birthday box!

Maddie got a special birthday box in the mail from Nana and Pop-Pops on her birthday. It was full of fun. She LOVED the princess wrapping paper (so much so that we had to convince her to tear into it because there was another present inside).

Look what she got! A Mrs. Potato Head!! Cool, huh?? We'll have tons of fun with that. Mommy got to play with it later in the afternoon and it brought back some fun memories.

And I would be remiss if I didn't include a picture of the "bubbles." Folks, if you're low on cash and you'd still like to get Maddie a gift she'll enjoy.... just send a box of packing bubbles. She really loves to pop them. I wouldnt say that they were here most favorite part of the box... but they did entertain us for awhile. Its the gift that keeps on giving and giving and giving.

Birthday party pics are to come. Blogger and I don't get along well when it comes to uploading pictures so I have to break up the posts (seriously, if anyone out there has any clues or secrets I dont know about... please tell me!)

happy birthday baby girl! maddie turns 2!

Happy Birthday Madelyn! I can't believe that two years has gone by since we were at Northside Hospital anxiously waiting the arrival of our baby girl. Look at that picture of her just hours old! Isnt it amazing! She had these enormous cheeks and little button nose... ahhh... so precious.

And today this little baby turns 2! She's an absolute joy and we're so lucky to have her in our lives. We're thankful and grateful for every single day we have to share with her and I can't wait to see the beautiful young lady she'll turn into (well, I can wait... that was just a figure of speech. I want her to stay this age forever).

We are lucky enough to have Grammie and Grandad in town to help us celebrate Maddie's birthday. We opened some presents this morning and went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch (one of Maddie's favorites).


Unfortunately her pool party scheduled for this afternoon had to get relocated to Monkey Joes. For those of you who don't know what Monkey Joe's is... just wait for the pictures. Don;t worry, you're not too out of it, it'll be our first time too! She's having a Little Mermaid (or "Mermie") themed party because Mermie is one of her favorite things in the whole wide world right now (with Nemo and Tinkerbell following very close behind). I dont know what kind of subliminal messaging Disney does but she's completely mesmerized and sucked into anything related to those three things. Its a little frightening.

I'll leave you with one last picture of Maddie with three of her favorite gifts from Grammie and Grandad. A baby stroller, baby bottles (which if you look closely you'll see them in the pockets of her jacket), and a super cool leopard lined coat for winter which she did NOT want to take off (dont forget its August in Atlanta).

Gotta run and get my act together for the party in a few hours. Check back soon for more!

apartment living

Apartment living has been good so far. The only real down side has been hoofing it up the stairs. We're on the third floor and there's no elevator. Being 33 weeks pregnant and having a 2 yr old that needs to be carried up the stairs (unless you have an extra 15 minutes to spare) doesn't help the situation. Oh, and did I mention its August... in ATLANTA. We're in the home stretch now though- come on SEPTEMBER!

Maddie's doing great in the apartment. It's interesting- she's in to EVERYTHING. Things she was just never interested in back at the house. So we tend to find random things in random places. Candles in the cupboards, Tuckers toothbrush in her toy basket... etc. She's sleeping in her new room just fine. She has been getting up a little earlier than usual (praying she gets over that soon) but otherwise she's adapted perfectly.

Here are a few pictures of her around new pad.

The kid likes laying on wood... not sure what thats about

She loves flashlights

Her reading cubby in the livingroom

Sticker face

We are still bringing over random boxes from the house and unpacking. Yes, the house is still intact. No... remodeling hasn't started yet. We're still waiting on the plans to be approved by the city. Apparently we have some sq footage issues that are going to involve us taking down our old shed in the backyard. The shed is ancient and Jim has always wanted to replace it. I guess this is the motivation he needs!

Cross your fingers the plans get approved this week and they can start demolition asap. I don't mind this apartment but I'd really like to be back in the house for Christmas!

pack M up

At least some on enjoyed the move. She watched TV like this for awhile.

still here

Hey ya'll!

We're still here. Through the craziness of a move, packing and un-packing, then getting cable/internet at the new pad... we finally made it back to the blog.

Everythings going well. We're sort of settled into the apartment. Its very nice. Its nice and clean and has 3 bedrooms so we all have our own room. HA - no just kidding... Jim hasnt been kicked out of the bed yet (although with the amount of pillows I'm needing these days to keep comfortable be might be soon). We do have an extra bedroom though for guests and for Jims office stuff. The apartment also has a pool, which Maddie and I have visited a few times already, and a gym, which none of us has visited but it sure does look nice.

Like the rest of our lives, the camera was sort of lost and we didn't really find it again til a few days ago so I dont have too many pictures to share at the moment but here's what I've got!

Maddie loves drawing with chalk. When we were at the house we would end up out there shortly after she woke up (and before it got to hot). Here's Maddie coloring on her feet and Jim drinking his morning coffee.

Notice Mickey Mouse? Its a usual request.

Here's a cute picture of Maddie next to our black eyed susans out front.

Cutie

And this last picture is of a double rainbow from our apartment balcony. Cool, huh? Its hard to see the second rainbow above the first, but it was there.

Summer shower brings summer rainbows!

I hope to have life a little back in order by the weekend and we'll get you all updated on life in the Herndon House. Which reminds me, since life in the Herndon House will be changing quite a bit in a few months - I figured the blog should as well. Maddie will be sharing her blog with her little sister and I need to come up with a clever name for it. Any ideas out there? I have a few but nothing is jumping out for me. Send me a comment or email if you have any ideas!

Til next time...

up to our ears...

We're up to our ears in boxes and general craziness packing up for the move to the apartment. I had to post a picture of Maddie above because I knew Maddiefans would be upset if we had two non-picture posts in a row.

We're officially moving out of here on Saturday. Should be a crazy week.

I'll update you with Maddienews (new classroom, new obsession, etc) as soon as I can.

phew

packed 4 boxes.

ran out of packing tape.

exhausted. doesn't even look like I made a dent in the dining room!

its going to be a long week.

tootsie painting

As you can imagine, things sort of went down hill from here. Finger/hand painting was a piece of cake, but once she decided to paint with her feet, things got a little tricky. Luckily Crayola makes VERY washable paint, so it came out of everywhere and our furniture is all back to normal now.

soon to be elephant

My little Bouncing Bear is about to become an Energetic Elephant. Its Maddie's last week in her current classroom at school. Come Monday she'll officially be an Energetic Elephant and have all new teachers. The good news is she'll be meeting up with her friends Sophie, Liam and Addie-Boo. Bad news is we'll be leaving Ms. Monica and a lot of her friends who are moving to other classrooms.

Can't believe how big she's getting! I'm not ready for this!

testing... testing

I have a really hard time posting videos on this blog. I think they're too big and the trick is to export them - not sure though. Let's see if this works.

This is a super cute video from last month. It was Pop Pops birthday and my grand idea was to get Maddie to sing Happy Birthday to Pop Pops and I would take a video of it and post it for him to see. Well, she wasn't exactly cooperating (although to the result is still super cute) and then I couldn't get it posted!!! Fingers crossed...