The circle of life...

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

For everything there is a season, and a time for very purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

No month in my life has made these verses more true. On November 5th, we experienced the time to be born and welcomed a new baby into our home. Aiden Daniel was born to Brad and Amber and is quite the joy in our lives. He is really growing like a weed and is already more than two weeks old. We are so happy to have this little life in our home.

Here is Daddy Brad, Great-Grammy Frisbie, and little baby Aiden on the day he came home from the hospital:

Aiden with Grammy Cone

Aiden with Granddad Cone

Again with Great-Gram

Uncle Brandon with his Madi and new nephew Aiden

On November 15th, we experienced the time to die with the passing of my Grandma Hitt. She had been fighting Parkinson's for several years and finally lost her battle with the disease last Sunday morning. I will miss her greatly. She and I had such a close relationship and I am sad that she is no longer with us, although I am glad that she is no longer fighting. I find great comfort knowing that she is finally in Heaven with Jesus.

Grandma would have been 90 years old next month, and would have celebrated 62 years of marriage on the 30th of this month. We are all truly blessed to have had so many wonderful years with her. Her obituary can be found by clicking here.

Her funeral was this past Thursday. It was a great celebration of her life and there were lots of family and friends in attendance. It was great to hear everyone's memories of my grandma, and to see all of the lives she had touched. Here are some pictures from the funeral and from the grave side service.



We had quite the collection of pictures, memory albums and artifacts to share with everyone at the funeral. It is really a hard thing to summarize someone's life, but it was helpful to us to share with the world all of her accomplishments during her life. Along with the pictures below are several of the dresses Grandma made for my sister, cousin and I. We got a new dress from Grandma every Christmas and Easter. Madison was able to wear one of Grandma's dresses for the reception (pictures are further down in the post).


While we were all dressed up for the funeral, we decided to take some Hitt family pictures.
Here are the four great-granddaughters. There is a running bet as to the gender of the 5th great-grandchild...no one has any doubts that it is a girl on this side of the family, as my dad was the last boy born.

My cousin Tabitha's three girls who are 5, 7, and 9:

Grandpa with his great-granddaughters. He sure seems proud of these girls.

Grandpa with his direct descendants, from oldest to youngest: Janet Cranston, Joe Hitt, Bruce Hitt, Tabitha Poplin, Jami Cone, Jenni Hitt, Sydni Poplin, Hayli Poplin, Nikki Poplin, Madison Cone, and baby yet to be named.

The entire Harold Hitt family, minus Brandon who had to be out of town for an education conference this week...we might just have to photoshop him in later. :) We added Janet's husband Roy, Joe's wife Allene, my mom, and Tab's husband Jeff.

Madi and her momma:


The Poplin family,

The Joe Hitt family,

Joe and Allene Hitt

Janet and Roy Cranston

The Bruce Hitt family...again imagine Brandon beside me.

Bruce and Tammi Hitt

Grandpa and his three kids.

We will miss Grandma greatly, we know she is better off now, but it still hurts to know that she is gone. My heart really breaks for my Grandpa, I would be crushed if anything ever happens to Brandon, I can't imagine how lonely and hurt Grandpa has to be after losing his wife of 62 years. He seems to be handling the loss very well, but I know it has to be hard.

To end this post on a brighter note, here are some more pictures of Madison. She turned 8 months old on the 12th, and she is sure full of life.

Here she is making faces for the camera while standing on Granddad Cone's lap.

Madi with her Daddy...and the Bronco's football. Lets hope they play better tomorrow. :(



Grampa Hitt was in charge of bath time at Great-Grandpa Hitt's house this week. The wash tub sink worked great for giving little miss Madi her bath.


Brandon comes home tomorrow from his conference in Nashville. I have missed him greatly this week and I am sure that Madi missed him too. It will be nice to have him home again. I am also glad that this will be a short week of school, Thanksgiving break starts Wednesday at 12:40. :)

Welcome Baby Aiden Daniel Cone

Brandon's brother Brad and his girlfriend Amber gave birth to Aiden Daniel at 10:24 this morning. Aiden is 7lbs, 10.2 oz. So far it sounds like everyone is doing well, although exhausted. Amber went to the hospital yesterday at noon to be induced. What a long night!

I will post pictures when I get to see him...thanks to the H1N1 flu that probably won't be until he comes home...unless they have opened up the viewing window. Let us hope. :)

Congratulations Brad, Amber and Aiden.

October Update: Lots of Pictures

Well here we are in November already and I realized that I haven't posted for over a month...so much for my goal of one post per week. :) Oh well. We have had a busy month around here and here is what October has had in store for our family.

The first couple of weeks in October, my parents had our camera on their trip to the East Coast to see the fall colors. So there aren't many pictures from the first part of the month. We stayed busy with school and activities. Brandon had his final couple of crowd control responsibilities at the football games. We are both done with that responsibility for this year. :)

Madison turned 7 months old on the 12th. She is really making gains toward mobility. She has figured out how to roll to get places and can scoot backwards on all fours. I really don't think she will crawl for long as she really prefers to stand, and if we hold onto her hands, she can walk all over the place.

After showing teething symptoms all summer, Madison finally has teeth. We thought she was just working on one tooth on the bottom, but this morning, I found two. Yea! They are just poking through the gums, so when I can get a good picture I will post it.

Here are her 7 month pictures, I just love her grin!



Brandon and I both caught the flu around the middle of the month. I did nothing but sleep for about 5 days and finally was able to go back to work after missing 4 days. Madi ran a fever and had a runny nose, but no other symptoms. Either she was just teething or she caught a mild case and was able to get over it quickly. We are all feeling better now. Yuck!

Last weekend was pretty busy. Brandon took his Robotics club to a training in Casper all day on Saturday. Madison and I hung out at Grammy and Grampa Hitt's house in the morning. We had to try on her Halloween costume to make sure it still fit. We bought it this summer while we were in Texas, and I was afraid I was going to have to make some alterations. Luckily it still fit. Whew!

While we were there, Samantha and her two girls came over to play. Madison sure enjoyed watching the other two girls and they had fun playing with her and her toys.

I thought this was a great picture of Samantha and her girls, Baylie and Daisy.




Last Saturday afternoon was my brother-in-law and his girlfriends baby shower. Their little boy is due on Friday and we are so excited to have Aiden join our family. The shower was a ton of fun and we had a great time. Here are the two future Cone grand-babies in comparison, Amber at 38 weeks and me at 16.


Finally last Saturday, Brandon and I attended a Halloween party. I went as a 1950's housewife and Brandon went as the milk man...we got a lot of laughs, and a few "you're pregnant again?" questions. We had fun, but somehow managed not to get any pictures...oh well.

Wednesday, I went in for an ob check up. Everything is going well and we both look healthy. We got to have an extra ultrasound because the doctor couldn't find the heartbeat, even though the baby was kicking the mic. This one is definitely going to be active! :) We go back on December 8th for a full ultrasound and to find out what we are having. We are all guessing a boy because this time is so very different from Madison's pregnancy, although we will be happy with either gender.

Halloween is Grammy Karen's favorite holiday, so we spent Friday and Saturday with the Cone's. Friday night we carved pumpkins. It had been a long time since I had carved a pumpkin and we all really had fun.





Madison had fun exploring the inside of the jack-o-lanterns when we were finished. She kept lifting off the lids and feeling the cool inside. It was fun to let her explore.


Saturday, Brandon, Madi and I went back over to the Cone's where we decorated Halloween cookies, played cards and passed out candy to the trick-or-treaters.



Madison was sure posing for the camera last night and I got some great pictures of her in her costume.




Madison got her first piece of Halloween candy last night too. She got to try a strawberry sucker, and boy did she think that was great. On second thought, I probably should have taken off her costume. But luckily it is machine washable. :)



Here is Madi enjoying the sugar rush after her sucker. :)


Overall, October was a great month. November should also be great with the birth of our nephew in the next week or two, my Dad's birthday and Thanksgiving to look forward to. I hope to get better about posting now that Madi can entertain herself a little bit more. :)

Baby #2

We had our first ultrasound appointment today for baby #2. After measuring the baby we found that our original due date is off by a few days. Our new estimated due date is April 12...13 months after Madison's birthday and 2 days before Brandon's birthday.
Here are the 4-D ultrasound pictures:

And the 2-D pictures:


The baby and I both look perfectly healthy. I go back again for a check-up in 4 weeks and we will have our next ultrasound in 8 weeks when we are 20 weeks along.

Madi's 6 Month Check-Up

Madison went for her well baby check up today. She is doing great and growing like a weed. She weighed 19 lbs (90th percentile) and was 26.25 inches long (just over the 50th percentile). She handled her shots very well which is good because the doctor would like her to get a flu shot on Friday :(. Her next appointment is in the middle of December right after she turns 9 months old.

My appointment is tomorrow and I will post again after we get home.

Weekends go way too quickly

I wish that all weekends were three day weekends. Two days just doesn't seem long enough.

Friday, Madi and I hung out at the house in the evening while Brandon went to supervise the Energy Bowl football game at the high school. The Energy Bowl is the game where we play our rival team from Sheridan. Apparently the game did not disappoint the multitude of Sheridan fans who made the two hour drive to the game as the Camels not only had their first challenging game, but also their first loss of the year.

On Saturday, Brandon got up early to go help a colleague do some dirt work at his home. Madi and I went over to Brandon's parents house to help tie blankets. We had a lot of fun helping Amber (Brandon's brother Brad's girlfriend) cut and tie the fleece. We made two blankets, one is a Denver Bronco's blanket for Amber and Brad's baby Aiden who is due to arrive November 6th. The other is a pink breast cancer awareness blanket for Brandon's mom Karen. I should have taken some pictures of our afternoon, but my parents borrowed our camera for their two week trip to the east coast.

Saturday evening, Brandon and I went into town to go look at a truck that was parked at one of the car dealerships in town. We sold my car to Brad and Amber in June and Brandon has been driving his grandmother's truck for the past 6 months. We have been looking for a truck for him for the past month or two and thought we had decided on a Ford. Anyways, the dealership was closed, but the truck wasn't what we wanted anyway. On the way back to get Madi from Brandon's parents house, we drove through the dealership across the street just to see what they have. Long story short...we bought a truck. It is a 2006 Lincoln Mark LT, not at all what we were looking for but it is a VERY nice truck and the price was reasonable. Here is a picture:


So that means that today, Sunday, we spent the day organizing the garage so that our two large vehicles will fit. After trying a few arrangements we finally have it so that I can open the back door of the Tahoe all the way to get Madison in and out of her carseat. Now we are relaxing watching the Bronco's game, but neither of us is ready to go back to work tomorrow. :)

This is a busy week. Madison has her 6 month checkup on Monday and I have an appointment on Tuesday. We are supposed to have an ultrasound to verify the due date and I am excited to get to see baby number 2. Yea! I will be posting updates as the week goes on to let you all know how the appointments go.

6 Months Old

OK, so I am a little late with the 6 month post. I was hoping to write this on her 6-month birthday which was a week ago Saturday (the 12th). I guess life gets a little busy around here when school is in session.

Here are some pictures of her I took on her 6-month birthday.

Madison is growing by leaps and bounds a changing every day.

She prefers to be sitting up rather than laying down.

She only spends about 2 seconds on her tummy before rolling over to her back.

Madi is starting to try and turn back to her tummy, it will only be a matter of time before she is rolling all over the place.

She loves her toes and plays with them a lot.

Madi will hold her own bottle while she is lying flat, and that makes our mornings go a lot quicker when she can feed herself.

Our Texas vacation this summer offset her checkups, so she will see the doctor on the 28th for her 6-month check up and shots. I will post her stats after her appointment.

Madison has been sure having fun with her daddy lately. She giggles at him when he plays with her. They have been spending more time together, but when she is tired or upset it is mommy or nothing.

We have two aquariums that house our collection of turtles, chiclids, and tetras. We were cleaning the aquariums the other day and Madi decided to help. She was sitting on the floor out of reach of the hose...or so I thought. I left the room for a couple of seconds and came back Madi holding the hose and water shooting all over the office.

These pictures were taken after we had cleaned up the mess and she was trying to get the hose again...our little "helper".

Madison loves music. She has this cool toy at her Grammy and Granddad Cone's house that plays all kinds of classical music. She almost always stops to listen when it plays. Daddy let Madi play with his guitar the other day. Madi really liked hitting the strings to make it play.

She is really starting to play with her toys. She will sit and occupy herself for quite a while with her box full of toys we keep in the living room. Her favorites seem to be the plastic blocks we have.

It sure makes a mess for mommy to pick up when she is done as she is learning to throw her toys around. She is happy until she can't reach them any more.

Madi is really starting to stand. She can hold on to my fingers and pull herself to a standing position. She can also balance herself if we stand her up against the chair.

Somehow I think she might walk before she crawls.

She is definitely getting busy. She wants to go and wants to go now. She will climb all over our laps when we are holding her trying to get to a toy, our food, or the TV remote.

This morning, she was actually rocking the chair as she stood against it.

In other news, Brandon and I are getting back into the routine of work. We have finished three weeks of school and so far so good. I am really trying to keep my students accountable this year, and will probably start calling parents next week if I am still seeing missing assignments...I don't get it when students don't turn stuff in.

In terms of our next little angel, we had our first appointment on the 10th. We just saw the nurse, who drew blood and asked questions. Our estimated due date is April 4th, Easter Sunday. This makes me 12 weeks pregnant today. We are not quite sure of the dates, so we will have an ultrasound on the 29th to verify the due date and to make sure everything is going as expected.

Here is my first belly picture with baby #2. This was taken on Tuesday when I was 11 weeks and 2 days.

Well, my weekly laundry is clean and is just sitting there staring at me to put it away before bed. It is amazing how our laundry increased when Madi joined our family!

I will try and be better about getting a post up every week, but no promises. :)

6 months going on 16?

One of the nice things about living across the street from my parents on a private dirt road is...

letting my 6 month old drive? She was sitting on my lap and grabbed the steering wheel on her own. I thought it was pretty hilarious that she has this whole driving thing down already. She definitely mimics the things we do.

We were coming back to Grammy and Grampa Hitt's house after meeting the horses for the first time.

Madi seemed to be interested in the horses, but they are quite a bit bigger than any other animals she has been around so she was a little cautious.

In other news, Brandon and I started started teaching again on Tuesday. 4 days down...176 left to go until our next 3 month weekend. :) So far things seem to be going well. I am going to enjoy teaching a couple accelerated classes this year, although I am going to have to remember that they need and want a challenge.

Brandon and I had football crowd controll duty Friday night for the home opener football game against Laramie. It was a good game, the Camels won 31-7, and the crowd wasn't too bad. We have duty again this coming Friday and then I am already done with my crowd control responsibilities for this year. Yay!

Well Madi is taking a nap...I better go take advantage of this time and get some things done around here...or I might just join her. :)

Lets Try This

Brandon was able to fix the video in the previous post. You can now hear the sound from the original videos...including a priceless clip of her laughing at the end of the video. Just thought I would let everyone know that the video has been replaced. (I know it is pretty long...but it is worth it to watch)

In other news, Brandon and I are gearing up to go back to work next week. We have meetings starting on Tuesday, and the students start on September 1st. I am so not looking forward to leaving my little girl everyday, but I do know she will be in good hands with her Grammy and Granddad Cone and Great-Grandma Frisbie.

Madison and I are planning on going to the lake for the first time this summer. Grammy and Grampa Hitt are planning on taking us to Keyhole Reservoir while Brandon hosts his fantasy football draft at our house. It should be a fun time. We haven't yet made it to the lake this summer because the weather hasn't been warm enough.

Well I should have more pictures to post next time...

Madi's First Five Months

If you want to see the video in full and not cut off double click on it and watch it on youtube.