Baby Madison turns ONE!!!

My precious baby girl Madison turned ONE on the 11th of May. I threw her a birthday bash the weekend before. We had balloons, a cake, party favors, gifts, and lots of wonderful family to celebrate with.

Blair and I got Madison an Alphabet train by VTECH. She has sure enjoyed the blocks to play with. You insert them into the train and they spit out the back into the caboose. It's pretty cute and she likes the sounds and colors of it.

I love this picture of Madison. She just seems so sweet and cute in this picture.

As always Madison had so many helpers opening presents for her and helping her play with her new toys. These are just a few random pictures of opening gifts. She got some new clothes, toys, dolls, a bracelet, and a book.

I really wanted a picture of Madison with Blair and I. It just seems like I never have enough pictures with both Blair and I with the kids.

Theres this wonderful website called cafepress that you can order pretty much anything off of. So for all my kids 1st birthday I like to get them some cute shirt or onesie to wear for their party. This is the one I found that I ordered for Madison.

I loved Madison's cake. It was pink and girly and it really showed that it was her 1st birthday. It was so hard to find a decent cake. Most cake places just have character cakes or winnie the pooh for little kids. So I was excited when I ran across this one. Here is Madison about to dive into her cake. I would like to say that this is her first taste of sugar but I really let my guard down with this kid. I usually try to be really good and not let my kids have any sweets before the age of one but when we were in Hawaii and she's begging to have a lick of my ice cream I couldn't resist such a cute open mouth and wide eyes. Plus with a Grandmother who's a pepsi-holic she's bound to get a drop or two!

Madison has always had these big blue eyes. I just love em!

Looking pretty messy!

Well she devoured her cake and loved every bit of it. Now it's time to get cleaned up but who wants to pick up that! Oh ok I will!Even though this little girl was a bit of a surprise I am so glad she decided to come when she did. I absolutely adore this little girl and she just melts my heart. Statton and Cassidy just love her and I'm so glad they are all close enough in age to really enjoy playing together. Madison just gets a kick out of her siblings.

Madison Doings:

-blows raspberrys

-Pulls herself up with things

-Gives open mouth kisses (mostly slobers on you)

-Loves to try and mimick things

-Loves her ducky

-Daddy calls her "super-pooper"

-Smiles so big

-Cheeser for the camera

-Loves to take baths

Hawaii 2011...

So I got the amazing opportunity to visit Hawaii in February. My sister Sarah and her husband just moved over to Oahu in November and Sarah had her first baby in December. So my mom, grandma, me and Madison, my aunt and two cousins all decided that we must make a trip to see this new baby. Oh and Hawaii of course! So this cute picture is of my grandmother holding Madison, mom, my sister Sarah and her new little baby Kailyn.

This is my sister with her husband Stephen and their new baby kailyn. What a cute little family!

My mother and I sat next to a guy on the plane ride over to Hawaii who told us about this great place to eat called Dukes. He flies over to Hawaii a few times a year and actually owns a home there. He said all the locals go there and that we should eat there if we have the chance. So one night we got the notion for a night out and we went to Dukes. What a fun place. It's right off Waikiki beach and we got a nice table overlooking a pool and you could see the beach and hear the waves. We definetly would like to eat there again.

While walking down Waikiki Beach we passed this store and couldn't help to pause and take a photo opt moment. They had the funniest t-shirt sayings in the window and we all got a kick out of reading them.

Just a few shots of me boogie boarding at Waimea bay. Shortly after getting done boogie boarding the lifeguards came over the loud speaker and asked everyone to evacuate the bay because they had spotted a shark in the bay and it was acting aggressively. Talk about my worst nightmare come true. So the lifeguards went along the beach and posted shark sighting signs to warn people to stay out of the water. So of course couldn't help but stop and take a picture by the shark sighting sign. This was my cousin Kristi having her picture taken. Can you tell were tourists?!

Oh and these are just some fun pictures of my super cute baby loving the sand. She ate it, licked it, played in it. She absolutely loved it. I would set her on a blanket and she would just tug at it until she could get to the sand. Let's just say she got a bath every night and there would be sand coming out of every crack and crevice. Oh but she was so cute to watch at the beach. She turned exactly 9 months while we were in Hawaii.

Well my cousin Kristi and I being the adventerous ones of the group decided that parasailing on the ocean was a must do in Hawaii. So we called and place and us and 6 other strangers were off in a jet boat together. Ah good times! You had to pay extra for the guys to take pictures of you parasailing so we thought we would look at them first to see if they were worth buying. Well we didn't realize till after we were done you had to commit to them first before they would take pictures so you didn't know what you were getting. Oh well we will always have the memory of the experience. It was fun, right before they would pull you in they would slow the boat down so you would float towards the ocean and then right before they dipped you in they would start the boat and pull you back up. It was fun and worth it.

I read online that you can't go to the Dole Pineapple Plantation and not get one of their famous dole whips! So that's what we did. We went and all got a dole whip ice cream. Even baby Madison got to enjoy some of mine.

We went and hiked the famous Diamond Head. It's over a mile hike to the top with over 278 stairs. We all got our workouts for the day. But the hike was well worth the view from the top.

The day after Diamond Head we got the notion to do the Monoa Falls hike. This is the same area where they filmed the show "Lost" and "Jurassic Park III" They also have ongoing Wild Pig hunts in the area. If any of you have watched the discovery channel you know how mean those things are. Luckily no wild pig sightings for us.

Wow! Pearl Harbor! What an amazing and humbling experience to visit such a historic sight.

This is us aboard the USS Arizona Memorial. Like they say you can still see oil in the water that still leaks from the ship.

Friday we were heading to the Polynesian Center and decided to go visit the Hawaii Temple early that morning. What a beautiful Temple and they have the prettiest Temple grounds.

My sister Sarah, my mom Pam, and me

These pictures are a little out of order but the Sunday when we first got there we went to church. They gave us lei's at church in Relief Society and Sarah had bought us lei's when we first got there. So we wore them to church. It was fun to go to church in Hawaii and say "Aloha" during Sacrament after every speaker would greet us. The picture above is Stephen, Sarah, Pam (mom), Madison and I, and Grandma Merz.

This is my cousin Kristi, Aunt Diana, cousin Analee, and Grandma Merz.

These are just a few pictures of the Polynesian Center.

What a cute happy baby I have. She liked to eat the lei's.

I just had to take a picture of the huge smoothie drinks we ordered at the luau. They served them in a cut out pineapple. They were super delicious!

They taught us how to make fish out of palm leaves. So just a cute picture of mom and grandma with their fishes.

Just a picture of all of us at the luau.

Before we left some of us decided to get some of their spray on tattoos. While I was getting mine the girls doing them asked if they could give Madison one. They said they would do it for free. Well who could pass that up. So even Madison got her own spray on tattoo.

Well we had such a fun time in Hawaii and getting to hang out with my sister and her new little baby. It was even good to get to know her husband a little better. Since they've been married they haven't lived close by and Stephen doesn't get a lot of time off being in the army. So I've only actually met him twice. So this was a really good opportunity to get to know him better. Thanks to my ever wonderful generous mother who bought my Hawaii ticket and to my wonderful husband who stayed home and watched the twins while I went and played.