Madeline's First Christmas

Madeline is a very blessed little girl who has a lot of people that love her.  She definitely fared very well in the gift department, and she was also the hit of several Christmas parties.  She got to spend the entire week leading up to Christmas with Mom, Dad, Uncle Michael, and Aunts Lindsay & Abbey.  Of course, she got to see a lot of Nana and Grandpa too, but she always gets to see a lot of them during the week.  We were on the go non-stop for most of the week, and Maddie was a real trooper through it all.  She had fun showing off her new skills that Aunt Lindsay hadn't seen (sitting up by herself in particular).

As usual, we spent Christmas Eve at my parents' house with my mom's side of the family.  Here's Miss Maddie and I after going to 4 PM mass with my family...

We had to include daddy in a few as well...

I wasn't sure how she would handle all the strangers (there were over 40 people there), but she did great.  She let all kinds of people hold her, giggled a lot, and flashed lots of smiles.  When it came time to open gifts, she cleaned up.  She even received several toys that are bigger than her!

I love the stack of animals in particular.  They're bright & colorful and very plush.  The animals also make various noises when you squeeze their heads.  It was a hit with Madeline as well :)

Christmas morning, we opened gifts at our house first thing.  Here's Maddie sitting by the tree with all the stockings and gifts... 

She was an extremely happy little girl (then again, how can you not be extremely happy on Christmas morning?!?)...

Pulling presents out of her stocking...

So many presents!

Once again, she loved the bows...

And, of course, the ribbons...

Next, we headed back to my parents' house for our traditional Christmas brunch and opening of gifts between my immediate family (and Santa, of course).  Notice Maddie is in a different outfit...

We had not one but two accidents at my parents' house, which involved washing outfits for Maddie and daddy in the sink (since I apparently didn't pack enough spares), and one of the couch cushions got washed as well.  In spite of it, we had a great time, and we all received fantastic gifts from my family.  Some of the highlights for Madeline were a handmade blanket from Aunt Lindsay, some wooden blocks from her uncle and aunts, a handmade Christmas book from Aunt Abbey, and some fantastic books (including everyone's favorite Brown Bear, Brown Bear) from Nana and Grandpa.

After brunch, it was off to Tonganoxie to see Grandma Emma, Jim, and Mat's sister.  Not surprisingly, this involved more food and more presents!

Maddie gets the biggest kick out of this stuffed Clifford the Big Red Dog every time she's at Grandma Emma's house.  What can we say, she loves puppies of all shapes, sizes, and colors :)

Her daddy has been saying that she needs bigger bows since all the bows I put on her aren't big enough.  He was finally satisfied with the size of this bow...

It reminds me of the movie "My Fair Lady", and I love it.

Our final stop of the day was at my Great Aunt Marie's house.  We arrived after dinner (which was fine since we were still very full), but we had a great time playing several games of Catch Phrase.  After playing with just the "kids", we decided to include the "old people" (in the words of my cousins).  It was an absolute blast!

After driving around Potwin (where my great aunt lives) to admire all the beautiful houses and Christmas lights, we went home with a very tired baby girl (and two very tired parents).  However, it was an absolutely fantastic day, and we couldn't have asked for a more wonderful first Christmas with Madeline!

More peas, please!

Madeline got to try her very first vegetable last night...peas!  I ran them through the food processor to puree them into pea soup, and I was prepared to have a lot of peas spit right back out at me.  As it turns out, she loved them!  Add it to the list of ways that she's like her mommy as I love peas as well :)  She made a funny face after the first bite, probably because she was thrown off my being given something besides rice cereal or prunes.  After she swallowed that first bite, she immediately opened her mouth to indicate she was ready for more!

She's definitely not the neatest eater, but she does manage to get more into her tummy than on herself...

What a champ.  As daddy said, "If she likes peas, she's really going to be excited when she gets a good vegetable!".  Next on the list...sweet potatoes!

First (of several) Christmases

Mat's Dad (aka Gramps) started a tradition of celebrating Christmas with his side of the family the Saturday before Christmas, which works out great for everyone.  Madeline was a hit in her Christmas dress...

 This lucky little girl had all kinds of presents under the tree.  Here she is checking out her very first present...

She's been "helping" me wrap presents lately, and she loves crinkling the paper.  However, she couldn't quite figure out how to tear the paper to open it...

 Once she found the bow, she ripped it right off and thought it was pretty cool...

 And another bow...

 Gramps got her this toy that makes all different animal sounds when you hit different buttons, and she loves it...

 Daddy thought it was pretty cool too...

 Being the dog lover she is, Maddie got a kick out of Chester Dog...

 Madeline and Gramps (I managed to completely fail at getting a picture of them smiling...)

 Once again, checking out Chester...

 Madeline in her reindeer fuzzy pj's with daddy...

 Having a blast sitting and playing with all her new toys...

 I tried to get a picture of her in front of the Christmas tree, but she was way too distracted with everything going on to care about smiling for yet another picture for mom...

Overall, it was a great evening getting to see everyone, enjoying wonderful Lonnie Q BBQ, and giving/receiving all kinds of wonderful gifts.  What a fantastic start to our numerous Christmas celebrations!

6 months old

Madeline had her very first half birthday!  To celebrate, she got some rice cereal with prunes mixed in for dinner :)  She had her 6 month check-up last week, and we're fortunate to have a very healthy little girl.  She weighed in at 17 lbs 8 oz (75%), and she's 27 3/4 inches long (86%).  Unfortunately, she had a bit of a reaction to the vaccines this time, but she bounced back pretty quickly.

Her new favorite thing is sitting up.  She can sit all by herself now, and she LOVES it.  I also love it because I can sit her on the floor, give her a variety of toys, and she's (usually) content entertaining herself while I do other things, such as wrap presents.  I just have to make sure that the puppy dogs don't like the poor girl to death!

I took a picture of her sitting up at our photo shoot last week...

Here she is at about 11 PM the other night, still having a great time sitting up and giggling like crazy.  (Notice daddy is in the background saying "How on earth is this baby still so awake?!?  I'm ready for bed!")

It's amazing to think how much she has changed in the past 6 months, and I can only imagine all the fun that the future will bring!

Baby Dinosaur

Maddie has definitely "found her voice" and makes new sounds every day.  She especially loves to talk to someone, meaning she likes you to make eye contact with her when she's talking.  She's like her Aunt Lindsay in that she wants to make sure someone is paying attention to her :)  Lately, her dad decided that she sounds like a baby dinosaur.  A few days ago, she was blabbing away to her Uncle Michael, and he came to the conclusion that she sounds like a baby dinosaur, which was funny since he didn't know Mat had said the exact same thing.  Apparently, I don't remember what baby dinosaurs sound like in Jurassic Park because I never would have come up with the idea of that's what she sounds like.  Here's a video clip of her jumping away in her jumperoo (which she can't get enough of) and talking away...

Attempting to get a Christmas picture

For the past 3 years, we've always done a Christmas card with a picture of all 4 (or 5) of the dogs.  This year, they were demoted off the Christmas card and replaced by the baby.  We (briefly) discussed how cute of a picture it would be if we could get a picture of Madeline and all 5 dogs sitting by the Christmas tree.  Then, we realized that there is absolutely no way we would be able to make that happen (without some mad photo shop skills).  As it turns out, getting a really good picture of Maddie turned out to be more than enough of a challenge.  I've been holding off taking a Christmas picture as I was hoping she'd be able to sit in the picture since she's really close to being able to sit alone.  Within the past few days, she can sit unsupported for a few moments, so I put her in her dress, threw a bright red bow in her hair, and got out the camera.  The first shot I got was pretty good...  

However, I was hoping to get some of her without her hand in her mouth.  Easier said than done.  Here are just a few of the next two dozen pictures we took...

When I finally managed to get a good one, this happened...

Darn the blurry picture!  After that, we have a series of photos of her reaching for the camera, eating her dress, sucking on her hands, and then finally getting fussy when she was tired of her crazy parents taking way too many pictures of her...

At the end of the day, I did end up with a handful of really cute pictures.  Here's one of my favorites...

Black Friday Shopping

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving celebrating with my family.  My aunt and uncle hosted it this year, and they live a mere two miles up the road from us, which is very convenient.  For the occasion, Madeline wore one of my old dresses that my mom had saved...

Ever since Mathew and I met seven years ago, we have always gone shopping on Black Friday.  We scower the ads on Thanksgiving Day and develop our game plan for the following morning.  This year, we put together a game plan, but we went to bed with the intention of playing the morning by ear.  If we had a long night with Miss Madeline, we were not going to worry about getting up to go shopping.  Well, a little after 5 AM on Friday, we had a bright eyed little girl who was ready to get up and go...

 

She had on some soft and fuzzy footed pj's, so we threw her sock monkey hat on her, grabbed the Baby Bjorn, and headed out in search of some bargains!

A few weeks ago, we were at Old Navy to get some KU apparel that Mat and I had been wanting.  We ended up with a Christmas dress and sweater for Maddie as well as the sock monkey hat for her....

I was a bit apprehensive about buying the hat since it wasn't on sale, and I don't think I've ever paid full price for anything in my life.  However, her daddy insisted on his little girl having it (can you say spoiled?)  Maddie wears that hat all the time now, and we get more compliments on it from random people than I can believe.  When we were shopping on Friday morning, we had people walking by stop to comment on how adorable that hat is on her, and everyone we stood by in line loved it as well.  I guess it was a good purchase, and it keeps her head toasty warm.

Our first stop of the morning was Dick's Sporting Goods where we can across this...

A sock monkey with a KU hoodie.  Of course, Maddie HAD to have it (according to her daddy).

Later that morning, we were at JC Penney's, and we came across this...

Maddie was too intrigued by it to let me get a good picture, so here's a close-up...

 

That's right, it's a sock monkey ornament that says "Madeline".  Obviously, our little Madeline absolutely had to have it :)

After making stops at the four stores we wanted to, we met our friend Trish at Panera for breakfast before heading home...

Our tradition of Black Friday shopping continued for another year!