Good stuff

In no particular order...

• Bell bike helmets. Their OneStep fit system actually works and the helmets stay on our kids heads. Brilliant.
• Angie Smith's book, I Will Carry You. Cried and cried. So much sorrow. So much joy.
• Target formula. Three out of four of Mady's feedings each day are now bottles/formula. My free formula stash ran out...Target formula is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than the name brand stuff (even when you factor in coupons). I gave it a try and I really like it - it even mixes up better than Similac or Enfamil. These people like it too (funny blog by the way, for all you Target lover's out there).
• Cheddar Chex. Beyond delicious.
• Bumbo baby seats. I know I am really late to the Bumbo party, but we are borrowing one right now and using it a ton. I never bought one myself because I didn't know how much we'd use it...turns out we use it all the time! So far I've been using it a lot while feeding Mady solids. I love how portable it is too.

Big Girl!

Mady is six months old now. It's amazing how fast it goes. It's crazy to think every time we pass through a baby phase that it's the last time for our family. We're trying hard to enjoy every minute and at the same time it will kind of be nice to be done with the 87 pieces of baby equipment we have scattered through out our house.

Mady was 15 pounds, 15 ounces and 26 1/2 inches long at her last check-up. She is (almost) sitting up - can't quite walk away and leave her but she can do it for little bits at a time. She is gobbling up solid foods like it's going out of style and she gets ANGRY when people are eating around her and she's not. This girl likes her food. She's moving into that happy baby stage where she is content to play with toys although she does love to be picked up if she can get away with it (that's what the baby of a family does, right?)

Her hair is getting fuzzier and her thighs are getting chunkier by the minute. She still loves to suck her thumb - when you get her anywhere near her room she pops her thumb in because she knows naptime/bedtime is close! She is a sweet, sweet baby and we all adore her!

The Graduate

On to bigger and better things...like Kindergarten.

ahhh...summer!

Water balloons from the dollar store. Guaranteed fun.

sweet sisters

I didn't grow up with a sister so all this sister business is new to me. I have to say, it's pretty darn cute.

Ella "reading" to Mady.
Polka dot girls.

sleep

We can't seem to get enough of it around here!

Walk for Water {2010}

This is old news but here are a few pictures from the Walk for Water we did with our church in April. We walked to raise money to buy water filters for communities in Rwanda. Amazing opportunity to help others and a great way to expose kids to the problems of the world - Ella regularly prays for "the kids who don't have clean water". So blessed to be a part of our church community.

change

I'm realizing there has been a drought here as far as new blog posts go. Life has been busy! It has been a season of change for us. Matt changed jobs at the end of April after 9 years at Grand Buick Pontiac. It's hard to believe but he started there the month before we were married and has been there ever since. We are so grateful for those 9 years. Grand was a wonderful place to work - we are thankful for the way they did business and for their family-friendly attitude. We are also so thankful for all the customers Matt met along the way (1,200+!)

We are also blessed by this new opportunity - Matt is now selling cars with Fox Motors at their Hyundai/Kia location on 28th & East Paris. He has already met some wonderful people and we are so impressed with this organization and they way they do business. It was a stressful few weeks making the decision and transitioning to a new dealership, but we are a month into it and things are going well.

The loyalty of Matt's past customers has also been cool to see - it's sometimes easy to think selling cars is just selling cars but it's clear by Matt's customers' responses that it is so much more than that - he has formed real relationships with these people by getting to know them and treating them right. I am incredibly proud of my husband and the job that he does if you can't already tell :)