Welcome to the Madden Happenings blog. I have tried to document our life through pictures and picture labels, but there are so many things that I want to remember for Laila but cannot fit into the picture labels. Therefore, I decided to try and capture such moments in this blog. I read this great post about being a parent and daily living on the Momastery blog, which can be found here http://momastery.com/blog/2012/01/04/2011-lesson-2-dont-carpe-diem/, and I hope with this blog to capture and remember the Kairos time as defined by the Momastery author as:
"Kairos is God’s time. It’s time outside of time. It’s metaphysical time.
Kairos is those magical moments in which time stands still. I have a
few of those moments each day, and I cherish them."
I figure most if not all of you that will even look at this blog know all of us, but I thought I would give a background on our family dynamics and some info you may not know about us.
My Hubby Chris
This is my gorgeous Ironman of a husband Chris. He is the most patient person I know; his favorite color is yellow, corvette competition yellow to be exact; he makes me, Laila, baby boy on the way, and our crazy dog Lucia feel like the most important things to him in the world; and in the last two years, he has picked up the hobbies of running, biking, and swimming, hence triathlons. Chris loves his job as an engineer, coffee, researching anything on the IPad, pizza, my tortellini casserole, Under Armor, and anything that has to do with his family.
Some things I love about Chris are that he is spontaneous and sometimes crazy (for example he ran 12 marathons last year and and trained and completed an Ironman [2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run] in 2010 with little triathlon experience beforehand). I also love that he never seems to get annoyed with my typical daily phone calls to him when he is at work or doing something in which I might be calling just to chat or need help fixing some noise coming out of the basement.
Like
a lot of married couples, Chris is my bestest friend in the whole wide
world. He is one of the few people that can routinely take me off guard
and get me to smile and laugh all the way down to my soul. I am
constantly amazed at what he can fix, create, and do and how many people
just love Chris for being Chris. Chris can put new exhaust pipes on a Harley all the way to doing tricks on a wake board behind the boat. I am convinced that the man can truly fix anything.
I
knew he would be a great dad when I married him, and I had high
expectations for him. However, Chris knocks those expectations out of
the park as he is a phenomenal, hands on dad. I could not ask for a
better dad to my little Laila, baby boy on the way, and crazy girl
Lucia. I have Kairos moments where I see Chris's outward and inward
gorgeousness and wonder how in the heavens I was able to snag him.
This
is our lovable and crazy Rottweiler, Lucia. Lucia is 6 years old, and
we adopted her in 2006 from Mid-America Rottweiler Rescue. Our family
would definitely not be complete without her. Lucia has lots of
nicknames including Tootsie, Roosie or Roose, Ci Ci, Cia, etc., and I am
not sure where all these names came from, but believe it or not, she
responds to all of them.
Our Tender-Hearted Laila
This is our blonde-haired blue-eyed beauty. Laila is 3 1/2 years old, and we just love her to pieces. Laila's favorite colors are pink and purple (imagine that), and she loves coloring; drawing; writing, especially her name; and snipping. Give the girl some scissors and she will snip, snip, snip. Laila also loves school; the Tinkerbell and Vidia fairies; Disney Princess Belle from Beauty and the Beast; Woody and Buzz from Toy Story; her Bitty Baby; peanut butter; pancakes; cereal; goldfish; chocolate milk; running around as nakey bear in just her underwear; cooking in her kitchen; swimming; riding horses; dance; and taking Lucia on walks. She is one busy little girl that keeps us on our toes.
I love her beautiful personality and her sensitiveness. Her and I have some wonderful conversations in our morning car rides. Last weekend I scraped my big belly on the corner of the dining room chair, and I immediately bruised. A few days later this week, Laila randomly asked me if baby boy was o.k. from me hitting him on the chair. I let her know that he was fine. She then told me that I poked baby boy in the eye with the chair, and she wondered if his eye was o.k. While laughing, I let her know that baby boy's eye was just fine. I just love these kind of moments.
Laila and I definitely share what I feel to be a special mother/daughter relationship. However, her most favorite person in the whole wide world would be her dad. I love to watch Chris and Laila together as they build monster buildings with Legos, play Candyland, put together puzzles, and just plain hang out together. Laila absolutely adores Chris. So do I.
Me
To reiterate and add a little to the "About Me" section on the right,
I have been titled to be a firecracker; have an outside voice (as does
my Laila); have a bit of an obsession with cleaning (namely vacuuming)
and organizing; love
to read, especially paranormal; love to run and aspire to run a
marathon someday; drink
lots of tea; and most importantly, feel very passionately and love my
family to pieces, including my momma, dad, and little brother "Seffie".
I enjoy cooking but am not a very good baker. My favorite color is
purple, and I feel that a person cannot have enough coats or comforters
for the bed.
All in all, I am a wife,
momma, and attorney, and and I have a lot of happiness and blessings to be thankful for in this crazy but rewarding life.
Our Crazy Girl Lucia
Lucia
loves cheese, taking walks, swimming, chasing dragon flies, being
around us whenever she can, and swiping our laundry or shoes. For those
of you familiar with Dora, we call Lucia Swiper as she likes to swipe
our shoes, socks, sweatshirts, shirts, gloves, etc. and carry them
around or lay on them in the front window. Thankfully, she rarely chews
those items; she just likes to have them around. Therefore, do not be
surprised to see some sort of clothing or a shoe laying in our front
window or around our house.
Lucia is such a lover girl and always wants to be around us if we are home. We spoil her and let her sleep in bed with us, so I am just used to feeling her laying up against me as she always needs to be touching someone. Lucia and Laila are great friends, and it is amazing how your dog knows that the baby you bring home is automatically part of the family. Lucia has been good with Laila since day 1, and I am hoping for the same with baby boy.
Our Baby Boy on the Way
We are so excited to be expecting a baby boy in the next 4 weeks with a due date on March 22, 2012. It was hard for us to get pregnant, and getting here was an emotional roller coaster, so we are incredibly thankful and over the moon happy for baby boy's arrival.
I think Laila is going to be a great big sister as she frequently talks about all the ways she wants to help with baby boy including feeding him, bathing him, getting him dressed, etc. Laila is really gentle with other babies, so I think she is going to do great. She is so full of love and happiness that I look forward to seeing her and baby boy interact. Do not worry, I know she will have some adjustment to baby boy joining our family.
We are very much looking forward to the new dynamic baby boy will bring to our family.
