three months old

three months old today. it's hard to believe. here are some pictures from the last week with updates on behavior, etc.

madeleine has found her hands. she sits and plays with them as though they are the most fun toy that she has. we're glad she is so self-entertained.

the wild hair continues. it has been exceptionally fluffy as of late. i think it has a hint of red in it as well. who knows what color it will end up at.

do these stripes make me look fat? or is it just me?

how about from this angle?

this is a bad picture because i was trying to hold her and take a picture at the same time, but madeleine loves to look in the mirror. she just thinks that she is the funniest thing and laughs and smiles at herself.

easter

we had a wonderful easter. our pediatrician has instructed us to avoid church with madeleine until april because of the unusually bad rsv season and it was randy's week to go to sacrament meeting, so i was a little sad that i didn't get to go to sacrament meeting on easter sunday, but i stayed home and read some articles from this month's special edition of the ensign, which was all about christ. even though i didn't get to go to church, i had a wonderful morning sitting quietly and reading about the savior, his life, his atonement, and specifically his resurrection, which we celebrate this time of year. what an amazing gift.

we also had a great family dinner with the linfords and enjoyed spending the holiday with family. it is so fun to have so much family close by.

even though we didn't go to church, my mother-in-law was still sweet enough to buy madeleine an easter dress, which she wore most of the day, and will continue to wear when we finally do get to take her to church (hopefully she doesn't grow out of it too fast!). here are some pictures from the day.

here's madeleine, squawking away. she loves to babble right now and it's pretty fun to hear her trying to communicate with us.

being carried back into the house by her dad.

the dress came with these adorable little pantaloons. look at those healthy thighs.

not her happiest picture, but probably the best shot of her in the dress and she's still pretty cute.

shoot with charles

here are some pictures from our photo shoot with charles, as promised. he did a great job. madeleine had this concerned look on her face for many of the photos. i think she wasn't sure how she felt about the flash and everything that was going on. thank you ann and charles!

quick update

well, i was downloading the pictures from my camera from this week and thought that i hadn't taken very many pictures at all (which is true), but then i remembered that madeleine had a two hour photo shoot with my uncle charles on thursday, so she had plenty of pictures taken this week. i will post some of those as soon as i weed through the hundreds of pictures that i have on a cd (the beauty of digital photography). until then, just a couple (and really, they're pretty much the same) pictures from this week.

i can't believe that my little girl is 12 weeks old today. she is getting big so fast!

happy pi day!

happy pi day. march 14 ... 3.14... get it? treat yourself to some pie.

dare i get my hopes up?

she slept through the night. seven hours straight.

my alarm went off this morning and i was really confused. after turning it off, i sat in bed for about ten seconds, trying to remember if i had gotten up in the middle of the night, and after realizing that i hadn't, i rushed into her room to make sure that everything was okay. she was sleeping away and happy as could be. she actually probably could have gone longer, but as soon as she gave any signs of stirring, i woke her up so that i could feed her before going to work.

even if it was just for one night, this was awesome.

ten weeks

here are some pictures with madeleine at ten weeks. not too much commentary this week other than that she's still adorable.

madeleine likes to sit up on the couch and look around.

like her fish mobile, she loves to sit and look at this parrot and giggles a lot while she does so.

here she is hanging out with her dad. she loves this. nobody makes her laugh like her daddy.

this is madeleine all dressed up for the byu men's volleyball team. she actually didn't end up going, but now she knows what it feels like to get dressed up as a byu fan. this is a sweatshirt that my mother-in-law made (it says "PECK" on the back) and that randy wore when he was little. go cougars!

math geek

warning: exceedingly nerdy post.

i realized today that i am still as much of a math geek as i ever was. i had this exchange at work:

(upon returning to my office from filing something)

clerk: were you a math major as your undergrad?
me: yes, why?
clerk: a judge was in here looking for the math major
me: which judge?
clerk: mcvey? gray haired judge?

(i go and find the judge down the hall)

me: our clerk said you were looking for me?
judge: yes. do you know if there is an antiderivative for one over one plus x squared?
me: oh gosh, it's been a really long time. i can't think of it off the top of my head. you would probably do a trig substitution. probably (pause) tangent.
judge: okay thanks, i'll try that.

i went back to my office and was intrigued at this point, of course i had to try it out. also, just as i walked into my office, audrey called, so i confirmed with her that this would be the desired method. after hanging up with her, i sat down at my desk, and within 30 seconds had the solution* (for those of you who want to try this out on your own, i will post the answer at the bottom so that i don't ruin it for you). it was way too elating for me to consider myself normal anymore (not that i really did before).

i quickly ran upstairs to the judge's office, but he was meeting with someone in chambers, so i gave it to his clerk. i didn't get to inquire as to why he wanted to know such a thing and am sad that i didn't ask him during our face-to-face encounter. curious...

it's nice to know that after all these years, i've still got it.

*arctan(x)

legal humor

i was going through a list of old cases today and came across this in our eviction cases:

berg mortuary v. jeffrey harrison

madeleine's blessing

if you've learned nothing else about me yet, i hope you've at least realized that i've become out of control with a camera since having a child. this occasion was no exception.

madeleine was blessed at church this last week. randy gave her a beautiful blessing and we were so happy that so much of our family came, specifically mom and dad and kyle and kim, who came all the way down from boise for it. it was a great weekend for us. thanks to everyone who came.

okay, now i get to brag about my mother-in-law a little bit. jeanie is an amazing seamstress and made madeleine's blessing dress. she did a beautiful job and it was perfect. it was simple and beautiful, just how i like it.

this is a picture of the slip and the dress.

this is a close up of the detail on the bodice. jeanie tatted all of the lace for the dress herself and did a beautiful job. i especially like the pattern that she chose for the lace because it reminds me of a fractal. only you fellow math nerds out there will know or care about what i'm talking about.

this is a detail of the bottom of the dress.

the lace on the bottom.

this is the back of the dress.

one of my favorite details on this dress is these buttons. randy's paternal grandfather, gramps, used to make gloves and he would use buttons on them. these are buttons that jeanie had from some of gramps' left over buttons. it is so fun to have little details like that to remind us of our ancestors.

the buttons on the slip were also from gramps.

this is a picture of madeleine on her bethlehem baby blanket, which my parents gave me. it is actually from bethlehem, and i think is especially special for madeleine, since she was born on christmas day.