growing up so fast

as maddie is growing up there are so many little nuances to her personality that i don't want to forget - that's where i am hoping this blog will supplement her baby book.

she really likes being read to. it is amazing to me that she already has favorite books! she is really in to the rhyming ones. we have a veggietales book - i think its called "god loves you very much" - and a baby einstein book called "what's bigger than me?" (i think) that are her favorites. in a close third is a small first words book from bright baby; she likes to help turn the pages in that book more than in others. our new bedtime and nap time routine includes two books and a little snuggling while she sucks her thumb. she goes into her crib awake, but the reading calms her down to where she doesn't even make a peep. she just goes to sleep.

another thing that she does right now that i really like is when we stand her up she looks down at her toys and laughs at them in a "i am a giant" sort of way. it makes me laugh to think about what is going through her head when she looks down laughing. like she is thinking "i could crush you silly little toys".

she is also very anxious to get moving on her own. she is known around the neighborhood for her busy, kicking legs, but she is starting to move her legs under her and push her butt up (in a downward facing dog sort of way for you yogi) constantly while she is playing. see the video below for a sampling.



she is such a wiggle worm! the only time she really holds still is when she is sleeping.

here are some pictures of maddie and lady telling each other "hello" (or is lady trying to fix her hair?).

and here are some pictures of her helping matt with his birthday cards and present on monday.

i need to go now and feed my sweet little baby her afternoon oatmeal. love.

daddy's birthday

yea! today is matt's birthday! (not that we are doing anything special.) we have postponed celebrating until the weekend of december 7 since matt has to work on reviews until then. but i have promised him a celebratory weekend including a turkey dinner (his favorite).

we lowered madelyn's crib mattress to the lowest level this weekend and it looks like we did so just in time... when i went in to get her from her morning nap she was peeking over the bumper and had her arm hanging over the top! if we had not lowered the mattress, she would have been over the top of the crib! she was obviously pleased with herself. she even held the position long enough for me to run and grab the camera to capture her accomplishment.

this video is of maddie playing with a block today. i started filming because she was rocking on her hands and knees again, but she stopped as soon as i got the camera and didn't do it at all while i was filming! but you can see one of the many ways she occupies her time while i work...



here is another video of her playing in my office. she was holding the yellow part with her one hand and spinning the ball with the other, but of course she switched things up once i got to filming... she has always favored this toy on the exersaucer, but there is much more intent and repetition in her actions now. enjoy!

i guess that is all for tonight. matt will be home in the next few hours and i have to make my final preparations for a small birthday acknowledgement tonight (i couldn't let the actual day go by without some celebration). love.

speaking or shrieking?

we just hung around the house today and played with madelyn. matt worked on his reviews (he is almost halfway done with writing around 40 reviews) and i cleaned up and did laundry. i had planned to start christmas cards, but they may have to wait to be done during the weeknights - the clock is ticking though and i am starting to get nervous if i will get everything done before christmas!

today i was reading about the "sixth month" in the what to expect book and it was explaining that babies should have "a-goo" type vowel/consonant combinations for their babbling. maddie was doing that at 3 months but has now moved on to a shrieking and grunting type of expression. she does make other consonant type noises, but being the perfectionistic, over-achiever that i am i of course wondered if she was still on track. (before everyone tries to reassure me that all babies develop at their own pace, i am not really worried. i just question everything.) here are some videos of her "talking" to dad today. they were at it for about 20 minutes before maddie rolled over in favor of a toy. since it was after 3 the sun was already starting to go down here and i didn't realize how dark it was (the final video always looks darker than it does in the preview screen while recording it) so this is more for listening than the viewing (which is too bad because she gets really excited and animated when she 'talks').





here is one more video of her 'dancing' with daddy for your viewing pleasure. standing is quickly becoming her favorite thing to do...

the only other excitement of the day was the introduction of pears into her food options this morning. they were a huge hit! she couldn't get enough of them! and she also drank the most water from her cup yet - maybe it was all the sweet flavor or the grainy consistency. the pears were so grainy that i had to run her hands under the kitchen sink instead of just wiping them off. she really thought that was great because she likes the running water. that's all the excitement for today. love.

black friday

yes, we did take madelyn with us to do a little shopping today. why would we take her shopping today of all days? because it beat sitting at home all day! actually it wasn't all that bad. we didn't get out until 10:30 or so and a lot of folks were on their way out when we were heading in. maddie likes all the sights at the mall so she had a great time and matt suffered through. we just got him a starbucks coffee right when we got there to keep his energy up.

we didn't get much at the mall, but we did get a christmas dress for maddie with a gift certificate we have had for a while and matt got some early birthday presents from me.

i made dinner when we got home and maddie passed out in her swing while we were eating. i guess she just had too much fun shopping today! this was the first time she had conked out when it wasn't nap time or bed time. she looked so cute. and she was holding on tight to the play bar (i don't know what else to call it) because i couldn't get her to let go when i was trying to get her out of the swing and ready for bed.

i was getting her bath ready when i finally figured out that i could put her in the bathtub the other way because she can sit up now. i have been trying to get her to sit up on the old side (now known to me as the "newborn" side) but the "butt" area is too small and she ends up sliding down into a laying down position. finally the poor kid has enough room for her butt and can sit up-right comfortably in the tub. she was really getting into splashing with her hands tonight and was surprised when all the water went into her face. her new thing is that she is really interested in clapping. when we clap our hands for her she puts her hands on either side of ours (or holds our fingers) and 'rides' as we clap. tonight she has started to 'clap' one of her hands on my palm when i hold my hand out for her. she even hits hard enough to make a 'clap' sound which surprises her a little.

our thanksgiving dinner was very nice! we went and ate with one our neighbors and their families. we had a great time and a thanksgiving to remember... she had pre-ordered the dinner from one of the grocery stores and when they went to pick it up - it was cold! and the portions were ridiculously small! not nearly enough for 12 people (which is what she ordered). here is a picture of sean carving our rotisserie chickens next to the plastic wrapped cold turkey and the small, small paper bag that the whole meal came in! we were all a little in shock, but laughing about it. and in the end, we all had more than enough to eat! it was great! (really, amy, it was wonderful!) plus, i learned a new card game - hand and foot - that was great.

i hope that you all had memorable thanksgivings as well! love.

white thanksgiving

we woke up to snow today! i was so excited watching it snow late last night and couldn't wait for madelyn to wake up and see it this morning! needless to say she was not as excited as i was (or was her daddy who i woke up to film us)...



not only is today her first snow and her first thanksgiving, but it is also her 5 month birthday! i was just reminding matt that it was last thanksgiving when we told our parents that they were going to be grandparents. this year has flown by!

okay, well i need to get started on our "happy thanksgiving" calls/skypes before we head over to one of the neighbors for turkey dinner (we are one of the sad people that our neighbors took pity on because we have no family in town). and then tonight we are getting together with some other neighbors for cards and drinks after the kids are all asleep.

while maddie won't have turkey today, i have prepared some sweet potatoes for her thanksgiving feast! love.

the return of the all nighter

after 4 weeks of early morning and late night wake ups, maddie is sleeping through the night again with 12 hours on sunday night and 13 hours last night! i am so thankful for the return of the all nighter!

we are still waiting to see which tooth comes in next, but you can see her two teeth very easily when she talks or smiles. her hair is always hanging in her face now so we have to use barrettes and headbands everyday now. they are a loosing battle most of the time though because she is becoming more active.

today she has gotten to where she can get herself up on her knees and elbows, but she just rocks back and forth for a few seconds before just dropping her belly down and kicking her legs. she's getting closer to crawling, but not there yet. she has made some progress with her sitting though. she can now get herself back down on her belly without just tipping over. she sort of rolls forward and uses her arms to ease her body down when she is ready. she has also discovered that she can reach for things to pull herself up with! this was something she figured out just before bedtime and every time i tried to take a picture she would get so excited that she would fall down leaving me with a lot of these 'in motion' pictures of her holding on to her basket.

lastly, here is a video of her playing with her water cup that i thought was cute. its not in the video, but since we always end our highchair time with the water cup she has figured out that it signals the end of a meal. after her cereal tonight i got the cup out and she started fussing and refused to drink it. after a few tries i realized that when i took the cup away she would stop fussing so i decided to mix her up a little more cereal. she was so excited to have more to eat and ate it all before she would gladly drink her water without complaint. its just amazing how they figure out their routines! love.

bananas or lemons?

here is maddie all vegged out in our bed waiting for us to get ready after we woke her up to get dressed for church this morning. her tights are way too small, but they are the only ones we had (i bought more today in a larger size). she has crazy hair and because i was running late it didn't get fixed before we left - oh well.

after church we fed her some more bananas, but watching her reaction you would think that she was eating lemons! after every bite she would squint her eyes and shake her head, but at least she would take another bite. last week when we tried bananas she would only take a bite or two before refusing to eat any more so we waited another week and had a little more success. matt did the filming and didn't know that the orientation mattered so you will have to tilt your head to see her reaction. love.



(all you sports fans may have noticed her san diego chargers bib - alas it did not bring them the luck they needed to beat the jaguars. however, the yellow shirt is for the green bay packers and they were victorious!)

first snow of the year... sort of

it was snowing pretty steady when i came out of the grocery store tonight! i was so excited! but there wasn't any accumulation, so it won't count at the first "official snowfall of the year".

so far, madelyn has not been a huge fan of the cold. the wind gets her gasping for air (that is the only way that i can describe it - she just takes air in over and over until we get her out of the wind). she does really like to watch the wind blow though. she will look at the windows and laugh at the leaves, trees, and grass blowing outside. i also can't imagine that it is fun for her to be changed with my ice cube fingers. i try to warm them up first, but there is only so much i can do when it is so cold outside.

she is about to outgrow her 9 month sleepers, so tomorrow i have to go and buy some 12 month ones. this is the first size where she hasn't had any and it sort of snuck up on us. it is just crazy how fast she is growing!

we have introduced a new bedtime routine tonight so that she doesn't eat to go to sleep. there are three reasons for the change:

1. bedtime is the only time of day that we have left where we were feeding her to sleep.
2. we really need to start brushing her teeth after her last meal.
3. its just time - she is almost 5 months after all.

so now first we eat, then we bathe and get dressed for bed, then we read two books (one fun and one about praying or going to bed), say our prayers and turn off the lights. we will see how long it takes her to adjust. i am guessing that it won't be long since this is how all of her other sleep routines are for naps. tonight she was just too happy and was crying because she was lonely. when you went in to check on her she was all smiles but would start crying again as soon as i left the room. matt was having a harder time with it than i was so he went in to hold her in the dark until she got more sleepy.

that's all for now. love!

mmmm...

i meant to put this up last night, but fell asleep instead. maddie has started to say "mmmm" while she eats. i think she is copying me, but i didn't realize that i was even making that noise until she started doing it too.

here she is eating her oatmeal (a little less aggressively than normal - we call her the piranha) and enjoying every bite! oatmeal is for sure her favorite. she did finally eat bananas today without looking like she was being tortured. i still don't think that they are her favorite, but she will at least eat them. we are going to try avocado next week.



and here she is drinking from her "real" cup. sometimes she gets both hands in the act and gets most of the water in her mouth. but you can get the general idea from this clip.



we picked up our Christmas cards today, so i can get to addressing them and maybe get them out on time this year... we'll see how everything goes. love.

sitting pretty

my boss, michelle, stayed with us last night - why i wasn't blogging - and it was a great visit. she and i don't get to chat as much as we would like when we are in the office so this was a really nice treat! michelle has triplet boys that are about to turn 5 - can you imagine?! the picture is of her and maddie. matt worked from home on wednesday too and took maddie during her nap times and while michelle and i went to a bma (business marketing association) meeting last night.

i took some video of maddie sitting up this afternoon to show you all how good she is getting. she still topples over (as you can see in the second video) when she gets too excited, but over all she is starting to be pretty stable.



her new trick of the day is trying to escape from her bouncy seat to get to the floor or get the toy that she dropped. basically she turns upside-down and spreads her arms out reaching. she was reaching for the toy on the floor, but then she started reaching for the ceiling. she did it more than once today and seemed to enjoy the change of perspective.

but this new skill means that there are only two places that she is safe left unattended (or where i can turn my back) and those are her crib and the play-yard. straps will no longer contain her...


this last picture is of her enjoying one of her books. i am hoping that she picks up this passion of mine and not just her dad's passion for golf. love.

got to be quick

my boss is coming tomorrow to stay with us until thursday, so i have to be quick tonight so that i can get back to cleaning... now that maddie is drinking from a cup, she keeps trying to drink from the cup i use at bath time to rinse her hair! i guess that i need to change the rinsing vessel so that she doesn't start drinking the bath water.

it has occurred to me that i haven't been taking any pictures of her once she is in her jammies (unless it is one of my stalking pictures from when she is sleeping) so here is one of her in her owl pjs - note the owls on the bottoms of her feet...

we went to the dentist today and since matt and i coincidentally had back-to-back appointments (he rescheduled his a few times) so matt stayed for my appointment to watch maddie and then we all went out to grab a quick lunch together which was really nice! (the dentist said that he would see her when she is two.) since daddy wanted to play, maddie didn't get her normal morning nap and passed out as soon as she and i headed for home. she even transferred to her crib without waking up and slept for another hour and a half.

here are two pictures of her dressed for her outing today. doesn't she look like such a "big girl"? i had to change her into short sleeves because this shirt was just too stretchy and kept getting caught when she rolled over. she doesn't get mad though, she just pulls her arm out of the sleeve! ohmygoodness - i just realized that in the one on the left she is giving a "thumbs-up"!

she has also discovered reaching. she has realized that she can reach for something that she can't really reach - including us when she wants to be lifted up. in combination with this she has begun to grunt for help when she knocks something too far away - like a toy on her high chair tray. it is so exciting to watch her discover her abilities and limitations each day as they constantly change.

time to run. love.

i'm here and i'm loud - get used to it!

i have mentioned before that maddie really loves the sound of her own voice... well now she has taken it to a whole new volume level! she sounds like she is stuck or angry half the time, but she is actually happy and enjoying the noises she can make. yesterday we went to the grocery store and she wanted everyone to know that maddie was in the house. i had read that when they go through this volume stage that you should call it "singing" when out in public because it makes people less annoyed by what sounds like screaming. she was really going at it after her mid-morning meal, so i got some of her noise on video but she had definitely settled down a little by the time i got the camera. enjoy...

i found some smaller cups for maddie to use. it was more difficult to find them than i thought it would be. everything is spill proof or too big. i found these at toys-r-us and they are old school with the snap-on lids with spouts like i had as a kid. she loves them! when we use a sippy cup she has no interest in holding it to drink, but the second a real cup comes out she is reaching for it and has her mouth open. i will admit that more of the water stays in her mouth with the sippy cup, but not much more. she was actually holding the cup with both hands and putting to her mouth on her own today but when it occurred to me to get some pictures or video of it she was done with eating and drinking for the time being. i did get one picture where you can see how she puts her mouth on the rim.

i am going to close with the one thing that i have been having a lot of trouble with...baby straps and buckles. every single thing we have for maddie that has a buckle i have caught my finger in and drawn blood! tonight it was her bouncy seat. in trying not to catch her belly or bare skin in the buckle i cover it with my own hand and catch a fingertip. i have done it on the bouncer, both strollers, and the baby carrier. its probably just me since i could hurt myself with just about anything, but, man, i am running out of bandaids!

that's all for tonight. love.

fave cookbook

we picked up a new cookbook at sam's club the other week because we were getting tired of the three we already have and it is FANTASTIC! i wanted to share the love with you all by telling you about it. it is the "southern living busy moms weeknight favorites" and my favorite part is that they give you a "menu idea for 4" and the grocery list for every recipie! so far we have had two of the meals and they are great and really quick. we tried the "caribbean pork chops with appricot sauce" and "grilled ham and apples". just wanted to spead the word... love.

once upon a time...

once upon a time there was a girl with a fantastic memory. everyone used to rely on her to recall any detail, even from years in the past. then one day this girl had a baby and now she can't remember what she was just doing...

that is how my fairytale life is going these days. i can't remember anything! and my lists are just getting out of control. i carry around a pen and notepad so that i can jot down anything that i have to remember, but when i look at my note i can't always remember why i wrote it down!

the point of this story is to apologize for not having anything interesting to post today. i know that i had thought of a point earlier today, but it escapes me now as i sit down to write.

anyway, i had some cute pictures of maddie from today with her daddy that i wanted to post.

on a related note (sort of), they are doing a series at our church called "catch the wave" for a fundraising project to help pay down the debt on the building, etc. as a part of the first message from this series, they had people write names of people they hoped would be reached for God because of the church's funds not going to interest payments on the back wall of the sanctuary. today was the final message and while people were turning in their pledge cards they ran a powerpoint list of the 1200+ names that were written on the back wall. they were mainly first names or initials, but there were some that got me all teared up (i have become such an emotional mess since having maddie - and i was pretty emotional to begin with...) here are a few of the ones that got me reaching for the tissues: "future child", "daddy", "me", "mom", "my sister", etc. can you just imagine some child going back and writing "daddy" on the wall? it just broke my heart. i will be praying for "daddy" tonight. love.

six year anniversary

today was matt and i's sixth wedding anniversary! (he is putting maddie to sleep and that is why i have the time to blog.) we had nothing to do all day and just hung around and played with maddie. all three of us even took a nap this afternoon (maddie napped in her crib). and tonight we went out to dinner, but matt didn't feel comfortable leaving maddie with one of the neighborhood girls just yet, so she came along for the ride. given that we had to wait an hour for a table, she did really great. we got too close to bedtime at the end of the meal so matt took her out to the car while i waited for boxes and the check.

her top teeth must be just days from coming in (or at least some teeth somewhere in her mouth). her spit up has increased again, she is sucking her thumb more, chewing on our fingers more, eating less at each sitting (or at least more agitated and squirmy) and her drooling is getting out of control. these were all things that she went through two days before her first tooth broke through. and i noticed this morning that the poor girl has a rash on the underside of her chin! i think that it is just drool irritation so i have gotten her bibs back out as a part of everyday wear.

we tried bananas this morning, but she wasn't too in to them. oatmeal cereal is still her favorite! i told matt that she must have inherited my love of carbs... oh and did i rant on how DISGUSTING rice cereal is! i tasted it after she had been eating it for about a week and told matt that i wouldn't feed it to her for another day! that is when we switched to the oatmeal cereal and the difference is amazing. she can't get enough of the stuff!

she is continuing to improve at sitting on her own. she basically gets too excited after a few seconds and reaches for something or throws herself backwards. that's why i am holding her hand in the picture - its more for me than for her.

i'll close tonight with some footage of her playing in the exersaucer. (i am trying to appease my mother's demands for more and longer videos.) you might notice that she is in short sleeves - we have been keeping the house warmer than we normally would because the winter wear is limiting to her movement. the long sleeves get caught when she rolls over and she can't get her arm free. you can hear the dryer and the dogs in the background and matt is sitting on the couch watching muted football. maddie is just trying to get the toys into her mouth. sometimes she gets a little too energetic about getting them in her mouth and she ends up crying because some part of her face took the impact of her mouth's target. enjoy! love.

just another thursday

nothing too exciting today. i moved her up to two meals (oatmeal cereal and sweet potatoes) and she is really liking drinking from a real cup. it is pretty cute to see her try to get her mouth to the top of the cup - it takes some help from me to actually get the water into her mouth, but she tries really hard to do it herself. (maybe i can get some video this weekend with matt's help.)

the other thing that provided her with loads of entertainment was kicking her heels on our console under the t.v. i am not sure if it is the feeling or the sound that entertains her, but today was the first she has kicked her heels on this piece of furniture and it got a laugh or two before the novelty wore off.

this last picture is of her in her high chair while i made dinner. like i have mentioned before, she really likes her feet. this results in her getting to them any way she can. i kept having to come over and put it back through the leg hole. i finally went and got one of her toys so that she would stop trying to play with her feet.

i am exhausted, so its bedtime for me. have a great night! love.

mommy's home

i am happy to report that the house is still standing! i even came home to an empty dishwasher! maddie doesn't appear to have changed too much while i was gone, so that is good. it was really difficult not to wake her up when i got home so that i could hold her. i didn't get to miss her very much on my trip because i was so crazy busy the whole time, but the second the plane landed my need to see her kicked into overdrive! i couldn't get home fast enough! i am really lucky that i didn't get a speeding ticket.

she looked at me this morning like i had never even left. it was just "good morning, when do we eat?" type of greeting. but she did give me a new trick today... she can get up on all fours now for a few seconds! i confirmed with her dad that it was something new and not just new to me. we think that she is really going to be crawling pretty soon. right now she just pushes when she is on her knees and plows her face into the ground. once she figures out how to get her arms into the act she will be cruising.

matt did a great job with maddie and it eases my mind about my future trips. i think he enjoyed feeding her sweet potatoes the best. it was pretty messy from the sound of it. one tablespoon got so messy that she needed to go straight into the tub so that he could get it out of her hair.

its just maddie and me tonight. matt just called to say that her won't be home before she goes to bed tonight. so typing is getting pretty challenging with the little squirmer on my lap. more tomorrow. love.

We Survived!

This blog entry comes to you from Mr. Mom. I know that many of you who read this are very concerned on whether or not I, and more importantly Madelyn, survived our first day without Mom holding down the fort. Well we did and we had a great time in the process. It was really a lot fun. I was actually surprised how much work I got done, because I wasn't really planning on getting much of any work done. She took 4 naps for me today which really helped. She also went to bed early today (probably thanks to daylight savings time just taking effect), which has allowed me to get a lot of work done this evening. But now I'm tired and really need to go to bed since we have another big day of eating, sleeping and diaper changing. So good night. And Michelle...know that Maddie and I miss you. We had a great time today, but there were a couple of instances where Maddie just yelled out a cry when she was on her changing table as if she missed her mama. We'll both be excited to see you tomorrow.

countdown to mr. mom

tomorrow is the big day! matt is going to stay home on monday and tuesday to play mr. mom while i go to kansas for some business meetings. i am not too stressed about leaving (other than for having to find time to pump-and-dump in between my meetings) but i am a little worried about leaving matt all alone with maddie since he isn't really used to her routine and he will have to heat all the bottles. i have already alerted several of the moms in the area that he might need help at some point. although this is just a short test, the real one will be when i go to chicago the first week in december and he has to be mr. mom for four whole days! i am going to miss them both terribly, but it will be nice to have a short break from home life and being the care giver (and maybe get some sleep).

i am trying to convince matt to blog tomorrow night and let you all know how he is doing, we'll see if he can handle it or not. i will be gone until tuesday night at 8pm, so i am also missing our volleyball league championship! oh well...

today we gave maddie her first drink from the sippy cup. i am not sure that she liked the water. she drank a little, but mainly enjoyed playing with her new "toy". she has started to realize that it is fun to bang things on her highchair tray - her hand, her cup, etc.

okay, well i have to run. i still need to make dinner, pack, and prep for my meetings. here are a few more pictures from the weekend... love.

maddie in her boy pjs that i picked out for her - much to grandma's dismay.

in her sunday dress this morning. there were a lot of layers between me and her diaper. luckily, we made it home before she needed a change.

adventures in lunch...