Maggie's First Birthday

I know this is a bit Maggie overload, but that's be honest, that is what this blog has turned into, and can you really have too much Maggie? I think not. Even though she won't really remember it, I really wanted to make this day special for her. We went to the pet store, ate lunch with some friends, made a mess with the water tray, and enjoyed the outdoors. She had all her favorites for meals: pancakes, drinkable veggies, and mac-n-cheese. We ended the day with presents and cake. 

Took birthday/Easter photos a few days before

The hat that I worked so hard on lasted about 0.7 seconds on her head. Go figure.

Driving right into the action

Not too bad as far as messy goes. Foreshadow of her future teenage room?!?!

Loved the gifts from Grandma and Grandpa Matthews-especially having the soccer ball thrown at her face. I feel abusive for doing it, but it makes her laugh.

Baby doll from Grammy and Grandpa Price. She was more interested in the bottle than the baby-not ready for a baby sister. Hopefully she will warm up to the idea.

We gave Maggie a piano. She has always loved music. We hope that it will stay with her as she gets older.

Spring Break

This year we were fortunate to be given a spring break!!!! Wednesday we had a huge STEP 1 practice test, and they gave us Thursday and Friday off. A group of us decided to escape hot, dusty, windy, flat, no-trees Lubbock to go camping in a place even hotter, dustier, windier, flatter, and with less trees: Carlsbad Caverns! 

We left Thursday morning and spent the day swimming at the campground's swimming pool (we camped in style this time), shooting, and having fun. Katie tied for first place in the girl's category in skeet shoot; the winner was decided by who did better in the handgun competition, which she lost. 

Friday all of us headed to the Caverns. They are pretty incredible. Out in the middle of nowhere, a HUGE hole opens up to these massive caves. Although I wouldn't use the word "beauty" to describe them, it was one of the most incredible things I've seen in my life, and I would say that everybody should go see them once. Its just the sheer monstrosity of the caves that make them so impressive. They go for 30 miles, with the big room being able to hold 14 football fields. After the caverns, all of our friends left to go back to Lubbock, but we stayed an extra night. 

Saturday we went to Guadelupe Mountains National Park and did a hike. We had heard that there were some very green oasis-like hikes there, but I think we went at the wrong time of year: all the trees hadn't gotten leaves on them yet. 

Overall, it was a really fun weekend.

 Maggie and the Andersons' kids hanging out at the campsite.

 Us posing with the guns.

Maggie and Katie in the tent. It got so cold at night. The first night the forecast said it was supposed to get down to the low 50s. It actually got down to 35. Poor Maggie, she was an icicle when we went to get her in the morning, she just snuggled with us until the sun came up. 6 hours later, it was 92 degrees outside. That's the joys of camping in the desert.

 Maggie walking around the campsite. Riggs found out early in the trip that Maggie would laugh histerically at whatever he did, which I think was a big confidence boost for him. He followed her around the rest of the trip.

Us at the mouth of the caves.

The caverns were lit up perfectly. I guess when they lit them they brought in lighting people from Hollywood to chose the locations of the lights.

 Katie and Brooke.

 I think we ran Maggie ragged. Her sleep schedule was completely thrown off, but she made up for it with naps in the backpack.

 But she loved being outside.

 The Guadelupe Mountains hike. To be fair, we hadn't gotten to the oasis part in this picture.

 Maggie loved being outside so much that when we got back and started to get things cleaned up, she walked over to the door and whined for about 15 minutes for us to let her go outside.

Sneak Peek

Here is a little sneak peek at Maggie's Easter Dress that I made her. I found this fabric in the bargain bin and lot a little retro print would be fun for Easter.  

Research

Mike presented his research on weight perception this week and got third place!!!! I married such a stud. Maggie and I listened from a distance while he was getting judged, and he did awesome. Way to go Mike.

Update from Mike

Hello everybody. Both Katie and Maggie are sick today, and I was asked to stay home from church to help out. Right now they are both taking a nap, so I thought I'd use this little bit of time that I have to post about whats going on in my life. It seems like all Katie posts is pictures of Maggie, and I would like you all to know that other things are going on in our lives besides Maggie being very cute.

First, Katie is rocking it being a stay at home mom. Before she had Maggie, she told me she was excited to stay at home partially so that she could learn all these talents and skills that she always wanted to have but never had the time to develop. I laughed at the time thinking that her goals were a little lofty, and that she wouldn't have as much time as she thought. But I have been very impressed with how much she has been able to do with her time. She has jumped completely into sewing, and constantly has three or four projects going on at once. She is getting very good at it. She also has really gotten into baking (something she has never been good at), and has successfully made bagels, kaiser rolls, and baguettes  She is also dabbling in photography at the moment. She does all of this while having 4 church callings, exercising, substitute teaching twice a month, and rarely missing playgroup. She is so productive I sometimes think that she is the one that should be in medical school.

My life right now is busier than I ever remember it being. We are in the middle of classes right now, but perhaps more important than that is that we have our big STEP 1 test coming up in June. Its basically the biggest test of medical school, and really determines what kind of residency I can get into. Its a 8 hour test that covers everything we have learned and everything that we should have learned in our first 2 years. I feel the time crunch right now, and am trying to fit in 15 hours of study for  STEP on top of learning the material we are supposed to learn right now. There really aren't enough hours in the day to get done what really needs to be done, and I have never wanted a time turner from Harry Potter more than I do now. On top of all of that I have spent a lot of time getting my research I did this last summer polished up. I present a poster tomorrow as part of Student Research Week, and I'm about to finish the paper, after which we are going to try to find a journal to accept it. Its an interesting project that dives into how people perceive their weight. Despite all of this I find time to play church ball once a week and intramural basketball once a week. Its been hard at times to enjoy the whole thing this last month or two, but I'm trying hard to realize every day that I'm at a place where I'll never be again, so I need to appreciate it.

Maggie is as cute as ever, and my favorite part of each day is coming home to play with her for a few hours.

Anyways, thanks for suffering through my novel.

Mike