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!