The Hartsell Family

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Our New House and Brian's New Job!

Brian and I had been looking for houses for months but we weren't finding anything that we liked in the area we wanted. When Brian got offered a job with Fermilab which is 15 minutes from our townhome as opposed to his current 45 minute commute, we started looking around our area, and we finally found our home!

We closed on the house on Friday, May 25th. It was a fast closing. We were out within 35 minutes. We celebrated with lunch at Ted's Montana Grill. Then it was back home for more packing.

We are so grateful to Brian's parents who drove a trailer out from Omaha on Friday, May 25 with furniture that had been saved for us. They brought with them a dining room table which Brian had used before we got married, two living room couches, and a queen bed. They also brought with them a lawn mower, a snow blower and a weed whacker which were given to us from Brian's grandparents who no longer do their own yard work.

But if that wasn't enough, they helped move us Friday, Saturday and Sunday on a very hot weekend using their trailer! Thank you so much, Dave & JoAnn. Thanks also to Joe, Beth, Mom, Dad and Juliana who also helped us move. In all we moved 150 boxes (yes I counted) and a houseful of furniture. It's hard to imagine we fit everything in our townhome.

Brian starts at Fermi on July 9th but left his current job as of May 24th so to have some time off. He'll be working on house projects and watching Madelyn 2 days a week.

Here are some photos of the house. The photos have the sellers furniture in it. We are still living out of boxes but less and less as the days go by. Unpacking is slow and decorating is even slower.

Our New House

Family Room

Kitchen

Dining Room

Living Room

Master Bedroom

Master Bath

2nd Kid's Room

To Be Madelyn's Room

Guest Room and Office

Basement (They left the stage and house for us, too cute!)

Basement

Breakfast with Grandpa & Grandma Hartsell

Madelyn likes her crepes but forgot to finish them before trying to drink.

Uh oh! Madelyn is climbing the step stool. The fun begins.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

6 Years of Wedding Bliss

On May 20, 2012 Brian and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. We had a nice night out at Indian Harvest while Beth and Joe took care of Madelyn. And although it wasn't as nice as our weekend away in Lake Geneva, we were happy to arrive home without an accident. It has been a year since our horrible car accident, and we are so pleased that everything got taken care of. We got our deductible back, all our medical bills were paid for and Brian's car was declared totaled so we didn't have to get it fixed and live with a car that just wasn't the same anymore. Click here for my post on the accident.

We take a photo of us every year on our anniversary and put it in a special anniversary album so we can see how we've changed since we first met. Here's this years photo.

6th Anniversary

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

A look into Madelyn's life

Here are some random photos of Madelyn's life.

Pasta Bolognese: She loves it! Too busy to smile.

Madelyn has been sleeping with her butt in the air. Too cute.

Do you brush your teeth laying down?

It's only took Madelyn a month to discover the pet water fountain. She was soaked.

Madelyn and Leia looking out the window together watching the neighbors. Too cute.

She is a stinker. She maneuvered Leia's bone out of the closed crate! I was impressed.

I'm a crawling manic.

Naptime with Leia on the floor.

Where do you think she is going?

You guessed it. She can even crawl while pushing the dog bowl. Talent!

Madelyn wanted to crawl up the steps but daddy's shirt was there. I tried to take it from her but she insisted that she'd crawl up with it.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Beauty and the Beast

I tagged along to Beauty and the Beast (a high school musical) with Juliana and Beth. Brian was brave enough to watch both Madelyn and Connor while we went to the show as Joe was at work..

The school had a "breakfast with the characters" event before hand. Connor and Madelyn came along for the food so Brian didn't have to have the kids for super long and so I could spend some time with Madelyn. Madelyn was fascinated by the characters but was scared of the Beast. When he came up, she just burst out crying. Poor thing. Here are some photos:

Lily, Madelyn, Connor and Juliana with Belle

Mommy and Madelyn

Shipping the kiddos off to Brian. Aren't they so cute!?

Sunday, June 3, 2012

10 Months Old

Well since Madelyn will be 11 months in a couple weeks, I figured I better get her 10 month post up! Sorry for the delay. May was a CRAZY month for us.

Madelyn is 10 months old and she is so much fun now that she is mobile!!

On April 14th, we put down a refrigerator magnet on the floor for her. She was very frustrated that she kept going backwards and couldn't get it but then she turned around and went backwards toward it and got it. She did it twice in a row. It was very exciting.
We were surprised to see find her sitting up in her crib for the first time on April 16th
She first crawled Saturday, April 21st to get mommy's cell phone but by Tuesday, April 24th, she had really improved and was able to crawl across the whole family room.
With crawling, she figured out how to get up from her stomach into a sitting position consistently which makes her very happy. No more frustrating airplane.
She is babbling a lot now. We are going to claim that her first word as Preta. On April 26 Madelyn said "ta" for Preta and pointed. She even got up to crawl after him. She really loves her cat. Brian and I are a little sad it wasn't mommy or daddy but given how much we say our animals names, it's no surprise.
She still loves to clap, blow raspberries and make noises with her finger over her lips. It's hilarious.
She is getting much better at waving hi or good bye at the right times. She used to do it after people left so they never saw it.
Her laughs and giggles are increasing. She seems to find the animals really funny!
She now can pull herself up on things really fast but hasn't figured out how to sit down by herself so she cries out to us like we are forcing her to stand there.
Madelyn has fine tuned her skills at turning off light switches. She now uses her pointer finger instead of throwing her hand at it.
She loves crawling to the dog bowl and turning it upside down (don't ask me why!?)
She also loves making music with her bells, maracas or dog treats in containers.
You can tell that her fine motor skills are increasing because the dog isn't getting as much of Madelyn's food that was dropped on the floor. She is getting much better at getting her food into her mouth. She also ate out of a bowl with a spoon for the first time this month but gave up on the spoon quickly.

She got hand, food and mouth disease on May 8th but we didn't know it until 3 days later on my birthday. She had a 102 fever but was fine the next day. I figured it was teething since I could see that a tooth was coming in and knew that she had a high fever the first time she got a tooth but by Thursday, we discovered tiny bumps on her hands. And went to the doctor the next day. There's nothing that can be done for HFMD so we just had to wait it out. It didn't seem to bother Madelyn much except the first couple days. But her hands looked horrible.

Here are her 10 month photos. There are a lot of action ones since it's hard to get her to stop and smile for the camera. She's a busy girl!