High Five for Friday

High Five for Friday

I realize I have been on a bit of a hiatus and I plan on catching up but for now I'm going to link up over HERE and see if I can't start up on a regular blogging schedule again.

Here are some of the top things of note from this past week:

1.  Our elf, Nitch came back this year...  We decided this year, that when Nitch shows up it'll be because she knows that we put up our decorations for the Christmas season.  She was so kind to bring us each a new set of Christmas jammies and an Advent calendar.

2.  This sweet little sassy thing, as of late loves to put on her 'heels', glasses and push around a stroller.  I call her fancy, which she repeats and her daddy calls her Hollywood.  She's shown up several times this week in this get up.  It cracks me up every single time!

3.  Clay has started sitting up on his own for a brief period of time this week.  He will be 5 months old on Monday and is growing way too quickly!  I could just eat him up!!

4.  Awful pic but I was trying to get good lighting.  Let me first say that I am, by no means a professional.  I did grow up working at a salon and had a brief stint in beauty schooling.  I managed to foil highlight my own hair the other day and it turned out pretty darn well!  I've done it once before a long time ago so thought I'd give it another go.  This will save me so much money.  I may go back and forth from the salon to home.

5.  I am just so happy that it's Friday.  It's rough with two little ones two and under.  By the time daddy gets home, mom is so ready for it ;-)  Today should've been a PSA for not having children at my house.  It's just been rough.  Amen to the weekend!

Hope you all have a great weekend as well!

What we've been up to

As of this past Monday, I started watching a little boy Monday through Friday.  We're in an adjustment period at the moment while I try to get everyone on the same schedule but so far, so good.  Madelyn will have a playmate and they've been doing pretty good playing together.  There are a few fights here and there over toys and sippee cups, but all in all they get along pretty well!  Maddie is pretty aggressive and goes for a hug and a kiss right away ha!

Madelyn goes through my jewelry every chance that she gets...  She pulled out my pearl necklace and for fun I put it on her.  She wore it for at least an hour and didn't try to pull it off.  It was so cute!

Ryan got a new grill for his birthday so we broke it in on Saturday night before the fireworks.  My brother, sister in law and niece came over and we had some burgers and brats before we walked down to Central Park for the fireworks.  It was so nice out and we could hear the live music from the park while sitting in our backyard. 

This is our best shot at a group picture...  It's kind of hard to do with two little ones, but at least we got everyone in the pic!

This picture is sooooo cute, Madelyn put her hand around my niece's shoulder and they sat there together for a split second.  We had fun playing on the blanket waiting for the fireworks to start.  R fell asleep during the fireworks!  And Madelyn wasn't so keen on them...  I think the main part was that it was late and she was tired, but when the fireworks made  boom each time she would duck into us.  She didn't cry, but she didn't love them.  Ryan ended up walking home with her.

On another note, we have a water baby on our hands!! :-)  This girl loves the water!  She loved the beach and the pool!  

She's also walking so much better and EVERYWHERE now!  I'd saw she crawls maybe 2% of the time but that's it!  It's just nuts to me how quickly the time goes.

I've been meaning to post the update of our trip to the shore but haven't gotten around to it just yet.  I'm hoping to do that tomorrow! 

First Popsicle

The weather has been pretty darn hot since we've been back from vacation and I bought some Popsicles right before we left.  I've been telling Madelyn that I may let her have one but have never come through on my promise...  She ate a really good lunch yesterday so I decided to let her have her very first Popsicle!!!  They were yogurt pops so they aren't too bad for her.  To say she loved it was an understatement.  It pretty much got eaten all the way down to the last little glob.

The Macks are back!

A LOT of things have changed over here in the last three and a half years!  Please excuse the huge gap in blog posts, I started a couple other blogs in between and decided to come back to this one because I liked the name and hope to use this blog on a regular basis to keep a journal for our family that we can look back on and possibly print out into a book yearly and to update family & friends that aren't super close to us or that we don't see on a regular basis.

Let's see...  Ryan and I added another addition onto our fur baby part of our family, we got a golden retriever puppy in September 2010 and named her Dahlia, or Dolly for short

Dahlia as a little puppy...I miss those days!

As a preteen...ha!

We had a beautiful baby girl named Madelyn Ella in April 2012, who has forever changed our lives!  She is the best thing we have ever done (besides marry one another) and brings so much joy to our lives on a daily basis and it is so much fun to see her learn and grow!

One of my favorite weekly bump shots

Waiting in triage to be iv'd and prepped for surgery

My precious little baby girl right after they took her out of me!  She had awesome lungs and was breech, so her legs were bent as each leg was next to each ear of hers.  Crazy to see pics of her in the nursery right after delivery.  But she was perfect!

We bought our very first house together in November 2012 in Grayslake and are in the process still of making it completely ours.  It is a ranch house with a basement and, honestly, from the outside you would never guess how big it is on the inside.  We love it and got really lucky with how well the woman who lived here before us took care of it and updated it.  It is super close to downtown so there is tons to do and walk to!

I hope that you stick with me here and enjoy seeing how our day to day lives pan out!  Up next, a recap of our trip to the Jersey shore and Madelyn's first plane ride (she was such a trooper!).

Also, please bear with me here as get the layout right etc.  Is the font too much to read?  Should I go to a standard font?  Feedback please, people :-)

Merry Christmas

From our family to yours

I have been toying with the idea of 'no more blogging'.  So I may be sporadic here...like that hasn't been the norm anyhow...  Just thought I'd update though! :-)