Festive flowers

We had our Christmas Enrichment last night. The program was so touching I don't think there was a single dry eye. It was the story of Christ told from the view of women--Mary's mother, Joseph's mother, Elizabeth, a woman inkeeper, a woman shepherd, and of course Mary. This is the first Christmas of my life I actually have my own little one and it makes Mary's story so much more poingnant. Not only did she carry a precious baby, but the Son of God. I think I have a faint idea of the joy and love she must have felt at his birth and as he grew. I can't fathom the pain she felt at his suffering and death. I am so thankful for my Savior and for the mother who raised him.

I actually didn't mean for this to be such a deep reflection... I wanted to post pictures of the flowers I got to arrange for the tables! I have never done flowers in Christmas colors and I had a blast with all the cool greenery and berries. The flowers were just from Costco but they were beautiful! The ribbon and ornaments the Enrichment leader provided were the perfect finishing touch.
Just the greenery by itself would have been pretty!
The flowers...
... and the finished product!
I had extra flowers so I made a larger arrangement too. An elegant play on a dozen red roses, don't you think?

I think I am kind of addicted to photo journaling! ;)

Christmas is in the air!

Maddie ate her 1st Thanksgiving Dinner (and her 1st meat ever!)

I think I finally feel the festive bug... finally! When we got home last night we actually had to turn the heat on and it felt so good! My favorite feeling in the world is COZY. I have my Christmas music playing now and I plan on decorating this week, as soon as I can get everything else done!

We had a great Thanskgiving trip to Idaho. Maddie slept almost the whole way both directions, so that was nice! I decided to give my whole family an early Christmas gift-- a super yucky flu bug!!! The night before we left I threw up 11 times, but I honestly thought it was food poisoning from some chicken the night before. Turns out it was the most contagious, nasty bug I've ever encountered, and I shared it with the whole fam! I think little Maddie's cheeks were the common denominator, as nobody could give up kissing them!

We love going to my parent's house. Maddie loved the kitty, Ozzie, Mike loved playing Guitar Hero with Cole and Emily (I even thought it was pretty fun!) and I loved decorating and going shopping with my mom and sisters! I didn't go on the crack-of-dawn Friday spree because Maddie still nurses in the morning, but they got some good deals! Later us girls decorated the "kid" tree while we watched Polar Express.

Aren't my sisters cute? Noelle is due in January and we can't wait!

We also took family pictures while we were all together. The chosen location was down in the canyon with the Perrine Bridge in the background. It was gorgeous but frigid. Unfortunately little Maddie wasn't in a smiling mood--her lips were too purple to move! We got some good ones though. Check out Seven Spuds for some proofs! Mike and some bro's and bro's-in-law went to the BYU v. Utah game on Saturday. GO COUGS!!! It was another fun-filled and action-packed road trip for the Andrews 3!

The Entertainer

Foreword by Lauren, captions by Mike.

As you can see, we had another exciting weekend. Really though, even though we don't get out much we have fun with each other! Maddie is getting pretty used to having a silver flashy thing in her face as Mike documents her every move.

We are really looking forward to our Thanksgiving break next week. We get to see lots of family and eat lots of yummy food! Who could ask for more? Happy Turkey Day to you all!!!

"Hey Dad, which camera am I supposed to be lookin' at?" There are chubby cheeks everywhere you turn.
We introduced Maddie to a balloon this weekend and coudn't resist the temptation to create a little static electricity at her expense. She likes to take electrons from unsuspecting balloons in her spare time.
This is a classic wide-mouthed Madison smile that she loves to flash! Leave a quarter at her feet and she'll do it all day long. This little girl loves to sit up . . . the only problem is trying to mix it with sleep. Her left foot (not shown) is just about in her ear hole. Can we say "flexible." I think her hip flexors must not be screaming loud enough.
We couldn't resist this cute little Santa hat that jumped off the rack at Babies-R-Us and landed on Maddie's head. We drove Maddie through the check-out line (with the hat still on her head) and the lady scanned the price tag as if we were purchasing a little 8 month old. What a bargain. She is looking so grown up.
Lauren pulled Missy Jr.'s ears out to make her look like a little elf. What do you think?
Can we ever have enough cameras on this girl?

Super ducky!

Be afraid. Be very afraid . . . (don't mind the whining at the end)

Maddie is crawling!!!

She's still a little shaky, but she's got it figured out! It's so fun to watch her learn how to do new things! She seems pretty proud of herself too. :)

I don't know why this image isn't showing up but it's another cute crawling clip.

So I have a question for all you savvy bloggers out there... have you heard of good ways to archive your blog? You know, to save all the memories in case of ubrupt blogger demise. My blog is slowly taking place of my journal--guilt!!! I need to keep it up, but this is so much more fun because I can put pictures in it, and besides, whose journal gets instant feedback? Mine just sits collecting dust on a shelf. But back to the archiving, you might remember the Father's Day book I made for Mike? I used a program called BookSmart by Blurb.com, and supposedly it has the capacity to 'slurp' your blog into a book... but when we tried it the layouts were messed up and some pictures didn't show. Sooooo lately I have just been copying my posts into Word so I can print them or save them on a CD. I dunno... it just seems like I should be saving it for my personal history (and Maddie's baby book!). Any other ideas???

Random image generator (e.g. Mike)

O.K. Here are some random snapshots of Miss M. M. Andrews during another nice weekend with the family. Too bad retirement is 30 years away.

Madison telling scary ghost stories with a flashlight in her mouth.

Reflecting on her life during bath time. "Is that a baby I see before me?"

"Hey Michael Jordan, you think you had hang time . . ."

"Holy smokes Dad, did the opposing team just score!!?"

Caution: Objects are larger than they appear!

"Dad, if you are trying to measure the growth
of my two front teeth, let me help you out . . ."

Can you see my uvula? . . . for the less erudite, it is the small piece of soft tissue that dangles down from the soft palate over the back of my tongue.

"If I just balance the tape on my forehead,
I can accurately measure my current levels of brain activity"

Warning: The following program may not be suitable for some audiences.

My yummy girl

Maddie is so much fun to have around!!! We went on a little shopping spree today and I couldn't believe how many heads she turned. Everywhere we go she gets strangers to smile and stop to talk to her! It makes me feel like the world is a very friendly and happy place.

I just had to take a picture of her examining some new toys (sorry it's kinda blurry). I love that I don't have to hide her Christmas presents yet! :)

Since I'm already gushing about her, I'll give you a quick update. Maddie will be *8* months old in two days! She is getting her two front teeth right now (it's all she really wants for Christmas) which will make a total of 6 teeth. She has such a cheerful personality (when her teeth don't hurt) and she says "da da da" a lot, which I am trying to get her to actually associate with Daddy. I love her giggles which are best when you suck your breath in loudly and attack her tummy and armpits with your mouth. As you saw in the last post she is trying to crawl but she gets stuck with her bum in the air, although she is getting better on her knees. Her newest trick is sitting up from laying on her tummy. She woke up an hour early this morning (curse the time change) so I tried leaving her to fall back asleep, which of course didn't work. When I went in to get her she was sitting in her crib! Such monkey business!!!

Picnic in the Park

Mike forgot his lunch at home today, so Maddie & I brought it to him and had a picnic. It was a rare pleasure to see Mike in the middle of a weekday! We decided to make it a date once a month. (For those of you who are incredulous that we're picnicing in November, it's still 85 degrees here and it's killing me!)







Maddie is scooching less and instead doing these funny push ups with her bum in the air. She hasn't figured out how to make progress though... she moves her feet but just ends up with her bum higher and her head on the ground! :)


Grinning at Dad! (that swing looks so nasty)


Man, I love my little family.

We're buggin' out!

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

For FHE Monday night we carved our pumpkin! If any of you know Mike very well, you know he does not do such things half-heartedly. He spent over an hour trying to turn Maddie's face into a carving pattern online. We ended up just using a silhouette (left) because all the shadow gradations were too hard to carve. I think it turned out pretty cool! (Clarification: the top two pictures are just computer renderings of the patterns--the big pic is our real pumpkin!)

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Maddie practiced Trick-or-Treating! Anybody home?

We went to a 4-ward Trunk or Treat and Chili Cookoff. It was crowded and crazy, but fun to dress up! Here's the little lady with Daddy the bee...

and Mommy the butterfly!

Have you ever been rendered completely worthless by the power of an unfinished book?!? I have been consumed all week with finishing The Count of Monte Cristo... even sleeping, which I treasure, has been a chore. I am usually a pretty fast reader, but 1462 pages take a lot of effort. I guess a book review would take away from the original intent of this post, so I'll save it for later...