Madeleine's first trip to Utah

OK! So here are the pics from Utah! Many of you may think that I went a little overboard, but we saw so many of you that I just had to include these pictures. Besides, there are some great kid pics and some fabulous pics of Kevin and Kate (It must be a youngest and oldest thing!). I hope you enjoy them and get a big smile. I think they're fabulous!

(Labeling for Mahina!!) The Tinling family our good friends from CA. They moved to Provo for school and their daughter Morgan is one of Charley's good friends.

Random pics of the gang. Johnny really knows how to dress a salad!

Kevin and Madie chillin'. I love how Emily looks like, "Are you talking Regis?" One of the great pics of Kevin and Katie!!

Another great picture of Katie (getting ready for a baby of her own!) Steven is still my servant boy. (I have a little crush on him - he's just so dang cute!!) I'm not sure how he and Emily ended up in the same picture though. Rod smiling in all of his "I'm going to Disneyland" glory!

Johnny and Lo. Julie and Rod. Katie and Ben. Cute couples aren't they? Doesn't Johnny look handsome since he lost all of the weight? You're quite the looker too Lo. I can't let J.J. take all the praise!

Sarah shows the kids how to use Toria's new toy. Sydney, Lizzie, Charley and A.J. had a lot of fun with it. Where is the birthday girl though? Wasn't it her present?

Hot tubin' at Grandma's. The boys took the kids out into the cold snow. Ameri had arrived to take us home by then so Charley was elated that someone would actually take her out there. I'd just had a baby. Jelly doesn't look good in a bathing suit. I don't care if it is family! Besides, Johnny made me feel uncomfortable about how large my chest was. J/K - you couldn't miss them though!

The girls eating. We Hollingsheads do feeding and eating really well don't we? Kevin, Regis, Rod, Ameri and Ben. Olga and baby Madeleine.

Isn't Carmen so grown up??? I can't stand it. She's a teenager now!

Charley and Morgan dancing. The kids eating. I swear Toria always has the BEST faces!

Kristi and Emily. Another great one of Kevin and Katie. Papa looks over his girls.

Grandma lovin' and a bath for Lizzie, Toria and Charley. Oh how she loved having them around. I think I owe them thanks for encouraging her to use the potty. It surely made it a lot easier to have a reference!

My beautiul girls!

Just words, words, words!

Whew! We're already approaching the end of April and I can't believe time has flown by so quickly. Wait - yes I can. Our little family has gone through a lot lately. Someone at church asked me what we'd been up to lately. I told her and she said, "Wow. You guys are up there on the stress index!"

I'm not sure what the "stress index" is, but I'm sure we're up there. For those of you who haven't heard yet, Ameri FINALLY graduated and started his new job. It was pretty rough for a while with the new baby, Charley needing attention and Ameri working so hard to finish his dissertation. He did finish it and he did an incredible job. I wish I knew we were allowed to take pictures during it because I would post them up here to let you see how professional he looked.

We managed to get through those days, weeks and months. The girls and I went to Utah for a visit to my parent's house so that I could have some help while Ameri wrote. (I'll post those pics someday!) We had a great time up there on very little sleep. Madie was a little devil . . . she still has a hard time sleeping in her crib at night. She's not a devil anymore though! :)

Ameri defended and the next week (his week "off") we moved! We weren't planning on moving so quickly, but we found a decent condo with a washer/dryer and affordable rent. The landlady was going to let another lady have it if we didn't move in right away. We ended up paying rent in both places for 2 weeks. Blah! The move was horrid because we moved across the street and didn't pack anything. I wanted to paint the place before we moved in so when Ameri came home from work I rushed over to paint while he watched the girls. It was a piece-meal affair and took about 1 week for us to move everything in. We're still working on putting up paintings, etc.

In the middle of all of that, Charley got potty-trained and we fought our insurance company (that's a LONG story). Our marriage survived and we're looking forward to a semi-normal life by the Fall. I say that because Ameri still has a few articles to publish with his professor before he is truly "finished" with Caltech. His actual graduation is on June 13th, 2008.

The girls and I are going to Utah for 10 days in May and Tennessee for 10 days in June to help the progress of the article writing. We're looking forward to both trips, but we'll miss Daddy. He has to stay and work. We can't wait for our family vacation in October to Mexico though. Hopefully by then Caltech will be a thing of the past and we will be officially graduated!!!

I'm planning on starting work again in July. Just 10 hours a week. I may have to say no to some of my long-time clients. It will be a hard thing to do, but it's the only way I can still work some and have sanity at home. No more clients in the evening or on the weekends. We'll see how it all works out . . .

Blah, blah, blah. There's our life in a nutshell. It's a good thing we have Faith in God! Without Him and without our family and friends we'd be broken little pieces. Thanks to all for your love and support through our flux!

Pictures just for fun

Madie and "Papa" Allen

The proud Daddy

Bright-eyed girl

Sleeping Beauty

Charley has a thing with everything being lined up. Should I be worried? :)

Smurfette with a frown

Meeting Great-Grandma 'Nece

Aztec warrior princess

Relaxing at Grandma 'Nece's house

Sisters! Sisters! Never were there such devoted sisters . . .

Well, maybe not "devoted" just yet! Charley ignored Madie for the first few days of her life but has slowly warmed to the thought of having a little sister. She even asks where baby Madeleine is and plugs her ears when she is crying. I guess one can only ignore a crying baby for so long!

Welcome to Madeleine Juliette!!

After almost two weeks of having Madeleine in our lives I'm getting around to officially welcoming her on our blog! Madeleine was born on Saturday, December 29th at 3:50pm. She weighed 7lbs. 3oz. and was 20.5 inches long. Labor was fairly short in terms of time, but not so much in terms of "labor"! My recovery was fast though and we only spent 1 night in the hospital. We're all pretty tired but happily so!

Charley & Keira

Charley's friend Keira was in town for the Christmas holiday and the two girls had a great time re-connecting! They even went so far as to try and re-connect belly-buttons! We sure miss you Keira!

Merry Christmas 2007!

I only got a few pics of Christmas morning this year because it was just the three of us and we were pretty low-key. Here are a few pictures of what Santa brought for Charley. Note that Charley is still more interested in "Monkey" & "Silky" than she is in her new toys!!

Charley and Ameri played reindeer this year too. Thanks to Megan for providing the antlers!

Aren't cousins great?

Charley had a visit from her cousins Emily and Josh just before Christmas. They had a great time together. We especially liked the 'do that Emily was sporting that night!!

Charley poses for the camera

Charley doesn't really understand smiling for the camera! If you tell her to smile for the camera she says, "Smile". Which usually means we get a picture with her mouth open. If you tell her to say "cheese" we get a squinty eyed Charley with a large, toothy grin. Finally, if you tell her to be normal and say, "Eeee", she makes up her own face and you're never sure what you're going to get. She kind of reminds me of my brother Steve that way! Professional pictures are kind of a joke.
Here are a few of Charley's choice poses in the past couple of weeks:

Charley and her good buddy Christopher at the ward Christmas party. He's only 4 by-the-way . . .

A true Charley outfit! She has her PJ top on, her velvet pants, mommy's "Elmo socks" (as she likes to call them), and my slippers. This smile is almost normal!

Charley found a basket and decided it looked better on her head. It's all very festive isn't it? I think the fact that she's on the potty adds a little more depth to the shot - don't you?