"A person is just about as happy as he makes up his mind to be."

-Abraham Lincoln















Saturday, April 30, 2011

Happy 3 Month Birthday!

Maggie turned 3 months old on Wednesday, the 27!  She's getting to be so big and learning so fast.  I just can't believe how quickly she's grown.  Here's a re-cap of her first 3 months:)

Day 1:
7 lbs. 13 oz.  20 1/2 in.

Week 1:
7 lbs. 8 oz.


Week 2:
8 lbs. 1 1/2 oz.  21 in.

Week 3:

Week 4:

Week 5:
9 lbs. 15 oz. 21 1/2 in.

Week 6:

Week 7:

Week 8:


Week 9: 

Week 10:
11 lbs. 13 oz.  22 3/4 in.

Week 11:

Week 12:

Week 13:

We love our baby girl!

Monday, April 25, 2011

Worthy of Celebration

Maggie is still sleeping!  It has been 9 hours since she went to bed, and hasn't woken up once!  She's been doing this for a full week now too.  I can't believe it.  I keep wondering if my luck will run out here and she'll start waking every 3 hours again - but WOW!  I'll take what I can get while it lasts.  I LOVE sleeping 8 hours straight!  I forgot how good you feel with a full night of rest.  It's Amazing!!!

Here's are some pictures from last week

LOVE this little outfit.  She looked adorable in it!

 Looking up to Daddy

 Daddy's new game with Maggie.  It's still a work in progress, but really fun to watch Spencer trying to get Maggie to stand.
 We went on a family walk to the park on Saturday.  Maggie got to get on the swings for the first time.

Not sure why it was so fun to take our infant to the park and pretend like she could play on all the toys... but we sure enjoyed it!
 Maggie's first toy.  Watching her chew on it made me laugh - so I had to take a picture :)
We had a great week with some darling pictures and best of all - LOTS OF SLEEP!  I'm so happy this week is starting  off the same way!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Maggie's No Good, Very Bad Day

Dear Maggie,

Monday really wasn't so bad - at least until about 5 pm, when daddy turned on the vacuum.  

You've never minded the vacuum before.  You didn't even mind when daddy started to teach you what the vacuum does.  He took the hose of the vacuum and put it against your clothes.  At this point you weren't quite sure what to think of that.  The suction was something you'd never encountered before.  But when daddy went for your hand and you felt your little fingers being sucked into the tube, it was officially too much.  

It took us like 15 minutes to calm you down.  Daddy felt really bad and he never meant to scare you.  When you stopped crying we checked your hand to make sure it wasn't hurt, which it wasn't.  You didn't even flinch when we played with your little hand, so we know you weren't hurt.  But when that vacuum got turned back on you screamed and cried until well after we had finished cleaning the carpet.

Here you are before the vacuum turned on the second time.  Still so sad and a little traumatized.
This is less than a second after the vacuum was turned on again.
Boy were you mad at us.  That darn vacuum just ruined your day.  Luckily you fell asleep soon after the incident - but unfortunately you hadn't really forgotten when you woke up and it only got worse when your finger got pinched while daddy was trying to clip your finger nails.  Maggie, you have never in your life cried so hard for so long or so much in one day.  And even though you aren't going to remember the events of this day, one day, I'm sure, you'll get us back.  You even threatened Daddy with a knuckle sandwich.
We are so sorry that you had such a hard day.  We still love you though, and we promise not to turn the vacuum on for at least another week.

Just A Good Weekend

I've noticed that sometimes, weekends come and go and it's not really anything special - and when Sunday night comes we're just dreading the week ahead of us.  

This weekend was NOT one of those weekends.  I had so much fun, and when Sunday night came I just felt good - like the weekend was a definite success and that I was ready for the next week.  That just doesn't happen very often, so I am grateful to have had such a great time.  Here's some of the highlights:

Friday, after Spencer got home from school, we were trying to get our apartment cleaned up and our bags packed so that we could go spend the night in Centerville.  In an effort to free up our hands, Spencer placed Maggie in the bumbo.  She was apparently tired because the next time Spencer looked at her she was completely hunched over, trying to take a nap.  I love it!
It really doesn't look that comfortable - but it sure is cute!
My brothers, Casey and Josh were home from school, and my mom wanted to get us all together for a little trip to the temple with all of us together.  It was so nice to have us all in the temple together.  Unfortunately, everyone that's endowed in our family didn't get to make it... When we got to the temple my dad realized he'd left his wallet in his other pants and didn't have his temple recommend, so he had to pass up the session with the rest of us.  We'll have to try again another time to get us all there.

We did get to have everyone together for dinner at China Star, though.  It's THE family favorite, and we always have a great time when we get everyone together there.

Saturday morning, Spencer and I had the opportunity to attend a sealing for two wonderful people, Dick and Sanina, a couple that Spencer knows from his mission in Hong Kong.  It was so great to be there in the Salt Lake Temple with those two.  They were so happy - and it meant so much to us that they would ask us to share that special moment with them.

We then joined my family at Boondocks!  My family signed up to host a German exchange student, named Jenny, for a 3 week program and her flight came in Friday night.  Everyone was so excited to have her, and in an effort to welcome her into the family for the next few weeks, we all went to Boondocks for the day.

We spent the day racing go-karts, playing mini-golf, lazer tagging, mini-bowling (bowling with a mini-ball and smaller pins) and playing the arcade games.  I felt like a little kid again.  It was so fun to have so many activities at our finger-tips and it was even better because we got to be there with the family and all have fun together.  Even Maggie had a great time!

She spent the day with Ema (my mom) and in her stroller.  She got some good sun.  It was such a beautiful day!  Perfect for hanging out in the open air.

Here's Maggie with Jenny.  She's such a cutie and everyone's excited to have her here for the next 3 weeks.
We left straight from Boondocks to go home.  Sweet Maggie slept all the way.  She didn't make a peep.  This is how we found upon arrival back to our apartment.
She's so patient with us.  We're so lucky to have such a wonderful baby!

Sunday was a great day too!  When we were in Ghana I purchased a couple little dresses at the National Cultural Center, but when we got home I stashed them in a bin, thinking that it would be a long time before our baby was born.  Well... it took until this last week for me to remember/find where I had put them.  I was worried that her smallest dress wouldn't fit anymore - but it does!  It's so cute!  
Our Ghanaian baby.  Isn't she so cute!?
We had to get a picture of all three of us in our Ghanaian garb.  I wore my dress to church with Maggie, but Spencer had to settle for the South African tie at church because the Ghanaian tunics aren't exactly white and appropriate for our meetings.  We just had to wait until later for all of us to go Ghanaian together.
The best part of the day though, was joining the Johnson family for Hannah's birthday!  Hannah turned 11 years old on Thursday, and we were so excited to share in a fun evening with their family.

Jessica make the coolest ice cream cake for her birthday.  I loved the darling poka-dots and especially loved the sherbet filling.  I never would have thought that sherbet would go well in an ice cream cake - but it does!  It was delicious!
Happy Birthday Hannah!
Thanks for letting us share your birthday party with you!

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Out for a stroll

Everyone meet my brand new stroller!  I'm seriously so excited about this!  The stroller company gave us a free car seat with the stroller, which was perfect considering the car seat we've been using was only ours on loan.  It's wonderful!  Maggie gets to ride in her car seat until she's about 6 months old and then we have a toddler seat that goes in where she can ride until she's like 50 lbs.  Awesome!  And that's not even the greatest part about it.  Once we decide to have another kid we don't have to buy another stroller or make Maggie walk.  We just have to add the extra seat that will fit down below the car seat here.  It's perfect!  
It just came in the mail and today was my first chance to use it and I seriously couldn't wait to get out into the sunshine before it started to snow again tonight.  Maggie and I walked from our apartment to the senior center to the store to do some grocery shopping and then came home to drop the food off before going to a friend's house for lunch.  We had such a great time!  Maggie just looked so comfortable and didn't whine once the whole time we were out.  I'm so glad Spencer let me buy this!  What a great investment!

Pictures of Maggie with her friend Tyler at our lunch date.  They were adorable! It was a good day :)