New Floor

Mom and Dad S. came to visit and helped us put in new flooring. We are doing this wood in the master bedroom, hall, and upstairs living room.

We got the bedroom and hall done, and will finish the living room next week. Thanks Mom and Dad!!!

Did I mention....

That Maddox gained another 5 oz this past week!! So excited. The bigger he can be before the next surgery, the better. Each oz is a blessing! He's eating from the bottle like a champ and growing like a weed, only much much cuter.

I have to scan and share a few more pics from Luke's younger days that I found. Maddox has his daddy's smile, so cute!

Bailee is becoming more of a diva everyday. I love it, except when it drives me crazy. :) The best thing I've done for her (well, probably not the truly best thing...and it may be more for me) is get her a closet space saver bar. It puts the clothes at her height and she LOVES it. My 3 year old hangs up her own clothes! And now that she can reach her dresses she gets dressed herself. This morning she put together a brown ensemble and came to me saying "Can we go somewhere today so I can go out in this outfit?" So cute. I need to take a picture. Bailee continues to love dance class and when we ask her to show us her dance she tells us it's a secret. I guess we'll have to wait for the recital. She's always dancing around the house and being Hannah Montana. When I asked her where she got her sweet dance moves I shouldn't have been surprised when she said "From Grandpa Spencer". That's a pretty typical answer. That's where she grew so big, because she drank her milk. It's where she got so smart, because he lets her watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse whenever she wants. It's where she got so cute. Yeah, pretty much the answer for everything. This girl cracks me up (and Brad, just ask her) and I am loving this age. (except for when it drives me crazy. Oh wait, I already said that.)

Luke continues to work so hard. We appreciate his sacrifice and willingness. I know it's not easy for him, but he does his best and is incredible. He's got a lot on his plate right now, but if anyone can handle it, it's Luke.

More pics of the house projects next week! Getting super excited about getting things done! And did I mention that I can't wait to put up the Christmas tree?? But I will wait until Thanksgiving, I promise! It's going to look so good in our new living room!

Oh, and Grammpy???? Bailee really needs a real tree this year. If she says pretty please do you think you could bring her one??

Past, Present, Changes

I wanted to compare the kiddos at around the same age. This is Bailee a day or so before Halloween, so about a month older than Maddox is right now. I think in these pictures they look quite a bit alike. Maddox does have more of Luke's looks though, and Bailee has more of me. This is Maddox's Halloween costume, it was so cute I just had to run out and get it. :) (You've already seen Bailee's, she's going to be a BYU cheerleader) There's a major difference in Maddox in these pictures compared to the last few posts. Did you notice??

Today I did a little photo session with the kids. I need some pictures for the cute frame in my bathroom (see below) and envisioned black and white of the two of them together. Now I just need to get them printed. Maddox adores his big sister, and I'm certain she feels the same. They both love to make each other laugh and smile. Priceless.

My most recent home project has been the upstairs bathroom. I've been looking for a shower curtain, and stumbled across this one at Target. It was love at first sight! Love the trees, love the colors, love the owls and squirrels. To make it even better, one of CTMH's newest paper packets, Twitterpated, matches it perfectly! (You can check out the paper on my ctmh website!)

This frame probably looks a little funny.... But I covered it in the matching Twitterpated paper, and am going to put some cute pics in tomorrow. Unfortunately, neither of these pictures does the color of the bathroom justice. It is a really pretty green, if your a CTMH fan, it's sweet leaf. The pics look dark, but the bathroom is really bright and fun. Love it! (almost as much as Maddox's room!)

So did you figure out the difference in Maddox?? Besides that he's gaining weight (he's up to 11 lbs 9.5 oz) and getting taller (23 1/2 inches).... No feeding tube! That has been so nice, and kind of stressful at the same time. I have to keep track of every cc he takes in so we can be sure he's getting enough to gain weight. So far, so good, but it's harder than I thought it would be. We also saw the cardiologist last week. Things are pretty much the same, though his heart function is down slightly. They decided to go ahead and put him on a med to help increase the function. We'll keep following up, and hopefully not need to make any major changes or have any surgeries until the first of the year. He's almost 3 months old!!!! It's hard to believe, but we really are so grateful for every minute we have him.

Maddox's Room

When we were looking for houses, I kept telling my mom I don't like to paint so I wanted to buy something that didn't need to be painted. She kept telling me that she loves to paint, and would come and help me when I was ready. So this past weekend she came up to hold Maddox and help me paint. This room was already blue, and I love the color. But because of Maddox's 'purple' blood, he always looks a little blue. Being in a blue room just makes him look that much bluer. I love the brown and blue look and had already crocheted him an afghan in those colors, so I decided to paint the room brown. I was even more excited when my mom told me she still had a gallon of brown paint from her last project. So before she came I taped off the blue and did a second coat. Here is the result!

We needed some kind of boarder between the two colors. I found this sports one that matches perfectly, and I love it!

In this corner, just above the boarder, I'm going to get some white wooden letters and put his name on the wall.

Some of my favorite pics of our little guy.

My dad worked on the baby show a few weeks ago and got Maddox and Bailee new furniture. I'm so excited! The set he got Maddox will match the room so perfectly! (I'm going to be selling the changing table, so if you know anyone that needs one.....)

We also painted the master bedroom, but I'm not going to post pics until it's completed. It probably will look a little weird if you don't have my vision of the final product.

Our next project will be flooring. Have I mentioned how awesome my dad and his job is?? He got several pallets of lamenant wood flooring. He's going to help us do the master bedroom, the hallway, and the upstairs living room. So excited!!

Our Home

This year our goal was to buy a house. We looked online for awhile and then finally decided to go out with our agent to look at properties just before summer started. We have really felt like now was the time and we needed to be making these decisions. We had the chance to look at a lot of properties, and we even put an offer on one, before Maddox was born.

When Maddox was born and the complications began, we thought maybe we wouldn't be able to get into a home this year. But we both still felt like we needed to be looking. I know it probably seemed weird to a lot of people that we were looking at homes in between all of the stuff going on with Maddox. However, when you know something is right, it's right and you go with it.

We actually found a town home that we loved and really wanted to put an offer on it. But because of the location and community, the only way for us to buy it was with cash or some higher interest rate financing. So it was back to the drawing board so to speak.

For months Judi has been asking us to consider purchasing their home, but we didn't think it was the right move for us. The whole house buying thing was becoming frustrating and contentious for us. Finally a few weeks ago the answer came. Judi told us she was going to give us one last spiel and then she'd leave it alone. It was just crazy how things changed. After that conversation we both felt like this was the right thing for our family. (The same thing happened when they asked us to live in their home while they went on their mission. We resisted and said no, and then suddenly we both knew it was right.)

So in a few short weeks we will be home owners. There are so many positive things about buying this home. We don't have to move again, we already know we love the neighborhood and ward, Judi will still have ties to the area, we're getting everything we wanted out of buying a home, but it mostly comes down to being an answer to a lot of prayers.

(Judi was planning on getting the house painted before selling, so we got to pick the colors.) We've all been doing some cleaning, reorganizing, and painting. These are all things I would have helped her with to get ready to sell anyways, but it makes it more fun to be making it home permanently.

And since both kiddos were happy and dressed already, I decided to snap a few pictures.