Spaghetti? No, thank you.

There's no question about it, we have a drama queen on our hands. A pretty cute one though. :) (I'm sure it won't be as cute in 10-12 years or so).

We tried to introduce Madison to something new at dinner the other night - spaghetti - STAGE 3! Before I go any further, I have to ask, how in the world do babies learn to chew?! Especially if they still don't have any teeth?!

Anyway, the spaghetti had t-tiny pieces of pasta and meat in it (that I chopped up even smaller with a spoon) so we were curious how Madison would do with it. A couple of bites in, Madison starting expressing her dislike for the spaghetti. You could tell by the look on her face she was not enjoying it much. Then, as she seemed to be trying to figure out what to do with the solid pieces, she started coughing and spitting and at one point, I thought it was all going to come back up! Maybe this is horrible, but her reaction made me laugh.... Madison soon started giggling too, with food all over her face. Of course, that just made me laugh even more and then Dylan joined in too. I guess Madison realized what she had started, so she started coughing, spitting and gagging again, just to get us to laugh!

Easter Weekend

Easter Sunday

As we have many past years, we celebrated Easter in Austin with Madison's Nana's (Dylan's mom's) side of the family. A big group was able to get together and have dinner on Easter Eve at Great Nana and Great Grandad's new place - Querencia. We had a delicious fancy dinner with everyone, spent the night at Aunt Holly's, went to church Easter morning, and had a very very yummy Easter lunch at Holly's afterwards. We always leave Austin feeling full and spoiled. :) Madison got so many fun presents from the Easter bunny aka Aunt Holly, Bob, Ali, Great Nana and Great Grandad, Aunt Katie, Nana, Grandma and the Grandpas! What a lucky girl! She got some of the cutest things. Thanks again everyone!

Of course, Madison was all dolled up for church and we had a photo session afterwards.

Here is a sneak peak...more pictures from the weekend to come.

I just wanted to let everyone know that we have Easter pictures to share and I am dying to get them up, but things are incredibly CRAZY at work right now, so I haven't had the chance to "play" in a few days. :) Please check back though because the plan is to get them up tonight!

The dress

Dylan and I celebrated our first anniversary in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. At the time, I was about 4 months pregnant, so, in a way, it was our first family vacation. :)

We found this tiny dress in one of the shops on the street that looked much different than any others we had seen, so we bought it for Madison.

I think these are the sweetest pictures of Madison yet, if I do say so myself.

Hearts

(This one is for you Mindy).
If you know me well, you know how I feel about hearts - they should only be used to symbolize your love for someone. I can't bring myself to buy anything with a heart on it for our house. I definitely cannot wear anything that has a heart on it, including jewelry. I couldn't even bear to use hearts at our wedding.

However, I must say, my acceptance of hearts has grown somewhat since having a baby girl. Hearts on Madison are so sweet! Well, some hearts...I am still very selective.

Little fish

Last Saturday, the weather was absolutely gorgeous. It was actually almost hot! We have been dying for a warm sunny day, so we took advantage of it, got Madison her first pool (which is too cute, by the way) and let her take a swim! She loves taking baths, but I think she was a little unsure of the cooler water in the pool. We took lots of pictures - so much fun!!

Poor baby

Madison woke up this morning with her right eye completely crusted closed. Not to be gross, but it wasn't your typical eye booger. We noticed just within the past couple of days that her right eye has been kind of oozy, but it wasn't red and she didn't seemed bothered by it at all, so we didn't think much about it....that is, until this morning. I decided that I had better take her in to the doctor to make sure that she didn't have some kind of contagious eye infection and also to get her started on antibiotics right away, if needed, before the holiday weekend. I was kind of expecting the doctor to tell us to go home and that it was no big deal at all, but much to our surprise, we found out that our little punkin has an ear infection!!!!! The doctor was quite surprised, herself, because Madison wasn't acting like she was in pain or anything but apparently she has a LOT of fluid in her ear and the doctor said it should be hurting her more than she is letting on. Dylan and I both felt so bad because we had no idea that that was going on. She has been waking up more at night and has been acting a little fussy here and there, but I just attributed that to changes in the way she deals with things as she learns to do more, etc. Poor baby was probably fussing because her ear was bothering her!!! She is really one tough little cookie though - compared to how you would expect her to act, she hardly complained! I am so glad we took her in and get it checked out. Anyway, we now have antiobiotics, eye drops and pain reliever and she is sound asleep...

We got a weight check while there too! She is 17 lbs 7 oz!!! Wow - what a change from 6 months! I knew she had to be going through a growth spurt - she has been wanting to eat much more and just seems so much bigger to us now.

Who needs toys??!!

We've all heard people joke about kids enjoying the boxes that the toys come in more than the toys themselves, but we are realizing that it isn't really much of a joke at all! Madison gets bored with her toys quite quickly, but stays occupied with these boxes for much longer!

Besides boxes, one of her new favorite toys is an empty prescription medicine bottle. She also gets SO excited when she sees anything electronic - LOVES the laptop, is FASCINATED by our cell phones, gets MESMERIZED by the t.v., is EXTREMELY INTERESTED in the remote control and CAN'T GET ENOUGH of the digital photo frame!

Key to daddy's heart

We had to get Madison some soccer shoes - especially now that Dylan is playing again. These have to be the cutest shoes ever made and they came with a soft pink and white soccer ball too!

P-R-E-C-I-O-U-S

Madison crawls!!

Monday, March 10, 2008

Happy Gram

Well, the same day I posted the message about Madison crawling, Ms. Rosie gave us this note when we picked Madison up at school. So fun and exciting!

Let the fun begin!

What were you up to at 5 a.m. Saturday morning? Sleeping, perhaps? Well, true to form, we were up bright and early. This Saturday, a little earlier than usual! I woke up at the crack of dawn to the sweetest sounds of Miss Madison playing in her crib. She can now sit herself up in her crib so she must be eager to get up and go! To be fair, it was 5:11 a.m...every minute counts.

I grabbed the camera and snapped as many pictures as I could in the dark. Then Madison and I went and drove through Whataburger for some breakfast while Dylan slept in a little longer. His soccer games on Thursday nights are having a delayed effect on his body...it usually doesn't hit him until Saturday.

Later that morning we had another photo shoot in the crib. I stood Madison up to see if the mattress needed to be lowered and she grabbed the rail and held on tight so I took the opportunity to get some more pictures. Now when we go in her room when she wakes up, we find her sitting up playing...or crying to get out. I know she will be standing and trying to climb out soon.

Stay tuned...

Madison is SO about to crawl...in fact, she took several "steps" (what would you call forward crawling movements?! - crawls maybe?) last night towards her toys. She has a little more work to do to get all the movements coordinated, but she is very determined and I think she'll be on the move in no time! We are so excited and she is too - the cutest part about it is how she moves forward a little bit and sits back down to clap for herself before venturing out again. How cute is that?!

Our little cowgirl

It's rodeo time again and just like the rest of the city kicks off the rodeo by wearing western gear, the babies and kiddos were encouraged to wear their western garb to school too.

Random Madi Facts

Madison is 7 months old, but only takes 0-3 month size pacifiers. Anything bigger covers her nose and gags her.

She has a long torso but not very long legs. Funny, huh? Considering her mom has just the opposite!!!

7 months

Madison is so happy to be 7 months old, she woke up this past Saturday morning clapping, literally. We were so surprised and excited to see her do it! She looked like an old pro, like she had been practicing for quite awhile, but we had never seen her clap her hands before then. She proceeded to clap the entire weekend too. :) Now, if music is playing or we make her toys "do what they do", she starts clapping. It is just the cutest thing!

She is also becoming more and more active and getting a lot stronger. She wants anything and everything that is in her sight - especially things that you have that she shouldn't. Forget the toys. She is not crawling yet, but I think that is just around the corner. She will effortlessly go from her back, to her tummy to sitting up now though. She does get on her hands and knees and reach out for things, but when she gets them, she sits back down to play.

Madison LOVES daycare! She usually gets up pretty early with us in the mornings so by the time we are all ready to go, she is getting sleepy again and kind of cranky. She will usually take a 5-10 minute cat nap in the car on the way to school, but wakes up when we get in the classroom. As soon as she sees her teachers and her friends, she gets a huge grin on her face and starts shrieking with delight! She seems to really enjoy having the other babies to play with. It really makes it much easier to go to work knowing that she is happy there. She gives me lots of smiles and giggles when I get there to pick her up too, so it really doesn't get any better than that!

Soaking up some sun

Wow - I am really getting behind on posting to the blog and I'm not happy about it.

The weekend before last, Dylan, Madison and I went down to the little lake in our neighborhood because it was just too beautiful to be inside. Dylan took his fly rod and Madison and I hung out on a blanket and watched. As you can see from the pictures, I need sun more than people in the desert (my version) need water. I was begging for a tan (would have even taken a burn at this point), while stressing over Madison getting too much or being too hot.

It was 70 degrees outside. I lathered Madison up with sunscreen 30 minutes before we left the house. I made sure that she had a hat (and her sunglasses, of course). Here's the best part...we were outside not 15 minutes and I started feeding her ice chips because I was afraid she was getting too hot and may get dehydrated!!!! I'll need all the moral support I can get this summer, I imagine.

Anyway, Madison survived - didn't have a hint of a burn (nor did I have an ounce of "color"). Dylan and I were so glad to get out of the house and enjoy the weather though. I know Dylan is itching to get more fishing in this summer.

Oh, and as you can see, Madison's sun hat is a little big - she looks like Gilligan. :) We were in a hurry and just saw that the tag said "infant" and didn't realize it had an actual size (12-18 mos.). Oh well, what do you do? It served its purpose...