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Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts

Friday, March 21, 2014

For you are "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made"

Hello friends! I took a hiatus and have the best excuse in the world. Henry Norton Maddox made his appearance into the world at 12:59 pm on Sunday, February 23rd, after a quick labor.

The name of this blog post is a quote from psalms and I tell it to Henry every night before we start his bedtime story ("On the night you were born").

Birth story with superfluous detail, plus several other posts, coming soon!

"Sons are a heritage from the lord. The fruit of the womb is his reward." (Psalm 127:3)

Monday, January 27, 2014

Hi, remember me? Let's backtrack to October

Hi blogosphere, Remember me - the girl who used to blog?

Well, I don't even know what I've been busy doing, but I have been! And let's be honest, cell phones just make turning the computer on and using that so darn inconvenient. And my awesome canon rebel, ummmm let's say I still have pictures from Italy almost a year ago on that. Whoopsies.

So here are things I need to catch up on, in no particular order. I'll begin with a very special trip a few months ago.

In October I visited my bff Eden, aka Essy, in Philadelphia.

The night I got in, "ma" took us out for dinner.

We had some fun times.



Ummmm what? I didn't eat an entire pint of Ben and Jerrys. Eden totally helped.



Judge away, the lentil soup needed some Israeli pickles sprinkled on.  I bet Jaren understands. Those pickles make everything better. Pregnant or not.

I also left with a new scar:


Falling while walking to meet her after work. And at the end of January, that scar is there to stay. Since I am about 35 weeks pregnant today and have not shaved my legs due to that, I will spare you a pic of the scar.

Essy's birthday was that weekend so we went out a couple of times. Her good friend Rachel couldn't come to her main celebration so we went out the night before.








Okay I totally just screen shotted those from instagram and didn't crop them. Sue me.

We got to see our other sorority sister Katie (no pics, boo), and also got to see my cousin and her baby - Bridget and Ryan. I have pictures. Look how cuteeeeeee!





Ess was in Heaven - she loves babies, and would ya look at that head of hair?






Eeeeeh I can't wait til she visits and she can do that with our baby boy! (And until baby Maddox meets Ryan, who will have 23947394 times more hair on his head at that point).

Me and Bridget:


And the baby!


And now both babies!


Essy and I made some awesome recipes. I doubt I'll post those, so loose instructions are below...until maybe I make those again when I'm back in a routine. Then I can blog real recipes.

We made a "mexican lentil stew" - I cheated and bought pre-cooked lentils from trader jo's.




It didn't thicken up like I wanted (probably because the lentils were precooked, duh) so added quinoa and it thickened it right up. It was super spicy, but yummmmm.


We also made turkey chili,


 and a white bean/tomato/spinach stew:


Typical us:


The night we went to celebrate her birthday with her friends was very fun - it was a dueling piano bar which I hadn't been to in a while! Those are always fun. She did some weird type shot thing for her birthday.


But I wouldn't let her go on stage, 28 is different than 21. Even though we're both 24 still.....
Here are some more pics - make sure to check out the shoes we saw on some lady!







See ya next time Ess!






Sunday, October 20, 2013

One year ago today...

Charlie and I stood in front of the rabbi I grew up with and almost all our family and friends, and ate the best truffle mac and cheese I've ever had.

I love you husband. Me and baby can't wait til you're back and we're in your arms!




















By the way, I realized I never blogged about the wedding (way too late to do it now) or my wedding tips. I should do that. I'll make it a goal to do it this week when I'm procrastinating doing a masters assignment :-)

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Life catchup!

I used to take so many more pictures, and then I sort of fell out of the blogging routine, and stopped taking all the pictures. But, I still blogged about the random stuff I did that nobody found amusing except maybe like 4 friends (including my mom) who were procrastinating doing things that were much more important. To you four readers - enjoy! I've found a few random pictures that have reminded me of things to write about!

Also, I really miss Charlie. Last night I just wanted him in bed next to me to cuddle. He told me to use pillows and I said I needed his nightly face stubble and hairy legs to warm up my feet, haha. I think we're almost at the 8 week mark - 2 months - of him being gone.  Same thing happened last time - this is when it gets tricky and I REALLY start to miss him. Not that I didn't before, but this is when it gets a bit harder. I am so grateful his deployments average 4.5 months. I know he goes more frequently than the guys who have to go for 9 months to a year (seriously can't fathom him being gone that long, those families are heroes). Even if he has to go more often, I'll take it. The broken up time makes it doable.

I've been enjoying learning my new sewing machine and am loving it. I have always been crafty and good with my hands, and even though most of the work is on the computer, I definitely have to cut things etc. I told Jaren I would open an Etsy shop called "Aggie-zines" and give Clara a penny for each sale for her college fund since she named me Aggie.

Today I made this Turkey with a monogram for a friend.

Charlie said it looked better and I asked him if he could even notice or was just being nice, and he told me that the lines looked straighter, etc. Husband passed the test :-)

I still have a lot to fix - for example the pattern I picked for the body of the turkey doesn't fit for the front pattern, the design on the fabric is too big (I completely overestimated how big this design was). Also, I would have probably done a darker pink outline for the middle. You live you learn! I've told my sister in law a million times I wish she was here to teach me in person, but she has seriously been the best "online teacher" in the world, and is constantly answering my questions and giving me advice. (Kind of like Stacy, my pastry chef friend, who gets asked a million baking questions - how long does yeast live, etc etc). I have good friends.

Even though she's only been my sister a short time, I have learned a lot from Sarah.  One thing (besides how to monogram and appliqué, ha!) is about communication without your own agenda. She is so good at listening to me and being kind about her response. Maybe it's a southern thing, maybe it's a classy thing, but I think it's an intelligence thing too. She has a way of giving answers/feedback that even if she disagrees with you, she would never directly say it. She sort of leads you to your own answer, and really wants it to be what you want, without pushing an agenda. I feel like most people give advice based on their own agenda. Sarah - I don't know if you even know that you do this, but I've noticed it about you and keep meaning to tell you, so here is a very public way of saying that I learned a great value from you in this!!!

Let's back a up a bit from the sunshine and ponies sap before this prego starts crying alone in her bed writing her blog. We had a very rainy August. And September. Usually July is just hot and August is ridiculously hot but this summer we had an outrageous July, and then tons of rain in August and September - more than usual!
Taking that picture was totally safe..... (no really actually I pulled my phone up to get the directions to where I was going and snapped it accidentally haha).


But we also had a few rainbows, including one that was HUGE. It seriously was over the entire city, from beyond one side of the mountains to the other. The cell phone picture does it no justice at all.


My friend from high school Rachel and I have lunch almost every Friday and a couple weeks ago our friend who graduated with us was actually able to join us!!! It was SO nice to have three of us there together.
Me, Sara, and Rachel.  And of course my water bottle makes a cameo :-)

I've found a new favorite food category - crackers! Love love love. I think it's because for so long it was all I could keep down. My new favorites - rosemary and olive oil triscuits:

I am subbing at an elementary school and they have snacks for everyone in their teacher room. I found out today that I am NOT a fan of the sun dried tomato triscuits. I seriously had to contain myself from spitting it out, and seriously considered doing that! I've also learned that I could never be a teacher for any grade lower than like 3rd grade. One on one or in small groups, I love em. Hell, I used to work with 2 year old special needs kids and not only was I really good at it, I LOVED it! But it was 1-1. Big difference.

Speaking of little kiddos, I miss my little Clara. Jaren, are you reading this? I miss you guys!!! Please text me 374534 times today to make up for the last week of missed texts. Thanks iPhone upgrade. Actually, I don't mind the changes in the upgrade, I just don't like that texts and emails and calls aren't working properly without wifi at all times.

I made a list today, and including me, there are 14 pregnant women I know, (including two of my sisters in law), due between next month and the beginning of May!!!! Crazy. I may even be forgetting some. Love having people to share the experience with :-) Girls - if you're reading this - let me know if I can practice my sewing for the little ones!

One more pic because little Lee is just the sweetest little cotton fluff marshmallow snow puff puppy:


See you all tomorrow for the weekly belly pic and update - 17 weeks yesterday, post comes on Friday :-)