Mother's Day - the 1st of many!!

Wow, it's still hard to believe that I get to finally celebrate Mother's Day - can you believe I'm a mom?!?!?  I have to pinch myself sometimes becuase I don't believe it's real... that I could be this lucky!  I have been blessed with the most wonderful, happy, outgoing little girl (and a pretty terrific husband too) and I thank my lucky stars that I get to wake up every morning and be with them.  Being a mom has been the most rewarding experience and I learn something new about myself every day.  I have a new appreciation for everything (showers and sleep in particular) but most of all, I have a new appreciation for my own mom.  It's the hardest job you'll ever have, but it's also the most rewarding! :-D

 so pretty!

Well my very first Mother's Day was fantastic!  Deven got up with Madison and let me sleep in (until 9am!), then I woke up to breakfast in bed - such a treat.  After breakfast I opened cards and presents and I got the most beautiful earrings from Madison (although, I think daddy helped out a bit), they are flower shaped and look exactly like hers - they are soooo cute!  After we got cleaned up, we packed a picnic and headed out to Balboa Park, next we went for a walk and ended up at Extraordinary Desserts... it was an unexpected surprise and I had the most decadent dessert - YUMMMO!!  By early evening I was relaxing at home with my munchkin.  Who could ask for a better day?

Family, Celebrating and Presents!

The beginning of May is always a little busy... we have Grandma Nancy's bday, G-Pa Glenn's bday and then Mother's Day for both our moms and ME all within a week of each other!  So we had a few different gatherings :)

Nancy's Bday & Mother's Day

It was such a beautiful day, so we sat on the deck and visited, ate yummy food and opened presents :)

Glenn's Bday & Ivy's Mothers Day

 Nancy painted this for my dad's bday - so pretty! :)

The day before Mother's Day, we met my parents in Carlsbad for lunch and it was such a pretty day.  We sat in the park, played with Madison and opened presents.  Then we went for a walk around Carlsbad Village and scouted out a yummy place to eat lunch.  After lunch we did some window shopping until Madison was so pooped that she fell asleep in her daddy's arms.  Time to head home :)

love the sun

Today Madison and I had some quality mom and daughter bonding time... in the sun!  I laid out in the sun and worked on my tan while Madison hung out (in the shade) and worked on her sipping skills.  She's just learning to drink out of a straw and it's very fun for her to sip the water and then spit it right out - like a water fountain - haha.  So I got tan and she got soaking wet, but she had so much fun! :)

Easter!

before company came over :)

Her pretty Easter dress

 hunting for eggs

 Madison's 1st Easter!!!

This year we hosted Easter at our house and it was wonderful.  I had so much fun decorating the house and getting the table settings all pretty.  My mom and sister came down the night before and we cooked up a bunch of yummy yummy food!  The next morning all our family came down and we ate, chatted, searched for eggs, ate some more, chatted some more and then it was finally time for Easter dinner!   It was so nice having everyone here for Madison's 1st Easter and I can't wait until next year, when she'll be big enough to actually run around and search for the eggs herself! :)

my new favorite place

 The Park!

 

Today we went to the park with my great friend Kelly and her goddaughter Samantha.  So far only Deven and I have taken her to the park, so it was a lot of fun watching Madison interact with another little kid.  Samantha was so great with her and they had so much fun playing on the swing and going down the slide...
Madison had the BIGGEST smile :-D

7 months

Today Madison is 7 months old!!!  

We started off our day with a walk to the park where Madison enjoyed her swing (as usual), then we can home napped, ate and then played all afternoon!   Every time I look at her, I'm just reminded that I'm soooo lucky to be her mom.  I know that I keep saying this over and over, but she's getting so big!  I can't believe that she'll be talking and walking soon, what happened to my little baby?  She officially has 3 bottom teeth which means that she wakes up every couple hours... which means that I don't sleep anymore, but that's okay because when I look at her big beautiful smile, I completely forget how tired I am :)

just because

I love this picture for so many reasons...  so I had to share it with you :)

Day at the park!

all smiles!

I was a little too big for this slide :)

my little angel <3

(Video)

 

so pretty

Madison finally got to go on the swings for the very 1st time!  I've been wanting to take her for a few weeks, but wanted to wait until the weekend, so Deven could be there too.  Well of course luck would have it that it would rain (or look like rain) every time we tried to go... but this past weekend we finally were able to head to the park and it was a glorious day!  The sun was shining, the sky was blue and Madison was all smiles - the PERFECT day!  As you can see, she LOVED the swing and the slide, however she wasn't too sure about that dinosaur thing... haha!  We had so much fun and since Deven was there for the 1st time, it looks like Madison and I will now include swinging time into our daily walks :)

Lunch with the girls

I love reading my books!

I LOVE this pic - look at her little scrunched nose

Madison had an eventful day today... she spent the morning reading her books and then we went to La Jolla and had lunch with her Grandma Nancy and Vicky.  It was such a beatiful day and she looked sooo cute in that little white headband :)