"Fuf" and the pool

Mary's cousin Muffy came to visit last month. She is still talking about her. She calls "Fuf" on her faux cell phone at least once a night.

The following pictures are from yesterday afternoon. We belong to the pool at the golf course we live on but can only seem to make it on the weekends. Mary and I have the best intentions in the afternoon after work/daycare but we seem to get a thunder storm just about every day from 5:30pm - 7:30pm.

Yesterday we filled up her little pool and she was so thrilled. She kept squealing as I was getting everything set up.

All that playing in the pool made Mimi very hungry

...Ahhhhhhhhhhh

That is the sound of Chris and I exhaling. We have been holding our breath and hoping for great results since Mary's heart procedure in January.
She had her final appointment at Children's Hospital last Monday. After an echo cardiogram and an EKG the cardiologist was able to confirm the procedure to close her PDA was a success!

Her heart has started to grow around the coil that was inserted and the echo showed no blood flow in the wrong direction. Now all she is left with is a really cool story to tell her classmates when she is older.

Hooray for modern medicine!!!!!!!!

18 Months

Mary Catherine turned 18 months old on April 24th but she just had her well baby check up last Friday. She had a great appointment and is growing into a wonderful little girl.

Her stats are:

Weight - 26 lbs

Height - 31.5"

Loves....... shoes, saying "No", playing with Kecki (our neighbor's daughter Kennedy), watching Noggin in the early morning with Daddy, cheese, helping Mommy fold laundry, and decorating the front steps with her sidewalk chalk.

Dislikes....... most veggies, saying goodbye to Kecki, having to be quiet in church, being given any sort of instruction.

She is saying all kinds of things. My personal favorite is "sushi". Cracks me up every time!

Here are some recent pictures of Mary and her Daddy at the neighborhood playground

Mary loves to paint while Mommy makes dinner

This is Mary's favorite place to hang out.

Mary's Best Friend Kennedy

She loves walking her Teletubbies around the neighborhood.

Shhhhhhh, don't tell Mary they haven't made a new 'Tubbies episode since 1994.

My baby girl on Mother's Day

Happy Easter

We found these bunny tracks on our front steps on Easter morning.....I'm not kidding! Our lil' Bunny Mary's new backpack from the Easter Bunny
Resting after dinner
In the dress Daddy picked out
Every little lady needs a pair of shades

We hope everyone had a great Easter holiday!

Our Week in Pictures

We are seeing a lot of this face lately.

Sometimes naps aren't as refreshing as they should be...


A sleepy peanut is a sweet peanut

She talked us into a Happy Meal on Sunday

I have to confess, this is not her first trip to McDonalds.
Her first visit was on a road trip to New Hampshire.Mary and Ronald really hit it off...she didn't want to leave.

Picture Time!

We hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day and President's Day long weekend. We've been battling the flu since last Wednesday. Chris and I spent our Valentine's evening at Nighttime Pediatrics begging the doctors for something to make me feel like a human again.

They were kind enough to prescribe Tamiflu which allowed Chris and Nana to avoid the full blown flu. I was not so lucky but was happy knowing the rest of the household would not have to deal with the 103 degree fever and all over yuck. As of this evening Mary seems to be coming down with something and as usual it has presented itself as a scary, croupy cough. Ugh!

On a much lighter note, here are some recent pictures taken right before Valentine's Day.

Thank you for my frog boops, Auntie Cis. I'm still learning how to walk in them but they are fabulous!

Ice, Ice Baby!

Yesterday's commute home was not for the faint of heart. Chris left Reston at 4:30 pm and finally made it home at 9:30pm. I left work at 4:00pm and pulled up to the house at 8:00 pm.

Between the icy roads and the subsequent accidents it was nightmare. But I am happy to report that Chris and I both made it to the polls to vote.

Am I bragging? Yeah, a little bit but I am just so impressed that neither of us bailed on our civic duty.

Breaking News

Mary Catherine Parks is a walker!

She took her first itsy bitsy steps when we were in New Hampshire for Christmas. She had a a big audience (all eight of the Broadbent kids) cheering her on and she seized the moment.

After all of the fanfare she took a hiatus until Jan. 27th. We went to Virginia to visit Mom mom and Mary decided Monica's apartment was the perfect venue for walking. She let go of my hands and took about ten steps right into Daddy's arms. Picture perfect, except there are no pictures :( Marilyn was there and is always prepared with her camera or video camera. She got what we thought was great footage but come to find out the room was way too bright and nothing came out.

This week she is really getting the hang of it and is choosing to walk instead of crawl about half of the time. Truly amazing. I was beginning to think she was going to crawl to kindergarten.

Stay tuned for pictures and video of the walking. She is too smart and stops walking when she sees the video camera come out.

Chris and I are in such trouble, aren't we?

Here are some pictures I took of Mary on Monday night. Chris was in class and I had to keep Mary up past her bedtime so we could pick Nana up at the airport.

Such a happy little peanut...

All Bundled Up and Ready to Go

Mary helped her Dad put up another gate.

Tubbies?

When is the best time of day to watch Teletubbies? Anytime, silly!

Mary Catherine cannot get enough of these strange Bristish ummmmm....creatures. She wakes up asking for Tubbies, points to the tv and asks for Tubbies after dinner, picks up Daddy's remote and tries to turn on Tubbies.

No, we don't indulge every request for Tubbies but we get weak, you know? An adorable toddler can only ask for Tubbies so many times before you give in and watch the creepy show.

15 Months

MC had her 15 month check up on Wednesday. Here are the stats:

21 lbs 7 oz
30" tall

She is in the 40 percentile for height and weight. Her head size is in the 75%. No surprise there :)

She has started to take a few steps here and there but is not a "walker" yet. The doctor explained she was most likely focusing on her fine motor skills and that has resulted in being a late walker.

She has lots of words such as Mommy, Daddy, puppy, cracker (we hear this one a lot), bath, nigh-night, go, bye bye, up, ducky............ok I'll stop. I'm just so proud of our little girl.

She insists on feeding herself with her fork and spoons (same ones that Daddy usesd, thank you Mom mom). It has been a messy process but she now gets more in her mouth than on her belly.

Mary had her catheterization to close her PDA on January 3rd. It went very well and she was back to herself in no time. It was an incredibly stressful day, the six hours in recovery were the worst! But we are only looking forward at this point. Her follow up appt is in July.

So that is our Peanut in a nutshell (pardon the pun)! We are enjoying her every minute. I think this is my favorite age so far. Many of you will remind me I said that at 6 months, 9 months, 12 months....

We've been Elfed!

Who said the Parks's couldn't dance?

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1387641887

In No Particular Order

Here are a few new pictures. Ok, so technically the Halloween pictures are not new. But they are new to you :)