Merry Christmas!!!!

Family Pictures

We got a family pictures done a few weeks ago and we just got them back. We had a really rough time getting Maddy to smile which was a little disappointing but other than that, they didn't turn out too bad. Here are some of our favorites.

I found my camera!

I am happy to say that my camera has been found. I was very excited when I discovered it. We have pretty much got everything but the downstairs put together now so, we are making progress. It is amazing how much crap we accrued over the 3 years we were in the Grantsville house. Our basement was unfinished so the whole downstairs was pretty much used for storage. We went from that to now having a totally finished basement so wish us luck on finding places for all of our junk! Anyway here are some pictures from the last little while.

We got this horse from the sweet neighbor lady at our old house when Maddy was born. You wouldn't think by looking at it, but it was an absolute nightmare to put together. I tired a couple times but couldn't do the job. On one of those particular times Cody was making fun of me so he gave it a whirl. It took him 2 hours! All of the screws kept stripping out on him as well. Anyway, it is finally put together and she absolutely loves it.
The week after Halloween Walmart had a bunch of their costumes on sale. I figured that I was being smart and I would buy her costume for next year and save myself some money. I couldn't resist trying it on her..... So cute!!! I am pretty sure it isn't going to fit her for next year though dang it. It said it was a 2T but I'm thinking it must be seized wrong. Oh well, it's stil cute, we'll just keep it for the dress up box.
I love how she has found the only outlet that doesn't have a cover over it.... What a handful this little girl is. :)

Piggy tails..... :)

We didn't want to deal with the parking and the cold of walking around temple square so we decided to go see the lights in Ogden. It was actually really cute, and we had lots of fun. We decided we are going to make a tradition of it.

Getting ready for bed..... Man I love that girl!!

6 years.... wow!

It is hard for me to believe that Cody and I have really been married 6 years. I can honestly say that it has flown by way fast. It feels like it was just yesterday that we were two college kids flirting in a math class. Who would have thought that we would have ended up getting married. :) I don't generally talk much about Cody and I's personal life on our blog mostly because I set this blog up as a way for family to get to see pictures of Maddy and the progress that she makes in her life. However, I am going to stray from this and talk about my husband. On December 6th, it was Cody and I's 6 year anniversary. I guess you can say that things have changed for us ever since little Madison came along because things just didn't work out for us to do anything for our anniversary. It seemed like every time we tried to set something up, something came up. I have to admit that in true women form, I got angry at Cody and came to the conclusion that he must not love me and that the fire was gone out of our marriage. I am ashamed to say now that I ended up sending him a nasty email and pulling up everything that he had done wrong over that last year and sending it to him. ( I know, it is kind of comical now that I look back on it and how stereotypical it was) I knew that I had made a mistake as soon as I sent it. I ended up really hurting his feelings and apologizing profusely, but the damage was already done. He kept telling me over and over again that the fire was not gone out of our marriage that it was just a different kind of love, not until I got off the phone with him did I realize that he was absolutely right. The first thing that came to my mind was this poem that I found in an old chest of mine when we moved, it is called After a While, sorry it is kind of long but I wanted to post it.

After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and sharing a life.
And you learn that love doesn't mean possession and company doesn't mean security and loneliness is universal. And you learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises.
And you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open, with the grace of a woman, and not the grief of a child. And you learn to build your hope on today as the future has a way of falling apart mid-flight because tomorrow's ground can be too uncertain for plans; yet each step taken in a new direction creates a path toward the promise of a brighter dawn. And you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. So plant your own garden and nourish your own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. And you learn that love, true love, always has joys and sorrows, seems ever present yet is never quite the same, becoming more than love, and less than love, so difficult to define. And you learn that through it all you really can endure, that you really are strong, that you really have value and you learn and grow..... With every goodbye you learn.
-Anonymous-

I had been holding on to this poem since high school, and it suddenly made sense. I kept reading the following line over and over again. "And you learn that love, true love, always has joys and sorrows, seems ever present yet is never quite the same, becoming more than love, and less than love, so difficult to define. " I felt like such an idiot. He was absolutely right. Maybe we don't have that same butterflies in your stomach love we used to have, we have a better love. We have a deeper love that takes time to develop, a love that comes from years of sharing lots of "joys and sorrows" together. I am so sorry Cody. Love is not shown by buying someone a present, it is shown every day in how we treat each other. Like I had said earlier, Cody and I keep our personal life pretty private so I am not sure that anyone was really aware why we moved to Ogden, it was so that we could get into a cheaper house so that I could stay home with our baby. Cody made such a huge sacrifice for our family. He is now working a ton of hours, and he gave up pretty much all of his personal possessions for Maddy and I. How could I have ever doubted my husbands love. I feel so foolish now. What better way to show someone that you love them then to sacrifice everything you hold dear. Cody, I am so sorry that I ever doubted how you felt. You are such an amazing man. You have grown so much since the day I married you. I love you so much. You are my best friend and I can't imagine a better person to spend forever with.

Moved.....

Well, we have officially moved. At the end of last month we made the move from Grantsville to Ogden. We actually really love it here so far. It is nice to be back in civilization and not have to drive 30 min to get to a Home Depot. The house is still in shambles so I am missing my camera and haven't been able to post any pictures. I was going through my phone pictures yesterday and decided that it would be fun to post pictures from my phone that have never been posted. So here they are... enjoy!

Maddy's first pair of sunglasses.

Fat baby.... wow I can't believe how much she has slimmed down!

In one of the shopping carts at Albertsons. She absolutely LOVES ridding in these carts.

In a Burger King hat.

This one cracks me up. She was at Becca's house and started getting sleepy so we put her in some of Chaz's jammies and gave her a bottle. She does not look impressed.

Cody misses Maddy while he is at work so he has me send him pictures whenever he is gone. I was putting laundry away and Maddy was especially interested in this particular shirt of Daddy's so I put it on her and sent the picture to Cody.

She is obsessed with door stops. She has figured out how to take them off so in our old house she went from room to room taking off all the door stops. Here she is getting caught red handed. She looks very guilty.

Isn't she beautiful in red.... what a sweet girl.

She is also obsessed with newspaper. I put a pile of newpaper on the floor and went to go make a bottle for her. When I came back this is how I found her.

A visit to see daddy at the fire station.

Yes, that's right, those are pig tails. I couldn't help but laugh every time I looked at her because she looked so dang cute.

Up from a nap..... must have been a rough one by the look of that hair!

Winter hat.

In a shopping cart at Walgreens.

Gus in his Halloween vest. :) What a funny looking dog!

Our sweet little lamb on Halloween. I will post more pics once I recover my camera.

Time off

We have been having a really fun last couple of weeks. One of the perks of Cody's job is that he gets a lot of time off. He took 2 go arounds off which means that he has a whole month off. He has been off for 2 weeks so far, so we still have another 2 weeks of having him home. It has been so nice to have him home. It is going to be so hard when he goes back to work. I will have to get used to sleeping alone all over again.
Cody has become quite the mechanic. He loves working on cars so whenever anyone needs anything fixed they head over to our house. Hyrum needed something fixed on his car so he came over to get Cody's help. I had to laugh because when they came in for dinner that night both of them were covered in oil from head to toe. You can't see it too well in the picture but Hyrum got the worst of it. He even had it in his hair.

Little Maddy was pretty wore out one day. I was trying to keep her up so that she would sleep that night. I walked to the fridge to get a drink and when I turned back around, this is how I found her. She was so precious that I didn't have the heart to wake her. What a sweet little girl!
Summer is almost over so I had to get a picture of this. Cody and I have an acre, and made the huge mistake of planting grass on about 3/4 of it. Which means, we have ALOT of grass to mow. Cody was dead set on finding a ridding lawn mower so he didn't have to use a push mower, but we couldn't afford any of them so he picked this sweet machine up for $100 from an old farmer. He has now rebuilt the carborator and it runs like a dream. (or so he says)

What a hard worker!

Here is Maddy in a ballerina skirt. She got very serious when I put it on her and I could not get her to smile. What a funny little girl.

I love those cheeks!!!

We went to the Hoagle zoo a little while ago and had a ton of fun. If you notice from the pictures, poor Maddy has a bruise on her head. She is crawling and moving around like crazy and bumped her head on the coffee table. Luckily she is a tough little stinker. I think I cried harder than she did. :)

Her and daddy playing in the water. She absolutely LOVES water.

Sitting on the rhino all by herself.

This tiger was sleeping by the glass. It was crazy to see how big he was. Maddy thought it was the best thing ever.

The last couple weeks

We haven't had too much going on the last couple weeks. One of the biggest highlights however is that Maddy now has enough hair for a pony tail. I was pretty excited when I discovered this. Here are some pics from the last couple weeks. Including our sweet little girl's ponytail.


Maddy and I have started going on walks every day to the park. Here is the first day that we went. If you notice, she has her tongue sticking out. Thanks to her daddy showing her her tongue she had it out all the time for about a week. :)
Here is pictures from one of the days that Cody and Gus came with us. Here is her and Cody on the swing.

Cody decided to take her down the slide. She thought it was pretty fun. Cody and I actually worry about her sometimes because she is so fearless. I have not found anything yet that she has been afraid of. Oh, if you notice the kids up there with Cody, we were so annoyed, we weren't sure who's kids they were but they would not leave us alone that whole time we were there!

It appears Cody thought it was pretty fun too!

Maddy petting Gus.

Dog kisses.....Nasty!!! She thought it was pretty funny though.

Maddy takes after me in the fact that she HATES to be restrained. Cody thinks that it is pretty funny to watch her squirm when he holds her limbs down, as you can tell she is not impressed.
I love this picture. She is obsessed with her daddy's hats. She had a hold of this one playing with it so I put it on her head and took a picture of her with it on. She thought it was hilarious.

Maddy and I at the zoo for the first time.