She's walking!

So, Mary started taking her first steps and it was so exciting and cute! Now she is walking all around the house! We have counted up to 80 steps without falling or holding onto any furniture!!! It is still surprising to look down and see her walking. We have to do a double take. Murray just installed locks on the cabinets in the kitchen because Mary can empty them out in no time. I don't think I could do it faster than she can if I wanted to.



We made a gingerbread house together and we think it turned out pretty cute and it was fun to put together. We really want to let Mary take it apart because she just loves picking up little things and those candies are perfect size but we know she would put them in her mouth so we will have to wait for next year.

Mary loves "Elmo's World" a show on PBS. She will stop playing and sit and watch it just like a big person watches TV. the cute thing is she will laugh at Elmo and it is so funny! I love Elmo's world because of all things I can accomplish in the 10 minutes it is on!

We took Mary to see Santa Clause and she did not like it. Mary is really so friendly and likes almost everyone so I thought we would get a cute smile of her on Santas lap. That was not the case! We just love the picture though!

Murray has been studying for finals this week. He is excited for the semester to end! He has done well this semester so we are all proud of him!

I have been helping on the Christmas party committee at Church. I am sewing 120 bags and Murray even helped! I really thought it was great so I took a picture! Kevin and Gail got me an amazing sewing machine for my birthday! I love it so much!

We went to a Christmas parade in town! There were so many people there. I didn't know that many people even lived in Southaven! Mary learned to wave and say "hi" at the parade! People on the floats tossed out candy so we collected a cup full. Just like Mary's Halloween candy, Murray and I end up eating all of it.

Video of Mary - 9 Months Old

Halloween Fun!

So Mary has been fascinated with the little rocks in our fireplace. We ordered fireplace screen doors but they are taking forever to arrive! We discovered that Mary is afraid of a large black spider I got for a Halloween decoration. We had the idea of placing it infront of the fireplace and it worked! Mary would start crawling over there, notice the spider and turn around! A day later or so I heard her in the fireplace. I ran over to find she had pushed her walker into the spider to get it out of her way and proceeded to the fireplace! Too funny!
Mary was a mermaid for Halloween and was very cute, of course. We went to the trunk or treat at the Church. I decorated the trunk with blue streamers and a net with starfish to compliment Mary's costume. Murray let Mary shake a box of nerds and a second later she managed to get it open and poured a few into her mouth. So she had her first little bit of candy on her first Halloween. Granted she isn't even supposed to have citrus yet but oh well.
Murray got his first pair of glasses! He is now even more qualified to be an optometrist! We all think they look great on him!
I helped at a primary activity and the children each made a little "title of liberty", which basically is a flag saying something that they would stand up for (like family or freedom). I put them all together and hung it the primary room. We thought it looked pretty cool.

the pumpkin patch and a tornado warning

Sorry we haven't posted for the past few weeks! We went to the pumpking patch this week and picked out a pumpkin. Mary really enjoyed crawling around and checking them out. Mary has become a pretty skilled crawler. She can get around the house and from room to room in no time. In fact she showed us how she can climb our stairs, so now we have our first baby gate! The other night when she was in the bath tub she said "mom". Murray and I thought that was pretty neat even if she may not know what she said. Mary is now getting more food in her tummy than on her face and clothes, which makes me so very happy! It really is an answer to prayer because she would always gag and grimace at food and now she seems to like it enough to eat three meals a day, hooray! We have been signing and saying "all done" when she is finished at the high chair and I am pretty sure she repeated me the other day, I might be imagining things though.
Murray had his white coat ceremony at school. He was given his white coat, looks like a doctor and even wears it to labs at school. It was special and fun. We went to dinner with other friends who also got their white coats to celebrate.
We also had our first mouse living in our garage. Murray set traps and we must have had a very smart mouse because it managed to eat cheese and peanut butter without getting caught. Unfortunatley (for the mouse) it wasn't quite skilled enough to get the cherry that we left there. Not more than a week later we have another mouse!
We had a tornado warning this week. It never did make it our way, thank goodness! We did have a horrible storm though.
That is all of the exciting news for now.

concert, birthday and more painting

Last week we celebrated Murray's birthday on Sunday. We had several couples over for dinner and it was so much fun celebrating with them. I made Gail's sweet and sour chicken per Murray's request and hot fudge Sundaes. It was a good time.
We went to a Jim Brickman concert with some friends and that was so much fun. He was very funny and his music was beautiful to hear live. We left Mary with friends who tended her. We are thankful for Paij and Brent, Mary really likes them. It is so amazing to spend a few hours with Murray alone, dating is wonderful!
Saturday we painted our dining room/kitchen yellow. It is a little brighter than we imagined but that's okay. It is just a very cheery place to be. Murray says maybe it will fade with time.
Mary loves to go over to the bottom shelf where all of her books are and pull them all off. It is funny to find her surrounded by books! I wonder if she will have a love of reading. We do go to the library every wednesday for story time.
Mary loves her bath time, it always cheers her up. I usually give her a bath after dinner because she is a bit of a messy eater as you will find in her pictures. I think more gets on her than in her!

Mary's Trick #5: Video of Mary Crawling!

Mary will be 8 months old tomorrow and has really become a great crawler this last week. It was only about a week and a half ago that she took her first few crawls and now she can get around most anywhere. It is really cute and Mary is happy that she is more mobile. She can also sit herself up from laying down. Also she is starting to lift herself up to a standing position, but she needs some more practice on that. We are very proud of Mary and hope you enjoy this video of her.

crawling and painting

This week Mary took two little crawls, it is pretty cute. Now she is crawling to get to things and can go forwards. Which is really great because she could only go backwards until now. You can tell she is proud of herself and we are too. We went to Homecoming for Murray's school. It was a casual BBQ with a lot of fun games. We went in a blow up ring (like the bounce houses) and jousted. Mary had a flower made out of balloons for all of five mintues before we had to take it away for fear she would eat the pieces when they popped. They did pop and she did want to eat them. It made us too nervous so we were happy when we got to throw it away.

Murray built a small fence to go around the air conditioning unit outside with leftovers from building our fence. It looks great!

I finished painting our bathroom on Saturday and we now have one room that isn't white! It is green. I learned from my mistakes in the little bathroom and am deciding which room to paint next :)

Fun Days

It has been a fun few weeks in Southaven, our new home! We have made some great new friends and done some fun things.
If you are familiar with the song "Walking in Memphis" you can hear Beale street mentioned. We went and walked down Beale street and it was pretty cool. We saw a man playing the harmonica and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. There are so many restaurants and lots of music. We also went to the Peabody Hotel ant took a picture with the famous ducks by their fountain. The ducks are famous for a little routine they do.
There was a BBQ for all of the LDS students at SCO. There were so many families there and about 25 two year olds and other cute babies. SCO has more students from BYU than any other college. We even ran into Mallory who was Shawnas roomate from BYU, small world! Mary loved seeing all of the children run around and made new friends :)
Mary has two little teeth on the bottom and they make her smile all the more adorable. Her favorite new trick is to hold toys in her mouth with no hands. She should be crawling any day and we are excited for that even if it means we're crazy. Since that day is coming soon we spent the weekend looking for something to cover our fireplace.
We went bowling for a friends birthday, we were a little hesitant because it was late and we are trying to get Mary to bed around 7:30. We went and had a great time anyway. When we came home Mary fell asleep BY HER SELF in the crib, a miracle! We might be spending a few evenings a week in the bowling alley, if that's what it takes for her to fall asleep in her crib.

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We Made It!

We are now Mississippi residents and even have license plates and driver's licenses to prove it. We are all moved into our house and have unopened and half-opened boxes everywhere, but we love it. We are just happy to be in our house after a stressful series of events kept us out of it for an extra week. We are getting used to the area and making friends as fast as we can. People here are so friendly. Murray even found a few school/church friends that helped him build a 200 foot long fence last week in our backyard. It was very hard and the 100 degree weather didn't help, but we got it done. We've also been borrowing things from, getting medical advice from and getting to know our neighbors. It's a very nice neighborhood. Margaret is making friends and finding playmates for Mary. We are also getting to know our way around Memphis. We had a picnic at a park on the Mississippi River, walked down Beale Street and through the Peabody Hotel and have been eating a lot of good barbeque. Murray had orientation for school and will start classes in two days. Mary is growing fast and loves to hold our fingers and stand up. She is also getting close to crawling and can actually sit and play with toys for extended periods of time, which we love. Everywhere we go, people stop and look at Mary and talk to her, saying she is so cute.

We are happy to be here and invite you come visit us if you are ever in the area.

Mary is half of a year old!

Mary has been eating solid foods lately, although I think they should be called mushy foods instead of solid foods. She eats rice cereal and some fruits and vegetables. She makes funny faces that make us think she doesn't like it, but at the same time I think she likes it. The peas smell terrible, although I tasted a bit and they aren't as bad as they smell.

I guess babies should sit up on their own at about 6 months of age, and apparently Mary knows that and didn't want to be too early or too late. Right on her six month birthday, she sat up by herself for the first time. It was pretty amazing to us because she always just fell forward whenever we tried to sit her up before that. It actually was really nice to see that she is developing well considering she had a rough beginning and could have been delayed.

She smiles a lot more now than ever before and is a joy to be around almost all the time. She does have a personality and is never shy about sharing with us how she really feels - I think she gets that from her mom.

Anyway, we just love our little princess and hope you enjoy the pictures we've been posting on the Photo Gallery portion of the website.

Summer Update

We are now in California, living with Murray's grandma in her home in Los Alamitos. It is really nice to be here and spend time with her. She has been a big help with little Mary. Murray found a temporary job as an accountant at Makita U.S.A. (the power tool company). He likes it and is glad to have found such a good job just for the summer time. Margaret stays home with Mary and enjoys making fresh orange juice and lemonade from Grandma's fruit trees. Margaret also gets to spend time with her family and they enjoy seeing her and Mary. Mary is growing fast. She is already 5 1/2 months old and about 17 pounds. She loves to have so many grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends around here that love her and play with her. She is fun to be around especially when she laughs and smiles. We are getting ready for another move soon to the Memphis area - it looks like we will be heading out there in early or mid-August. Our house is just about finished and from the pictures we've seen is looking good. Murray is excited to start optometry school and hopes it won't be too hard.

Hope you are enjoying the pictures we post. We'll try to post another video of Mary soon since everyone seems to love those.

Mary Laughs - Trick #4 at 4 Months Old

Mary is 4 months old now and doing great! She has been a big help in getting ready for our big move (We are moving to California in a few days and then will move to Mississippi in a few months). Mary has learned to hold her head up really well and smiles a lot.

Just yesterday, at Brian and Aubrey's home, Mary started to laugh a lot when Murray tossed a stuffed toy car around. We did it over and over again and Mary just thought it was so funny - in fact, she laughed until she was out of breath. Luckily, Brian caught this on video so we can share Mary's laughs with you.

Video of Trick #3 (3.5 Months)

Here's a video of Mary doing another trick. She is such a good tricking girl!

Mary's Trick #2 at 3 Months Old

This is a video of Mary talking about her life, growling like a dinosaur, trying to eat a toy giraffe, sticking her tongue out, and just being herself. We are proud of our little Miss Mary.

College Graduate!

I, Murray, have finally graduated from college! Last week, I graduated from BYU with a bachelor's degree in Accounting. It's been almost seven years since I started college, so this was quite a long process. I am looking forward to having the summer off, so I can relax a little before I start another four years of school at the Southern College of Optometry.

Murray, Margaret and Mary are moving to Mississippi!

Fun news! We just bought our first home in Southaven Mississippi:) We are expecting to move August 27th. It takes Murray 20-25 minutes to get to school in Memphis. There are several couples going to Southern College of Optometry who have homes in neighborhoods around us. We are very excited!

Mary is growing and learning new things all the time. She is saying "nuh" and "un" particularly when she is feeling frustrated. We have heard gurgling sounds when she is happy and she is even blowing bubbles. We just love her so much!

Here is a cute picture of Mary's first eye exam at Daddy's new school.

Mary's Trick #1 Video

Video of Mary - 2 months old

Video of Mary - Our Little Girl

Mary spent her first eight days of life in the newborn intensive care unit due to meconium asperation. She was on a ventilator to help her breathe and had lots of needles and tubes giving her medicine and food. She came home from the hospital with a portable oxygen unit and a sleep apnea monitor. She was able to come off the oxygen after a couple months and had a full recovery from her early struggles.

I made a video of some pictures of her experiences so we can always remember how blessed we are to have the healthy Mary we have now.

Our First Post

Welcome to our web log! This is where you can find out about what's going on with our family. Thanks for visiting.