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.