Guest Blogger!

Hi everybody! You may know me as Kristin's daughter Madison😃 Today, I'm so excit ed to be here guest blogging. I'm going to talk about some very exciting things that have been happening with me...
Well, first, I had Christmas! and I got tons of good presents! For my books, I got a really good book, Story Thieves and another good book Twice Upon a Time, they are both written by author James Riley   who I would recommend to kids ages 10 and up.. I also got a cool book called Key Hunters with Even and Cleo who can go into books in a secret library and to get out they have to get a key 🔑 from the book!
I also have the new edition in the family Baby Connor who is quite adorable he had his first Christmas recently he got some really cool presents but I think I got more! I think his favorite present was a light up aquarium that makes the fish swim around he can turn it on and off himself It's super cool I had one like it when I was a baby too.
For Christmas I got also a electric scooter it is FAST! I got a snow cone machine too it is awesome me and my friend Kiera, stared it for the first time a few weeks ago, the flavor was tropical punch!
I got an air brush kit to it's so cool you put it through your mouth and blow and color comes out, there's also a magic white marker that makes the air brush thing change color!
Another new things that happening is that Connor has now started crawling and pulling him self up on ledges ! It's adorable and scary at the same time! My nickname for him is "Boo bear" because I think he is really cute and looks like a Boo bear the way his eyes pop out and as he smiles, he's really addicted to me! Seriously! I think I may be his favorite person in the whole world. I remember st the hospital when he was just a newborn and he first saw me and he opened his eyes at me and I knew he was going to like me, and we were going to be good brother and sister friends.
My new kitty that I got last July is Pippin and we got him when he was only 5 weeks old as a little fluff ball. I think his favorite people are me and my mom, I think were his favorite because he hugs us a lot. And I think it's really an adorable talent that he can hug, and my old kitty Solly didn't even know how to hug. Pippen is silly, he acts like my big high bed is his giant kitty mansion.🐱
School has been going very good for me, but I have had a lot of tests which is really annoying, but a lot of my friends are there when I need them. School has been fun, mostly at recess. 😀 During normal hours, not so fun. It's better than college I guess but not better than kindergarten! My class is actually doing a blog too which is why I am so good at writing a blog! If you want to see it, go to:

https://kidblog.org/
And use class code:

One weird thing that's been happening is - I've just been getting generally hurt! Like, I'll wake up with an owie arm, or ill look down st school and see a scratch on my leg. It's weird!
One really sad thing that is happening in school is that we are reading a really sad and heartfelt story that is non fiction is a story about a little girl named Abby, and she has dark skin, and she can't go places or do things like normal. It was in the olden days. Me and my friend Dylan cried, it's so sad.
One of my fsvortite things at school is doing PE, and playing basketball. It's been really fun, because me and my friend Dylan in my class have been partners. The only part I don't like is playing a real game, and dodging people and getting hurt and getting sweaty, it gives me the chills!
Well, I'm also really excited for my 10th birthday! 🎉 Right now I'm almost 9, but my mom said for my 10th birthday I instead of having a party I can go anywhere in the world on a trip and I think I will pick Hawaii! I've never been there but my mom and dad have and they say it's awesome!!!
One of the clothing items I normally wear: daily: are: Headbands! Headbands are just easy in the mornings and I love them. Sure I like hair clips and hair bands but headbands are the best.
And finally, my last word to the public-- I Love Art. I'm really good at animals, I love making their eyes and making them look so different, and I think they are easier to draw than people. People are hard to draw but I love art!
Well thanks for reading it was a pleasure to write this for you, Your Friend, Madison Sanford 😃🍩

Glenwood Springs

A few pictures from the last post ☺☺☺

Driving through Glenwood Canyon

 Bundled 👶

 We made it! The hot springs

 My happy place 💗

 NYE

 Hotel pool

Bighorn sheep in the parking lot

 The day after we got home ⛄

Standing!

As I write the title of this post, I can't help but think the next post will be called "Walking!" Ack! How time flies and we are so not ready! 👶!

Lately our lil man is able to pull up (!!) all by himself! He's happy just to stand there smiling (I wonder how long that will last!) because if he moves he may topple over. I sort of miss the days when we could sit him on a blanket surrounded by toys and that was enough.. (sigh!) but it sure is fun seeing him learn new things and be proud of himself. And it's been all coming on pretty quick ever since the crawling started. Todd and I have likened it to someone coming out of a coma... now he's ready to SEE & DO everything! ALL AT ONCE! Our sleepy baby is not so sleepy anymore! We are finding things to babyproof that it hadn't occurred to us to babyproof. Even things like rocking chairs that little hands can go under.. drawers that can pinch.. cat food to be eaten. And the carbon monoxide detector has been a big hit. So we are catching on... Connor is keeping us on our toes!
Also a quick holiday update: For Christmas (& my bday!) we just stayed local and had fun seeing what Santa brought. Todd and I were exhausted but it was a really special, magical time for the kiddos. Connor was pretty clueless but Madison "helped" open all his presents. For New Years we spent the weekend in Glenwood Springs. I truly love it there. We have been before on New Years but stayed at a different hotel this time. I wasn't sure about bringing Connor in the hot springs, but saw plenty of other babies there (including a 2-month old!) and there are varying degrees of the pools so you can go in some of the milder ones and don't have to stay in the hot part. This time Madison and I made it til dark, but didn't stay til midnight like last time. She is a trooper, tho- when she wants to do something she is in for the long haul! We also took the gondola up the to the alpine adventure park this time - too cold to do most things but fun to walk around!

My bday 🎁

 Christmas 🎅

Christmas crafts

Pippen 👿

 Cozy

Finally - some "boy" toys!

Crawling!

The eagle has landed. A light went on in Connor's head and he realized he could get from Point A to Point B, and even tho his little limbs aren't quite in tune with his brain yet, he manages to do it! You can almost see the wheels churning as he gets his mind set on something and reaches and hurls himself across the room. It's kind of like a combo Army-crawl/fish-out-of-water thing happening, and it's awesome! He's pretty proud of himself!
I realized this blog uses flash for all videos, so anyone viewing on a mobile or tablet is not going to be able to watch them, and it will just show a blank square which is annoying. So I am going to chill out on the video posts. I may still need to include one of crawling though!
So besides that milestone, we've had some other recent activity in our household like: Travel! Connor has now been on THREE trips in a airplane already. 1st trip: To Alabama with me & Madison (solo mama!) to go to my niece Jamie's wedding. Age 4 months. Flew on a tiny plane and I brought waaay too much stuff but that was by far the easiest trip so far because all he did was sleep on my lap and nurse. 2nd trip: To Indiana (all of us) to visit Todd's family and friends. Age 6 months. Got to visit most of the midwest relatives and friends in Todd's stomping ground. We rented a car and that was a fun trip. 3rd trip: To Virginia over Thanksgiving! This was the most recent trip, and definitely the most challenging as far as baby-on-board. He wasn't as content to be held in one spot (plus it was a longer flight) and was no longer just breast-milking-it, but eating real foods too, which are messy/sticky/not so fun on an airplane. So while we had a blast in VA once we were there, I can see why people don't travel so much with babies! I am glad we took those first couple trips in the beginning for the experience!
Here are some fun pics for your blog-viewing pleasure.
And stay tuned for a very special guest blogger on here... TBA!

Six Month Stats & First Sickness!

Well we finally had Connor's six-month checkup at the pediatrician last week. He was unfortunately sick with his first cold (!) and so we didn't end up doing his vaccinations yet. We will have them done next week hopefully if he is all better. Reallllllly hoping he's all better because I'm not sure how long we can deal with the not-sleeping/snotty-nose/mouth-breathing baby every night. Sigh. It's not so bad during the day when he is sitting up and playing, but at night he gets stuffy as soon as he lays down in the crib. I've used that snot sucker more times than I can count (thanks Kazumi!!) and he haaaates it. They recommended using saline spray which helps slightly but doesn't decrease the hate. I'll spare you any more snot details 😪😫😭 and here are the six month stats!
Height: 28" (79th %)
Weight: 18 lbs 12 oz (58th %)
Head: 46 1/2" (97th %)

I looked back in Madison's baby book and see that she was 17 lbs 10 oz at age 1. So either we have a giant baby or she was a lil thing, I can't remember. I think she was a chubby baby until she started crawling/walking so it makes me wonder if the same thing will happen to him. Right now he seems content just sitting and playing and watching his big sister!

Speaking of Madison, she has asked me to post different Halloween pictures than the ones below, so I am going to post a couple here and take those out. We had a blast on Halloween, went trick-or-treating on our street first and then met friends in a "cool" neighborhood (as opposed to ours, where people barely put out pumpkins)... These houses were decorated in "themes" -- there was an Oktoberfest house complete with free beer in the garage and a pretzel machine out front... A circus house with a big top tent and fortune telling... and a hot dog house with a hot dog stand! The best costume we saw was Pac Man and the ghosts!

Madison's Class Blog

Madison sort of inspired me to start working on this blog again, as she came home the other day saying: "at school we made a blog!" 

Check it out here! Madison's class blog

You have to then enter code: gdekj72

It's a little sparse but right now they have Halloween poems they have written so check it out to get you in a spooky mood! :)

And in the meantime, here's a little Halloween preview!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hello, World!

Todd & I recently discovered that this blog still exists! And amazingly, the links still work! We had a lot of fun going back and looking through it. It's like a little time capsule of our lives, of Madison, of my mom, of the move.... Wow - a lot has happened and it's hard to even sum up in words. Considering Todd and I will be the only ones ever reading this, I don't think I need to fill in a lot of details. Maybe I'll post first and see who responds..
Anyway I eventually dropped the blog. It's hard to write about hard times. It's hard to be without my mom. I think about her every day, all the time.

As we were reading the old posts, we tried to compare what Madison was doing with what Connor is doing now... Yes, we now have a new little person around, named Connor! We surprised all our friends and family (and us!) by having another baby. We had hoped for another and you just never know... So we feel extra blessed! And I have to say more power to the people who have a toddler followed by a newborn... Because even with a big kid and a newborn, it's still hard! I guess that's going to be the focus of this blog and I think he will be lots of fun to write about. Now that I'm not on social media I have to have somewhere to brag, right?? I'm going to start with his 4 month stats since I have a "Four month stats" post for Madison (Four Month Stats)

Connor! 4 months stats
Height: 25 3/4" (47th %)
Weight: 16 lbs 6 oz (50th %)
Head: 17 1/2" (95th %)

Connor 4 mos!

Being typical 2nd time around parents I guess, we are not as good about keeping track of everything... I love reading that 4 month stats post about Madison and seeing that I wrote in her baby book *the day she rolled over* and thought I was bad writing about it 2 weeks later! Hahahaha. We are not exactly sure when Connor first rolled over, or when he started doing it regularly, but he sure as heck is doing it now! It's hard to get a diaper on this kid sometimes, he's like a roly poly all over the place. Although I do have to say, in reading Madison's blog, she was definitely doing things earlier than he is (shh! don't tell her that)! Chalk it up to being a girl, I guess, the experts are right, I think they develop earlier! Connor is doing great though, and I think part of it is that he's a little chunker, so he's happy just sort of hanging out. He's in no great hurry to move around or try to crawl yet. He's content to just observe the world around him and laugh a whole lot at his big sister. We *love* seeing him light up and laugh the minute he sees her. He seriously worships this girl and I think she knows it and also knows she has the ability to crush his soul. Sigh. Here is a vid from a couple months ago where he's just cracking up. :)

And I have to post this other video of the first time he was "talking," at about 3 months. Just too darn cute! See, I have all this catching up to do since I haven't had any outlet for all this stuff, other than my dad who doesn't understand it!

Connor is now 6 months old but I don't have his stats yet because he hasn't yet had his checkup. But he is doing lots of big kid things... Sitting up, grabbing, eating! So stay tuned!

This video seemed fitting!

One day old

4 months old

~Buds~

Back in Blog-action, Kfunk.