I took Maggie to the doctors today. She weighs just over 15lbs and is 26 1/2 inches long. She is tall and skinny. Unfortunately, they had to give her more shots, so she is now fussy and tired. She has been sleeping or crying with a little bit of laughing and playing thrown in because she is such a happy baby that she can't help it! We will be going up to my parents house shortly. I'm sure pictures and more commments will be up shortly. Maybe not until we get back on Sunday though. Talk to ya'll soon!

Maggie likes peas, yeah! Too bad they aren't really a vegetable. I gave them to her frozen today and that seemed to help with her irritability from teething. It was nice to have some relief from her crying for at least a little while. I got very frustrated today. I feel terrible, but I just wanted some time away, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen any time soon. Twenty minutes seems to be the limit of away time. I would love a "girls night out" without any kids around. Sigh. I love Maggie terribly much, but sometimes you need a break. Wow, this really went off on a tangent from how I started. I guess that is where I am at right now. Hopefully spending the weekend with my parents will be a good change of scenery for us. Maybe I'll even get to take a bath, that would be nice. I guess I'll sign off for now. I have been trying, unsucessfully, to get to sleep. I thought maybe if I wrote a blog entry it would help.

Here is a video Matt took of Maggie's current version of crawling:



She is so cool!

Now that Maggie is rolling and moving and scootching and pretty much crawling it is near impossible to get her to settle down and eat at night. She has started doing this thing where she rolls away from me, then crawls over and tries to eat standing on her hands and knees. This is Maggie's version of a ridiculus feeding. Esme, Maggie's cousin, used to look all around and move like crazy during feedings and they would follow her around with the bottle. The term "ridiculus feeding" came from her. See it for youself!



Also, I am pretty sure Maggie's other lower incisor broke through today. I can feel it! Wow, she is growing up fast.

This weekend we did a pretty major cleaning job on the apartment. We cleaned the storage room, living room, the sitting room and my studio (which will soon be Maggie's room). The sitting room, the first room you get to when you walk in our apartment, now only has four chairs and a lamp in it. That will be the room that we allow Maggie to roam around in. I think I'll move her toy box in there. We are going to set up gates on the doorways to the kitchen, living room and bedroom so that she can't get into trouble by getting into those rooms. Once she's a little older we will probably allow her to go into the living room as well, but for now just the sitting room. It feels good to know that we've got a place where she will be safe. There is another reason why we decided to get cleaning. I feel a little stupid, but we got another cat. One of Matt's employee's couldn't keep his cat, so it was either us or bring it to the humane society. She's a cute black and white cat. So far the assimilation of her with the other cats hasn't gone too badly. It'll be nice to have Spaz, that's the new cat's name, grow up with Maggie. Although she will grow up much faster.
While we were cleaning I sorted through some of Maggie's stuff and found this headband. She looked so cute I had to take a picture. Here she is trying to look behind the camera at me! Unfortunately, the headband left an indentation of itself in her skin, so I don't think I'll use it again. I'll try the other kind I found.

This ebay thing has really distracted me from the blog. I'm excited to start getting my products going, but I need to get some sleep and I need to keep up with the rest of my life. So far it doesn't look like buying at yard sales and selling on ebay is going to work too well. I may have made $30 this month for about 100 hours worth of work (rough guesstimate, but probably close to the truth). I could go yard saling and see if I find anything really worth it, but I have been way under charging on the shipping. That makes it hard to make any money. I need a scale. I need to only buy items that will sell for at least twice what I paid for them, and more than $10. Anything less and the fees eat up all the profit. Anywho, this has nothing to do with Maggie... so I'll sign off on this one and start a new post.

At this point, I think it's a concensus, I need to add baby dresses to my JoshBearBabyChic line. The tank top that Maggie had to borrow was such a hit, we need to find good material and come up with a pattern. I hope that appropriate material comes in cool patterns, or at least non-pastel colors. I will not have pastels among the baby stuff I sell! I can't wait to go live with the line. I think that I have decided that I want to sell my items in an Ebay store to begin with, as well as locally, and go from there! Any suggestions?

My parents and I went out last night to celebrate Maggie's six month birthday and the summer solstice. They have a tradition of going out somewhere has a nice view to enjoy the longest day of the year, and a few times I have joined them. This year, Maggie got to enjoy the nice weather as well! It was a beautiful night, there were boats on the river (we went to the Riverview Cafe in Brattleboro VT. One boat blew its horn as it passed by, in response to the request of one of the restaurants patrons. That got a big round of applause from everyone! Maggie is still a very patient girl and was happy to entertain herself with toys for the majority of the evening while her mom got to have some adult time. In the picture you can see her chewing on her ladybug toy. She also has a doll on her right side and a fish rattle on her left! I have found that toys are a lifesaver. Now that she is interested in them she is much less likely to cry in the car, and distractable when I need to get something done around the house. We were also able to take advantage of the natural light and get a picture of Maggie's tooth! It's just a sliver, but the whole top of the tooth is showing now. (Sorry about sticking my fingers in there Maggie. Of course, you try to get them in there all the time. Hehe.)

I know this story has nothing to do with Maggie, but I have to share it. Yesterday we went back to Faye's house beacause I forgot some beads that I wanted to use there. While I was there, Matt came up to walk her dogs. He said to me, "You need to move your car, you backed up over the garden." I thought, how is that possible? I didn't back the car at all. I went outside to discover that my car had rolled for the parking space that it was in back over their lawn and smack dab in between two trees, with inches on either side! What Matt hadn't noticed was that one of my mirrors, driver side of course, was hanging off the car. I tried to drive the car out with no success. It had sunk into the bed of fallen leaves that was covering the ground. Then, Matt and I tried to push while Faye steered and had absolutely no luck. So, we had to call AAA to get towed out of the woods. When the tow truck man got there he found that there was a rock underneath my gear shift and we were very lucky that I hadn't scraped the bottom of my car across it. (Oh, there was also a tree a couple inches behind the car that I was lucky enough not to have backed into, the leaves stopped the car just short of it.) He was able to lift the car and get it out, but he had to rip my mirror the rest of the way off. It was quite an adventure, and quite a scare, but my mirror was the only casualty, there wasn't even a new scrape!

Maggie had a very exciting visit to our friend, Nana Faye's house today, or I guess yesterday since it's past midnight now. Faye has two dogs, Maxx and Lulu who seem to enjoy sniffing and licking Maggie. It is so cute to see them fawning over her, but at the same time kind of scary. I know that they won't bite her, but I am a little scared of them sitting on her or of Lulu puking on her, although I've heard she doesn't puke as much anymore! Maggie got in some crawling practice and then I decided it time to change her diaper. Well, I discovered that I had waited a little too long and that her outfit was wet and silly mommy hadn't packed another one. Faye, the smart lady that she is improvised with one of her tank tops. It was such a cute little dress on her that we had to take a bunch of pictures. We took some pictures of her practicing walking, we took pictures of her playing on the beautiful quilt, and finally we took a picture of her sleeping after she got exhausted from all this activity.









A while ago my mom had asked me to try to get a picture of Maggie with her foot in her mouth. We have one picture of my brother Steven that way. She was gnawing away at her foot today and by the time I got the camera fired up she was done. I tried to get her to do it again, and suceeded! Unortunately, my camera takes a second or so to actually take the picture so by the time that it clicked her foot was on its way down :( I swear, I will get a picture!

I have made attempts to capture what it is like for me to look at Maggie as or after I feed her. That closeness can't be captured with a camera. Tonight as I lay with Maggie for her last feeding of the night I realized why. It is not all about sight; it is also about touch and sound. Feeling the warmth of her next to me, her hand resting gently on me, the slight pressure of her against me and knowing of the trust that she has in me that she proves by her steady breathing and the occasional snore as she continues to eat. The dependance for comfort is also shown when I try to separate from her and she reaches for me in her sleep. Phantom nursing that all babies do in their sleep shows the contentment that they get from what you can provide for them. The ability to be able to feed my child from myself and achieving that closeness with her, having moments of pure sense, without pesky knowledge getting in the way. We knew how to do this before books, before schools, this is wisdom passed from generation to generation. We would probably even know how to feed our children if we were never taught. Instinct is strong after the birth of a child. I am so lucky to be able to stay home and continue to breast feed. Maggie is amazing and I wish that I could share how much this means to me. This attempt just doesn't feel close to enough, and yet it still brings me to tears..

Going to the flea market was not a good idea. There wasn't really anything there worth buying and it was soooooo hot today. A lot of the vendors were packing their stuff up and leaving because they couldn't stand the heat anymore. I got a few things, but nothing worth an hour in the car and walking around in that unbearable heat. Poor Maggie was in her black stroller. Her back was soaked in sweat when we took her out. Matt had the great idea to soak her hat in the water we, luckily, had thought to bring with us.
Then we went to Curtis' bbq for lunch, that was good. It's world famous and I can see why, you don't find bbq like that anywhere else around here, so people from this area love the novelty, and people from where the taste is from love a taste of home. If you haven't tried it you really should.
Nothing much more to report right now, just more fussiness over her tooth, but not as much as before. She's a real trooper, and there is always a smile waiting whether or not she's upset!

Maggie "let me know" today. I wish that I figured it out sooner. She was fussy for awhile, I tried to feed her and she kept coming off, but I knew that she was hungry since it had been awhile since she had eaten. I gave up and went out and she screamed almost the entire ride home. When we got home I fed her, she fell asleep, I tried to set her in her crib, she woke up. (Repeat again with other side.) So I said, "hmm...." and tried rice cereal. She ate all that I made. Then, I mashed up a banana and she ate all but two bites before turning away. She must have eaten 4 or 5 tablespoons of food! Then, she ate more milk before falling asleep for the night at 8:30, she woke up at 9:30 for a bit, but went back to sleep quickly.

She may also have been fussy since we had a big day. We started going to yard sales at 8:00 and took a few breaks, but didn't finish until around 3 or so. I should have a bunch of stuff on ebay soon, check it out! If anyone is looking for something, let me know and I will try to find it for you while I'm out. Tommorow we are going to a flea market, maybe...

Today is the first day of yard saling (sp?) to resell on ebay in order to make money to support staying at home with my little girl! Why don't you check out all the items I'm selling? Any purchases will help to support a good cause, and you might get a great deal!

My loverly sister-in-law Rebecca told me that if you sign up for the free samples at the Dover Books site they will send you emails so that you can print up fun things like pages from coloring books. I signed up now so that I will have a nice stack by the time Maggie reaches coloring age!

Maggie got her lower left central incisor today! She was chewing on my finger instead of eating like she was supposed to be and I felt it. I tried to take a picture, but the flash made it too blurry and bright and without a flash it was all shadow.

I am, in a way, hoping that Maggie never has a fear of strangers. I know that most likely she will though, and that in some ways it's a good thing. It's a lot easier to take a child that is willing to go than one that is screaming. So, I try to see everyone I would very much like her to be used to regularly. For most of our relatives this is difficult, you are all just too far away. However, since my parents live close and my mom works in town I try to go and visit her everyday. I know that I am probably bothering her, and that she has a lot of work to do, but it's also great to see the smile on her face when she sees Maggie and vice versa. Maybe I should put together a slide show of people that she should enjoy seeing and show it to her everyday. What do you think?

We tried to take a nice trip to the park today. The house was getting cramped, Maggie wanted to run around, or at least crawl. I was getting frustrated, she didn't want to stay in my arms and didn't want to be cooped up in the play yard. I figured it was a nice day out, maybe there would be other babies to socalize with, it didn't work out so well. As you can see, I got her all set up with toys galore and figured she would roll around and amuse herself. Unfortunately, my shoes, my magazine, the grass and other non-toys were much more interesting to her than what was laid out for her. Also, the wind was blowing and kept blowing the blanket where it I didn't want it to be. She was just as fussy as she had been at home, guess it was more than just lack of movement bothering her. And, there were no other babies around. There was a young girl playing ball with her dad, I assume, but they didn't come over and say hi. Who knows, maybe I overwhelmed her with too many toys. She's at the I need my mommy right next to me, but I want to move all over the place stage, I guess. Sigh. I'm tired. Hey, but it is now 9:45 and Maggie has been asleep since 8:30ish. Wow. My turn.

One thing that I hear myself saying a lot is "With the next baby I'm going to...". I thought that I would record a few of those thoughts here for prosperity. Warning: I may add more as I go along.

... give a bottle daily starting at three weeks so Matt can feed the baby and I can get out of the house."
... schedule the baby to avoid 11 o' clock bedtimes and snacking all day."
... hmmm... maybe those are the only two I say... I just say them a lot. If I think of more I'll let you know.

Wow, what a grimace. I wish that I had a picture. I tried to give Maggie green beans from the food mill that was gifted to us today. She took a couple spoonfuls before refusing altogether. So, I tricked her by giving her every other spoonful applesauce/greenbeans but she was only fooled a couple times before the crying kicked in. After a few more spoonfuls of applesauce she wanted nothing but boob and promptly fell asleep. Maybe I'll try peas first, or maybe I'll try greenbeans again when she's not tired. Course, it's so hard to tell.

Daddy's Dandys

Greetings Bloggers! This will be the super premiere edition of Daddy's Dandys, a collection of cuteness and love for my daughter Maggie. We have been blessed that Miriam has been able to stay at home and care for Maggie much longer than we expected. It is sooo hard for me some days to be at work and not with them. If I have extra time, I drop in for a minute or two in the late morning. One day I walked in on this precious scene and had to snap a few photos. Slinky is our largest, and most gentle cat. He has already formed a loving, curious and respectful relationship with Maggie. My favorite part of the photo is how the three of them are sleeping in almost the same fashion. It's so cute it hurts!

So, we ran off to play and I set Maggie up so that she could play in her play yard. She seemed to be enjoying herself with a variety of toys... a cow, a book, a bear/rattle and her ladybug ring (which it looks like the cow is holding in the top picture). It was nice, it allowed me to get some laundry put away. I had to move the play yard so that it was in front of our bedroom door in order to placate her, she didn't like it when she couldn't see me. You can probably see in the second picture, of her second time in the play yard in a whole new outfit, that the sides (well, three of them) are see through. It's nice that mommy can take a rest while baby develops some independence and is allowed some movement. I wish that I had taken the initiative to make sure it was set up and usable earlier. I've been putting her in her swing or her highchair when I have needed to be able to use my hands, but now I have a method of setting her down in three different rooms, and I like that she is able to move around and practice her crawling in the play yard.

I definitely jumped the gun on thinking that Maggie was now an early riser. She was up until 8:00 and then we slept until ten. She was up until around noon and now she is still asleep. The picture is from just a minute or so ago. When she was up between... gee, I can't get anything right I just had to go get her, now she's on my lap... 10 and noon she was pretty fussy. I don't know if it was that she's teething, sick, or she was hungry. Probably a combination thereof, I tried breastfeeding and she was on and off, very distractable. So, I tried massaging her gums and giving her things to chew on with a small amount of sucess. I tried feeding her solids with a few minutes of sucess. I tried giving her water in a sippy cup which placated her also for a few minutes. Then, the real screaming set in so I fed her in bed and she feel asleep. I tried to move her to the crib, but she immediately woke up again. She seems ok now, just fidgity, so I'll go and let her play.

Well, the glory days of sleeping until eleven are over. (I think.) I know that I wanted her to wake up earlier so that she will hopefully go to sleep earlier at night, but why did she have to choose a day when I am sick and very much wanted to sleep in to be wide awake and raring to go? I tried to get her to eat and fall back to sleep, but she was much more interested in trying to grab the roll of toilet paper I had on hand for blowing my nose. And, of course she's wide awake after a night of waking up at 10:30, 11:30, 1:00, 2:00, finally when she woke up at 3:00 I decided to keep her in bed with me and slept until around 5:30 when, silly me, I tried once again to put her in her crib. I got her back out and she let me sleep from 6:00 to 7:00, now it's all over. I really hope this waking up every hour or two is caused by teething and that it won't be all the time now. I don't think I can take going back to being exhausted constantly again. At least she's happy sitting in her high chair playing with toys and letting me type.... well, now she's crying... gotta go.

Just so you know, I changed the settings so that anyone can comment. You don't have to be a member or have an account.

So, I'm not really sure how to go about transitioning from breast milk to solids. I've heard that "the baby will let you know". As of yet I don't know what that means. Maggie seems to like solids, but I don't know if she'll ever refuse to nurse. I'll let you know if I figure this one out later.

The car trip to New Jersey worked out pretty well. We left at 5:24, and Maggie slept (mostly) until we reached Hartford and stopped at my brother Steven's house for breakfast. (BTW, Steven is Maggie's godfather.) The rest of the way went smoothly with company for Maggie in the backseat and plenty of toys to keep her company! We reached my Aunt Susan and Terry's house around 11:30ish. This left us enough time to get settled and have a few bites to eat to tide us over until the party. At this party Maggie was not the center of attention as there were almost 100 people there! Many of the people had kids, and I'm pretty sure Maggie was the youngest, but certainly not the only one getting attention. Mikelle and Kevin's house (my cousin and her husband who were hosting the party) is set up for kids to have tons of fun. I can't wait to go back there when Maggie can play with their toys. They have a swing set, a plastic castle, a blow up jumper (seen with Esme in it to the left) and a huge backyard. Even though there were almost 100 people there, it didn't seem crowded since there was so much room. Maggie was the hit of the party for a few of the people attending. My grandmother, on my father's side, was there and was very anxious to finally get to meet Maggie. They happened to match! Also there was my dad's cousins Carol and Jack, my cousin Scott and his wife Wendy. She had a lot of fun playing with Maggie as her little boy, Brandon, is seven years old now. On this side of my dad's family (Susan's grandkids) there are only boys. Mikelle has Justice, Caden and Ty. So, it is a special treat for them to get the chance to play with girls, Maggie, Esme and Baya!
Maggie was having a photogenic day. I love this picture of her
sitting on my lap. It must have been a very overwhelming day for her, meeting so many new people, traveling, and being away from home. She didn't sleep very well that night, and neither did her dad since he started feeling sick as soon as we left, so I had a hard night and then had to do all the driving on the way home. We spent a leisurely morning at Aunt Susan and Terry's house and then left when Maggie feel asleep around noon. She slept until around 2:30 and then was happy to play for a little while. Then, around 4:00 she started to freak out. We stopped and I tried to feed her, but she was much more interested in looking at me and all around then eating. So, we tried to keep going and it didn't work. We had to stop again after listening to her cry for about fifteen minutes. I guess she realized that she had to get down to business and she ate until she feel asleep. We stopped for dinner shortly after that and she woke up while we were in the restaurant. Luckily, after leaving she feel asleep fairly quickly and managed to be happy the rest of the way home! The trip went much more smoothly than I imagined it would, so I can't complain. In fact, I hope we get to visit more with our relatives. It is always so nice.

We are back from our trip to New Jersey, but I'll talk about that in my next entry. First I am going to talk about Maggie's friends. I meant to write this before I left, but didn't get around to it. She has more of a social life than I do. She smiles at everyone and can instanly click with people that I will never know. Here though, I will talk about the friends, in her age range, that she sees on a regular basis. Her friend Alexandria (aka Alex) is my goddaughter. She is an amazing girl born September '04. She likes to play share, take back, share, take back...... She is a big fan of duckies. The picture posted here is from awhile ago. Alex was being nice and sharing her duckie with Maggie, for about a minute. (Quite a long time for toddlers.) The timeframe that she lets Maggie "borrow" her toys now is a lot less. It's about ten seconds, take it back, giving again for ten seconds over and over. She also has had times when she asks for Maggie to come over and visit. I love Maggie being able to interact with slightly older children. I believe that toddlers and babies can communicate and that older children can teach the younger ones a lot. Nathaniel, my second oldest brother learned to talk early. I think that David, my oldest brother, was teaching him to talk. Nathaniel has twins that are two and I wish that we could visit them more often, but they live in Rhode Island. With Matt, my husband, only having one day off a week it makes it difficult to see family as often as we would like. Here, the girls are holding Maggie's hands. They certainly have a lot to teach Maggie about the ways of the world. They are very lucky to live near a wonderful park that has a carousel, a zoo, and a whole lot more. It will be so nice when Maggie is able to play with them and her other friends. She also spend a lot of time with her friend Christopher, son of my friend Katherine. He loves to give Maggie kisses, except when I want him to so that I can take a movie. He is about one month younger than Alex, born in November of '04. He has shown Maggie how to play with a lot of toys and proven to me that the most interesting toy, according to toddlers, is the one that someone else is playing with. Neither he nor Maggie really like to sit long enough to take the "perfect" picture! So, we'll take what we can get.

Well, I figured out how to upload the video of Maggie's first feeding, here is the address:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2jMcB8s-7Y

Enjoy!

Every once in a long while Maggie sleeps and sleeps. She feel asleep at 10pm last night and I finally decided to take her out of her crib at 7am this morning. One other time she slept for 9 hours straight before I decided to wake her up to feed her. Maybe she's old enough now that I should let her sleep, but I really want to move her up to an earlier bedtime.
Mornings are a special time. I probably shouldn't bring her into bed with me, but it is so nice to lie there with her and lazily start the day. Sometimes she sleeps and I just stare at her. The picture above and to the left I took lying next to her in bed. That was the first picture I took when I decided to do a "day in the life" that I was going to start this blog with. Unfortunately, I left my camera at my friend Faye's house and didn't get to finish out the day.
Babies can fall asleep anytime, anywhere. I used to feed Maggie on the couch, but I don't anymore since she's wiggly and could easily fall off of the side. Matt took this lovely picture of us one day when we had fallen asleep together. This next picture is from when the two of us fell asleep at Faye's house. (I'm wearing a blue shirt.) Faye had to get out her camera and take a picture of us curled up together on her chair. I find it incredible that I can fall asleep sitting up and not drop her. This came in very handy during the first few weeks when I had not yet mastered the art of feeding in the sidelying position and I would feed her sitting in a recliner outside of our room. I would fall asleep while feeding her or even while burping her and stay asleep for an hour or more. I was always amazed that I was in exactly the same position when I woke up then when I had fallen asleep. Parents must have a built in mechanism that keeps them from dropping their babies.
When we go on long car rides we try to have Maggie fall asleep beforehand, otherwise she is very unhappy with us for making her sit in the carseat. We can sometimes placate her if we sit back there with her, but usually when she's not sleeping she's screaming. It has gotten a little better, but it's still hard. Our trip to New Jersey this weekend should prove interesting. We are leaving around 5 in the morning so that she will sleep for at least the first part of the trip.
By the end of trips, sometimes she wakes up as soon as we pick her up, but sometimes she stays asleep for awhile, recently we went to visit Matt's parents up in Freedom and her she greeted them asleep. We set her up on their couch so that she could sleep comfortably.









One thing that I have discovered, which is hard to see in this picture since my black pants blend in with the background is that it is quite comfortable, at least for a little while to lay a sleeping baby in the crook of my knee with that leg propped up on the other one. As long as she isn't wiggling that holds her in place pretty well. Even when not sleeping that was comfortable in the time when she didn't move around a lot. And, it isn't as comfortable for so long since she is heavier.

So, I finally tried giving Maggie rice cereal this morning. I have already given her banana, apple and pear. I know, I didn't do things in the "proper" order. Oh well, I guess we're just not proper. I really wanted to post the movie of our first attempt at feeding her. It is hilarious, but I couldn't figure out how to post it. So, if you want to see it ask me about it and I'll send it to you via email as soon as I get upgraded. (Right now I can only send and receive 5MB at a time, but lycos is upgrading everyone to 3GB!) Anyhow, my first attempt at rice cereal was interesting. It took about ten minutes to express the milk (only about half of what the box said to use), then she ate only about half of it in about three minutes. I'm not sure if she likes it or not. She kept trying to grab the cup that I made it in, but she didn't really want to open her mouth after a little while. That is when I figured that she was done. I wonder if the fact that she still sticks out her tongue while eating is a bad sign. I wish that we were born with the knowledge needed to raise children. It would certainly make it easier. I guess that when we got higher intelligence our instincts were taken away. I don't know if that's a fair trade, but I guess I feel blessed that I can remember so much and love so much!

Maggie has already had quite a few adventures in her life. When she was only six weeks old she went to Florida. In order to get there we had to take four planes, two there, two back. I wasn't sure if it was such a good idea to take her onto planes when she was so young, but I decided that it was important for her grandparents to meet her before she got too much older. Babies change so quickly and I wanted them to see her as a tiny baby. Matt's parents live in Florida from November to April each year and so we took the trip down there to see them. We had a splendid time being pampered by them. One thing that I discovered while I was there is that it is not a good idea to eat cabbage while breastfeeding. My mother-in-law made a wonderful boiled dinner, and the next day Maggie was extremely fussy. I learned my lesson.

Shortly after that, there was unfortunately a tragedy in the family. My grandmother died and so we had to get back on a plane and travel to Maryland. It made me so sad that Maggie was never able to spend any time with my grandmother, she was a wonderful woman. We were able to visit her in the last days and I hope that some of my grandmothers spirit was able to travel to Maggie. (Hmm.. does that sound weird?) While we were in Maryland Maggie was able to meet many of the members of the family. She met her great aunt Elinore and uncle Uri from Israel and her great uncle Harry and aunt Dorothee from Illinois as well as many other relatives. When we came back to Keene my aunt Elinore andUncle Uri came with us and we went out to The Olive Garden with my parents while she was here. Maggie is one of the most well behaved babies. She slept for the first part of our dinner and then was satisfied to sit on laps and be passed around for the rest of the dinner.




Also in town at the time was my cousin Jack, Maggie's first cousin once removed. (I looked it up recently to make sure I have the terminology correct.) It is one of the best things as a parent to be able to show off your child, at least in my opinion. Some people say that they don't like all the people fawning over their child, but I love it. I know how wonderful she is and I very much enjoy seeing how happy she makes others! It is always even more special to see the reactions of family and friends.

Then my aunts Susan and Terry came up from New Jersey. So, the other side of the family got to enjoy spending time with her! They especially enjoyed it since all of their grandchildren are boys. All four! This coming weekend we will be able to spend more time with them and meet their two newest grandchildren, Caden (3) and Ty (1). I wish that life today wasn't so hectic and that we could get to see our family members more often.









My brother and sister-in-law Rebecca have been an amazing help to me in making sure that Maggie is taken care of and that I, too, am taken care of. I never knew the mental strain and the totalness involved in starting off an infants life right and they helped me get through that time. Also, they have twin girls who just turned two. Maggie has inherited from them so much, more clothes than she needs, toys, a swing, the list goes on. They live farther away than I would like, Rhode Island, but we have managed to get down there. They really make me wish that I had known how hard it was so that I could have helped them out more after the twins were born, I'm sure they could have used all the help they could get.



We were also recently invited to a wedding! Maggie first wedding at a mere five months. It was special. The wedding was here in Keene, for Matt's boss. It was fun to dress her up and we had a great time!

My last, but most certainly not least, subject for this post is my sister-in-law Mary and her family of six! To learn more than I will say here about her family check out her blog. There is also more about our trips to see them. They are Glenn, Mary, Brittany, Madelyn, Grace and Jon. (In the picture is Madelyn, Grace, Jon, Maggie and their friend Abby, practically a member of the family.) We have been to a concert, birthdays, a Pampered Chef party at which Maggie was quite a hit, and recently Madelyn and Grace were able to come to our house an stay for four days! (I also got much appreciated help from Brittany shortly after Maggie was born for a week!) This picture is from our trip to go to Grace's ninth birthday party. It was a lot of fun, and as always Mary made some wonderful food!