We're ready!

Only 4 days left until Christmas! I hope Maggie is looking forward to it as much as mommy and daddy are! We have so many presents for Maggie, but we can't put them out because she just wants to rip them open. We decided to do our own photo shoot again this year since they turned out so well last year. Here are some of our favorites:

Getting closer

Aunt Dani brought Blake and Emma over for a visit at the beginning of December. The cousins really have a lot of fun playing together. We were trying to get a picture of all four of them together, but they were already in their pajamas and they did not want to sit still!

Almost Christmas!

Wow! I am so far behind! I was hoping to update the blog once a week, but I've been slacking. I just had gall bladder surgery and have been babysitting Maggie's little friend Ella, so I sort of have an excuse. Here's what Maggie has been up to in the last month and a half.

At the beginning of November, Maggie went to visit her new cousin Ryland. She was having more fun playing with her cousin Piper while mommy and Aunt Tonia held Ryland. Here are some pics

After we left our visit with Ryland and Piper, we went to see Maggie's cousins Blake and Emma. They had fun playing with all of Blake's new birthday presents.

The next week was so nice, so Maggie went with me and her daddy to the Morton Arboretum. We walked around and looked at all of the scenery. Maggie liked walking through the children's play area and touching everything! We drove around afterward so we could see the beautiful trees, but I think we were about a week too late!

Halloween!

We did a lot for Halloween. On Saturday, we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa Steinmetz in the morning. In the afternoon, we watched the Halloween Parade on Archer. Maggie and Ethan were excited at first, but it took so long for the parade to actually reach us that Maggie was very disinterested by the time we saw it. We did get a few pieces of candy, but not much.


In the evening, we went to our friend's house for a Halloween party. On Halloween, Maggie just wore her costume around the house and Grandma Steinmetz came over for dinner. We'll go trick or treating next year, when Maggie can finally appreciate it!!

Pumpkin patch party

Chris's cousin, Katie, has a pumpkin patch in her back yard. Every year, she throws a pumpkin patch party and finally Maggie was able to attend! She and Ethan wore their Halloween costumes (she was a ladybug and he was a mad scientist). They went to the pumpkin patch, picked out a pumpkin, and decorated it. Actually, Tonia and I decorated them, but they loved playing with the stickers! Then we watched as the other kids hit and opened a pinata. Maggie and Ethan even got in a couple of swings! Here they are in their costumes:

Photo shoot

One of my old students takes great pictures, so we met up with her at Graue Mill in Oak Brook to get some pictures taken of Maggie. Our unofficial 3rd photo shoot. We still haven't had any professional pictures taken of Maggie, but we have some great pictures! Here are some of the best pictures Chris took, and hopefully I will be able to post some of the "professional" pictures in the next week or so.

counting

Maggie knows how to count to 3 now! She actually points to things and counts! I'm so proud of her.

She loves naming colors. She has all of her colors down now too. We were driving to Target today and all she wanted to do was point all colors on the way there, in the store, and on the way back!

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Another car ride

Today, we are heading down to Grandma & Grandpa Miller's house for a cookout. I hope Maggie sleeps on the way down. She has been waking up before 7 lately, so she should be tired by the time we are driving.

The other day, I put "Maggie is weird" as my facebook status. Everyone wondered why is she weird, well here is a video that is a perfect example! (It shows that Ethan is weird too ;)



The other night Maggie was being very cute!! She kept picking up toys that belong to Ethan and saying "Ethan's" and then "share". I was very proud of her for telling me that they share toys. Now, if only they never fought over toys!! Hahaha

Blake's 2nd b-day party

We went to Maggie's cousin Blake's 2nd birthday party on Sunday. Maggie refused to sleep on the drive down to Normal, so by the time the party started, she was exhausted! Her daddy took a nap with her, so unfortunately, she missed everything!! After Maggie woke up, we took some cute pics though.
Maggie loves eating "kit-cakes". She's only had 4 her whole life, but she knew what they were where called after the first time she saw them. Aunt Tonee was eating one about a month ago, Maggie looked at it and said "cake"!


Maggie loves her "papa" Miller from a distance. She likes to look at pictures of him and she knows who he is as soon as she sees him, but she still won't go to him. When he got to the party, he tried talking to her, but everything he said or did, her response was "NO!"


It was pretty cold out once the sun went down, so here are the 3 older cousins in cute stocking hats! We couldn't get them to look at the camera though!

Maggie is the cutest!

Maggie is saying more and more words, but they aren't always that clear. For example, when she says sandwich, it sounds like sa-wah. Shower sounds like sha-wah. Sailboat sounds like see-bah. She finally started saying Dani for her Aunt Danielle! She said 2 phrases so far, "aunt home" and "hi daddy".

Maggie is learning her colors. She can point out red, green, pink, orange, blue, and yellow. Sometimes she will say the wrong color, but she gets most of the right! She starts to sing the ABCs by saying "A B C D" then a bunch of other letters and sounds. Maggie is starting to sing other songs too. She say "name-o" for BINGO, "up-a-bup" for Twinkle, Twinkle Little Stars, and "see-bah" for a song we sang at gymnastics.

I can't believe she's getting so big and SO smart!!

New tricks

Every day Maggie is able to do more and more!

She loves to color, although she would rather look at the crayons than actually color with them. We are trying to teach her colors. She wants to call everything blue or orange. I thought for sure she knew orange because she kept pointing it out on everything. We'll get there soon!

She stopped asking to use the potty, but now she says diaper when she has just pooped, so it's a start back in the right direction.

We took Maggie and her cousin Ethan to visit Daddy at the firehouse. The both wanted to either "drive" the firetruck or walk around and touch everything. The vehicles are a little intimidating!


We were supposed to get pictures taken outside, but it was raining all morning! So, we took a great picture ourselves! Then we went to lunch with Aunt Emily and Uncle Tyler at Portillo's before heading over to our friend Maggie's 3rd birthday party. Maggie loved riding the car there!

Park

On Saturday, Chris took pictures of John & Missy at the park, so Maggie and I joined him to spend some time outside. It was a beautiful day! We walked around the park, looked at the ducks, sat in the grass, and played on the swings. Maggie was so tired that she fell asleep within about 5 minutes after we left the park.

Stack

Maggie is now learning how to stack things. She stacks books, blocks, cups, pretty much anything that she can! Here is a video of her trying out her new skill.

Crazy Hair!!!

Maggie has very crazy hair, so I just wanted to share some of the best pictures!

Lake Geneva

We took Maggie to Lake Geneva in Wisconsin at the beginning of August for the 6th annual "Murphy Family Reunion". We kept very busy!

Sunday night was the pizza party and bowling tournament, which Maggie was still a little too young to participate in. On Monday, most of the men participated in the golf outing, so Maggie and Mommy hung out in the room, then went swimming in the kiddie pool until Daddy returned.

On Tuesday, most of the women enjoyed several hours at the spa. Maggie did the same thing as yesterday. We were very proud that she peed in the potty for the third day in a row! (Although she hasn't been very consistent in the last couple days).

Tuesday evening, we had the annual rewards dinner at the Supper Club. We received awards for the golf and bowling days.

We were free to do what we wanted on Wednesday, so we went to the pool and had dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Steinmetz and Emily!

She's a talking fool!

Maggie is saying new words every day. She pretty much says anything we say.

New signs: uncle, monkey (with sounds), frog, no-no, bubbles, cat, hat, Grandpa, dad, light, fan, duck

New words: uncle, aunt, Ethan now sounds like ET, book actually sounds like book now, cat, elephant (eh-puh), avocado (a-ca), "I know", applesauce (appa), flower (wa-wa), juice, pacifier (ba), Emma, Ella, Blake, papa, bird, quack-quack (ca-ca), elbow, tickle-tickle, balloon (boon), teeth (when she wants to brush her teeth), blanket, watch, wow and more!!!

More Gymnastics

Maggie is still in gymnastics! She is getting more active, which is great. We registered her for the second session with Ethan and Ella. This picture was too cute not to post!

Arizona!

We took a vacation to Arizona mid-July. Our flight there left Chicago at 7 am, so we were up very early! Maggie did well on the flight there. The first half of the flight, we had an open seat, so Maggie was able to play there. We had a stop in Omaha and the next flight was full. Maggie slept for at least an hour for the second half of the flight, which was great! When we arrived in Phoenix, we went to eat lunch with Elizabeth, came home and took a nap, and then played in a little blow-up pool in the backyard.

The next day, we woke up early and drove to the Grand Canyon. We stopped on the way in Sedona to eat lunch and shop. We ate dinner at the Grand Canyon and watched the sun set. It was a beautiful sight and we can't wait to take Maggie back when she will remember being there.

Visit to Wisconsin

The week of July 4th, Maggie and Mommy traveled to Wisconsin to see Grandma & Grandpa Miller's summer getaway. We stayed in Aunt Elaine's cabin with Maggie's Aunt Jessi and cousin Piper.

It was a long drive, especially because the road we were supposed to take according to the GPS was GONE!!! During the drive up, Maggie slept for about 30 minutes out of the total of 4 hours. She also read, played with her toys, snacked, and screamed!!! She kept saying "Emma" and "Bake" (for Blake) because I think she was expecting to see them since it was such a far drive. She even woke up in the morning saying their names.

We took a 2 hour long boat ride along the lake and Mommy got a little burned. Maggie helped Grandpa drive the boat, but wasn't really interested in the scenery. About an hour before we left, Maggie let Grandpa carry her around! Mommy was very excited to see this since Maggie is usually afraid of him.

Murphy 4th of July

We went to Grandma & Grandpa Steinmetz's house for the 5th of July to celebrate with the Murphy family. Maggie had a good time swimming, rocking on the bench, walking around, and playing catch!

Gymnastics!

Maggie had her first gymnastics class on Friday, July 2nd. She is in a class in Oak Lawn with 1 and 2 year olds that meets every Friday for 6 weeks. Her cousin Ethan and her friend Ella are also in the class. She had a lot of fun running around with the other kids. The teachers had the parents and kids sit down twice for "circle time", but not many of the one year olds wanted to sit for long!

Here is a picture of Maggie on the trampoline!

Happy 4th of July!

On the 4th of July, we went to visit my friend from high school, Stacy. Maggie was very comfortable with Stacy and her mom. We played in the house, played catch with her dog Isis, ate yummy steaks, blew bubbles, and watched the fireworks.

Here is a picture of Maggie trying to whistle at the bird, Nique. She's really getting good at whistling (which she started doing on her own a few weeks ago).

Aunt Natalie and the girls

Aunt Natalie loves her nieces, but they didn't really
participate with her in the picture. I'm sure the
pictures will get cuter and cuter every year!

I-phone wait

Since daddy is a technology junkie, he had to get the new I-Phone 4. He pre-ordered it and we went to pick it up on the day it came out at about 4 pm. We thought that would be fine and the lines would be down. They were much shorter, the wait was only 2 hours!!! Maggie fell asleep in the car and I sat there and read a book until she woke up.

Splash!!

After Father's Day, we went to stay with Aunt Dani. We took the kids to a splash park. They loved playing in the water. Maggie was mostly interested in crawling around, so she scratched her knees up quite a bit, but she didn't seem to care. I tried to take pictures, but my camera died!! Here's what I could get:

Father's day

Maggie gave Chris a grill for father's day! He has been so happy, he's been cooking out at least once every week!

On Father's day, we went to breakfast with Grandpa and Grandma Steinmetz, Uncle Erik, and Emily to Peaches and Pears. We gave Grandpa Steinmetz a bike for father's day. Hopefully we can all go for a bike ride soon!

After breakfast, we headed to Grandpa and Grandma Miller's house for a cookout. Everyone was there except for Uncle Jerriah and Aunt Brandy. The kids played in the yard and we gave Grandpa Miller a hammock. Hopefully he has a nice time using it!