Happy Belated 5 month birthday Maddison!!!

Well, I can hardly believe that Maddison has been in my arms for over 5 months. I wish that I could slow things down, but I can't. So I'm going to enjoy every single minute!!! Things have been super crazy around the Creighton household. I'll do my best to catch everyone up on our life!

Alec has quit working for Regions in Jackson, TN and has started working for Wachovia! YEA!!! I will finally have my husband back in our lives. Alec did a wonderful job trying to be apart of our lives while he was commuting, but let's face it. Spending 2 hours driving every day, not to mention the driving around town, was wearing him down. Needless to say it is a blessing that Wachovia came to him with such an amazing offer. Our lives are getting back on track. There was a point where we didn't like to be around each other at all. I was having trouble figuring out what I was supposed to do work wise and needed help with the baby in the evenings and Alec was just too tired to deal with us when he did get home. BUT we have gotten over that bump in our lives and are much happier!!!

I am now in the midst of training to do medical transcription from home. (I am supposed to be training right now, but I needed a break.)I am enjoying the studying right now. It is very time consuming and is forcing me to manage my time a whole lot better than I used to! I study while Maddison naps and in the evenings when she goes to bed. For the last two weeks, I have been searching for something. I'm not sure what that something is though. I told Alec that I wanted to be more than just Maddison's mummy or Alec's wife. I want to be something....that's probably what I miss the most about having a job. But I'm working on that as we speak!!! A work in progress...that's what I am!!

Now onto the news that everyone wants to hear....MADDISON!!! What an angel! She is sooo much fun. We started solids about a month ago and what a treat!! She loves everything we give her. I have started to make some of her food. I'm starting slow, but am hoping to keep going!!! She has such a personality. She is sleeping through the night and has been for almost 3 months. She is starting to scoot around on the floor. Won't be long until we are crawling! I don't know what I am going to do when that starts. Maddison and I are spending more time with Aiden and his mommy Jodie. They live 2 doors down from us. Aiden is 9 months old and is Maddison's boyfriend! They are soo cute together. I really enjoy Jodie's friendship. I really need a friend in my life that I can relate to and is sooo close at hand. Jodie works part time so we have time for coffee in the morning, lunch run to the mall, and walks around the neighborhood in the evening. We are both trying SOOOO HARD to lose the baby weight. YIKES!! Summer time and I refuse to get in a bathing suit this year. Maybe next year!!

Well guys...I promise to work harder at keeping this blog updated. I will post some pics tonight of Maddie! We also had our photos done at Target. The pictures are fabulous!!!

Just some more pictures!

Well guys, I don't have much to blog about. Maddison is such a content and happy little baby. The 4 month checkup has come and gone. I will post where she is at later. I just don't have the paper in front of me. I thought I would post more pics of us. ENJOY!!!


I love moments like this! This is the best part of mommyhood!!



Here we sit waiting for the train in Birmingham, England. This was the first time I ever heard Maddison giggle and laugh properly! It was soo precious! I almost cried!


Poor Alec and Maddie were ABSOLUTELY exhausted when we got back home from England.


Maddie loves her Daddy sooo much!!

Pictures of England

Ok...Mummy has taken a VERY long time to get these pics posted. Probably because I keep her so busy. Here are just a few pictures of our trip to England. Hope you enjoy them!


Mummy, Daddy, and me on our first full day in England. Here we are after lunch at the Jepherson Gardens.


We had beautiful weather for most of the trip. Here I am patiently waiting to see the sights of Oxford.


Here are Mummy, Daddy, and me in Oxford. I just loved this city! It's absolutely beautiful.


Here I am with my Great-Nana. 4 generations: Daddy, Auntie Amy, Nana, Great Auntie Catherine, Great Auntie Allison and my Great Cousin Daniel. I had so much fun meeting my family. There were all so nice and brought me presents.


Here I am with my Great Grandma Millie. Another 4 generations picture: Auntie Amy, Daddy, and Grandpa.


It's bath time. One of my favorite times of the day! Nana and Grandpa gave me my baths while we were in England. What a nice treat!


I LOVE MY DADDY!!!


Here I am with Grandpa, Auntie Amy, and Nana at a coffee shop in Cambridge. It rained and rained!! But we still had lots of fun!

There are lots more pictures for Mummy to post. She's going to to take a break and feed me and post more later today.

Well...we've been home for almost a week and I've been told by several people that I'm way behind in my blogging and posting of pics. But first of all, there are several CONGRATS that need to be said.

Congrats to Jeremy and Nicky. They welcomed their little girl Sydney into the world a week ago today! Alec and I are soo happy for the two of you. I know that all you will hear is about how fast they grow up and boy is that true! I hope the three of you are as happy as Alec, Maddie and I are. There will be times when you wonder why you ever did this, but then you will look at Sydney and you won't remember what life was like before her. It's the absolute best thing in the whole wide world.

Happy belated Mother's Day to all! I spent my Mother's Day trying to recover from jet lag. Alec and I spent a full 24 hours awake and traveling trying to get home. It's a very long story and not one that would interest anyone. The important details are of Maddison. One the way to England (an overnight flight) Maddie slept the entire way! Except for an explosive poop diaper and a change of outfits before we could leave Chicago airport, we had a very uneventful trip. I loved it and only hoped that our trip back to the states would be as uneventful. Not our luck. It was a day flight and for the most part Maddison was an angel. We had a few little outbursts, but nothing a little walk up and down the ailse couldn't remedy. We did have another expolsive poop diaper and a quick outfit change. It must be something about the flight. LOL!!!

We had a lovely time in England. I will post pics this weekend. Maddison had so much fun with her Nana and Grandpa. Maddison slept every night for atleast 8 hours. Sometimes more. We're having trouble getting back into our routine since we got back to the States, but every night is getting better. She is starting to roll over from BOTH her back to her front and vice versa. I can't begin to explain how much I love watching her. Grandpa even taught her how to blow raspberries. This has been her morning greeting ever since. I must admit that the morning is probably the best part of the day. I get a huge grin and a raspberry to tell me good morning and how excited she is to see me. Maddie is starting to talk more and more. Ohh the stories she could tell you!

I promise there is more to come....but little bit is getting hungry and I'm off to fix her a bottle. I promise there will be pics this weekend or you can call me to remind me. LOL!! Hope everyone has a wonderful friday!

A String of Bad Luck....

Many of you know what kind of luck Alec and I have been having lately. Well...it looks like we might be seeing the sunshine soon. For the last two weeks, I have been on the phone with the Passport Agency Call Center trying to get Maddison's passport for our trip to England on Friday the 27th. We sent the application off in the beginning of February. I think she was only 10 days old when we took her picture and sent off the application. The govt deposited my check on March 8th. So where was her passport??

I decided that I needed to call and find out what was taking soo long. Our travel date was coming up and we couldn't afford to reschedule our tickets. The govt has it set up to where you can only speak to someone if you are traveling within 2 weeks. Kind of scary if you ask me. I don't like to wait for the last minute to figure out my plans at all. I called 2 or 3 times a day for two weeks. The only answers I ever got were, "Ma'am, the application is being processed. You still have plenty of time to get the passport before you leave." Finally on Wednesday the 18th, someone told me that there was a problem with her birth certificate and asked if i had received a letter in the mail. I told the woman there I had received no letter and this was the first time I had heard of there being a problem. I couldn't imagine what problem there could be. I asked to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor apologized for the agent and told me that there was no problem to hold up the application process and then suggested making an appt for the New Orleans office on Monday the 23rd just in case I had not received the passport. I took her advice and made the appt. I also got a little worried about the birth certificate and went to the Health Department with Jessica on Friday to get another copy of the birth certificate, just in case.

On Saturday, after calling and calling and calling, I was finally told that her passport had NOT been shipped out and that there WAS a problem with the birth certificate, or lack thereof. (apparently, someone had misplaced the cert.) And that we WOULD have to travel to New Orleans on Sunday for an 8am appt Monday morning. I got home that night and found a hotel online and starting packing our bags for the trip. Needless, to say Alec and I were NOT looking forward to such a long drive with a 3 month old. But Maddie surprised us as always. She was a perfect angel!!!

We got into New Orleans late Sunday night. Found out that I had booked a room with the Iberville Suites (which happens to be the Ritz)two streets from Bourbon Street. We had to use the valet service because we didn't know where to park and didn't want to tote all the STUFF around the city. We got upstairs to check in and they did NOT have our reservations. The booking number that I had wasn't in the system and I couldn't remember which website I had used to make the reservations. Could it get any worse? I had reserved a room for $125. The usual rates were $250 per night!!!What were we going to do? It was too late to go and find another room.

I called Jessica for HELP!!! She got online and looked at the website and couldn't find the info for us. Then she checked Alec's email and got the confirmation email and faxed it to the front desk. WHAT AN ANGEL!!! I don't know what I would do with her!!!

We got up yesterday morning and went down to the Passport office waited for 2 hours and then were told to come back at 1130 am to pick up her passport!! HOORAY!!! We were finally going to have her passport in our hands. We walked around the city to pass the time and see the sites. I don't think Maddison was too impressed with what she saw because she took a nap in her stroller!! We FINALLY picked up the passport and headed to the hotel to feed Maddison and got ready to leave. I really thought that things were starting to look up! WRONG!! We got the valet guy to get our car ready and loaded everything up. He asked us if we knew where we were going and we said yes, but asked if he knew a better way. WHAT A STUPID IDEA!! He told us a "short cut" that ended up taking us 1 1/2 hours out of our way and another phone to Jessica to help us get out of the mess the valet guy got us in. Finally, we got home last night at 8pm. We are all tired and exhausted, but it was all worth it! Because Friday we are getting on a plane and heading to ENGLAND!!! Sorry for such a long blog. But I had to get it off my chest and share our string of bad luck with others!!!

The Worries of a Parent

I can't complain about worrying about Maddison. She has been an angel for both Alec and I. But we are a week away from traveling to England with her and have NO PASSPORT!!! Her passport application was sent at the beginning of February and my check was deposited back in the beginning of March. So my question is....WHERE THE HECK IS THE PASSPORT!! I have been calling the 800number since last week to find out about the status and I keep getting the same answer...."Ma'm, we still have plenty of time to get the application processed and sent to you." Pretty soon, you won't have any time to do that. Yesterday and today, the call center computer system has been down. I've gotten answers that it should be up within the hour and that it has been going on and off all day!! This morning, the lady told me that I should make an appointment at the nearest agency, which happens to be New Orleans. Unfortunately, not that close to Memphis!!! Or I could postpone my trip and pay those charges. Why should I do that when it's their fault. They have had plenty of time to process this application!!!! What's a parent to do???? What are we going to do?? Do I make an appointment and drive to New Orleans? Or do we postpone the trip and pay an outrageous charge???? HELP!!!!

A much needed break...

This last week has been unbelievably stressful for both Alec and I. For those of you who didn't know, Alec took a promotion with Regions/Amsouth as Branch Manager for the Jackson, TN downtown branch. Which means Alec commutes to Jackson EVERY DAY!! He absolutely loves his branch and is super excited about what the future holds, but at the same time he leaves an hour earlier for work and gets hour an hour later. It's not a very big deal for Maddie and me. We are pretty much sticking to our regular schedule, but I worry about him driving. Thursday I found out that Alec had been talking to my dad. I knew that my dad and Janet wanted to babysit Maddie for an evening, but as far as I knew Alec had plans for Thursday evening. Maddie and I were settling in for an evening of just the girls. Alec called and said his plans had been rescheduled and asked what was for dinner. Of course, I told him that I hadn't planned on him being home. (which meant nothing was planned for dinner!!) He said not to worry and that we would figure something easy out when he got home.

Alec had been home for about 30 minutes when the front doorbell rang and who should it be....my dad and Janet. What a surprise!!! They were here to look after Maddie while Alec and I had some alone time outside of the house. I was excited and nervous and sad and everything in between. What made it even harder was, hearing Maddie screaming as we walked out of our front door. Alec and I decided to stay close to the house and ended up at Wolfchase. We were walking into the mall when Alec's phone rang. It was my dad telling us that Maddie was in her swing happy and asleep. Whew! What a relief!!! We did a little bit of shopping. Nothing major. We had a nice adult dinner at J. Alexander's. I can't remember the last time it was just the two of us at dinner. We got to eat our food fresh and no one had to eat in shifts.

We arrived home a new and relaxed couple. It was about 9:30 and Maddie was being fed. Maddie apparently had been up for a little while and had been entertaining Dad and Janet with her coo's and smiles!!! (She likes a lot of attention!!!) Dad and Janet left soon after we got home. Before I knew it, Maddie had fallen asleep. I took her up to her room and raced to the bed. I try to get to bed as soon as she goes down in order to maximize my sleep. I thought that she would be up aorund 1:30 or 2am, but she surprised me!! She didn't wake up until 4am! I didn't know what to do with myself. 6 hours of consistent sleep. Last night she did the same thing. Down about 10 pm and slept until 5 am!! I even woke up and went into her room to make sure she was still breathing. And she was!

At the moment Alec is laying on the floor teaching Maddie 3 different laungages....French, Spanish, and German. We decided to start a little earlier with the languages. We are so fortunate to have such a wonderful daughter. I couldn't ask for anything more. I am so blessed to have such a loving husband and a beautiful little girl who smiles when I pick her up from her crib and falls asleep in my arms. There's absolutely nothing more that I want. (except for my mom to be here in person to experience this with me. But I have my sister, and that's close enough for me!)