Swimming with Mama!

Well, the days here in Arizona are HOT. I think my dad told me they are heading for a record breaking month. Normally July is filled with awesome monsoons and the like. There have been a few great storms since our arrival, but also way too many days over 115!

Madi and I like to try and keep cool by jumping in the pool. However, it doesn't keep us cool for long. See, it's so warm outside, even the pool water is like bath water. Ah, I'm looking forward to it cooling off and it's not even August yet! Here are a few pics I got Bri to take of Madilyn and I out for our afternoon swim the other day :)

Mmmm, Nutella!

For snack this afternoon, Madilyn had a Nutella and (homemade) strawberry jam sandwich. You know, kinda like a PB&J....but better!

I think she really loved it. What do you think?

New Pictures for Daddy!

Overdue updates!

Whew! It's been a while since I've had the time to update, but I'll do my best to get everyone caught back up. Life has been quite the adventure in the Merritt home these past couple of weeks.

Many of you know that Matt was getting ready to deploy. This meant many changes for both him and for our family. One of which was Madilyn and I returning home to Arizona to live with my parents while he is away. We also decided to move out of our home, put everything into storage, and save some extra money during this time.

Packing up the whole house with a toddler is no easy task! Thankfully, my sister, Brianna, was able to come out to Oklahoma for almost a month to help out with packing and with Madilyn. Matt's parents were also able to join us in the few days before Matt's departure to help with the final packing, loading, and unloading of all the goods into storage. We are so thankful for every one of you!!!!!

During this process we had to spend a few nights in hotels before leaving town. This was pretty rough on Madilyn! We had our final move out inspection on Monday and left for New Mexico from there. We arrive in Albuquerque around 6pm and met up with our friend Adam and his girlfriend Katie for dinner (Thanks again for hosting us!). From there it was on to one more hotel. Madilyn had a rough night, but finally went down around midnight and slept until about 630. We grabbed some breakfast and gathered our things.......back on the road again. The second day was a bit rougher than the first as Madilyn was becoming more and more impatient with all these hours spent in the car! Thank goodness for our DVD player and snacks!!!!

We made it home to Phoenix Tuesday evening and are settling in. Madilyn is doing much better now that she is back on her routine and has lots of room to run, play, and SWIM!

Since I haven't put any pictures up in a while, here is one of the Little Miss playing this morning :) She'll be 15 months on Sunday!

I can do it myself!

Miss Madilyn has become very independent these last few weeks. Everything from walking alone, to playing alone, to feeding herself! It's really cute to see her little personality blossom more by the day, but also a bit sad watching your baby become less and less of a "baby".

She helps us put her clothes on now, and sometimes even manages to get an arm through all on her own. When we're down on the floor for playtime, often she'll look at me like I'm nuts if I try to play with her. It's like she's thinking "Um, Mom, thats so not how you play with that...". Too cute.

Help at feeding time has also become a thing of the past. While I do enjoy having my hand to myself at mealtimes (for the most part) again, it sure is a mess! She's just so darn cute though, even the mess somehow seems tolerable. Now we look forward to the day when she'll ba able to feed herself without needed a bath after every meal. Yeah, right.

Here are some fun pictures of Madi. She loves to take a bite and shout "ta-da!!!!" It's adorable. Like, hey, look what I just did! So as you can see here are some her mealtime "ta-da!!" moments!
Too cute. Here she is telling us "ta-da" because she stacked up the dishes all on her own and was so darn proud!

Mmm, desert!

New Shoes

This last weekend I picked up some new shoes for Madilyn while Brianna and I were in Dallas. Madi has been trying to put on her own shoes for a while now, so I thought I'd help her out by getting her a pair she could have some success with! As you can see, she loves them so much, she even convinced Daddy to let her keep them on while she took her evening tubby!

Happy Father's Day!

Slacking!

It must seem like I'm really slacking here lately! I'll try and fill you in on the happenings around here lately. We've been very busy trying to sort through things and pack up our house, it really is a big mess of boxes everywhere! We are set to be out of this house no later than July 14. Eeek!

In our spare time, we've been at the pool with Madilyn! She loves the water and will stay in and play for quite a while.

Madilyn's sign language is getting better everyday. Just the other afternoon she stopped playing her her pool and signed "all done, more eat" to us. It was dinnertime and she was letting us know about it!

Matt is enjoying his job and has been busy at work preparing for his deployment. This means lots of training and exercises. He says he's getting excited about going and thinks it will be a great experience, but we will still miss him plenty!

And here is a picture from today of our pigtail princess. Check out all that hair :)

Dada, read!

Every now and then I just wish I had a video camera constantly rolling. Tonight was one of those nights. We were all hanging around the living room together. Matt was laying on the couch. Madilyn got up and went to her bookshelf and brought Matt a book saying, "Dada, read"! It was clear as day. SO cute. We're so proud of our little girl!!

Other things she says on a regular basis:
-Mama
-Thank you (sounds more like "ank too")
-Ubby (tubby)
-Go! Goooo!
-Hi! (and waves)
-Bye bye
-Swing! (she should this every time we get close to the park)
-"mmmmmm" when something is yummy
-good
-what's that ("a dat?")

She also signs eat, more, all done, and please.

What a big girl :)

A Sunday Swim

Today we had some of our good friends over for a little pizza and swimming. With all of our busy schedules it sure is hard to find a time when everyone can get together sometimes! I know most of you are really after the pictures more than anything, so I'll just cut to the chase.

It's SO tough to get all of them to look at the camera together!!!!

Ben Shaub, Kate and Devin Shanks, and Matt hanging outside enjoying our wonderful weather :)