Hello from Maryland

As most of you already know, we are working claims in the Baltimore area. Maddie and have been spending our days in our lovely hotel room, trying to help John, but we thought we'd give our viewing public an update. Since our last "get better Mop" post, Maddie got bronchiolitis most likely brought on by RSV. She had a terrible cough and had to go on breathing treatments. Then, a few days later she got her first ear infection and her first prescription for amoxicillin. Her doctor told me that I'm a real mom now that I've gotten "the pink stuff." They said that it would last for 2 weeks and that her cough could linger for 6 weeks, but I'm happy to report she seems to be all better now! I've discovered that the only thing harder than traveling with a baby is traveling with a sick baby!

So far, we're hanging in there with the hotel room. Sometimes she sleeps, sometimes she doesn't. We are in a great location near all this great shopping; however, to get to it you have to cross a major interstate and we don't have our own wheels, so we just stare at it out our window and dream. I'm sure it's for the best though. Shopping usually leads to buying.

Ta, ta for now. I need to get to sleep so I can have my game face on for my 2am play date with the wee one! Oh, and she's been going to bed at 6:30pm, sleeping until 6:30am. That's eastern time, folks. Working out okay now since that's what time we need to get up, but I'm a little worried about the 5:30am wake up calls when we head back to the central time zone. Yikes! Here are a few cute pictures that I snapped tonight.

A message for Mop

Get Better Soon!

And now, a get better soon song!

5 Months!

Once again, we didn't quite capture the "monthly" photo on the exact day, nor were we anywhere close to the official photo chair, but Maddie turned 5 months anyway! She is still such a doll! She is sooo good, but pretty much spoiled by lots of attention, so she really doesn't have a lot of reasons to complain. For the record books, she is still getting up a couple of time each night. It seems like almost every day I think I'm going to teach her to sleep through the night, but then when she's crying, I think, well maybe she really needs something so I go check. Therefore, I'm pretty sure we might have similar sleep comments come month 6, but here's hoping. She takes 2-3 short naps each day unless I plan on that, then she sleeps through whatever I had planned to do. Without fail!

So, we missed the 5 month photo because we spent 12 days in Texas! We had a ton of fun seeing all the cousins and friends. John got to fish, I got to sleep in and take naps while Momo and Mop played with Miss Maddie, we got to see all our Texas cousins, go to Hadyn's party, go to Brady's basketball game, see our friends at the conference, and generally have a good time. You would think with all that, we would have taken some good photos, but Maddie rocking her new strawberry jammies from Aunt Kelli is about all I got. But these sure are cute!

A visit from Momo and Mop

Momo and Mop came to see us for a few days and we had so much fun! Maddie started off the mornings catching up with the business news with Mop. Then spent the rest of the day enjoying the extra attention. I always love seeing them, but this time their timing was perfect because Miss Maddie has gone on a sleeping strike. She takes little cat naps and wakes up a LOT during the night, so we're exhausted. Momo and Mop babysat while I slept in and took a few naps myself! We were sad to see them go, but the count down is on until our next trip to TX. We'll be down in just a week and a half! YEAH!

Watching TV with Mop

Learning the latest news about our nations housing market.

After her intense business studies, Momo lightened the mood.

Our First "BIG" Snow and the DEMO mode!

Yesterday we were supposed to get our first big snow; they were predicting 1-3" of accumulation but we only ended up with about an 1/8". What a bummer! It was pretty to watch, though, and as a bonus it snowed all day today, too. So in order to properly capture the moment I got Maddie all bundled up in her super cute hat and mittens and stuck her out in the snow, in her car seat with a blanket of course, and started clicking away. Much later when I was playing with my super cool new camera inside, I suddenly realized that it kept saying "Demo Mode." Duh! No camera card! With every other camera I've ever operated, they don't actually let you take pictures without the card. Live and learn. At least this wasn't some super special, one of kind moment we can never get back. So, I stuffed Maddie back into her outdoor wear, made sure we had a card, and tried again! If you look close, you can see the flakes.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Everyone! We got to ring in the New Year with our amazing friends, Jen and Rogelio! They drove all the way from Houston in inclement weather to spend the holiday with us, surely rescuing me from being depressed over our lack of local friends! We had a great time eating, drinking, being merry, and enjoying some seriously competive games! Just in case anyone is keeping count, and I am, that would make Jen and Rogelio visiting us in TN - 3, some other people reading this blog - 0!!

The Group Shot - Counting it Down!

Jen and Maddie counting down to 2010.

Rogelio and Maddie in 2010!

We had little snow around dawn on Saturday. Why were we up at dawn, you ask? John and Rogelio were attemping to go fishing, but as you might guess from the weather, it was a little on the cold side!

4 Months!

Maddie is 4 months old today! My how time flies when you're having fun! She still hasn't rolled all the way over like I thought she would by now, but we did celebrate 4 months with the start of rice cereal. She wasn't really impressed, but we do love our stylish new highchair!

We're going to do what, Mom??

I'm not actually sure any of it got swallowed.

She also took her first spin in this thing. For the life of me, I can't think what it is called. This was a bigger hit than the rice cereal, obviously.

We were reminded how much she has grown while trying to find an outfit for the all important, 4 month photo. These pants are 3-6 months and when I put them on her, they looked a little more like capris.

I know, how about the new outfit Daddy got for Christmas?

Um, I don't know, why do you think he bought the shirt in 18 months?

You're right, it's pretty cute, but do you think you fix the shoulders?

In the end, we decided you can't beat our Christmas photo, so we're going to recycle!