tales from a far-land

We began our Thanksgiving weekend adventure at 4:30am Thursday morning by loading up the mighty Prius to initiate our drive out of Phoenix to travel to California to spend the holiday with Josh's family.  We have discovered it is much easier to travel with the child when she is asleep for more than half of the trip.  Thus, the early start time.  By mid-mroning, we had arrived at Alisha's apartment ready to visit and enjoy the meal being prepared for us.  Alisha has spent the last two semesters in culinary school and was very excited to host her "first" official Thanksgiving meal (with the help from her father and mother).  We felt very blessed to be able to share this accomplishment with her.  And believe me, throughout the years, I have watched my mother cook for this holiday and Thanksgiving dinner is a ton of work and mess.  Anyway, while we waited for traditional feast, Madi enjoyed playing with Cody (Josh's par...

Uggh, I cannot believe I have not posted a blog entry in over two months.  The holiday season was just a whirlwind!  Anyway, I wanted to update you on our holiday season and the events that transpired for the Farrell-Landers family. The "holiday" season officially began the weekend before Thanksgiving.  We had decided in mid-summer that it would be a fun experience to take Madilyn to The Polar Express  in Williams, Arizona, for her first Christmas season.  We invited several other families to join along and the only crazy ones willing to join this adventure was the Barber-Rytke family all the way from California.  And so our adventure began.  The BR family drove into Phoenix on Friday afternoon to visit with us and the Gillis family before we headed up to Williams on Saturday.  Below are some of the photos taken while the kids played Friday night and Saturday morning. Anyway, mid-day Saturday we began our caravan to Williams, Arizona...

This past Wednesday was Madi's 9 month pediatrician visit.  Per her doctor, she is developing very well and seems to be a very happy baby.  Madi received her normal vaccinations and also her flu shot.  Like usual, she only cried for a short period of time before she was smiling and ready to play again. Madilyn's stats as of this visit were: Head circumference - 17" (27th percentile) Height - 27.12" (49th percentile) Weight - 19 pounds, 7 ounces (62rd percentile)   Here are some of the things that Madi is demonstrating at this age ... Crawling all over the house, on furniture, through furniture, on people ... more or less where ever her little body can travel. She is pulling herself up using the furniture and has now figured out how to sit down afterward.  She is also beginning to take a couple of steps to cruise around the furniture. She is becoming pretty innovative.  Recently, she used one of her toy box lids to stand on so she could b...

At the beginning of the November, one of my friends on Facebook challenged each of her friends to post one thing each day that we are thankful for up until Thanksgiving Day. I thought it was a great challenge, but am really terrible at providing status checks on Facebook. So, instead, I decided to make it one of my blog posts. I know some of the items below may seem pretty cliché, but I wanted to still include them because we often take so many things for granted.  I am thankful for … Ice cream. Yes, that’s right. Ice cream, especially chocolate. Thank you Dad and Uncle Ted for introducing me to this incredible treat. My health. Most of my healthiness is due in large part to the fact that I am very lucky to be able to exercise regularly at Boot Camp with some fun and like-minded women.  I firmly believe that exercise is the key to keeping me healthy physically and mentally.  Being an American. I have had the privilege to travel to several foreign ...

Wishing your family a very Happy Turkey Day!  Love, Madi

This is too cute, so I had to post this right away. Yolanda just sent me this photo. Madi is mobile and can now pull herself up using any object she can reach. The unfortunate part is that she can pull herself up, but she has not quite figured out how to sit down from there. To quote Yolanda, "I have to rescue her at least 20 times a day. She knows how to stand up, but doesn't know how to go down. LOL!"  Look at the frustration on that face ... Also, while Madi was attempting to walk using one of her wheeled stride walkers, she mishappenly lost her footing sending her head first in to the tile.  Thus, experiencing her first "shiner".  Poor girl!  Her eye and forehead quickly bruised turning lovely shades of green, black and blue.  It is the first of many to come.  Josh and I found it absolutely adorable and, of course, had to take a picture.  Just the result of learning one of life's basic lessons -- walking.

Josh has been bugging me to add his *favorite* photo from our Laguna shoot to the blog.  He cannot believe how high he actually tossed her.  Her face is just priceless.  She doesn't even show any fear.  I, on the otherhand, am trying to smile for the camera without showing my true hysteria.  Anyway, here it is ...   As you can tell from the above photo, I have been dabbling and learning more about how to touch up photos with effects and special features.  I am really enjoying it.  Wait to see more of my creations!  

As you can tell from previous posts on our blog, this past October was crazy busy.  For three weekends in a row, we traveled out of town.  It was insane, but we enjoyed all of our adventures immensely.  For one of those crazy weekends, we drove over to California to visit with GP and GG in Laguna Woods.  However, that was the secondary reason for the visit.  The primary reason was to get family photographs taken by Noa Green.  Long story short ... Noa is a friend of one of my sorority sisters, Andrea Barber.  Andrea had arranged to have Noa take her family's photos while Noa was in town (she lives in New York).  In the midst of talking with Andrea, she had mentioned the upcoming photo shoot and had remarked how it was too bad that we lived in Arizona because Noa is an amazing photographer and if we lived in there we should have her take our photos as well.  Well, with that invitation...

A couple of weeks back, we decided crazily to take Madi on her first camping trip with Josh's friends. In actuality, camping was just an afterthought. The main reason for the trip down south was to visit some of the Arizona wineries in Sonoita. After reading some pretty good reviews, we decided to check them out. So, we embarked upon our adventure. We spent most of Saturday wine tasting, enjoying good friends and great weather. After visiting our fifth Arizona winery, we ascended up the steep, narrow switchback road of Carr Canyon in the Huachuca Mountains outside of Sierra Vista. We quickly set up camp and settled in for an interesting evening. Unfortunately, Madi's first camping trip did not go as smoothly as we had hoped. Our poor little baby ended up being constipated all evening despite the numerous bottles of apple juice she drank. The night air also was a bit more chilly than expected. Madilyn was bundled up ready to weather the cold air, but I, on the otherhand, did n...

Madi turned eight months old today.  Here are some of Madi's new milestones we have experienced this past couple of months: She is becoming quite the speed demon in her "car walker". She follows us all around the house and chases the dogs all over the place. Can now sit unsupported, leaving hands free for another activity. In fact, she lunges forward onto floor from the sitting position. Begun creeping backward or forward by pulling herself along with her strong arms on her tummy and her kicking legs drag behind or what we better call in our house as "army crawling".  She is everywhere!  We are not sure we are ready for full mobility.  Reaches and grasps a toy using her fingers rather than the palm of her hand. Will shake, bang, poke, push, squeeze, roll everything. Enjoys splashing toys in the bathtub. She doesn't stay still anymore.  It is nearly impossible to change her diaper or change her clothes. She has two full grown baby teeth on the bottom ...

This past weekend we enjoyed the wonderful fall weather with a family trip to the zoo.  We were very lucky to have a couple of our friends join us.  Stephanie and Dan, we loved having you there with us! We also briefly spent time with the Gillis family, who were at the zoo at the same time as us.  Someday Madi will be able to bicycle around the zoo with them.  They looked adorable.  I am not sure if Madilyn really grasped the whole experience, but she seemed to enjoy being outside,watching the animals and soaking in as much information as she possibly could.  Check out the pics ... don't forget to hit the play button!

Madilyn wishes her Aunt Lynsey a very happy birthday.  She misses you and cannot wait to see you in December.   Enjoy your special day... Come on, Mom.  Enough pictures already.   Hmm, is this edible?   Sorry about the drool ...  

This afternoon Phoenix was hit by very severe thunderstorms which resulted in tornado-like winds, rain resulting in flooding valley wide and golfball sized hail.  It was insane!  Never have I experienced this type of storm.  It is being called the "Frozen Monsoon".  I cannot believe just two days ago the temperature was 108 degress and now it is a brisk 68 degrees.  The storm shut down several Phoenix highways due to underpass flooding and traffic accidents.  On my way home, I encountered several down powerlines and uprooted trees.  The news reported several damaged homes, vehicles and businesses because of the golfball sized hail.  My parents home and our home also fell victim to this storm.  My parents lost a skylight and suffered some minimal damage to their home.  I came home to find our front kitchen window shattered and our sunshades shredded.  We also had some minimal imp...

For the Labor Day holiday weekend, we decided to fly to Santa Cruz to visit Josh's parents and sister. So, while the Valley of the Sun was experiencing record heat, Santa Cruz was a beautiful eighty degrees. We had a wonderful time!  Great weather, fun times, and many new experiences for Madilyn.  Take a look at a slideshow of our trip.