snapshots of july

birth announcement

Its taken me awhile to get this out (almost 6 months to be exact). There are many excuses but the best one is that I wanted to figure out a way to best pay tribute to what Maddie had to go through during the first couple weeks after being born, but still provide a recent photo. I chose the main photo because well, Maddie is smiling, which is what she does 90% of the time, but also because you can see what's left of her scar from surgery. Going in a clockwise direction, the first small pic is of when she was less than an hour old, the second is of her in Children's Hospital in Peoria where she had her surgery, and the third is when she was about 3 months old, home and fully recovered. Maddie's birth and everything she went through seems so long ago and its unbelievable that the smiley, squawky baby we have now is the same seemingly fragile newborn from months past.

much has happened

1. We moved! Still in Champaign, just a few blocks away from our old place. Now we live in a rental house with a fenced in backyard complete with swings, slide, sandbox and random visits from our landlord's cat.
2. My sister, Vivian, had a baby girl, named Evie, who is a perfect blend of her mother and father. You can check out what's up with them by clicking on the side link called "cousin Evie."
3. Maddie got her first tooth!
4. Elliott shoved a pea up his nose.
5. Maddie started sitting up!
6. Elliott started letting us dress him in button up shirts again.
7. Maddie started crawling!


Alright, that's all the major stuff I can think of for now. Hopefully we won't get derailed again for awhile.