Video Break

We interupt our regularly scheduled blogging to bring you the following videos: [Ed. Note: Some of these are a little old, like December old, but I finally managed to get them off the camera, onto the computer, and onto the blog...]

Crib-jumping at Nana and Pa's, January 2010

Santa-dancing with Daddy, December 2009

Ta-Dah! February 2010

Christmas Eve, December 2009

Now We're All Sacred

Following long-standing Western, religious tradition (sort of), we had Maddie baptized last Sunday. I say sort of because, as a supremely helpful sales-person at Macy's pointed out to us, most parents who consecrate their children do so when they're very small, but Jon and I hadn't found a church we liked when she was born, and blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, my feelings that it's-no-body's-business-when-we-get-our-child-baptized-especially-if-you-happen-to-sell-dresses-at-Macy's aside, we finally found a time when all of her grandparents, god-parents, aunts and uncle could be there, and we set it up with the Pastor. Unfortunately for us, this completely nasty weather that's been dogging Kansas all winter (although, only on the weekends, seemingly), decided to load us all up with lots of snow and ice the night before, so my parents and my dad's parents weren't able to attend, and Maddie's godmother (Hi, Kendra!) arrived about ten minutes after the ceremony. (She was able to have the pastor do an impromptu service in the sanctuary doorway as we left, so no worries. It's all official.) That aside, things went pretty smoothly, and we followed up the service with a brunch at her uncle/godfather's house. (Chris, I will apologize again for Jon. I'm sorry he didn't tell you you'd need to stand up in front of everyone with us. It was very remiss of him.)

Below are some pictures that Maddie's 'Pa' (Larry Stoppel) snapped the day of. Thanks to everyone who came and helped make it a special day (and thanks also to those of you who wished you could be there. We understand.) (Also, please ignore my rather flip tone concerning all of this. I know it's a serious and important event; I really do. It's that I'm, well, flip. It's what I do. --A)

During the ceremony. I'm not really nervous about the service. Don't ask me why I look like that...

The parade around the church. The pastor is supposed to carry her, but she wasn't having any of that.

Maddie being admired in the kitchen.

Aunt Christa, doing her best to stain Maddie's nice white dress with purple grapes.

Maddie and Daddy opening a few baptism gifts.

Um, I only included this picture because we all look so attractive, but Kendra and Erica can't hate me because I'm in it, too.

Oh, I'm soooooo tired from all this baptismal stuff. Being good in church sure does take it out of you...

Happy Belated Heart Day

So, I know it's a little late, but you know how they say love never dies or something equally cheesy, and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, Valentine's Day post.

This year, Jon and I didn't make any elaborate plans because 1) it was a Sunday, and Mondays are hard enough without having been up too late, and 2) do you know how hard it is to get a babysitter on Valentine's Day? Either you pay someone more than your actual dinner would cost to (in our case) sit in your house while your kid sleeps (and this requires a lot of advance planning because teenage girls go fast on Feb. 14), or you have to beg a family member, which means they either move their celebration to a different day or you're cruelly reminding them that while you have plans for Heart Day, they have nothing better to do than watch your kid. Taking all that into consideration, or saving ourselves the time we would have spent considering it, Jon asked if he could make me dinner after Maddie went to bed, and I said that would be lovely.

Before said dinner, we did as much pink and red happiness for the Madster as we thought she'd understand. First, on Saturday, my sister and I took her to Target while we picked out V-Day stuff for her: a new plate and bowl set with monkeys on it, a completely stereotypical stuffed red monkey clutching a heart that reads "Love", and a pillow with monkeys and bananas on it that Christa insisted she must have. Do you sense a theme? She really likes monkeys right now, or "mun-tees" as she calls them. Strangely, I'm pretty sure that if she saw a real, live, honest-to-goodness monkey, she would have no clue what it was. She'd probably call it a kitty. Sunday morning, she was about as excited as you'd expect her to be about the presents, which is not very. It's more about the unwrapping for her. Also, I don't think she had any clue that she wasn't seeing all this stuff for the first time. Probably the last year for that...

Following this, we took her over to Lawrence (so Jon could help his dad install a new window in the Yellow House bathroom), and she was further spoiled by her grandparents. Hello Kitty doll? Check. Very realistic KU pom-poms? Check. (Um, and she will use them to do her very own version of the Rock Chalk Chant, so we'll try to get that video'd and get that up, soonish.) Earlier in the week, she also received an extra-adorable pair of slippers that look like red Mary Janes from Grandma and Grandpa (my mom made them!), and Mommy and Daddy received several extra pounds--I mean about four dozen chocolate-chip cookies. (I'm embarrassed to say that they're almost all gone.) Maddie seems to think Grandma works for Nike, though, and that the slippers will make her extra fast. Every time I put them on her, she just runs around like a crazy person. No idea...

Ah, but the pièce de résistance was yet to come. Later in the day, I went out and got her, wait for it, her very own Mylar Elmo balloon! I know. I'm too kind. She was pretty excited, and since it's still floating around the house, she usually makes a beeline for it when she gets home from daycare. I think I'm going to miss the days when a balloon could make her the happiest girl in the world.

Maddie and her beloved "Ah-bow" balloon (Oh, and Daddy's nose). (Photos by Larry and Nancy Stoppel)

Finally, that evening, after we packed her off to bed, Jon pulled lobster pot pies from the oven, opened a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, and we had dinner all by ourselves. We even ate in the dining room, which we never do. After dinner (which was amazing, and since the recipe makes four individual pot pies, I'm equally excited about the two pies now residing in our freezer), Jon and I settled down to watch more Lost while munching on homemade chocolate covered strawberries. Not the height of romanticism, but I loved it. It was relaxing, low-key, and I didn't even have to change clothes.

Lobster pot pie....Mmmmmm. (Photo by Jon Stoppel)

End note: I'd like to give a little shout-out to my friend Emily, who addressed V-Day haters on her blog last week. I completely agree with her, and I'd just like to say that while a lot of it is over-commercialized and fake, we live in a very busy, fast-paced society, and if there is a day that reminds us that we need to take time out to do something a little special for the people we care most about, I think that's a good thing. (Well, that, and lobster pot pie...yummmmm.)

Placeholder

First things first: Yes, yes, I know. Two and a half (okay, really almost three) weeks without a new blog post is way too long. I'm sorry, okay? It's just that there really hasn't been that much going on, and our camera battery is dead, and we keep forgetting to charge it, so we have nothing to write about and no cute pictures to post, and really, you all just come here for the pictures anyway. Admit it.

So, I think, going forward, when I'm out of specific topics to ramble on about or adorable photos to share, I'm going to write something I'm titling a "Placeholder" to keep you generally updated on the goings-on at Casa de Webster-Stoppel (or the Stopster house, as we occasionally like to refer to it).

Since our last post (and seriously, not to call you all out since I've been a blog-writing slacker lately, but how could more of you not have commented on the world's most adorable video?), Maddie has recovered from pneumonia, but it seems that she's segued right into teething, canines no less. This makes her really grumpy, she's running a low fever on and off, and to top it off, she hasn't sleep past 6 a.m. once in the past week. In fact, in the past two days, she hasn't slept past 5:30 a.m. She's still sleeping through the night; she just seems to disagree with her parents as to what constitutes an acceptable end-time for "night." To make matters worse, her usual daycare provider went on maternity leave last Thursday, so we're also dealing with the side-effects of putting her in a new childcare situation. (And don't get me wrong, Michelle's been great. It's just that it's a new place, and while children are very adaptable, they're not quite as adaptable as people will try to lead you to believe.) So, we've been dealing with some serious separation-anxiety at drop-off and bed times, and I feel like this may also have a leeeetle bit to do with why she's getting up so damn early. (Sorry for the cursing, but dudes, I seriously need some sleep, or barring that, at least some "me" time in the morning. This morning, she played with the sliding glass doors to our shower--while I was trying to wash...)

Let's see. What else? Jon and I finally started working on the upstairs bathroom that has taunted me with its hideous '80s wallpaper since we moved in, so we've got that going on. This, of course, means that we've had to move all of Maddie's bath stuff into our bathroom, so right now, my vanity area is not only covered with books, toys, and old jewelry, it's also covered with soft plastic bath toys and towels. It's okay to be jealous of my life, really. Anyway (do you see how lack of sleep affects my mood, people?), so far, we've taken down the offending wallpaper, removed all the cabinets and drawers, taken down the baseboards, torn up the carpet that was covering the step-I-thought-was-going-away-but-now-appears-to-be-staying, and sanded down the cabinets and drawers in preparation for priming and painting somewhere down the line. Our next steps will be to de-popcorn the ceiling and tear out the weird divider/privacy wall by the toilet. I've always found that little half-wall pointless. I mean, I get that maybe it shields the toilet, but it's not like our bathroom is as big as Grand Central Station (or probably even the bathrooms in Grand Central Station). If someone is in there with you while you're going to the bathroom, trust me, you're going to know about it. We'll put up some before, after, and during pictures once the project is completed. Moving on...

Not really sure what to move on to. See? It been a slow news week around here. Um, doo-da-doo-da-doo. Oh, Maddie's been dropping complete sentences every once in a while lately, so that's sort of exciting, right? She'll ask for "More milk, please" or various versions of a request. She'll ask "Where'd [so-and-so] go?" I don't know if she gets all the individual words in phrases such as the last one, but she's repeating the entire phrase, and she knows what it means, so that's good. Her vocabulary is already pretty large for a kid her age (even her doctor said so, so it's not just me being all proud-mom-my-child's-so-special-and-gifted), but it seems like she learns new words every day. They stick, too, which is good. She knows how to ask what something is, and a week or so ago, she busted out the word "spaghetti" at daycare. Okay, so it was more like "bahgeddi", but it was clear enough that Laura (may her maternity leave be pleasant) understood her.

Trying to think if there's anything else going on. Jon and I are currently obsessed with Lost, which yes, I know, is sooooo 2004, but we've been watching it on Netflix, and we're hooked. We're only on Season 2, so if you watch it, for the love of the hatch, don't tell us anything about it, and please, people, don't post anything about it on Facebook or Twitter or what have you. It will only ruin it for the rest of us. Also, shame-moment, the Lost-cession may or may not have something to do with the recent blog silence as of late. I'm sorry. I'll try not to neglect you for so long in the future.

And now, because I told you that our lives weren't currently that exciting and also because we all know it's true, here's the picture you really all read this for anyway:

This was taken last weekend when Maddie and her soon-to-be cousin Oliver were playing at her Uncle Chris'. (Photo courtesy of Nancy "Nana" Stoppel.)