What's Been Going On

Someone at church was doing free portraits for all, so this is our first real professional picture of our family (I cropped and edited a little with Photo shop Elements though).
Helping put up the Christmas tree
Watching Mommy because she wasn't being a good helper.
Madeline's friend Kate came over to play. They are 3 1/2 weeks apart. Both took a nap before seeing each other and when they woke up, they were super excited to see the other.

Well, I was right to wait to put up the tree until the second weekend in December because I cant keep Madeline away from it. She loves to pull off the ornaments and has already broken a strand of beaded garland. My tree looks pretty bare at the bottom due to the fact that I have had to move everything up. We are headed to Cincy on Friday for a few days. We are hoping it will snow! I'm having a hard time thinking about packing due to the fact that I have had to pull back out short sleeved shirts for December in Alabama! Crazy! Last week it was 75 degrees, today its going to be a high of 55. I hope everyone has a blessed Christmas!

Turkey and Randoms

Great Nana and PawPaw on Thanksgiving
"Tumble dry low, remove promptly."
Trying some of Nana's famous caramel cake!
She likes to get down in the sun patches
Getting into mischief!

Thanksgiving was good. Spent it in Tuscaloosa splitting time with both sides of Lance's family. Haven't had much going on, just gearing up for Christmas and the millions of parties we have on the calendar. Hope everyone is well!

9 month pictures and some new videos

Had some professional pictures done recently. Here are the un-cropped, unedited versions.

Also, here are some recent videos of Madeline!
Clapping
Hide and Seek
More Crawling

Exam, Game and Tooth

Madeline knows we keep our laptop cord underneath the couch, and she has figured out how to look and find it now. Why is she obsessed with cords?!Got it!
Lance and I got to go to the LSU game this weekend. We weren't expecting to win and were just so thrilled to get to go to a game this season that we had a blast, even though we lost :(
The highlight was getting a game dog!
This guy (who was your typical jerk LSU fan-no judgment on him personally) was with some Bama friends who put a "Tigers Blow" sticker on him. He had it on for most of the game. We all had a good laugh!
Got to walk to our cars with Robert and Liz Stillwell. So wonderful to see our dear sweet friends! Cant wait for this administration to be up so they can move back closer! If you're ever in DC and need a west wing white house tour, call Robert...
Snack time in the 'Saucer
Lance after his exam checking out his decorated car
Our friend Robby decorated Lance's car while he was taking his exam just to show him how much our friends care about us and how hard they know he worked. I picked up Lance from work that day and drove him by his car. There were a few people we saw walk by who gave his car a good stare!

Well its over! Lance feels he might have a shot at passing it, but we won't know anything until the end of January.

I spoke too soon the other week, Madeline's first tooth starting coming in last week. She also finally learned to clap and is cruising the furniture pretty well. Plus, she is a fast and quiet crawler. A couple of times I've lost her in our small condo in a matter of seconds!

We experienced our first game in T'town with the new parking situation, which wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Though I was seriously disappointed to have to pay $10 to park. We took Madeline out to the quad for a little while. She was enamored with all the people. She's a people watcher. We handed her off to Lance's mom and then headed to the game, which was great! At least it was exciting to watch. We sat next to the quietest LSU fans I've ever seen. They didn't even clap when their team scored. Just the occasional fist pump. Though we did have a crazy Cajun sitting behind us (but still a nice guy). Lance and I are off to Atlanta tomorrow for a weekend away! Cant wait to sit in our hotel room and read a book and not have a baby monitor to turn on!

Happy Exam Day!

I was a pink leopard for Halloween


With Daddy at our church's fall festival Daniel Lumpkin-6 weeks old
Madeline and her friend Reagan (who is just 3 1/2 weeks younger)
Gigi also sent up another costume-a Bumble Bee! She was so funny trying to crawl around in this outfit. The hood hung over her eyes which made it heavy to hold her head up and hard to see! It was too cute!
Pollinating the flowers! I couldn't catch a picture of it, but when we got her close to the flowers she would stick her tongue out!
Cruising under the table.
This is what she looked like one afternoon when I got her up from her nap. One arm out of her shirt and the picture doesn't do it justice but her hair was sticking out everywhere. Click on the picture to see the larger image and you will probably see the crazy hair.

Well, thankfully it is exam day. Lance should be an hour into his 6 hour exam (3 in the morning, 3 in the afternoon). Its all written as well, so please pray for endurance for him if you happen upon this post today. He has been studying like crazy the last month especially, and I have basically been single parenting. Really, if taking these exams is the worst hand we are ever dealt, then we are doing good. I truly am so grateful to the Lord that our suffering has always had a deadline date to look forward to. Most situations in life don't have this. If he passes, we'll have just one more exam in May (if he passes that one as well)!

Toothless Wonder

Right before bed. She actually is pretty hyped up before bed and then the second I start feeding her, she's out! And yes, she still has no teeth at 9 months. Apparently I did not get teeth for quite a while either.
Happy prisoner.
Mom and Dad came to visit. We hit up Homewood Park for some swinging
First family photo in a while. Lance was with up a pretty limited amount of time. Thankfully the exam is next Thursday and then it will be over (for now).
I got up but had a hard time getting down. I got overconfident the second time and thought I could get down going forward-needless to say it was not a good idea and I have not crawled on top of this since.

New Videos

First Football Game
This was the first televised game of Alabama's that Madeline got to watch.

Sitting Up and Talking
This was from a couple of weeks ago when she first figured out how to sit up on her own. Now she's crawling everywhere! Why do they always find the things they aren't supposed to touch, like the fireplace and cords, the most interesting? She's trying very hard now to say "Dada," but mostly its still just "Mama" she says. Like at night when she wants to get up she will say "Mamamamama" over and over. Your name is crying form just doesn't sound as sweet.

Finally! A New Post!

Love this outfit we got sporting the Alabama logo, but so sad that its almost too cold to wear it!
Went to walk at the park where some geese got in a fight in the distance
Met Daddy for lunch at a park on Saturday so we could swing!
For those of you that keep up with my blog-this is ugly turkey duck!
Not as much fun on my own as it is with Daddy
See!
She is such a ham! Every time I bring the camera out this is how she poses. P.S.-Can you read her shirt? GO BUCKS! #1 (by default, but who cares!)

So guess how you make a baby puke up the entire contents of their stomach? Feed her elbow macaroni! I was trying out more finger foods and this one was not a hit. She kept trying to swallow the little pieces I had for her whole which caused her to gag and the rest was 30 minutes of clean up history that I would love to forget. That was the first time I can say I saw her projectile vomit. Yuck!

Madeline is pulling up on everything and getting into whatever she can reach! I'm going to have to put everything 3 feet or higher in my house! Madeline hasn't been sleeping well either. She keeps hitting all these milestones which cause her to wake up and "practice" and then she cant get back to sleep. Lance and I have been practicing some tough love and it seems to be getting better. Now that I know what its like to sleep again all night, I'm not as nice or understanding when awoken anymore! Speak of the devil...woke up after another shortened nap (sigh)...

Happy Birthday to Me!

My sweet sister, Tonya, sent me a cookie basket! Delicious!
Last week my "adopted Mom" Dana, and her two boys, Mill and Sam, came to visit. My freshman year of college (9 years ago-yikes!) I was Dana and Alfred's adopted college student. They still call me "Sister Teresa."
I crawl, but mostly backwards at the moment! She even will turn herself around so she can move in the opposite direction.
Madeline can stand hands free for quite awhile. She pulls up on things too. I will try to put a video up of this soon. No cruisin' on furniture yet! Thank goodness, because I still need to child proof everything!
Cracks me up when I come in and she is sleeping face down. Not too sure how she breaths!

Well, I'm 28 today (blah!). I feel old. Turning 30 never really crossed my mind as something that would one day happen. Two years now feels very soon! Lance will be 27 on Saturday the 6th. I can't write long because Madeline just woke up and is getting into everything! I cannot sit her down and leave the room any longer (boo hoo!) otherwise I will come back and she will be eating the furniture or getting into something (see below).