Some Videos

Maddie learns how to pay peek-a-boo.


Maddie and her little piano.


Maddie demonstrates how to insert the nuk...


Getting Maddie rolling

So, what's new?

For those of you that did not give up on us, this post is for you...

We've been thoroughly enjoying every day with Madeleine. She's growing and changing so fast!

We bought a new (to us) piano. It's a 1910 Ludwig and Company upright grand piano. It's made out of mahogany and is very good looking. It definitely needs restored, but it sounds really good considering it's age! We bought it from a guy on Craigslist. We also paid to have it moved since it weighs around 850 pounds! That's a little too much to call in favors for!


Madeleine got Baptised. We had some family down for it and had a small reception afterwards. It was a good day.


I worked on Christmas Day this year. It was my first Christmas to work in my 11th year as a flight controller, so I guess I can't complain much. A couple days after Christmas, we headed up to Indiana to visit family.

Maddie got to go on her first plane ride. She flew really well! We were really nervous, but as it turns out, we shouldn't have been. Then again, we really did a lot of preparations for the trip, so perhaps our nervousness did pay off in the long run.


While we were in Culver, we got about a foot of snow and the temperature dropped to about 0 degrees F, so we had to bundle up Maddie a bit. It cracked us all up...!


Back in Houston, we've been experimenting with feeding Maddie some solid foods. Right now it's just single grain rice and a little apple sauce. It's mostly to get her used to it and practice swallowing a bit. She doesn't totally hate it, which is good. And we think she may even be swallowing some of it!


This weekend Molly set up a picnic for her group (ADCO) and their training counterparts (MCG). It started out wet and cold, but warmed up and actually became a good day for it. Here are some pictures from the day.


I found a very cool music website called Pandora that I have to mention. Actually, I believe that Christina told me about it. Anyway, you put in an artist that you like (or song), and the site builds a continuous playlist of similar artists and songs. It's all free too. Very cool!

So, we're going to try to be better about putting these together. Keep us honest on this one!

Madeleine Update

Posting a couple updated pictures of Maddie. The first one Molly snapped at a particularly opportune moment! The second picture is Maddie and I on my John Deere tractor that I got for my 4th or 5th birthday. My parents had it redone, and it's better than ever!

Sleep-o-saurous

Here's a recent video of Maddie. She's definitely a morning person... at least for now. You can certainly tell by the video!

Carving Pumpkins

In the spirit of the season Mike and I did some pumpkin carving. It was a lot of fun -- it'd been at least 10 years since we'd last carved one up!

Maddie's Greatest Hits

Since I've been way behind in posting to the blog, I figured I'd post some highlights of Maddie's first two months on this earth.

- 10/01
We're able to get consistent smiles out of Maddie now. It started around the end of September. Here is one of my favorite pictures of Maddie. Molly's sister, Lainie took it during her visit.

- 10/02
In order to document Maddie's growth for our family up North, I'm periodically taking a picture of Maddie with these two stuffed animals. This should give them a good point of reference for her growth!

- 10/03
The dogs have been great with Maddie. The trick is keeping Ginger from licking her. Luckily Ginger listens well, and only manages to get a quick one in once in a while.

- 10/03
Vaska is, of course, the good dog. He likes to keep an eye on Maddie. He gets stressed out if he can't get to her - e.g. if we have Maddie behind closed doors for whatever reason.


We had visits from all of Molly's siblings - Lainie, Renee (Andy's wife), Andy, and Ali.

- 10/21
Maddie enjoyed wearing her "first Purdue shirt" from Uncle Matt.

- 10/22
Maddie got to meet the bulk of the ADCO group at lunch at Don Pico's. It was great for Molly to get together with everyone too. We had a good time.

- 10/25
Getting close to Halloween in this one. As you can see, it's Daddy's Little Pumpkin.

- 10/26
We made it out to a Pumpkin Patch. Well, as much of a Pumpkin Patch as you can have in the city anyway. We were looking to get some cute pictures with some pumpkins... We did get these two pictures...

- 10/26
Tremayne and Abi came to visit us yesterday. They were out enjoying the perfect weather. We had a great visit! Abi is an absolute sweetheart!!

- 10/26
And the last picture of the post. It's just Molly and Maddie hanging out on the bed. The late afternoon lighting is just so great in that room for picture taking. Not to mention two fantastic girls in the picture!

Arrival of Madeleine Claire Allyn

So, we have been pretty darn busy for the last several weeks. At 9:05 AM on August 25th, Madeleine Claire Allyn was born! She weighed in at 6 lbs. 7.7 oz. and was 19.5 inches long.

Here are some pictures over the last 3 weeks.


So, who would have thought you would be so busy just hanging around the house taking care of a newborn? Ha! Well, we can attest to the fact that you do stay quite busy. It's been absolutely fabulous so far! Madeleine (Maddie) is quite an easy baby to manage... so far anyway.

Of course I was on console for the night shift when Maddie decided to get started on the labor process. I got the call from Molly about an hour after I arrived at work, so about midnight. Molly wasn't very far into labor, so she was able to drive herself to work. I know that sounds horrible, but she insisted that she was fine to drive! Plus, it really does need to be an emergency to leave a national asset untended. I had to work on getting the on call personnel (3 of them) in to replace me. Remarkably all three of them showed up pretty quickly (thanks Jude, Todd, and Roger!). I showed up in the hospital room only about 10 or 15 minutes after Molly at about 12:45 AM. Just over 8 hours later, Maddie joined us in this world!

Here is a one-of-a-kind birth announcement and congratulations from the International Space Station Expedition 15 Flight Engineer, Clay Anderson.

Clay has been stationed on the ISS for right at 100 days now - he'll be returning soon, but I can't remember when exactly.

I (Mike) have taken off 4 weeks from work. Alas, I'll have to go back soon. Molly will be back in a few more weeks. I have enjoyed getting to know Maddie so much that I am absolutely not looking forward to going back to work.

As you can see from the pictures, we had visits from both sets of grandparents. It was great having them down to visit. It's hard to put a value on all the help they provided. In fact, Molly and I can now get both of our cars into the garage because my dad and I cleaned and organized the garage! Check it out:

That's about all there is to report for now. I'll try to post regular updates now that we're settled in.

Unexpected Visitor

Usually when you lead in with the phrase "unexpected visitor" one automatically assumes it's an unwelcome visitor. Not the case this time! On Sunday, my brother Robert called us and said that he was in Dallas and wanted to come down to Houston to visit. He hadn't been here yet, so we told him to come on down! So, he got here Monday evening and Molly and I went out to dinner with him and his friend, Kim. Robert and I stayed up late catching up, then I took them around NASA today for a nickle tour. It was a nice surprise, and I'm glad he finally got to visit us in Houston. Here are a few pictures:

From Robert's Visit Album

Astros Win!

Molly and I attended NASA Night at Minute Maid Park to watch the Astros open a can of whoop ass on the Los Angeles Dodgers. We went with a bunch of people from the ADCO group. Here is a picture of some of the motley crew.

From Astros vs. Dodgers

We got to see Craig Biggio hit a grand slam on the same day he announced his retirement - that was pretty cool. The crowd went wild! Well, that's about it.

Ginger's New Trick

OK, so it's not a real fancy trick, or even that entertaining..., but in the recent few weeks I taught Ginger to jump up into my arms. It's kind of funny to see a 65 lb. Lab do that. The REAL trick now is to make sure she only does it when you're ready and want her to!


Here's another video I took recently. It's Molly receiving her award at the 13A event at Space Center Houston