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...

Look at her go!

This is really such a fun time with Madison. She'll be 7 months on Sunday (can you believe it?!) and is doing more and more everyday.

I think I have mentioned before that she loves to sit and play and still isn't the biggest fan of tummy time. She rocks forward from a sitting position up onto her knees and pulls up on anything within reaching distance. She has now taken that to a new level too and goes from sitting, to her knees and then forward into a crawling position (well, almost)...she doesn't like to bend her right leg!

I really think this might be how she learns to crawl - from sitting to crawling, instead of tummy to creeping and then crawling, like many babies. She is even beginning to figure out how to sit back up if she is on her tummy, by pushing up with her hands, getting her knees under her and walking her hands towards her as she sits up. Besides that though, she is rolling all over the place and if you turn your head for a minute, she may be in a completely different place on the floor than she was when you last looked.

We've told some of you about the "indian noise" that we get her to make by covering and uncovering her mouth... She immediately starts making noise when we cover her mouth, though when we have attempted to show you, she doesn't do it. ;o) Anyway, I was pretty impressed that she caught on so fast, but she recently surprised us even more by trying to do it all by herself!! She will move her hand around in front of her mouth (though not in the same way) and will also try to make the sound by putting her mouth on your shoulder or whatever is near and lifting her head up and down. It's pretty cute and SO smart!!

Picture perfect moments

Trying out the new jogger. Once we got outside, we realized that it was a little cooler than we had thought (the sunny sky was deceiving), so we bundled Madison up really good and she actually fell asleep during the jog! The visor can actually fold all the way forward in front of her so that it blocks all the wind - Madison was nice and cozy as we burned some calories!

...GOING SOMEWHERE??

I was finishing up supper the other night and getting ready to feed Madison and I looked over at her in her high chair just as she was trying to escape (she was strapped in, of course, so wasn't going to get far)! The funny thing is, as soon as I grabbed the camera and went to take a picture, she pulled her leg back in. I managed to catch her the next time though. :o)

Yara had pigtails at school the other day... so I was inspired. Pretty cute, huh?

THE AFTER-EFFECT!

New "do"

This picture is a little fuzzy because I took it with my phone this morning, but I still thought it was too cute not to post.