Maddie's One!

On May 27th our sweet little girl turned 1! We can hardly believe it. The past year has gone by so quickly and she has changed so much. Maddie is very tall. She has 4 teeth and 3 on their way in. She is always talking and smiling. She's walking and keeping us entertained and busy because she thinks the best thing is to wander around the house seeing who she can find. She's a very smart and fun little girl. We love her so much.

Happy Birthday, Madalynne!!

One Day Old

One Year Old

Family Trips.

Last week Matt's family came to town. His mom, sister and his sisters boyfriend flew in on Saturday night and stayed until the next Saturday morning. We did alot of fun things and it was really nice to have everyone together for a little vacation. Monday we headed to The Grand Canyon with my Mom and Brendon. It was a nice day and there were such pretty views! The Grand Canyon

My Mom and Matt's Mom.

Neil, Ericka, Kami, Matt, Maddie and Annemarie

On Tuesday we went to Zions National Park. We ate lunch at Jack's Sports Bar and Grill in Springdale and then went on the river walk in Zions.

Annemarie walking down by the river.

A rattlesnake we saw along the trail.

Ericka and Neil.

Maddie fell asleep towards the end and decided to use her Daddy as a pillow.

Poor uncomfortable thing!

Grafton, Utah

We ended the week by spending Friday in Las Vegas. We did some shopping with my Mom and Maddie and then my Mom took Maddie home with her so we could spend the night in Vegas. We went and had a great time at dinner, went to Fremont Street and then walked the strip for a little while so Matt's Mom could see what it was like.

We had a good time visiting and getting the families introduced to one another. Hopefully it won't be too long until it can happen again.

Family Hike - Snow Canyon

Last week Matt picked me up from work and had decided that we needed to go out and go hiking as a family. So we went home, changed clothes and went on our way. It turned out to be really nice and fun for us. The hike wasn't extremely hard, but just hard enough to be a challenge.
Matt and Madalynne hiking up rocks.

The view from where we stopped.

We saw this little guy on the way out. He just stayed right in the same spot long enough for Matt to take a few pictures of him. Yuck.

An Afternoon At The Park & Other Random Pictures.

On Mothers Day we went on a walk in the evening to the Temple and the park. We bought a new camera and wanted to test it out. At the park Maddie wanted to do nothing but pick and try to eat grass.

Trying to crawl away to find Starlee.

At the St. George Temple.

I had a wonderful Mothers Day. Who wouldn't with a little girl like this?

Sick Babies Are No Fun.

Maddie hasn't been drinking of eating for two days so we took her into her pediatrician. They told us she has a virus and she's moderately dehydrated and the way we needed to get her to drink was to give her whatever she'd drink (Diet Coke, Water, Gatorade, popcicles) in a syringe down her throat. 1 tsp every 5 minutes for 2 hours. It wasn't fun and she didn't like it, or us for that matter. It still didn't help so we called back and they told us to take her to the ER for an IV to get her re hydrated. We sat around for about two hours while they checked her out. They tested her for strep and that came back negative. We just sat there trying to give her juice and popcicles because they didn't want to give her an IV. It was a long night. She's doing a little better today and she's drinking so it looks like she's on the road to recovery. It's just so sad to watch her though - she's just not her normal active self. Hopefully just a few more days and she'll be back to our playful little girl.

Random pictures from a few days before she got sick.

Playing and dancing in the mirror like normal.

New Ring

So as planned, we got my ring back last Tuesday. Matt went to pick it up in the middle of the day and ended up calling me at work pretty irritated. When he picked up the ring and opened the box he immediately noticed multiple problems. The diamond was set uneven so that it was on a slant. There was supposed to be a space on either side between the diamond and the band but the diamond was completely pushed to one side with no space leaving the other side with a HUGE space. They didn't cut and add gold to size it.. they just melted it down leaving the back side of the band incredibly thin and you could see where they had heated up the metal because it left a goldish color to it. It was terrible! Matt was furious but the jewelry store didn't think it was that bad. He ended up bringing it to me to show me what the setting ended up like and indeed, it was pretty bad. The diamonds were still beautiful but they'd destroyed the band. After I went back to work, Matt went and looked at other jewelers. Another jewelry store told him that if they melted it down to fix it, it would weaken it enough that I'd probably be able to break the center crown right out if I caught it on anything. So a few hours later I get another call from Matt telling me that he's found another ring similar to mine and he thought it was beautiful. He wanted to pick me up just to go look at it. At first I was hesitant because I didn't want to give up on my original ring, but working with that company again was almost out of the question. How could anyone send the finished ring back looking that bad? And then have the people tell you that it was okay?! So we went and looked at the other ring Matt found and I loved it. It's a little different diamond wise but I like the band more. So we ended up returning my original ring and going back to get the new one. I don't have any pictures right now but I'll post some as soon as I get it back. I'm very excited and I can't wait to wear it.

I don't think that I'll ever work with the other store again. The staff was very nice, but the quality of the finished product... unacceptable. I'll post pictures soon!

We're Engaged!

It's official! We are engaged. Matt proposed to me above the city 2 weeks ago with my diamond (GORGEOUS!!) because he got too anxious and gave it to me before my birthday. Then on my birthday, he surprised me with my band. I had no idea it'd happen but I was SO excited. We don't have a date set yet but we are thinking about next Spring. March perhaps?? Things are going along and going great. We are very happy and very excited.

Now for all the planning...