Madi Videos

Madison's walking! Here is a video of her taking a few steps a couple of weeks ago. She has made lots of progress since then and gets pretty much wherever she wants to go al by herself! By the way, she LOVES her chair. She wants to sit in it all the time...but also enjoys standing in it and waiting for us to tell her to sit.

Blowing kisses to daddy...

Momma's (that's me!) Birthday Weekend

I had the greatest birthday this year!! Everyone went out of their way to make it a special day for me. I couldn't be more blessed.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from that weekend - spending time with Dylan, Madi, Katie, Terry, Landon and the Wiltshires. We had tons of fun!

Don't blink

In just a blink of an eye, Madison went from looking and pointing curiously to cruising with determination, squatting while standing and even standing up in the middle of a room without something to hold on to, responding to things we say or other things around her as if she really understands (like when she waves bye-bye to the store as we head to the check-out counter), and is even saying a few words!! It just seemed to happen over night!

For about a week now, probably since about the time her first tooth poked through, Madison has been walking around pointing at EVERYTHING and saying, "uh dat?" (what's that?). It took us a little while to realize that is what she was saying, but after hearing it over and over a few times, we realized that she is repeating what we say to her a lot. Sometimes "uh dat?" is shortened to "dat?" or "tat?" too.

I am pretty sure that she said "duck" last night in the bath and when I quacked like a duck in a higher pitch, she let out the same high pitch sound - her babbling is never high pitched like that, so I know she was imitating me!

Though she starting signing "more" awhile back, she only did it occassionally and didn't typically do it at the right time. That has changed and she let's us know if she wants more of something.

This morning she signed "milk" when I asked her if she wanted some. I had never even seen her do that one nor have we worked on that one with her - so she must have learned it at school.

Just the other day I said her name and then asked, "where's Madison?", and she pointed to herself. Dylan and I have both been working on this with her, which makes me think it wasn't just a fluke.

Maybe this is normal for babies her age (I haven't been around enough to know), but I have to say, I am very impressed and one proud mama. As if that wasn't obvious...

Hide and seek

11 months

I feel like it has been awhile since I updated the blog with Madi news. As of yesterday, she is 11 months old, and one month away from her 1st birthday! I'm so excited about the party and have already started planning. I think I will have more fun than anyone else!

WE ARE SLEEPING! I didn't want to speak to soon or say something, but Madison has been sleeping through the night for close to two weeks now. It is like she just decided one night that she didn't need to wake up for a bottle or insist that we bring her in bed with us... It is really so nice to know each night that there is a very good chance she won't wake up until 5:45 or so, which is when we are up getting ready for work anyway.

She refuses to eat baby food and has for the past couple of weeks too. She now eats what we eat or any other soft finger foods. We don't even have to send food to daycare anymore - she eats with the big kids!

We learned last weekend that Madison does actually have teeth in those gums. :) On Saturday morning Dylan and I noticed some blood on Madison's lips, but she hadn't fallen or anything and was playing as if nothing was wrong. I attempted to look in her mouth to see what was bleeding and found that a tooth had come through on the bottom! It is still making its way up all the way, but now the second bottom front tooth is poking through too! How exciting!

Finally, I think we're up to four steps... Madison typically takes one or two steps before falling into ours arms (I think she thinks that is a game we play), but has taken four in a row before toppling over. We're just hoping she can run (or wobble) around at her birthday party. :)

Dancing queen

Madison LOVES to dance and I must say, she is pretty good...and so darn cute!

She doesn't even need music - good food can set her off too. :)

Favorite game

Madison's favorite game to play with daddy...

BITE!

I thought it was bad when Madison's little finger got bit, but last Tuesday, our baby got this on her arm! The first bite didn't leave a mark. I guess one of the babies (who apparently has a full set of teeth!) got hungry during story time. She was fine, it just doesn't look good! Poor baby girl!

Family Reunion

Our trip to Iowa started out rough! Let's just say I am now thoroughly convinced that the airline business is, by far, the worst in this country and there is not a single thing we can do about it, short of orchestrating a nationwide strike and all committing to drive everywhere. Since that isn't going to happen, I'm pretty sure we are going to continue to be at the airline's mercy and have to sit back and let them attempt to ruin our vacations everytime we decide to fly. I won't go in to all the details, but I will say (if you don't already know), buying your tickets months in advance does not mean you are going to have a seat on the flight. It's more like buying a lottery ticket...you give them hundreds of dollars and maybe they will give you your requested number of seats, side-by-side, on the flight that you bought the ticket for and get you to your destination on time - not 24 hours later.

Ok, I'm done. As painful as it was at the time, the truth of the matter is, I really think it was a blessing in disguise. We were refunded the majority of our money for the plane tickets and then were put up in the Hyatt in Chicago (SOOOO nice). We would have been paying for a hotel room in Iowa that night, so saved money there too.

When we finally made it to Iowa, we had a great time. There are 11 grandchildren on my mom's side (10 cousins plus me) and all but 1 of them were able to make it to Iowa for the family reunion and early celebration of my grandma' 80th birthday. All of my mom's sisters and her brother were there and lots of my grandma's cousins and even one of my mom's cousins were able to make it! I got to see family that I haven't seen in years, Dylan met more of my family and Madison met all kinds of new people!! One of the neat things about this get together too was that there were great grandchildren. It was the first time that all of the cousins (my cousins and me) got together with our families. The group just keeps older and bigger and it was a lot of fun to meet all the little ones. My youngest cousin turns 21 in September which means I am getting SO old!! I hope we can manage to get everyone together at the same time again before our babies grow up! With everyone spread out all over the U.S., it makes it hard.

Not only were we able to see a ton of my family, we had a surprise visit from my dad! We did not expect him to be there, but Katie and I were happy to see him and have what little time we did have with him and Chase. Madison got to meet them for the first time too.

It was a short weekend, but one I know we will remember for years. I can never get enough time with my grandma and to have that time with her and so much other family is something I cherish greatly.

Madi and Landon

These two do not get to spend enough time together! Aunt Katie and Landon spent the night last night because we are all heading to Iowa today for a family reunion and to celebrate my Grandma's 80th birthday. Landon is getting so big and is so sweet. He was sooo super excited about the flight today. They had an earlier flight than we do and he was up bright and early talking about his airplane ride today and flying around the house with his arms out like wings.

Here are the two munchkins getting cleaned up last night before bed.