Our first cold... this is no fun at all

Madeline has her first cold. She is coughing and sneezing... and blowing snot bubbles with her little nose. We had hoped it was teething, but it's definitely turned into a cold.

Our poor baby has had a bad couple of nights, but we are getting through.

Hang in there, peachy baby girl!

Oh that Grammy and Papa!

It went something like this...
MOMMY: You gave her a MOHAWK?
GRAMMY: It's not a MOHAWK! It's a cupie curl.
MOMMY: It's a MOHAWK!
GRAMMY: No it's not. I used to give you one all the time!
MOMMY: OH GOOD LORD....
PAPA: What's the matter with it? It's cute!

Cupie curl or mohawk? You be the judge.

My child: the punk rock kid/cupie doll kid. See what they did to you when I wasn't looking?

Just sitting around

Madeline is trying so hard to sit up! Look at her go!

She is sitting on the futon mattress that we had in the livingroom for a little while. We reluctantly put it back in the other room after about 2 weeks of laying out on the floor. It was pretty nice to be able to lay down with her on the mattress... but annoying to walk around and impossible to vacuum under.

Why is the futon mattress in the livingroom floor? Oh, Maddie, someday you are going to read this and know how very WRAPPED you have your parents around your little finger!

David and Jennifer stayed late one night and we didn't want to wake Madeline because she was sleeping in the middle of our bed. One move and she would be up! So we dragged out the mattress and slept in the livingroom with the monitor turned on. It was like camping... on a much smaller mattress than we are used to.

And do you know what? The little peanut slept all night and we were so glad we left her there!

Sweet dreams, pumpkin! Look at you sitting up like a big girl!!!

Fun in the photo booth

Using a fun little program on my trusty Mac, called Photo Booth, Madeline and I had a good ol' time creating some pop art! Check it out...



Just like Andy Warhol intended, right?



Then we made a few other pix, too... This one is supposed to be a color pencil sketch.



The next one is me just cracking up at how cute she is!



And the last one is done in sepia tone... LOVE SEPIA. I think it adds such a cool old-fashioned element to a photo. Some people aren't crazy about it... but hey, it's our blog... :) And sepia is my thing.



And finally, I dunno who this kid is. He snuck into our house one night and used my computer. What a weirdo...



Bubba... I won't post the other disturbing, strange morphed pictures that you created. You were right when you said you have too much time on your hands...

Tough work

It's tough work being a baby... exhausting.

This is one of the few times that Madeline has fallen asleep on her own, without being rocked to sleep. She's laying on a blanket on the living room floor in her cozy jammies.

Zzzz....Zzzz....Zzzz....

The power of soy

Look how much our girly girl has grown in 7 months! Soy has done this little body some good!

The first picture is Madeline at just one week old in July. We lived in town at the time, before we moved. Look how small our little peach was in her jungle swing! Her pajamas were too big for her and now... that little pair of PJ's is packed away in the closet.. too small!

The second picture was Madeline just last week, sitting on her favorite perch - her jungle swing! At first this swing was TOO fast for her. But now that she is a little chunky monkey, the swing is more stable and doesn't go quite so fast. She's our growing girl... smiling and laughing nowadays... gone are the sleepy days when we just wanted her to open her eyes and look at us.

Now, she's an active baby! She rolls and is trying her hardest to get her knees underneath her to crawl. Lastnight she got them under her, but couldn't lift her front end up.

And now... this sweet little baby doesn't want to sleep! Life is just too fun for this little gal to miss a single moment!

Aaron the lil homemaker

Look at what Aaron can do when he is let loose in the kitchen! Pork chops on the grill, baked potatoes and green beans! Whew wee!

Being a stay-at-home dad hasn't been all bad for Maddie's daddy! He's learned how to cook and do laundry!

Watch out Rachel Ray! Chef Aaron is in da house!

Ankle biter?... Not quite....

Now before you go thinking that I am subjecting my child to cruel and unusual punishment, I just want to say those socks are clean.

I just put them on and set my foot down... only to feel a little nibble, nibble on my toe.

Aaron thought it was cute and ran to get the camera. Right after this, she stopped and I picked her up and we had some peaches. (Had to get the taste out of her mouth!)

She tried a little squash today for the first time and seemed to like it.

What a lazy Sunday... We were snowed in and... we liked it just fine! Grammy and Papa Joles came over to plow out the driveway and we made BBQ chicken and potatoes. Yum! Pretty soon Maddie Cakes will be enjoying such a delicious menu.

Meet the band

Here are the Xbox Rockband extravaganza pictures that I have been meaning to post for about two weeks now... tsk tsk tsk... shame on me.
This game is something else... Strangely enough, Madeline slept through most of it. You may notice how I am strategically behind the camera... Mwa ha ha.

Landon the rocker with his trusty guitar...

Landon, David and Eric doing their thing... Aaron is in the background on vocals, Jennifer is assisting with moral support

Wayne drumming like a mad man and Eric...
looking serious.
It's all about the music, dudes!

Jennifer ready to blurt out some lyrics.
(Seriously are there any songs you don't know?)

GETTIN' DOWN!

Ready to take this show on the road...

I'd buy his record! Wouldn't you?

Thinking about being a mom...

Maddie is sleeping right now... I'm always amazed at how pretty she looks when she sleeps.

Since hearing the news that a person in my life is expecting (I won't tell too many who that is for fear of giving away the news before the person is ready) I've been thinking about how very fortunate we are to have her - Our Sweet Madeline.
What a gift!

"The moment a child is born,
the mother is also born.
She never existed before.
The woman existed, but the mother, never.
A mother is something absolutely new."
— Rajneesh

This week, we added music to the blog. It is located on the right side. It is a bunch of "girly" songs... The very first song is my favorite mommy song of all time called "Lullaby" by the Dixie Chicks. I heard this song when I was pregnant with Madeline.

Oh, how I cried the very first time I heard it. I knew I would sing it to her someday! (Must have been the out-of-control hormones!)

Peas...

Madeline is not too crazy about peas. We've tried... three times now...

But they say you have to keep introducing food to babies multiple times before they like it, so I may try to keep feeding her the green goup.

She has now ate applesauce, bananas, pears, peaches, sweet potatoes and peas. In addition, she has ate rice cereal, rice cereal flavored with apple and baby oatmeal.

Green beans, squash and carrots are on the menu next...

Reaching to new heights

This is part of a three-stage excersaucer that Madeline plays with from time to time. She gets to lay underneath it and grab at the buzzy bee, an orange butterfly and a blue bird that vibrates and buzzes when it gets pulled.

It just so happens that every time I think this little gal is just a tiny, "helpless" little baby, she proves me wrong.

For the past few months, she has only batted a little bit at the blue bird, which is situated higher than the other two toys. It also doesn't pull nearly as easily as the butterfly and the bee.

I thought to myself, "Why would they put that bird so high? And why would they make it so hard to pull? She'll never be able to reach it and pull it down."

This is why I don't design toys.

Lastnight, Madeline grabbed the blue bird and gave it a good yank. I laughed out loud... shocked that she finally reached up and yanked that little guy all the way to her belly and then let it go.

It buzzed back up to the top.

She grabbed it a few other times after that, not letting it go quite as quickly, which caused it to make some funny noises... Bzz.. Bzzz... Bzzzzzzz.... Bzzz

She is something else. Everyday is a new milestone and a new memory.


She's almost sitting on her own... kinda. She has started to prop herself up with her arms if she is left to sit on her own, but she still wobbles on her little round butt so she needs to be supported or propped with a pillow.

Lesson learned: Never doubt the power of the baby...

Toes... Mmm...Mmm... Good...

Wouldn't it be something to be this flexible again? How does she do it?

For the last couple of weeks, Miss Madeline has taking an extreme liking to sucking on her toes. She looks at them, grabs them, looks at them some more, tugs at them, looks at them a little more and then SLIRP... in her mouth they go.

Everytime we change her, we have to wrestle her legs down and pry her toes out of her mouth to get the diaper off and on. As soon as the pants come off, the toes go in the mouth. SLIRP... SLIRP... SLIRP...

Sometimes, she sings while she is enjoying her toe slirping feast. Sometimes she is just quite content with looking at them, slirping and then looking at them again.

Either way, it's funny to watch her.

One time she actually kept her suction on her toes when I put her in her bath. She was quite compact... like a little clam, as Jen Trahan pointed out!

Here's looking at you, kid

Doesn't she have amazing eyes?

Madeline went to the doctor yesterday (Jan. 5). She is now 19 pounds and 28 1/2 inches long. She's our tall girl! They said she is very healthy! Afterward, we took her K-Mart and she got to ride in a shopping cart for the very first time! Strangely enough, she fell asleep pretty quickly. Aaron took a picture on his phone, but I didn't have my trusty digital with me... So I don't have a high quality pic to post.


Big Girl Bed: We moved her crib into our room to help her get used to it. She seems to really enjoy hanging out there! She loves to stare at her mushroom and flower mobile that plays Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Peeeeek: I had to snap a few pictures of her in the crib, just hanging out, looking at the mirror next to her. She likes to coo and chat with herself when she notices the little girl staring back at her!



Too cool: Thanks to all who have taken the time to leave little messages on our blog. Madely Poo will have fun looking back at them someday when she is a big girl!

We're trying to keep this up to date a couple of times a week... We have lots more ideas for fun posts in the future!

This girl knows how to eat!... Almost!

Since October 22, Madeline has been eating mushy gooshy baby foods. She started on apple sauce, then bananas and then pears and finally, we've added peaches. The peaches have proven to be her fave.

She's also sampled some whipped cream on her binky.



The more she eats from a spoon, the better she gets... unless she bobbles her head at the last second as was the case with this mondo spoonful of peaches (pictured above). They were everywhere and of course, grammy Joles had to get a picture! It was too cute!



And of course, Madeline still loves her "bubba". She can't quite hold it up yet, but you would never know from this picture. She thought it was pretty cool to hold it up for herself for a few seconds.

But, mommy still looks forward to rocking her to sleep at night. It's one of the best parts of the day!



Mommy usually goes to bed right after Maddie! Don't we look tired???