sitting up captured

since i didn't post any pictures about madelyn last night, i thought that i would go ahead and post some videos this morning. this is not the greatest video of her trying the banana puffs for the first time last night, but she smiles in the beginning and you can see some of her three top teeth. she is eating one of the puffs and holding another in her hand. we tried them again this morning while i was getting her oatmeal ready and she ate all three by herself - using her pointer finger and thumb. i was so proud!



and then this video is from this morning. she kept crawling and sitting herself up and it occurred to me to grab the camera and catch this sit-up before she got too cranky to play any more and we had to move on to breakfast.



she crawled to me for the first time this morning as an extremely intentional action and she stayed on all fours the whole way (normally she drops to her belly at least once) - she covered about three feet. i was so excited! i told her to come to mommy and she did!

that's all for now. love.

crazy snow

we made it home safely. i know that lots of people were worried watching the weather reports, but our flight wasn't even delayed. we did have to circle the airport a few times when we arrived because of all the other flights coming in that had been delayed. apparently the airport had been closed for a while on friday. when we came in you could see from the air how clear the roads already were and they were almost dry on our drive home. there was a lot of snow on the ground though! everything was white! we have never seen snow stick like that! it is even on the sides of the trees and telephone poles several inches thick. matt had to dig the car out from under about 6 inches of snow at the airport so that we could go home. and the digging didn't stop there...

when we got home we realized that the snow removal service had not been out to the house yet because we have between 5 and 7 inches of snow on the driveway. matt dug a path to the garage for maddie and i to get inside before shoveling the rest of the driveway to get the car in the garage.

after matt got warmed back up, he and i had our own little Christmas at home and exchanged our gifts to each other. it was just nice to have a little quiet time together at home.

we spent the weekend running errands, unpacking, and doing laundry. so maddie hasn't really had a chance to get back on her normal schedule yet. she did manage to take a 3-1/2 hour nap yesterday afternoon and slept until 9am (after a 6am snack) that morning. matt has to work tomorrow so maddie and i will probably hang out at the house and have a pretty quiet day.

she likes being back to her homemade foods too. and when we tried avocado again she ate 5 tablespoons with "mmm"s the whole time. finally she has accepted the texture. we also tried banana puff snacks today. she only ate one of the three we gave her, but she did manage to pick them up herself. she would hold them in her hand and suck her thumb. she kept trying to eat them and ended up sucking her thumb. we will just have to keep practicing picking them up and putting them in her mouth. tomorrow we are going to try yogurt and later in the week - mango.

sorry that there are no maddie pics today. i will do better later this week.

shopping and more shopping

not a lot to report today. maddie's sleeping - or lack there of - was the worst ever last night. she got up at 10:30, 2:30, 4:30, 5, 6, and 7. luckily, i only had to feed her on three of those occasions. when we get home i am going to have to kick her meal plan into overdrive.

we spent the day shopping today with trips to lawrence (where the university of kansas is) and the 'legends' at the kansas speedway. there were some deals, but i expect prices to get even lower before the year is out. and still no shoes for me! although we did get maddie a new pair because the pair she was wearing are a little big and she kept kicking the left on off (one of the side-effects of super busy legs).

nana went into the basement and found some of matt and derek's old baby toys for maddie to play with this week. the picture is her playing with one of derek's old toys that rolls to encourage crawling. as you can see, maddie found a way to catch it and make play easier.

tomorrow night we make the trek home - weather permitting - so there probably won't be a post. love.

fun with nana and papa

with all the things Christmas related to cover the past few days i haven't written about the little everyday things that have been going on. madelyn has moved up to a 'big girl' car seat. matt's parents got it for us for Christmas and maddie has been riding all over town in her cushy new seat. the trick is going to be getting it back to wisconsin. luckily, we have some wonderful friends who drove down to kansas for the holidays and said that they could drive some things back for us if we needed them to - i hope they have a lot of extra room...

we also started her on winter squash which has been a big hit! when we get back home i am going to make her up some homemade winter squash varieties, but for now she is enjoying the jarred version. i think that she might be ready for snacks too. she has been eating three meals a day and is still waking up at night. and these are not small meals either. she is eating about 7 oz. of food followed by 5 oz. of milk. yesterday she ate almost two whole bananas in one sitting! (i had to throw away a little because of a bruise otherwise she would have eaten the whole thing.) she is just so active that i can't keep up with her calorie consumption. i think that next week we will start to introduce snacks into our routine - maybe even some finger foods.

now that all the presents have been given, we got to the business of returning and exchanging. first stop was kohl's and maddie liked riding in their forward facing carts. after kohl's we went to one of my favorite stores, dsw, for some shoe shopping and everyone bought shoes except for me. i almost cried. they were having their 80% off sale and had nothing in my size! if only i could cut my toes off...

after shopping and dinner at the cheesecake factory, maddie got to spend some time playing with papa and nana while daddy and uncle derek played tiger woods pga golf on the new wii. here is some video of her sort of crawling to nana. she is not totally coordinated in her movements, but she is definitely starting to cover a lot more ground with a lot more speed. and she moves fastest when she is getting into something that she shouldn't be.



then nana got maddie ready for bed and papa rocked her to sleep.










everyone is waiting for me to watch a movie so i have to run. love.

happy birthday, Jesus!

while we all spend the day giving gifts to each other, we need to make sure and remember that God gave us the ultimate gift - the humble birth of his only son in a manger. my wish for maddie is that she grows to appreciate the sacrifice that would have been made even if it was only for her. God is so wonderful to love us all that much!

we were unbelievably blessed today! not only were we spoiled by matt's parents (aka santa), but we had a wonderful day of family togetherness and maddie had an eventful first Christmas.

daddy and uncle derek spent the afternoon playing with a wii they got for Christmas (they each got their own to take home with them) and i got a great new digital camera that takes a much higher quality picture than my old one. hopefully, this will improve your viewing pleasure in the future...

here is a video of maddie and nana playing before we started opening presents this morning. she has had so much fun with nana, papa, uncle derek, and max this week!



here is a picture of max and maddie sharing some fun in the high chair. every time we put her in for a meal, she starts to look around for her buddy max and when she sees him she starts to laugh. it finally paid off for max when we gave maddie a teething biscuit to chew on while we ate dinner. she dropped it once and he didn't touch it. she dropped it twice and he didn't touch it. but the third time and it was his! and she didn't mind one bit sharing her snack with her pal.

daddy gave her a bath tonight in the kitchen sink after she had her biscuit and got a little overzealous with rinsing her hair...

from our family to yours, merry christmas and to all a good night! love.

one more day...

only one more day until Christmas! we are getting really excited here. i think that papa is excited to give maddie her presents. from the looks of the tree, we have all been really good this year.

madelyn has a lot of Christmas and winter themed clothes that i have been trying to get on her this week. here she is in front of the tree in a snowman dress that she wore to church tonight. she is much more interested in the presents than in the camera, so this was the only shot were she was actually looking at me.

i also tried to get some video of maddie crawling, but she just crawled backwards when i was filming which was something new. but otherwise she didn't make much progress today. although she did scoot herself backwards and into a full sitting position. i think that i was the only one really excited about this accomplishment though. you can sort of tell that there is a lot going on to distract her from her crawling.





for lunch we all went to matt's favorite restaurant, oklahoma joe's, and maddie got a new teething toy - nana's extra chewing gum! it actually worked out great because the gum was soft enough for chewing, the pack fit great in her little hand, and the packaging was drool proof. and she was perfectly content the entire time we were there.

we went to a lovely christmas eve service at westside family church tonight and maddie got passed all over. matt's parents' small group was so excited to see her in person that she got passed between several rows before falling asleep on one of their friend's lap. it was very sweet. he just kept saying that she was like a little angel.

we were also able to get a few family pictures after we got home from church tonight. (sorry about the red eye - i didn't have a way to remove it here.) papa picked up max for a few of the pictures and maddie thought that was so funny. she is developing quite the sense of humor.

after pictures and before we got maddie ready for bed, we participated in a z family tradition - we opened our Christmas eve pajamas. maddie is really getting the hang of opening presents. i think that she is going to be ready to go tomorrow morning - well, she might need a little help.



now i better go to sleep or i won't get any presents... love.

sitting on santa

we made it to kansas! (much to nana and papa's delight.) our flight got cancelled on friday night (almost everything out of milwaukee was cancelled due to fog) and that was difficult because our flight was already going to be at bedtime so we had a tired little girl and didn't even get to where we were going. plus, with all the flights cancelled on friday night, saturday morning was a mad house! but at least people were relatively calm and the lines moved fairly quickly.

maddie has already made friends with max the dog. he likes that her hands taste good after she has her food in the highchair and maddie laughs at max when he tries to jump up and get her when she is being held. the picture is of max holding maddie's leg still so that he can lick her foot.

it also hasn't taken her long to get into the presents under the tree. granted, i did pose her next to them for pictures before we went to see santa.



she is already one of the 'boys' (or is she already a 'boy magnet'?) hanging out with daddy, uncle derek, and papa.

today we went to get her picture taken with santa at the mall and she also rode the merry-go-round with her papa, uncle derek, and daddy.




she actually took a good shot, but they weren't very big on you taking your own pictures (in fact there were signed everywhere discouraging it). so we just has nana and matt stand outside the official santa area and take pictures. unfortunately, this was the only one that wasn't blurry. i will scan and post her official picture when we get back home.

oh! and i almost forgot the most exciting part! maddie is officially crawling! she now uses her hands and knees in a coordinated effort to move herself to where she wants to go. she isn't going very far, yet, but its just a matter of time. i hope to get some video of it tomorrow when there is more light.

time for me to get to present wrapping, so goodnight. love.

merry Christmas!

i am in the throws of packing up my family for a week long visit in kansas, so tonight will be short. i just wanted to wish everyone a very merry Christmas from matt, madelyn and me before we left. (i hope to blog while away, but we'll see what happens.) happy birthday, Jesus! love.

sitting pretty

madelyn can now get herself into a seated position on her own. she had done it twice yesterday sort of by accident, but it was much more intentional today (even matt agreed that she was sitting). she doesn't pull herself all the way up yet, she just sort of props herself up with one arm, but she can go from laying on her belly to sitting on her bottom and upright for the most part all by herself.

(her shirt says "I play sports with daddy". its a boy's shirt but i haven't been able to find any girl shirts with sports on them...)

i am hoping to capture it on film soon, but for now i have a still shot of her in her sort of sitting position. what she does is get into her 'rocking' pose and then straightens her legs out and steps them forward until they are in front of her behind and then sits down and uses her arms to push her torso up. she gets herself more upright than the picture shows, but that is the general effect. she can also get into this position while rolling to her side and bringing her legs to the front one at a time, but the hands and knees 'rocking' way is the more frequently used.

she also straightens both her arms and legs when 'rocking' but i missed getting a picture because she saw a toy she wanted by the time i got the camera. it almost looks like she is just going to stand right up and skip the whole crawling thing. she just amazes me everyday with the physical things she can do now. i just expect her to start crawling all over the place any day now. maybe she is just waiting until we get to kansas so that she can show her papa, nana, and uncle derek.

she woke up twice to eat last night! she hasn't done that for about two months now, so i figure that her teeth are hurting her or she is having a growth spurt - only time will tell. she is eating over 5 - 7 tablespoons of food three times a day plus nursing now so hopefully we will get back to sleeping through the night again soon.

this is a video of her playing with her favorite part of her mirror - the ties. her favorite part of everything is the ties, straps, or buckles! well, that is when she can't reach the tags. i just know that the wrapping paper is going to be her favorite toy this Christmas. love.

does she have a hallow leg?

today was maddie's 6 month doctor appointment and all's well! she is 29 inches long (99.94 percentile) and weighed 16 lbs. 5 oz. (62 percentile). i was surprised that her weight had changed curves like that (she had been in the upper 80s before) but the doctor didn't think that it was anything to be concerned about.

the doctor couldn't believe it when i told her how much madelyn is eating and asked her if she had a "hallow leg". needless to say that she agreed with my desire to add a third meal to maddie's day. so maddie had three meals today and loved every bite! i made her first batch of "super portage" (ground up brown rice) today. well, the first batch i didn't grind the rice fine enough, but the second batch came out great and she liked it a lot better. so she had 4 T. of bananas w/milk, 6 T. of oatmeal cereal w/milk, 3 T. of avocado, and 4 T. of super portage today! and that is in addition to 5 normal nursings! hopefully, a few days of this will get her back to sleeping all the way through the night. she has been getting up at 4am again to eat for the past week or so.

in addition, the doctor said that we could go ahead and give her teething biscuits (or any hard piece of bread) since she has so many teeth coming in and is able to put the spoon in her mouth by herself. here is a video of her enjoying her first teething biscuit (she picked it up and started chewing before i could get the camera on!).



i also learned from the doctor that her 'rocking' is actually an advanced skill for a girl her age (not to brag or anything). generally, girls don't start rocking until 9 months or so. i told her that is why she is eating so much and not putting on a lot of weight - she is always moving!

she also did a great job with the shots. she made it through the first one without flinching, but then the tears started. once the shots were done she stopped though and hasn't had any of the after symptoms that she has had in the past. today was just a normal day.

oh, and i got the proofs for her pictures from friday in her Christmas dress. here are a few of my favorites.

i need to get back to my to-do list so that i can get some stuff wrapped up before volleyball tonight. love.

teeth, teeth everywhere and not a bite to eat

tooth #5 came in last night. at least i think it was last night. i have been so focused on the teeth coming in on top i hadn't been watching the bottom gums and a new tooth showed up today! her mouth has just been an explosion of teeth this week! and there are more that i can see but can't feel yet and that is our criteria for counting them as "in". matt and i have to both agree that we can feel a tooth before i can record the date in her baby book. the poor thing just make chewing motions with her mouth - like she is chewing imaginary gum or something - or chews her fingers (as pictured), or my fingers, or any toy, or really anything she can reach and get to her mouth. you can just tell that it hurts, but she doesn't let it slow her down or make her too fussy.

since i have been making maddie baby food, i don't have many jars of food in the house (we keep a few for trying new foods before i make a big batch). but with traveling and being sick i haven't had a chance to make any and we have run out of 'cubes' in the freezer (well except for the avocado and she hasn't been too crazy about that yet) so today we tried peaches. she seemed to be indifferent to them. she ate them up. she didn't say "mmm" with every bite like she does with her other foods, but she didn't make an unhappy face like she does when we try avocado. there must be something to the sweet/sour flavor because she kept sucking longer than normal and would make this cute 'kiss-y' face while eating it.

we had even more snow today! we probably have close to two feet on the ground and it just keeps coming down. so we decided to try taking madelyn out in the snow again because she hasn't really been outside while the snow is falling (it has either been way to heavy or while she was sleeping) and we wanted to see what she thought of it. she tolerated us dragging her around on the sled and posing her for pictures, but she did not like it when matt dug a hole in the snow for her to stand in. i think she was just starting to get too cold.

and like i said, we were out of baby foods, so maddie and i braved the snow to go to the organic market for her foods and then to the regular grocery for matt and i. i buy foods for her that i wouldn't eat and have certainly never prepared - millet and acorn squash for example. she didn't really like the snow hitting her in the face while we were walking. she doesn't really seem to mind the cold, but she does not like the wind plowing in her face at all! she does this gasping thing until i find a way to block the wind. anyway, since i have determined that she can sit up in the grocery cart, i broke out this great fabric cover that i have for shopping carts today and she really liked it (and i did too). i will take a picture the next time i use it, but it basically covered everything that she could put her mouth on and has fabric loops for clipping toys on for her.

one last point of interest (maybe just mine). she started doing this thing that is pretty odd/funny to me. she closes her mouth and breathes really hard and intentionally in and out of her nose - kind of like when a cartoon character gets mad or a bull is going to charge. she is not mad at all when she does it, in fact i think she enjoys it. i don't know if it is amusing to her because she has a few boogies that rattle around when she does it or if it is just a matter of 'hey, look what i can do', but it is new and it makes me laugh. the funniest part is that her cheeks hang down farther than her chin when she clenches her lips to do it!

the video is of her opening her first official Christmas present from grandma z. and big pop tonight. and i thought that today was uneventful! love.

capturing Christmas

i haven't been feeling all that Christmas-y this year. i think its because we won't be home so there are no decorations, or cookies, or anything resembling Christmas that i can see on a daily basis. i also do almost all my shopping on-line so there hasn't been much shopping either. but what we did do was go out for family portraits today with maddie in her Christmas dress. she looked so grown-up! and i think we actually got a decent family shot this time. i can't wait to get the prints. they also had some 'santa sleeves' and white gloves for matt to wear while maddie held his hands and stood-up - very sweet... we got this very pretty dress and hair bows (with jingle bells) for only $0.86 thanks to a gift certificate we had been hanging on to for the purpose of buying her a Christmas dress. i was really excited for such a bargain! and maddie liked the dress so much when we tried it on at home that i couldn't get her to look up at the camera! luckily, she did better at the portrait studio.

maddie and i did some other shopping today before heading to the mall for pictures including home depot and target. since she is getting to be such a big girl i decided that we would try sitting in the cart by herself and it couldn't have gone better! she did great the whole time we were shopping (and since it was target you know that we were there a while). i was afraid to get kicked out for using my real camera so the picture is from my cell phone.

she is also getting her arms straight out while she does her rocking. before she was just getting up to her elbows, but now she can get all the way up to her hands. she isn't quite crawling, but she has figured out that if she gets all the way up to her hands and rocks back a forth a few times, she can lunge herself forward enough to reach a toy (or her daddy) that is too far away.

she is also ready for some new toys. but i am trying to control myself until the grandparents do their gift giving. it just seems like she is ready to move beyond her rattles and stuffed animals. especially now that she can sit and move more. she has also taken a great interest in standing on her own (she doesn't want to be in her exersaucer, she wants to be outside holding herself up while playing with the toys) so we might look for something that will help her pull herself up to a standing position. every time i go to get her from a nap now she has both hands on the top of her bumper or on the crib bars themselves trying to pull herself up so she is definitely getting ready.

since i didn't take any video today, here is one from yesterday. i was trying to get her doing this soft "singing" with the keys in her mouth, but when the camera went on she realized that she wasn't alone and started to get fussy because it was nap time. oh well. love.

late night laughing

we were getting ready to put madelyn to bed tonight and i started bouncing her little bunny rattle on the ground which she found to be hysterical! i lightened the video as much as possible, but pretty much any video taken after 2pm is just going to be too dark. so enjoy the sound-track of her giggles. (she was just extra giggle-y today.) what is really amazing is how hard she can laugh without falling over (well until the end of the video anyway...)

and this picture just makes me laugh because of her hand on her hip. it looks like she wants to tell you a juicy secret.

good night. love.

snow day

i am still fighting this cold, so this will be quick again tonight. we had about 6 inches of snow fall today. and this is on top of close to a foot of snow already on the ground! it snowed in the biggest clumps that i have ever seen here so i took some video of it. you can see how big the clumps are hitting the walkway to our front door. i took this video pretty early in the storm, so the snow got a lot deeper before it stopped.

and then i bundled maddie up in her snow suit to go outside a take a look at it all while daddy shoveled the driveway. we thought that he was going to have to shovel his way up the driveway, but matt drives that little corolla like it is a mack truck! luckily he didn't get stuck, but it did take him two tries to get into the garage.

oh and i can see/feel a fourth tooth (left center), but matt doesn't buy it so we will have to see what things look like tomorrow before he will let me count it as an "official" new tooth.

off to bed for some sleep. love.