Roll Baby Roll and Baby's First Christmas!!!!

Hey Gang,

So much to report! On Saturday the halls closed and we went up to Billings and stayed in a shady motel that had horrible mattresses but served its purposes because we flew out of Billings at 6:00am on Sunday. We had a great day of travel with a very quick layover (we even got upgraded to Economy Plus on our first flight!). We arrived in Fresno and have been hanging out with the Wildebaurs since. We pretty much relaxed during the first couple of days and allowed Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Sierra some "hang out" time with the stinker. We woke up this morning and celebrated Maddie's first Christmas and evidently she wanted to make it special because one of the first things she did was to roll over for the first time! We were all shocked and excited because she didn't seem to have any problems doing it and continued to roll throughout the rest of the day. Needless to say the squirt was spoiled and got a lot of fun things but I'm sure you all are not interested in my writing... ON TO THE PICTURES AND VIDEO!

Sorry for the low quality picture with Santa... the original is nice but I didn't want to wake baby up to scan it so I did the old trick of photographing the photograph which never seems to turn out right!

We call this the "Am I supposed to be happy or upset" picture where munchy is laying on Mattie Cat's belly.

A new favorite passtime.

She was so excited to roll over that she just kept doing it.

The Great Grandmas (R: Smith, L: Wildebaur)

No explanation needed!

One very happy little girl!

Grandma Wildebaur with the tree and a candy cane... oh and Maddie!

Grandpa Wildebaur has a touch and can usually put her right to sleep!

Momma and Maddie crazy time!

Great Grandma Smith and Ms. Maddie

Grandma Wildebaur at the Fresno Airport... yes there were tears!

Aunt Sierra welcoming Maddie to California for the first time!

Dallas... the crazy cat

Last Call

Hey Gang,

Sorry for the lack of reporting, this whole end of the semester thing is kind of tough! But I will say a few things. Number one, Maddie was laughing uncontrollably tonight as I was making a fool of myself doing my best impression of "Thriller". She laughed non-stop for about 10 minutes. She also kind of rolled over for the first time today. She has gotten super close but no cigar quite yet. Today I rolled her over and, more as a reaction than anything, she kicked really hard and rolled herself back onto her back... so kind of a roll over. Anyway, lets get to the stuff that you all want to see!

RA Holiday Banquet

Hey all,

Here are some pictures from last night's RA Holiday Banquet... I think you'll like Maddie's outfit! These pictures are in reverse chronological order and at the end you might even catch a glimpse of Maddie's new "Cupcake" Hat!

Enjoy!

Yeah, I've got CRAZY EYES

Uncle Gil

Uncles Jose and James

Uncle James

Uncle Jose

Trying to roll!

Hey all,

Once again I am in the dog house for not updating the blog in a timely fashion... my bad. Gearing up for this end of the semester thing has been time consuming and there just aren't enough hours in the day! I don't remember if I said it before but the stinker can now sleep through the night without being swaddled or laying in the bouncer! That is pretty cool and I believer we owe it all to our routine which consists of bath, boob, bed! Here are some pics and vids taken of the little one including a video of her talking and two or her trying to roll over. Enjoy!

My Daughter's Eyes

Just a quick post to say that my daughter has the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen!

Bath Time

Hey Gang,

Sorry about not updating the blog recently... been trying to get back in the swing of things after the break... you know, about a zillion incident reports to catch up on. Anyway, this is going to be quick but I wanted to upload some bath time pics and also say that probably within the next week or two Maddie is going to be rolling over on her own. She can do everything but get over that last little hurdle known as her arm, but even then she is close at getting over that. Enjoy the pics!

Thanksgiving

Hey Gang,

So I am sitting here in bed writing this blog and I have to vent about something... why do people feel that they can knock on my door at 11:30 to meet with me about some trouble they got into? It is this whole thing that people don't seem to understand that this is my APARTMENT and not simply my office that they can knock on at any given time.

Whew, anyway... lets tell the story of Thanksgiving. We flew out of Billings on Tuesday and had to drive up there at 4am in near blizzard conditions and it took us like an hour longer than usual but we made it ok and made our flight. Problem, they sat us on the runway for an hour meaning that Courtney and I had to RUN (and I mean run) to our connection and we made it as they were literally closing the door. But we made it to Chicago (Maddie's bag didn't make it but was delivered later that night).

We stayed with my parents at the Chicago Embassy Suites downtown and spent the next couple of days hanging out with the family, getting ready for Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving we all gathered at Heath and Thais's house where my brother fried a turkey and the ladies did some amazing cooking! We ate until we could eat no more and then had dessert. Highlight... we celebrated my birthday and the families combined to get me a new MacBook for my birthday and Christmas gifts (it was a combined gift).

On Friday we drove down to Shelbyville, Indiana for a mini family reunion at my uncle Steven's house. We spent Friday catching up with family that we haven't seen for decades! Saturday we ate another Thanksgiving dinner and then headed back to Chicago. I slept three of the four hours back because I stayed up until like 5am visiting with Steven.

On Sunday we went to Heath and Thais's church, which we enjoyed, and then hopped a flight back to beautfiul Powell, Wyoming... and that is about it! I know none of you really want to read all this anyway, so lets get back to the good stuff... PICS and VIDS!