of feeling puny. We took little trips to the beach but mainly just kind of hung around the house. 

We met with her pediatrician this week and it looks like we'll be going for round two of tubes end of September. We talked about the febrile seizures and how to handle them in the future, should she have another one. We also got emergency medicine in case she has a prolonged one. I talked with her daycare to educate them as well. Hopefully it's not something we have to deal with again, but since she's had two, we want to be as prepared as possible.  It was such a relief when she got her appetite back and her smiles! 

Here are a few more photos from our week in Chatham!

Cousins!

Sweet hugs!

Maddie and Nana collecting shells

Who doesn't love a good popsicle?

Take my popsicle, and I will cut you.

 

Beachwalk with daddy

 Our little family

Seriously? The camera is in my face again? I'm trying to chillax, mom.

We took family pics on a windy, sunny morning. Unfortunately, most of them were duds. Here's a few salvageable ones.

And finally, one of our sweet girl on our first day of vacation. So joyful!

Cape Cod Hospital

Well, vacation got a little crazy yesterday. We had been having a pretty perfect week, but then yesterday, we had a rather scary turn of events. Madeline had a seizure at the beach and we took her to the hospital in our first ambulance ride. Turns out she has an ear infection (did I tell you both tubes had fallen out as of two weeks ago, at our last ENT visit??), an upper respiratory infection and possibly pneumonia. I say "possible" because the x-ray wasn't conclusive. So...that was rough. Chris and I were all alone on the beach when she started seizing. She hadn't really had any symptoms other than one tug at her ears the other morning, so I didn't think too much about it. I guess her fever spiked at the beach, causing the seizure. She's on an antibiotic and we're rotating Tylenol and Advil around the clock to control the fever. Hoping this subsides quickly. She's pretty miserable today--tired and whiny--so we're just trying to keep her comfortable.  Fortunately, febrile seizures cause no long term damage, according to many studies. Unfortunately, they are about the scariest thing to witness. We picked up Madeline and ran up the beach to Chris's aunt and cousin who had just left us. Jenny, his cousin, is a nurse and helped get Maddie cooled off until the ambulance arrived. She actually works at the hospital so she met us there and made sure we were comfortable the whole time we were in the ER. Chris's parents also met us at the hospital. We are so grateful they all gave up their afternoon to sit and stay with us. I cannot wait to get home and get her to her regular pediatrician for a nice long check-up.

Until Maddie got sick yesterday, we were having a great great time. Here's a few pics of our sweet girl leading up to yesterday.

 We watched a man clamming on the beach. He gave her a clam, but I don't think she really liked it. Such a typical girly girl!

 Pondering her next move

 Walking in the cool Cape Cod water!

 Having a snack

 Dane and Madeline shared a popsicle and it was so sweet and so funny!! 

Birthday and Travel to Cape Cod!

Last weekend we celebrated Phil's birthday. We went to Captain's Quarters and had a great dinner out on the patio watching the boats go by. The kids loved it. There is a nice area on the lawn where we took a few pics for a moment while we waited for our table.

 Watching the boats go by.

Dane sneaking a kiss

We had a quick week at work trying to wrap everything up in preparation for our trip to Cape Cod!! This is our third straight summer going and it's always a great week. 

Madeline's "I'm going on vacation tomorrow!" face

I was pretty nervous about how Madeline was going to behave...but she truly did fantastic. 

 At the airport, watching for planes.

 Her first Starbucks

 This is Madeline's "cheese" face. Whenever we ask her to smile, she cheeses pretty hard. We're working with her on a more relaxed version.

 Dane and Madeline walking through the airport. 

The flight went pretty well. Madeline said "whee!" when we went up in the air and laughed at the initial bumps that come with take-off. I'm a pretty nervous flier, but didn't even think about it since I was so busy keeping Madeline busy. She played great with Dane who sat in front of her and Henry, a new boy we met, who sat behind her. She said "Ow" a few times and smacked her ears, but there were no tantrums, which was great. We didn't get to the hotel til about 10 and she promptly passed our and slept til 8. 

This morning, we got on the road from Providence to Cape Cod- about a 2 hour trip. 

Breakfast on the go--the life of a traveling girl!

Right now, we're settled into the house, and Madeline is waking up from a long nap. More pics to come!

19 months and counting!

Maddie has hit the 19 month mark...and passed it up! She will be 20 months in only a few short weeks. WOW!! She is still very much on the move. 

 Riding with Arthur in his school bus

 Making tea at Pottery Barn Kids. I think PBK is her happy place. She plays very well at PB and never wants to leave. On this day she had a tea party with a new friend, Alex.

Maddie's surprised face. She makes this no less than 5 times a day: when the phone rings, when a door opens, when you ask her to make a surprise face...

Eating ravioli- a new favorite! 

Normally, she eats pretty well with her "poon," but occasionally, when something is REALLY good, she forgoes the utensils and uses her hands. I guess ravioli is one of those things.

We've got a busy couple of weeks/months coming up. Once our house is done being bricked, we will move inside. Chris and I will be working a lot putting down the hardwood floors and painting. It will be long days...but it will be worth it! Looking forward to seeing it all come together!

Gymnastics!

Guess what these two girls have in common?

They at one time looked like this:

Madeline and I started a gymnastics class a few weeks ago and she loves it! We go on Saturday mornings to Louisville Gymnastics. 

 The right side of the gym...for the little tots.

 Jumping on the trampoline with mommy

 Awaiting her turn on the slide

Practicing her pike and straddles....or checking out Vincent? Who can really tell?!?

So far, gymnastics has been a fun thing for Madeline and I to do together. It's a 50 minutes class that takes the kids through three events (bars, floor, and beam). There is a lot of obstacle course-type fun to be had!

Finally, we took Stella over to her new house this week. She loved it! We got windows this week and are prepping for brick-ing and roof-ing. Yay!

Wordless Wednesday: Zoo Fun!