Lake Time

Lake time with Lynette and Little People! What a great day!

Little people

Thanks Aunt Nettie for letting me play with the real Little People!

So tired

All the excitement of facing forward wore her out on the way to Grandma's 80th B-day party in St.George, UT!

A wonderful Heritage Maker moment with my amazing Grandma Betty Jean!
She loved the calendar of her and Grandpa!
So glad that I could be a part in capturing some of the memories!

The Boyd & Deb Cowley Family!
And still growing! :)

The original 5 Dex & Betty Jean Cowley kids!
Happy 80th Birthday Grandma!
We love you!

G'ma Betty Jean's 80th Party

Here are the original 5 Dex Cowley Kids!
Happy Birthday Grandma!
We love you!

Breaking the in-laws

So, for Madiyn's 1st birthday, Mike's parents really wanted to make the trip from Pennsylvania to come see her again. They hadnt seen her since she was 6 weeks old, and everyone was excited to get to re-connect! We have tried to keep up over Skype, and phone calls, but it is never enough. So, after a little planning, they arrived on Feb.11th to get to spend some time with her before she officially turned one! We were so excited to have them here with us. We went out to eat at PF Changs that very first night they were here. His parents come from a small town and had never had the opportunity to eat there before. We were so excited to introduce them to our favorite Lettuce Wraps! They were both pretty impressed and we had a great evening. We returned home to let our tired guests retire for the night after a long day of travel and excitement! Well our first day was wonderful until about 5 am! I was nearly thrown out of bed by the mosst horrible noise you can hear...especially when you are a mommy, too! It was a horrible bang, then another huge thud, then several thuds, a moan and then a cry for help. When I heard the first thud, I automatically assumed that Madilyn had somehow fallen out of her crib. After I realized that it isn't possibly yet, I immediately thought that it must be Mike's mom. My husband and his dad both flew out of bed and down the stairs to find my poor mother-in-law at the bottom of our stairs! She was complaining that she couldn't feel her legs, her shoulder was hurting, and that she thought her ankle was hurt. I was too afraid to even look down after seeing 2 huge holes in the walls of our stairway! She was claiming that she thought she turned right to go to the bathroom, but she went left and then walked right off the stairs and tumbled head first all the way down 2 landings, putting a hole in the wall with her head at each landing, and then continued down the remaining flight of stairs, where she then hit her head on our tile floor. I still couldn't look, but I finally was able to see that there was NO blood, so I headed down to help her. She really just wanted to go to the bathroom, so she was begging my husband and my father-in-law to help her up to go to the bathroom. I told them that I wanted to call an ambulance to have them check her out before we moved her, but she persisted for the help. They no more got her to a sitting position and she was in agaonizing pain and asked to be put back down. I immediately got on the phone with 911 and had them dispatch someone to come check her out. The ambulance arrived probably sooner than it seemed and evaluated her. Just by observation and touch they were able to assess that she had not broken anything, but they were transporting her to St.Rose Hospital for x-rays and further observation. She spent the day at the hospital and was released at 2pm with NO broken bones, NO concussion, No hip fractures, and NO real injury other than a lot of bruises and a couple black eyes! It was a serious miracle! It put a damper on their trip as she was completely on 3 different pain pills that made her sleep all the time. She was actually able to get dressed and visit during Madilyn's party on Saturday. We were very grateful for that! She is still recovering at home, but she claims that her trip was still good even though she took a nasty fall! This whole experience is probably trying to prepare us for future accidents with our kids, but it really just makes me want to get a 1-story home instead! Now Mike's brother is coming out to visit in March and he jokes that he is going to stay in a hotel because he doesn't want to stay somewhere with holes in the walls! Ha Ha! We will sure have a lot to talk about when he gets here!

Still trying to find a balance

So, I keep trying to stay up to date with the blogging, but I find myself being divided in too many ways! I am loving being able to see what everyone is up to, but I need to schedule a time each week to just get my page caught up, too!
So....here is what has been happening in our den...
January was a month of letting go!!! Mommy had to learn to let her little 11 month girl go where she wanted (crawling) and let her have fun letting go in the tub! Then Mommy had to learn to let her little Madilyn let go when standing by the coffee table. I know that it is only going to get worse when she gets older and really doesn't need me anymore, but January was a tough month on the heart. Madilyn is so independent that I can see the road ahead and it almost hurts my heart! :( She started holding her own bottle during her night time rocking with mommy-getting ready for bed routine! :( She wants to do more and more all by herself! Maybe it's just me, but I didn't expect to feel so bad about it all. I know that the underlying pain is facing the fact that our little baby is almost one and she is growing up too fast!
Also in January I spent quite a bit of time planning Madilyn's 1st birthday party. I know now that I went way overboard for a 1 year old birthday, but I don't think I would change it! I have this weird quality about me that events, occasions, get-togethers, etc. have to be perfect...and I mean down to the last detail perfect! I asked my mom where I get it from and she says that she doesn't even have a clue. We know it is not from my dad, and she claims it isn't from her, so I must have some random gene for perfection! I feel sorry for my poor husband, Mike, because he knows this about me...and he helps me to make my party PERFECT! And the best news is that he loves me for it anyway! This perfection leads to stress the week before, sleeplessness, erratic behavior, and last minute shopping for the little details that I HAVE TO HAVE!!!
So, I was able to get all of her decorations ordered on-line from a wonderful company called First wishes.com. They are amazing, by the way! We had an entire party with a cupcake theme! I had tons of fun putting it all together! We had a Cupcake pull pinata, cupcake bags to hold down the matching balloons, cupcake ribbon tied to the bags, all the kids got to decorate their own cupcakes to take home, I made Maddie a 3-D 7" cupcake cake for her to dive into, plus my mom and I baked and frosted about 4 dozen cupcakes! We had an inflatable cupcake out in our yard to match the huge personalized banner that said, "Happy 1st Birthday Madilyn" It was just the way I pictured it and everyone had fun.