The Maddie workout

After Madeline got tired of her play mat the other night, she decided lounging on her Daddy Mat was much more comfy...

 She loves sitting in our laps like this.  Now that she mimics faces you make at her, it's even more fun because we can easily get her to smile and giggle.  I even get her to stick out her tongue at me sometimes.  Unfortunately, she did not cooperate when I was trying to get a picture of her adorable smiles...

 However, her daddy likes to make her work a little bit and not just lay around.  Here she is sitting up, with a little bit of assistance, but she's getting more and more stable, and she can control her head without wobbling it around now...

 She loves sitting up and looking around, but she goes into full concentration mode trying to take in everything going on around her, so we don't get many smiles from her when she's sitting up...

After a little bit of sitting up and looking around, she decided that she'd had enough of that and went back to the daddy lounger...

 At that point, Mat decided it was time for his "workout".  Here he is doing crunches...

 Followed by the Maddie-press...

 Her facial expression was saying "Daddy, what on earth are you doing!"  It was priceless.  Three sets of 15 later, here they are relaxing...

Daddy isn't the only one who uses Madeline as a weight either.  My mom takes her to her exercise class several days a week.  On the days Maddie doesn't take a nap in her car seat, my mom  uses her as her weight :)  As I tell my mom, she's guaranteed to keep getting stronger as Maddie grows!

This one's for the Grandpas

The day Madeline was born, my dad was in Milwaukee, WI visiting his dad.  Although he specifically planned his trip two weeks before she was due so that he could be here when she arrived, Maddie didn't cooperate with his plans.  When he arrived home two days later and came to see her, he brought a gift for her so that she'd always remember where grandpa was the day she was born...

 Her first Harley-Davidson onesie.  Being the motorcycle enthusiast he is, Gramps was happy to see that his grand daughter started her collection of motorcycle apparel at a young age.  Of course, I had to throw a pink bow on her head because Maddie is a bit of a girly-girl, at least for now while I get to control what she wears :)

I'm not so sure she's going to be a biker tomorrow, but it's a cute outfit regardless :)

Happy Grandparents' Day!

Happy Grandparents' Day to all 4 of Madeline's wonderful grandparents!  In honor of the day, I thought I'd post some of my favorite pictures of Maddie and her grandparents.

Maddie and Grandma both wearing hot pink...

 Grandpa swimming with Maddie her first time in a pool...

 A nap in Grandma Emma's lap sounded like more fun to Maddie her second time at the pool...

 It's not every day you get a picture of my mom with a big smile on  her face (my grandma was the same way)

 Taking a nap on Grandpa's chest while mom and grandma painted...

 I love this picture....

 Grandma Emma and Madeline both dressed in red on the 4th of July...

 Here are the first pictures of Madeline and each of her grandparents (look how tiny she was!)...

Maddie has lots of fun with all of her grandparents, and I'm looking forward to many more years of great memories with her grandparents just like I have wonderful memories of my grandparents :)

Our little bumble bee

Since the theme of Maddie's room and nearly all of her gear (pack n play, bouncer, high chair, etc.) is beneficial insects, it's only appropriate that she has lady bug and bumble bee outfits.  Grandma Emma gave her this one shortly after she was born...

Of course, like all of her other 3 month clothes, she outgrew it since she's so long...

Fortunately, there is no shortage of adorable bumble bee outfits for baby girls, so we got her a new one :)  It's a onesie with matching socks and an incredibly cute skirt that we happened to find on the clearance rack at Burlington Coat Factory (one of our favorite places to buy baby clothes and gear).  She wore it for the first time just the other day, and I was able to get several really cute pictures of her in it...

Surprise, surprise...she's staring at her hands.  She never gets bored with them right now!

Laying in her crib watching her lady bug mobile (and giving me a look that says "really mom, more pictures?")...

Checking out the teddy bears while lounging on her lady bug pillow pet (which her daddy insisted on buying her long before she was born) in her crib with lady bug sheets ...

Finally, sitting on mommy's lap in the boppy, which has bumble bees on the cover.

Wow...I knew we had a lot of lady bug and bumble bee things, but I never realized that nearly EVERYTHING of Maddie's was one or the other until I started looking through these pictures.  What can I can though...I like themes, and I think beneficial insects is a good one :)

Cool weather clothes

Since Madeline is a June baby, I'm used to throwing her in a short-sleeve onesie or a cute sundress.  This morning, I put her in one of my favorite sundresses...

The blue dress really brings out her big blue eyes :)

After putting her in this dress, I realized that the high was forecasted to only be in the upper 70's, so I decided she probably needed something to keep her little legs and feet warm, especially since grandma and grandpa take her on one, if not two, walks every day.  She has a wide variety of warm clothes that I've been waiting to put her in, so I added a pair of leggings (which I picked-up on clearance for $1 at Target a while back) and white socks...

Usually, she focuses on trying to kick off her socks as fast as possible.  Today, she was far too fascinated with her hands to worry about the socks...

Then, I realized that it was only 48 degrees at 7:15 this morning when we were about to leave, so I added a hot pink jacket (another Target bargain) to her outfit.  At first, she wasn't so sure what to think of all the clothes...

But it only took her a minute to find those fascinating hands again, which of course went directly into the mouth...

And a minute later, she got ahold of her jacket, so into the mouth it went...

Such a cutie :)

Shopping Spree

Mathew and I came to the realization yesterday that we spend a large part of our weekends and days off working in the yard, cleaning the house, doing laundry, and all kinds of other things that are more work than fun.  Therefore, since it was a gorgeous day and we had the day off work today, we decided to have some fun and enjoy the nice weather by going shopping for the day at Legend's.  

After sitting in her car seat and chatting away the entire drive there, Maddie loved walking around outside and checking out everything going on around her.  She was a happy little girl for the first hour of shopping, but she started to get fussy in Carter's.  We were in there for quite a while after running into some friends, checking out all the adorable outfits that were all 50% off and trying to decide how many we really needed to get her, running into some other friends and their adorable little boy, finally making our way to the clearance bins, and not wanting to miss any good deals, Mathew proceeded to look through all of them.  By this time, Maddie decided she had her fill of being inside the hot, crowded store, so her and I went to the car to change her.  Of course, this left Mathew unsupervised in a store full of adorable clothes for our little girl, which could be troublesome as he has a hard time controlling how many outfits he buys for our little cutie :)

After our trip to the car, she crashed out for the rest of the afternoon...

 

After a full day of shopping and a short stop in Tonganoxie to see Grandma Emma, we headed home.

As I was getting our purchases out of their bags, I couldn't help but notice a slight disproportion.  Here's Maddie with daddy's new clothes...

 

Here's Maddie with mommy's new clothes...

And her's the (slightly spoiled) little girl with her new clothes...

Oh how things change when you have a little one.  Mathew used to give me a hard time for buying her clothes, but he is just as bad if not worse than I am now.  As he says, how can you pass up on so many adorable outfits that are all under $10?  From about the day I met him, I always knew that it was going to be bad news if we had a little girl, and he has definitely not disappointed me in how much he loves to spoil her :)  These outfits say it all...

Pink outfits with dancing monkeys that say "daddy's girl".  He can never resist.

Of course, we didn't forget the aunties, especially since it was lime green and teal (and on clearance at TJ Maxx)...

All that time outside this afternoon checking everything out must have worn out Madeline.  After giving her a bath and getting her in her pj's, I went to feed the puppies a little after 8 PM (2 hours before she usually goes to bed) and came back to the bedroom to find this...

 Now I'm just hoping she still sleeps all night tonight...

Just like Aunt Lindsay

During Sunday night dinners at my parents' house, Madeline sits in her carseat or in her swing next to the table and is usually perfectly content letting us enjoy a nice meal, which I thoroughly enjoy as hot meals are not a luxury we get to enjoy too often.  However, we had a different dinner experience the other night.  She sat in her swing chattering away the entire time.  At first, it was usual Maddie blabber, but after a little bit, when nobody went over to talk to her or pick her up, her chatter took on more of a loud, upset tone.  As I was trying to eat quickly so I could tend to her before she got mad, my sister Abbey commented that Maddie was acting just like our sister Lindsay.  Not only was she talking non-stop like Lindsay can do (Lindsay always has stories to tell), but it's a running joke in our family that she has to be the center of attention.  If someone isn't listening to her, she will simply talk louder, just as Maddie was doing.  If you still aren't paying attention to her or if someone tries talking when she is talking, which we all enjoy doing just to antagonize her, she'll butt right in.  Before we know it, Maddie is going to be saying "Excuse me, I have a story!" just like her aunt.

That got me thinking about all the other ways she's like her Aunt Lindsay...

Maddie is turning into a night owl, just like Lindsay is.  She used to go to bed between 9 and 10.  Just the other night, she was bright-eyed and giggly laying in bed with her dad while he did a mock fantasy football draft at 11:30 PM...

She has started staying up late more often too.  She was wide awake until almost 11 PM the other night, and she hadn't even slept that much during the day.  Lindsay, you're going to need to come hang out with her in the evenings as I enjoy crawling into bed before the 10 PM news is over!

Just like Lindsay, Madeline looks incredibly cute in hats...

They both have blond hair (I tried to find a few pictures that show how blond Maddie's  is, but it's even lighter in the sunlight) ...

And to go with their blond hair, hot pink is definitely a good color on both of them.  They both wear a lot of it too :)

And I've already written about how they both enjoy a nice afternoon nap...

Coincidentally, they are both named after Hoferer women as well...Madeline Margaret after my Grandma Margaret and Lindsay Marie after my grandma's sister Marie.  I'm just hoping that Madeline isn't a psychology major in college.  (Just kidding, Lindsay!)