Happy First Father's Day

We had a great time celebrating Chris' first father's day. I had a picture collage made for him with pictures of Madelyn for his desk at work. Now for those of you that know Chris you know he enjoys shopping and I admit he has really good taste. So much so that it is hard for me to shop for him. This father's day story is hilarious, but soooo Chris.

I knew that he wanted to get a pair of shoes (of which I could never pick out) so Madelyn (I) wrote in his card that he could pick out a pair of shoes for her since she "did not have a credit card yet." Chris opened his first gift and loved it. Then he said hold on I will be right back.... and this was what happened next...

Thats right folks Chris had already fulfilled his Father's day wish at the Clarks shoe sale. I was laughing so hard. He did not tell me had gone shopping until now. So Madelyn did a great job with her purchases!!

He got a brown pair and a black pair. And don't forget the accessories..


After all the festivities it was time for Madelyn to eat and as a couple in our Sunday school class says she became "milk drunk."

Thanks Chris for being such a wonderful father to our baby girl! She is so blessed!

8 Week Pediatric Visit

Who would have thought that I give shots for a living, but when it came to my new baby girl I could not stand it!?!?

This past week Madelyn had her 8 week check up. This is the visit where more vaccines are given and I knew this going into the visit. I worried myself sick over it the entire week before (in fact I teared up a few timees). I wished that children could be distracted the same way my patients can be with lots of...

On the way to the office that morning Chris drove us (thank goodness) and I sat in the back seat trying not to lose it. Can I blame such emotion on postpartum still??? In the office I started to get a sick feeling in my stomach and was not sure if I could make it without vomiting.

Madelyn is now 9 pounds 11 ounces and 22 inches. I could not believe she had not gone over 10 pounds yet! Although it did make me feel better for still squeezing her into newborn diapers...after all the bag says 10 pounds! (I could not let it go that she is graduating to size 1!) The doctor came in a verified that all her developmental stages are going good and then he started to talk about the shots and why they give them. I zoned out and started to tear up. All I could think about is my sweet precious little girl has no idea what is about to happen...if only I could tell her so she will know that it will be alright and we only do this because we love her. I tuned back into the Dr when he said that some moms like to step outside and before he could finish I replied "oh I definitely will be." My heart was heavy handing her over to Chris to hold her down for this trauma. I left the room and started to cry. I headed as far away from the room as possible. I went to the front of the office and the staff was like are you ok?? God must have known what a basket case I would have been if I actually heard her cry because at that moment a mother with her screaming child in a stroller came by and drowned out my child. The nurse came and got me and I found her cradled in her dad's arms, I felt better since she had already stopped crying. Well...that was until I looked at the table and saw a little bit of her blood! I started to cry, poor Chris had to hold us both while we cried again. Finally, I pulled myself together (after all she had survived) and we left. A couple things I learned that morning: my dear husband who hates needles was able to brave them for my sake (thanks honey!) and I would hate to be a pediatric nurse.

Here is my dear Madelyn with her sparkly band aids (that did not make it any better for mommy!!)


She passed out on the way home..


And slept so soundly all day long (even without her swaddle)....

I had to wake her up to feed her and then she went back to sleep. She did run a fever, so we hit up the Tylenol a few times that day. I was at her beck and call all day long, poor thing. She is doing great though, and I am glad that ordeal is over for a couple months!!

BTW we used the last newborn diaper today... I promise I will not buy anymore!

Happy Anniversary!!!

5 years ago....May 31, 2003


I love looking back at those pictures and thinking about how happy we were to finally be married. I also think about how we had no idea what a wonderful future was in store for us. These past five years have been full of memories. We have experienced many milestones together. Our first 2 years of marriage we managed a long distance relationship so I could finish school. We then moved to Houston and bought our first house. We have traveled from the beaches of Mexico to the slopes of Colorado; toured Washington D.C. and floated the Frio. We were blessed to find a Sunday school class that has strengthened our marriage and has given us many friends to rely on. Now, our newest milestone....Madelyn. Chris and I look at her in awe of what a lovely baby girl we made.


Today....May 31, 2008


We decided to have my grandmother watch Maddy while we went out. We got dressed up and went to a nice steakhouse. After the meal,we called to check in on Maddy and she was doing great. We took advantage of our night out and went to see Baby Mama. It was funny, and humor we can appreciate more nowadays.

We cannot wait to see what God has in store next!!!

Madelyn's Social Debut

A couple weekends ago Madelyn made her social debut. The above picture is the outfit she wore. A friend of mine from high school was getting married so we decided to brave the event with our newborn in tow. I have to admit things did go pretty good for a newborn. Naturally, she was hungry and started fussing right when the bridal party started walking down the aisle. I panicked because I did not want my child to be the one screaming while the bridal procession is going on. I grabbed the bottle and put it in her mouth quickly. It worked, she was instantly quiet. The bottle was still pretty cold but she drank it (later on I started to worry about all the bad things that may happen to her for drinking cold milk...none of which happened). I searched for the nearest exit since the bride was about to walk down the aisle. This was a small church, there was one exit at the front leading to the outside but I thought to myself what if it is locked, I will make even more of a scene. Luckily, Madelyn was quiet long enough to allow the bride to get to the front and then Chris took her out to feed her. The rest of the evening went fine and with all that activity Madelyn slept really well that night! I think she slept like 7-8 hours. So her first "real" outing was a success. Below are some updated pictures! You can never take enough!

Madelyn in the Morning

Ok ya'll I have been trying for a couple weeks to figure out how to post video clips. I finally did it!! I was so excited to catch Madelyn smiling and talking I wanted to share it with everyone. Now that I have this skill added to my blogging abilities expect a bunch more!! Enjoy!!

Live and learn

It has been a couple weeks since my last post, things have changed with our little Madelyn. She has now started to be awake more and wanting to interact. This has decreased my time to check email and blog. She is doing great, almost weighing in at 10 pounds. I think we are about done stretching her into the newborn onesies that we do not want to actually let go of yet! We also are about to consider moving up to size one diapers! She is getting so big! I know, I know many babies are born this big, but I sure enjoy the fact that she is soooo small.

Next week brings a whole new set of learning experiences as I go back to work. I am sad to leave her, but also looking forward to getting back to a somewhat routine life. I love my job and know that God gave me the gift to be able to help people and their animals. This is the only comfort that allows me to go back to my job and know I am doing the right thing.

We did have one episode this week where Madelyn got very congested and started spitting up a lot. So far she rarely spits up so this was quite different! She woke up Friday morning and did not want to eat. Being a new mom....I panicked, cried, called my mother, and called the doctor's office. The nurse told me it was likely all mucous and to get a humidifier, aspirate her nose/throat, and elevate the bed. Of course I knew mucous makes the tummy upset, but when your little baby is not acting right everything I knew went out the window! I am happy to report that today (Saturday) seems like a much better day. She is not as ''mucousy." I am not even sure if that is a word, but it is my blog and I can make these things up, you moms know what I mean. What a bad mom, I should have known they sell those humidifiers and humidity level monitors for a reason. Live and learn. We are headed to a wedding today with Maddy so we will see how that goes!

Here are some updated pictures of our little princess. Now these first two are what she does when I try to take a cute picture! The slower shutter speed of a digital makes me miss the smile and the flash catches this pic. Big eyes!!




Below are pictures of another learning experience where I thought she would do her five-hour "nap" after her midnight feeding. So I stayed up and got stuff done around the house until midnight. I went to wake her up to eat (so I could then go to bed and sleep 5 hours). Boy was I wrong! She started her five hour nap after the 9pm feeding. We tried unswaddling her, putting her on the bed and these are the pics. She was not about to be woken up, needless to say I only got 2 hours after these pics!! Live and learn!





....and then some more pics of the past couple weeks! Enjoy.

Chris' Catch......the Verminator!

This story is a few weeks old, but I have been wanting to post it for awhile. After weeks of Maddy and I being tormented by a "creature" living in the attic my dear husband finally caught it! We had been hearing a large animal moving about in the attic right before Maddy was born. We called some pest people and they wanted to charge an arm and a leg to catch this thing. They wanted to set hundreds of various traps in the attic for hundreds of dollars. We decided that we would try and give it a go ourselves. Chris tried several rat traps which did not work. We finally decided this thing was bigger than a rat when it would slide down the walls and make loud noises. Our poor cats were going crazy chasing this noise around....determined to catch it. Since I was home more often with Madelyn, I would hear the animal all day. It started to chew on things and that is when Chris got serious.
We invested in a high pitch noise maker and a humane animal trap. Chris found a pathway through our fence that the animal must be coming in and out of and decided to place the trap there.

One week later, I was feeding Madelyn early in the morning and he came out of the bedroom with the biggest smile on his face. You would have thought it was Christmas morning! He quickly ran to the backyard with his eyes lit up to see his trap had worked. I could not help but be so proud, and then.... I asked him "now what are you going to do with it?" He replied he did not know and had to leave for work soon. I told him not to leave it here, try releasing it in the woods at the back of the neighborhood. He drove back there only to find that it was next to a bus stop full of kids. Not wanting to make a news headline "Children attacked by angry opossum," police still searching for the man who dumped the animal, Chris drove on to a quite area and opened the trap. All in all, Chris is so tickled at his catch and so am I. Now the house is peaceful again.