~What an Awesome Monday~

I hope you all enjoyed yesterday's post from Travis, I know I sure did when I read it this morning. What a good husband he is.

For today:
This morning Maddix FINALLY slept in until 7:30am and it came at such a perfect time! But once he was up, he was not wanting to wait for breakfast. He went in the kitchen and tried to get his own food. After which he got himself into his chair all by himself and this is how I found him:

I received a call this morning informing me that one of our traveling partners was pretty sure they'd picked up bedbugs from our adventure to Germany and was wondering if we'd noticed anything; I haven't. They said that signs can occur up to 9 days after you've been bitten at which point you've probably brought them home with you and they've multiplied! Totally freaked out I began moving all the furniture into the middle of all the rooms and scrubbing the floors. I rewashed all the blankets and sheets and then THANKFULLY Becky called me to see if Maddix and I would like to come celebrate their son's birthday with them. Before we left, when Maddix and I took a break from cleaning we did enjoy our FIRST TIME of finger painting (with canned whip cream)

So Becky picked us up and we went for an hour drive to this spa/pool. This whole town is devoted to healing the body and all the water is mineral water; even the pond outside on the pool grounds was mineral water. When we got in there I was blown away. There was a whirl pool area where we played an alligator chase game, then the rest of the pool had massage areas. There were water jets giving everyone massages everywhere. Then there was the sauna we went and steamed in; which was amazing. Once we were done there we made some subs, and high-tailed it to Branch FHE... where we found the person that was supposed to be in charge was at the hospital for some reason, so we improvised:

LDS Pictionary Anyone?

We had so much fun this WHOLE day... but when I came home and saw all the chairs shoved in the hallway, the dishes piled in the kitchen, and the pile of laundry in my room I was reminded of what I neglected in order to have a fun day... I guess that's what I have to look forward to for tomorrow. And then I told Maddix to go his room to go to bed. The lights were off and I think he thought he could hide from me:

I flipped the lights on and he was giggling away! Oh that funny funny boy.
Well now I get to sleep with the idea that there are potential bedbugs just WAITING to come out as soon as I turn the lights off and feast on my flesh. Grr my imaginative mind! I think that I'm ridiculous and PRAY to high heaven that we do NOT have bedbugs!!!

Sunday from Travis

So Lacey hasn't really slept in the last two days, thus I will be writing the blog for the day.  We began this raining spring day by attending ward conference, which was amazing.  We had between 40-50 people at church, so it was a majorly packed house.  There literally wasn't an empty seat in church.  Lacey received her second calling in the branch; Institute teacher.  I gave a short talk on tithing and besides the bishop was the only non-stake person to give a talk.  We had 7 people who were visiting church for the first time.

  After church we had a branch lunch which was quite tasty.  Lacey cooked up a lasagna and made a fruit salad.  Since our branch has people from all over the world we had a crazy potluck with all different types of foods.  It was very tasty and we enjoyed it tremendously.  

Becky Meacham wants to travel around Europe a little bit before they move to their next location,  so they invited Lacey and Maddix ato go travel around Prague, Berlin, Holland and go back to Aachen for a little while. (Lucky them) The Meachams and Lacey are really excited for this next adventure and I have to admit that I am just a tad bit jealous.  Oh well, I guess I got to experience Europe for two years already, so I just have to buck up and enjoy my schooling experience!  That is the reason that I am here after all.

This evening we had the Elders and Pavlo over for dinner.  We made pancakes together and shared some laughs and had a nice lesson about faith and how the answers we get to our prayers help us to grow.  It was really great and the spirit was awesome.  

To end the night Lacey was on her way to go to sleep and had to stop to take a picture of Maddix and me, who were watching some country music videos that had lots of cool trucks in them. (As seen in the picture below)

 Well I got to hit the hay, so I can be up bright and early to get back into the study swing of things.  Lacey will be back on blog patrol tomorrow.

A day with the church peeps

Our morning started with a little sunshine, just a little, that provided the perfect atmosphere for a baptism. Little Cole Mecham (Pres. Mecham's son) anxiously chose today... mid April... in Poland... to be baptized. No biggy right? Oh, except that we don't have baptismal fonts here so you either rent out an entire pool, or go to the local lake (the one from my pictures awhile back with the obstacle course).  And of course, he wanted the lake. Fine for us, we weren't the one's going into the lake. It was a great experience with two very funny things stuck out to me:

1.   Becky told us that Cole wanted to be prepared to be baptized in the lake so he filled the tub up with freezing cold water and dunked himself a few times to practice:)  
2.  There was a large, dead Badger laying at the lake and Travis made Maddix poke it with a stick as a right of passage.... he said all boys had to do it! Gross! It stunk afterward.

There was an amazing lunch following the lake and Becky put on some Amazing food! The woman is Mega mom I swear. Because then she volunteered to watch Maddix while Pres. Mecham was nice enough to run us to our apartment, let us change, then take us to the bus stop where we met up with Trav's classmates and went to Mydonik (not how it's spelled). It's here in town and it's the second largest concentration camp that ever existed.

I found it sobering to be there and got really lurchy in my stomach when we went into the creamatorium and when we visited this LARGE outdoor dome filled with all the ashes of the prisoners that died there, including full leftover bones! It was a wonderful experience, but it was definitely different.  The bus dropped us off and we decided to walk to Becky's, instead of call her. When we arrived we found the ENTIRE Mecham family laying up on the master bed, huddled around Maddix in his blanked, almost asleep, and watching Cars. Imagine me with an ear to ear grin right now :) I loved it!

So then after that we dropped Trav and Maddix at home and continued on to meet Lacey at the church to practice our duet for tomorrow. I tell you what, I didn't know the song, I hadn't practiced with Lacey at all, and Becky only got the piano music right then, but by the end of those two hours we sounded awesome. Once we were done Becky played some fun tunes to mess around and Bailey (her daughter) and I danced around the room. Then it was on to the store to buy ingredients for our big Branch Conference tomorrow! Everyone is coming, it's going to be huge!Then she took me home to start cookin'

So here's what I walk in the door too.... mind you it was 8:30 AT NIGHT, I open the door and the noise stops. I hear a "hewow?" Followed by a, "Coming!" And when I called out for him, he then let out a gasp and came running into my arms! He was so happy to see me, and I couldn't believe what he looked like when I found him!!

His face was ringed in a binki shape with dirt and food all around it, he had no pants, and his diaper was so poopy!

Oh and that's his Sunday shirt still needing to be changed from the baptism

Trav's only explanation was, "we're stinky men Lace. We're YOUR stinky men!" At which point he pinned me in a stinky hug and Maddix stinkely hugged my legs:) So with some clean up, and cooking I finally finished the lasagna and fruit salad for tomorrow; I hope everyone else gets done soon; we need some sleep. Especially because I didn't sleep at ALL last night. I was up all night! When Trav's alarm went off this morning I jumped for joy that it was finally 4:50am and I pestered him as he realized it was Sat, and wanted to go back to sleep, but I talked to him too much so he didn't get back to sleep until 6am but I just stayed up. So now it's 12:30am and it's almost my turn to go to sleep, yah! I love busy days.
P.s. Becky just bought me a ginormous bag of diapers that were on sale at the tesco here. It's a giant bundle of 92 huggies diapers and she got them for 25zlotys! That is less than $10 dollars! Holy freak! These should last him the whole time he's size 5! Yah for sales!

The Tribute, part 2

Before you read this one go back and read the previous post. It got split into two posts on accident. :)
The Tribute to Maddix who is now at this moment screaming non stop, so here are some of his CUTER moments:

Pre Maddix 

Birth Day

First Halloween

Blessing Day

First Christmas

Tummy Time

Developing his long lasting love for electronics

EASTER MORNING

First hike up the Y

On the way to Cousin Lucy's baby blessing

4th of July Parade

Daddy's BYU Graduation

New Port Beach, California

Halloween Party at G.G. Wells' house

Birthday party!

In his room at Grandma's

Lovey moment with Mama

At G. Johnson's

First outing in Poland

Our Apartment Building in Lublin

First trip to Germany

Happy 18months my boy! You are an incredible blessing to your mama and papa

(An early post) A Tribute!

Today while my no longer a baby boy was showing me JUST how much he's growing up I decided to make a post on today's happenings, AS WELL as his past 18 months here with us. Thank you for making mine and your father's life better than we could have ever known it would be. I only hope I can love your siblings to come as much as I adore and LOVE LOVE you! 

Today's Happening so far:
I have dealt with more poop than I care to talk about, but for a good cause. Maddix successfully pooped twice on the toilet today! I'm sure I should find a book one how to properly potty train him, but for now we're winging it. Today he also discovered dust particles floating in the sun rays. Since we have LOTS of dust here it was bound to happen sooner or later. He kept reaching for them and I would hit the bed every once in awhile and make more fly into the air.

Afterward we all laid as a family for awhile and listened to different types of music ranging from Piano Man to Hotel California. Once Travis left back to school Maddix and I decided to read together, but Maddix insisted that we HID while we read, so it was time for our first fort since being home.

Oh! And before Travis left to school we had an advertisement pop up a few times on our computer. It was for Disney Land... Maddix was playing in the other room and each time he heard the music start he'd come RUNNING into our room shouting, "An ya! An ya!" Which we have now realized means Disney Land:) He would laugh each time Buzz came one, and say "Peaze!" each time the train rolled on screen. He is a boy after his daddy's own heart; he wants to go SO BADLY! I just love this boy!

Now for the Tribute to the most amazing son I could've ever hoped for in a first born: It will come in a separate post because I just realized the pictures I need are on the other computer:)

Our Journey Through the Day

This morning I didn't have the heart to do P90 X after being gone from the exercising scene for a week and being heavy laden with patries, and sausages, and goodies... oh it makes me sick just thinking about it:) So I tried a different work out where you do these turbo dancing moves real fast ha ha. It was quite the work out but you look like a FOOL while doing it. Maddix was hysterical laughing while watching me. Then it was bath time.

Always says 'cheese' when the Camera's present

Trying to kiss the Camera

Look at this curly hair! 

 So I have a huge list of things to get done to make up for time gone and I fully intended to do it all... then Travis came home. His classes got canceled. He studied for a bit and I cleaned a little. For the most part we did nothing, accomplished nothing, and had nothing to show for Maddix's nap time. Ahh, I can now cross off 'be lazy and unproductive' off my to do list, YES! :S 

Then in Trav's last class he scored a perfect score on his quiz in a class he's never gotten a 100% in before! When he came home we made pizza slices and watched a family movie with Maddix. 

It rained all day which made it nice to stay in. Maddix was extremely cute today. He said, 'you funny' and pointed at me nose. He kept giving loves to both Travis and I and I just can't write all the cute things he did today! 

Just know he was perfectly adorable! 

~The Trip Home/Our first day home~

So in my last post I wrote about how I dreaded the trip home and I didn't want the morning to come... well I hopped into bed around 12am after doing that post and was back out of bed at 2am when Maddix rolled right out of his bed and began to cry. Then he was up every half hour crying over bad dreams and when I got out of bed to check him I found him on FIRE!

When 5am came I was only too ready for the morning and was sad that I would now be waking him up after he just fell asleep. At breakfast I couldn't get him to stop crying, but he was miserable. His fever was higher than I've ever seen, his cheeks and ears were extremely red, and his nose was running off of his face. To top it off he was shaking like a chiuaua and would NOT leave my side. Blessedly he slept through the flight to Zurick and we bought some more baby meds and some Swiss Milk. He barely got it down and just laid limp in my arms until we boarded the next flight. And then he slept that whole flight. He was a ball of figher, the meds didn't brake his fever. When we got home that night we tried to make him eat something before bed and when he finally agreed to eat one bite it hit his throat and he puked all over the plate. Over and over again. So at 7:45pm he finally stopped shaking and fell asleep....

... this morning he woke up at 7am, drank an entire sippy of water then tucked himself back into bed and woke up at 10am! That's only because Travis woke him up.

After him tossing all night, I finally just got in bed with him

Today he's been better, up and down, passed out on the couch for a bit, and is now feeling better, so he's refusing to sleep because it feels good to be awake:) It's funny he's either been extremely under the weather and wanting nothing more than to cuddle with us

 or he's kept dragging me to the door to go. He's so used to waking up and just going that now I don't know if he'll adjust to being back! He did get out on a walk to the store which I was lucky enough to have Travis with me for because that's when he got sick again. I'm so sad to have him go back to school again, BUT I will have my hands full cleaning up from being gone... and FIGHING THE BUGS. Found a silverfish and a moth in the MY room!

And Travis pointed out that he has 2 weeks in class to really study hard then he has a week off in May for May Celebration, and then back to school for another 5 weeks of school and then he's done with this semester and we come home; we even have to purchase our tickets back in the next week or so! I tell you what, I love being here so much, but I am SO EXCITED to come home for awhile! I have a HUGE list of things to do!