Cow Park

Today we took Madilyn to a fun little park here known as the "cow park". This isn't the real name for it of course, but the kids call it this because of the cow figures in the middle of the playground. For those of you who may not know, Madilyn is obsessed with cows. She looks for them all over and gets all crazy and excited when she sees them. This was the PERFECT outing and she had a great time!

Clip from tonight!

What is everyone up to?

I haven't updated in a while, mostly because there hasn't been too much to report. Our weeks have been pretty routine; which has been awesome for Missy. She's still attending MDO on Mondays and Thursdays from 9-230 and loving every minute of it. She sees me getting her stuff ready for the day and is so excited to go to school that I have to beg her to eat some breakfast first!!! I'm glad she is so happy, thriving, and LOVING the challenge.

Today Madi has a birthday party to attend for one of her girlfriends, and then we're going to Wichita Falls for the afternoon/evening. Matt actually asked if we could go do a bit of shopping....surprise!

On the 17th we (Madilyn and I) are making our way to Denver for a week to visit and play in the snow. We'll be back on the 24th, but Matt will be away until the 2nd or 3rd of April. He has a course he has to take in MI, so he'll be gone from 21 March until early April. March is just going to fly by!

So, what has everyone else been up to? Those of you who don't blog, leave a comment and let me know what is new in your lives. We'd love to hear :)

Wichita Falls

Today we decided to head on down south to Texas for a little family fun (and shopping!). Our first stop was Kids Hair Safari for Madilyn's very FIRST haircut!!!! She was sooooo good. I thought she might be afraif of the clippers, etc, but she was a real champ. They every had super cool seats for the kiddos and everything.  As you can see, she had quite the mop of hair in need of some serious attention:

In the middle of her haircut:

All done! What a sweetie :)

Next stop was Hobby Lobby. BUT, we were hungry so we stopped on by IHOP for a bite to eat along the way. Here's Madi enjoying the candy bracelet she picked out of the prize bucket at the Salon. She kept looking at me and shouting "mmmmmm, Mommy, NUMMY!!!!!"

Then we went to Best Buy (can't bring Daddy along to the city and not go to Best Buy!), the mall, and out to dinner at Olive Garden; yum! Madilyn saw the camera while we were at dinner and immediately posed with Matt. She's such a little ham!

Madilyn Picasso

It seems we've got a budding artist on our hands these days. The sight of crayons, markers, paints, or anything similar make Madilyn go crazy. This girl LOVES to color.

I have her art table sitting in the kitchen so I can let her color while I'm cooking dinner, but every so often I have to take my eye off here for a moment to grab something out of the fridge, etc...

Well, I think Madilyn has finally had enough of all the "white" in our home. The other day while I was cooking, she decided to add a little color to our home:

Don't worry, they're very washable crayons and everything has since been cleaned up. I just had to snap a few pictures first. I knew it would happen eventually!

Welcome Home Matt!

What a busy day we had today!

Our day began at 5am when I woke Matt up for our flight to Phoenix. He sure was confused! He had no idea I'd been planning this surprise for him for so long. I don't think he really knew what was going on until we were almost halfway to Phoenix. All of a sudden he turned to me on the planed and said, "hey, we're going to Phoenix!". Why yes, yes we are!

Once there we were so excited to see everyone, especially miss Madilyn.

The surprises just kept rolling for Matt all day long. Around 230 this afternoon I told him I was going to bring some things over to my brother, but I was actually headed to the airport to pick up a Adam, a good friend of his. The look on Matt's face when Adam walked through the door was priceless. He was in total shock (success!). The guys hung out for a while and Matt seemed to be having a great time. Around 5, ding dong....... lets get the party started! Matt's extended family along with my immediate family and some of our local friends arrived. I think poor Matt was a bit overwhelmed at this point, but he took it in stride. A big thank you to everyone for coming, I know it meant a lot to Matt to see you all there and it was wonderful seeing you!

Just when he thought we were done and people headed home, another friend of Matt's, Mark, showed up.  It was really all by accident that he was able to make it ( Mark is a pilot stationed in northern California who just happened to have made a trip to Tucson, where the plane broke down. Since it was going to be a while, they decided they'd wait to take-off again until morning. Upon hearing this, Mark knew about the party for Matt and decided to rent a car and drive up for the night.) We had not seen him since our wedding more than 2 1/2 years ago.

Madilyn then went for a sleepover at my parents house and a few of us went out down on a Mill Ave.

What a great day!!!!

Ps.....Heather, we should have taken a pic together too....what were we thinking?!?

What a Storm!

This last week has been quite the adventure. On Wednesday we heard they was a storm that might be making its way through Altus. I don't think we really had any idea what to expect.  Either way, I thought it might be a good idea to grab a little extra milk, bread, eggs, etc and put gas in the car. 

Thursday morning we were woken up to a phone call from the base pediatrician's  office alerting us that Madilyn's appointment had been cancelled due to "extreme weather conditions". Of course, we decided to get up (this was only 7am and Madi was still sound asleep at this point) and see for ourselves. I guess they knew what we didn't, because at 7am it just looked cold. 

We spent the morning inside, playing with Madilyn.  It seems that whenever there is a cold or dreary day, I'm suddenly inspired to bake. So, chocolate chip cookies it was! 

By 10am, the ice was coming down pretty hard. This photo is of our neighbors tree.

and across the street:

I'm so grateful Matthew moved our car out of the driveway before the worst of it hit. Just a few hours later, this was what we found in our driveway:

It would have crushed our car!

Around 4pm Thursday base housing lost power. We were hopeful that power might return, but tried to remain realistic as well. By Friday morning, we still had no power and it was getting pretty cold in our home. The base opened the gym as a shelter in place. They had generators running so people would have a nice warm place to hang out (and charge their cell phones!). The chow hall was also opened up to  serve warm meals.

We stayed in the gym most of Friday, but Madilyn was having a very hard time settling down with so many kids running all over the place squealing and running, etc. We decided to try and get some rest at home again, but it sure was COLD!!!!!! We all piled into one bed, with several layers of clothing and hats. We also opened up the down comforter and another sleeping bag on top of that. We were able to get a *little* rest and stay fairly warm this way. However, by the time we woke on Saturday morning, the house was in the 40s!!!! BRRRRR

Saturday afternoon, we left Altus and made the trip up to Oklahoma City. Here are a few pictures as we were leaving the base.

Don and Sandy joined us here on Saturday night and we were able to spend some great time with them. It was also wonderful to be in a place with a warm room and power (and internet!) again. Don and Sandy left this morning and have graciously taken Madilyn back to AZ with them for the week. She thrives on routine, and we know she'll be very well cared for! I'm certain she'll be out at the park enjoying the 70+ degree days there while we try and clean up the mess this storm has left behind.

Our original plan was to make our way back to Altus today, but we have since been informed it doesn't look like Altus will have power any sooner than Wednesday. We have extended our stay here another two nights at this point.

We are very thankful to be able to get away to a warmer place for a few days and continue to pray for those families who remain without power. Please keep these families in your thoughts and prayers as well.

It's been a while!

I guess you could say a lot has happened since my last post. I'm going to do my best to fill in all the details, but it sure has been a whirlwind.

I'm VERY happy to say that Matt made it home late on January 22nd. We spend several days leading up to his homecoming not knowing when exactly we'd see him. Every time we would talk, the times and dates would change again. Of course, the more things changed, the less we were able to communicate. Needless to say, this left me pretty stressed and constantly wondering. Luckily, I had my good girlfriend Megan here to keep me grounded and remind me that "it will be what it will be".

During this time of stress, Madilyn and I were both battling sinus infections and ear infections. We were really hoping to be better by the time Matt got back. For the most part Madi was doing much better. I however, still sounded like a chain smoker :)

Since Matt arrived back, we've been enjoying our days spending time as a family. He spent most of Monday in-processing again, followed by a welcome home party at his squadron. I know he is happy to be back and I think they're pretty thankful to have him home too. Now that all the paperwork is taken care of, we're loving the two weeks of leave that follow a deployment. Our days are all spent together and we're having a great time! It is so wonderful and such a blessing to all be in the same place again.

Supposedly, we are going to have some ice storms and snow blowing into town tomorrow through mid-day Friday. Because of this, we made sure to take advantage of the almost 70-degree day today and went to play at the park. On our way home we ran into our good friends Natalie and Isabella.

Here are some photos from our fun afternoon!

Who do I look like?

This week I thought it would be kind of fun to compare pictures of Madilyn to pictures of Matthew and I around the same age. Here is a photo of me and one of Matt:

And here is Madilyn just a few days ago:

I don't have a copy of Matt at the same age yet, but hopefully will soon. So, what do you think???

Mom's Day Out / Preschool !

Our little girl had her first day of school today!

She did awesome! We started the day with a big breakfast. Then we got dressed and did our hair. Before we knew it, it was time to go! Here is Madilyn modeling her new backpack (which she was happy to carry on her own!).

Once we arrived to her classroom, Madi was more than ready to jump on in. She saw some new friends in the room and lots of new toys. I got a quick "bye mommie" in before she ran off squealing "wheeee!" at the assortment of new fun things to play with!

When I arrived to pick her up, her teachers said she did wonderful! She even laid out on her new nap mat and slept! I must admit, I wasn't sure if she would take to napping sans crib in a room with other kids, but SHE DID IT!!!! Go Madilyn!  Here is a brown bear she painted today!

After we got home we had a little snack, and decided to go to the park. It was in the upper 50"s and sunny here in Altus today. We had to take advantage of the sunshine and play!

After the park it was time for dinner. Madi sure was happy about a dinner of homemade chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese and fresh kiwi. Yum!

After dinner she took a nice long lavender and vanilla bubble bath (she has it oh-so-rough.. don't you agree?). Once she was finished in the tub she promptly asked if we could watch a little Barney. After a long and busy day, I thought that sounded like a great idea. Here's out princess relaxing with a cup of milk and a movie before bedtime :)