Pumpkin Patch and Halloween

My parents came in town the week before Halloween.  It's always great having our parents in town, mostly because we love seeing them and visiting, but we also love it because it means DATE NIGHTS!  Hahaha

While they were in town we met my good friend Mindy and her precious baby, Blayne, and went to the pumpkin patch.  It was so fun out there and Mady had a great time.

Halloween was a bit of a different story.  I was so excited about her Halloween costume.  I found this cute owl costume on pinterest and decided to give it a shot.  It came out so cute and I couldn't wait to see Mady in it.  She had a different plan.  She did not like the costume at all and refused to wear it.  We stayed in and passed out candy to all the other cute kids who did wear their costume.  Maybe I can save it for next year?

When Nick's away....

Last week Nick went to Nashville for a conference during the week and then went straight to a men's retreat through our church for the weekend.  We definitely missed him but it was great that he was able to go to Nashville to present the research he's been working on and even better that he was able to make the church retreat.   It was a great experience for him.  God has really been doing some amazing work in our lives.  To keep us company while he was away, my mom came up and we had some fun girl time.

There was a "Pumpkins and Pancakes" event at the zoo for members and my friend Kindel invited Mady and I to go with them.  We ate pancakes at the zoo and we had a great time walking around and seeing the animals.  She didn't so much enjoy the carousel and would not ride on her horse.  Though she doesn't look super thrilled in these pictures, she really did have a great time!

State Fair

I am quite a bit behind with blog posts.  We have been so busy lately that I haven't had time to sit down and blog about it.  Things won't be slowing down either with the holidays right around the corner!

A few weeks ago my mother-in-law came in town to see us for the weekend and we had a great time.  We went to the state fair and it just so happened to be the day that Big Tex went up in flames!

Despite that sadness, we had a great time walking around and eating some yummy food!  That fried jumbalaya was delicious!

Poor Big Tex :(

She had a lot of fun at this little farm exhibit for kids

She met Elsie the Borden cow

All in all, I think she had a great day!

M-I-C-K-E-Y

I've never really let Mady watch much TV. Up until a month ago we didn't even have cable. We got rid of it around when Mady was born. We weren't watching much of it and whatever we did watch was on the local channels anyways. We did miss watching our Aggie football games though so this season we gave in and signed up for it again. So now we have the Disney channel and I've started letting Mady watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Lets be honest here. It's really more for me. Mady can get pretty crabby in the morning when she's hungry so this kind of entertains her and buys me time to get breakfast on the table without having a screaming baby at my feet!

She has fallen in love with Mickey Mouse. Anytime she sees him she gets so excited and starts saying "mama" over and over which is her way of saying Mickey Mouse. Now, she knows I'm mommy and every now and then will call me mama but its a whole different story with that mouse. She will call him mama over and over and over with such love. I never thought I'd be jealous of that mouse :(

It is really cute though and I do love that she loves that show. I loved Mickey and all of them when I was young and think it's great that it's something that is still around for her to enjoy too. Because of that, I can even pass on my Pluto stuffed animal for her to love on too!

Where's your belly button?

 

                                                                                                   

Longest three minutes

It's been over a week now since, I think I can safely say, the worst day of our lives.  Mady had woken up from her afternoon nap with a fever of 101.  I gave her some Tylenol and started keeping an eye on her.  She was acting pretty normal, like nothing was bothering her, until dinner.  She didn't eat much and became very lethargic.  She just sat in her highchair staring.  After we cleaned up I grabbed her and took her to sit on the couch for a little while and watch a movie.  That's when I noticed her start convulsing and looked down and saw that our precious little girl was having a seizure.  I called out to Nick who immediately called 911 and rushed to our neighbors house who is a nurse.  The seizure lasted about three minutes and it was the longest three minutes of my life.  She started having trouble breathing and began turning blue.  I was going crazy.  There was a time when Nick and I both thought we might lose her because of her not being able to breathe.  Thanks to the grace of God, he got her through it and the seizure passed.  The ambulance showed up and took us to the hospital.  After five hours and several tests later (unfortunately for Mady) we learned that she had a viral infection called bronchiolitis which caused her fever.  Apparently, a small percentage of  children have seizures when their fevers spike very quickly (nobody told me that!)  Her fever was at 103 when we made it to the hospital.  This doesn't mean that she'll have seizures for the rest of her life and she has no long-term effects, but now that it has happened to her once, she has a 30% chance that it could happen again when she has a fever, up until about the age of 5.  They grow out of it.  Needless to say, we will be very cautious now when she gets anywhere near a fever.

The next day she still felt horrible and after a doctor's visit in the morning, she spent the entire day in my arms or on the couch.  I have never seen her that sick and I was watching her like a hawk.  She is now doing much better.  She still has a bit of a runny nose but no fever and she's in great spirits.

I can't even explain the feeling of helplessness and fear we felt for those three minutes.  It got me to thinking of all the parents out there who have children battling for their lives with various awful diseases.  They feel that same helplessness and fear for much longer than three minutes.  I can't imagine.  I thank God now every night for keeping her safe and healthy.  I keep those parents in my prayers because I can't imagine being in their shoes. 

I really want to thank all of our friends and family who were there for us with support and prayer. You have no idea how much we appreciate it. 

Mady thanks you too!

Austin Trip

So last Friday, Nick was going to Austin to play in a golf tournament with some of his friends.  It didn't occur to us until Thursday afternoon that Mady and I should join him and make a little trip out of it.  So in a matter of an hour we had a hotel reservation and a reservation to board Lucy for a night and we headed out on Friday morning.  When we got there we dropped Nick off and Mady and I headed on an adventure to find the hotel room and check in.  We made it just fine but lugging all our bags onto a luggage cart and getting it up to our second floor room while having a 15 month old in tow sure was interesting.  Luckily, nobody was around to see this ridiculousness!

Mady and I settled in and she LOVED the hotel room.

Where's Mady?

There she is!

Boo!

By the way, she does this at home all the time now!  After she took a nap, we went and explored the Arboretum area, which is where we were staying.  We walked around a little outdoor mall and then ate some ice cream at a nearby park.  She LOVED chocolate ice cream but who doesn't?!  She didn't want any at first but once I got that first bite in, her love affair with chocolate began...  Life will never be the same!

Mommy, give me more ice cream!

SOOO GOOD!!

The next day we started the day at the Capitol.  Nick and I both went when we were younger so it was pretty cool to go see it again.  Afterwards we grabbed some lunch and took it to eat at Zilker park.  What a cool place!  We had lunch, walked around, and took a ride on the train.  Once we had our fill of the heat, we headed to the mall and Mady took a little nap while we walked around.

 For dinner we headed to a restaurant right by Lake Travis.  Such a pretty view!  After we picked up Lucy we headed home from a quick, but fun getaway.  We had a great time and proved to ourselves that we can still be spontaneous, even with a toddler!