9 months!

My little baby girl is 9 months old (on Jan 17th)! She has been out in the world almost as long as she was inside of the womb! She was born at exactly 40 weeks, so that "birthday" is coming soon. Strange to think I was pregnant so long!!! We had our 9 month appt on Wednesday, and I am so glad we had it on that day. She woke up at a normal time, but was SOOOO fussy. She REFUSED to take a morning nap, except for in the car on the way to our 9:30 am Dr. appt, and the office is about 10 minutes away. So, first nap: 10 min. We get home, have lunch.... afternoon nap : 30 min, with mommy rocking her in her carseat the ENTIRE time!! I do give her that she was very very stuffy, and it's always hard to sleep when you are so stuffed up, but that was a long day. If Dr. Mac hadn't assured me that her ears, etc. were all good, I would have brought her to the doctor. Today is back to normal, so maybe she was just testing the waters on Thursday, not sure!
Anyways... Madilyn's stats:
17 lbs even : 25% , same as before, so right on track
27 1/2" long, 50-75%, also same as before and doing great!
46cm around on her head, don't remember the percentage, but she said it looked great!
Luckily we didn't have any shots at this appt. I have decided to wait on the MMR and the Hep. vaccination since I don't feel as though she needs them yet, so since we are waiting till she's school age to get those, she didn't have to endure any painful and yucky shots this time! Thank goodness too, I can't imagine what she would have been like if she HAD the shots! LOL!
This month Madilyn has done quite a few new things! She is crawling! YAY! She's into everything... she pulls up on anything she can get her hands on, whether or not it's sturdy. She is much more mobile. She jabbers a lot, and is saying "mama, dada, bob (... yeah...lol), lala, etc... " none of the words really seem to have any meaning, but she likes to make noise, a LOT of noise!! She has been eating lots of fun stuff. We have grilled cheese, soup, very tender chicken, lunch meat, cheese, mandarin oranges, mac & cheese, canned veggies, gnaw on apples, yogurt, cottage cheese, the list goes on and on! We are going to continue to have baby cereal at least 1x per day until she's about 2, but I am going to phase it out for the other meals and move more and more towards table food. We will start introducing cow's milk as a beverage soon too, so that the switch won't be such a shock. She's in a pretty good schedule now though, and it won't be too much of a change when she gets a little older. Right now she wakes up between 6 and 7 and nurses. If I am home with her she has breakfast by 7 or 7:30 a, if I work she has breakfast around 8 at her grama's house. Her first morning nap is usually 8am and lasts for about 2 hrs. She wakes up, I nurse her and then by 11 or 11:30 she has lunch. Nap at 12 or 12:30 and lasts about 2 hrs. Wake up, nurse and then plays with mommy and daddy. 6 or 6:30 I nurse her and then she has dinner and is in bed by 7 or 7:30, depending on the day. Right now I still "dream feed" her around 10p, but I will be dropping that soon, seeing as how she isn't very interested lately, and she's such a good sleeper.
She will be moving to a different class in her nursery soon, seeing as how she is crawling all over the place and probably all over the other kids in her class, so she'll get to move into a class with other crawlers to play with. I am sure she'll have tons of fun!! It's hard though when you get to know the nursery workers and see them every Sunday for 7 months... but it will be good. She's growing up!!
Madilyn is also starting to learn the meaning of "no". She is constantly in our fireplace, I say no and move her, and she goes right back! I found her with a fireplace rock in her mouth too, crazy girl! I freaked out, glad I saw her!!! She drops everything off her highchair tray, so now we don't set things on there for her, we give it to her one at a time. The other day I said no and she smiled at me and I had to turn away to keep from laughing, it was so hard!! HA!
Well, she's a joy, and I love every moment of being her mommy. We have so much fun and I am trying my best to enjoy each stage. She started walking behind her walking toy all on her own yesterday and it made me want to tell her to slow down, that I wasn't ready for that yet! I can't believe my sweet baby is growing up! Wow... well, enjoy these pictures!!!
What?


Aren't I cool? I can stand behind my walking toy all by myself!!


HAHAHAHAHA!


This is Madilyn's "I am so funny" smile. ha!!


"Hi mom, why so many pictures? I am trying to play and you are in my way..." :)

Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I am finally getting around to posting some pictures and all that good stuff.
We had an awesome Christmas! We stayed in town this year, and it was very nice and low-key. My parents had John, Madilyn and I over and we did our traditional fondue... which was so much fun! I look forward to it every year. My sister and her husband came down from NC on Christmas Eve (after we were in bed) and Madilyn opened 1 gift on Christmas Eve before going to bed, and it was a baby doll from her Grama and Papa. She LOVED it, it was so cute. She kept kissing it over and over again. So sweet! Then, Christmas morning my brother got off of work and headed over (he was on night shift) and we all opened gifts. John's family has a tradition of having english muffins with ham, cheese and mayo on it. So, I made that... and then for the rest of the family I attempted to make Eggs Benedict, since it's pretty close in it's ingredients. Well... lets just say that was interesting. Next year I will get an egg poacher, and I will try a little bit harder to find a jar of hollandaise sauce. It didn't turn out quite as good as I was hoping, but everyone was a good sport and gobbled it up. :) We spent some great family time the whole weekend, and went to the lights at the zoo. It was so fun to be with family and remember the true reason for the season. I am looking forward to sharing the Bible reading of the story of Jesus' birth with Madilyn when she gets older.
Here's some pictures to enjoy!

I thought this picture was too cute. She is eating her first animal cracker from Grama that she got in her stocking

Here Madilyn is helping us with the tree stand... :)
Here is Madilyn opening her very first Christmas gift on Christmas Eve... she just talked and talked to that baby doll

and gave it kisses
ok, this picture should be at the top, but it's her opening the gift...

Well, I will post more later, but for now this will have to be it. Madilyn woke up from her nap, and she desperately wants to help with typing... here's a quick note from her...
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8 months!!

Yes, it has been a while... it seems I only am getting on here about 1x per month! Oh well... at least I am trying...! :)
Madilyn Belle turned 8 months old on December 17th, 2009, and she is growin, growin! I am not sure how much she weighs, but she's growing as she should be. She's in some 9 month clothing, but mostly still 6-9 month clothing. She is still in size 2 diapers (but I don't think for much longer) and size 2 shoes. She's a petite little thing, and I love it! She's definitely very girly and sweet. She is not yet crawling forwards, but she is scooting backwards. She is pulling up on EVERYTHING also. I found her standing up in her crib for the first time the other day after her nap. I was so shocked! I also walked into the nursery a couple of Sundays ago and there she was standing up holding on to a toy and barefoot! (She constantly is pulling off her socks!) She is too funny! I keep thinking that she will crawl, but she gets in the position, rocks back and forth, and then rolls to her back. Then, she will proceed to roll across the room to whatever it was that she wants to get to. lol! Her 3rd tooth is FINALLY breaking through, I can see it right under the skin and just know it will pop through at any moment. It has been coming for, um, what... over a month?! I brought her into the doctor last month and she told me she was teething and even pointed out the swollen gums... but just NOW the tooth is coming through. Luckily just last night was when she really started to be crabby about it. She refused to eat dinner and was very very clingy to mommy. I didn't mind a little extra Madi time though :).
I have a TON of pictures to put on here, but I can't remember where my card is at the moment, so I will have to post them later. I have us getting our first REAL Christmas tree, and Madilyn seeing it for the first time. John setting it up...etc. It's quite humorous really, he was SO excited. Madilyn just wanted to suck on the ornaments, but she is really liking all of the lights and Christmas decorations around the house. Our neighbor, whom we call "Miss Marilyn" came over last night with a dancing santa and Madilyn went crazy for that. She was squealing and kicking her legs, soo cute! That's one thing about Madilyn though, she sure does squeal. I am not sure if she's singing, listening to her voice, or just talking. Sometimes it gets so high that I really truly think that dogs might think it's a dog whistle. It has actually hurt my ears... lol! I am not kidding! She makes me laugh so hard sometimes! She will probably start talking early, but for now, it's squealing. She says "dadada" a lot, and "nananana", we have yet to say "mamama"... oh well, she will eventually. I am thinking that she is starting to know that John is "dada", because yesterday morning I asked where "dada" was, and she looked for him, and smiled when she saw him. SO... I think she's starting to know what we are called.
For Thanksgiving John's dad came into town, and it was so much fun. Sadly, we didn't bring the camera with us, and when we did, the battery was dead! We only have 1 picture from the whole time he was here, and it's on John's cell phone. We are pitiful! I made the entire meal for the first time, and of course, had my wonderful husband's help in the kitchen. We pulled it off though. I wouldn't say it turned out perfect, but it was pretty good for our first time doing the whole meal! Our stuffing was... well, terrible... lol! I put WAY too much bread, and not enough liquid, so it tasted like flavored bread crumbs... HA! The green bean casserole, I thought you were supposed to use frozen beans, and it's supposed to be canned. SO... the beans were still a bit crunchy when I put them on the table. The sweet potato casserole... my hand got bumped when I put the vanilla extract in it, so lets just say it definitely had the aroma of vanilla to it... oh man. I was pretty proud of the turkey though, it looked and tasted awesome. All of the food was hot and ready at the same time (which is quite a feat with one oven I found out!) and we had a great meal. Madilyn slept through the whole thing :). She'll be awake for it next year. The next day we took John's dad to Charleston and spend the day there and then went to the James Island lights. It was so much fun! Madilyn slept through a majority of the lights, but we got her out to roast marshmallows and warm up by the fire. I let her taste some graham cracker, which she thorougly enjoyed.
Christmas is going to be a nice quiet Christmas. Christmas Eve we will go to the candlelight service at our church, then that night we will be doing our family tradition at my parents house (who live in Columbia also) and having FONDUE!! YUM! Then Christmas morning we'll wake up and wait for my sister and her family and my brother to show up... and we'll have gift opening and then... just relax! Nice huh? I sure am looking forward to it.
Well, I will be posting pictures soon, I just wanted to make sure to get this up. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

7 months... it's been a while!

Madilyn is 7 months old today... she is getting so big! She seems to think so too! :) She is trying to be so independent, and really is getting a mind of her own lately! When she is done nursing she will take her arm out from behind me, and put it up near my shoulder and push herself up. She's really wanting to do everything on her own now, it's so cute! She prefers to feed herself now, so in between her bites I have to sneak in spoonfulls of cereal since she still needs that to keep her tummy full. She loves green beans (canned), peas, carrots, "puffs", cheerios, mandarin oranges, oatmeal, avocado, sucking on apples and pears, chewing on celery... the list goes on... If I have food in front of me, she strains to see what I have because she wants to try it too! :) She's a good eater! I am still nursing her 5 times per day, yesterday she was on an eating frenzy and I nursed her 6 times plus 3 solids meals. She must have been extra hungry yesterday! She sleeps through the night. Her last night time feeding is at 7pm and then she wakes up around 6 or 6:30 am. She's sitting on her own, and doesn't topple over as much... barely any more at all. She cries when she's on her tummy and she can't reach what she wants. She can scoot, but not well enough to get to what she wants. We're gonna have to work on that, because right now her cry seems so pitiful, I go to help her. I'll have to keep working on the crawling so she can get to her toys. I haven't weighed her since her 6 month appointment, so I'll have to get on the scale with her to see how much she weighs. She's outgrown most 3-6 month clothing and is in 6 month, or 6-9 month clothing. She still falls asleep in the car so easily, almost anywhere we go, if it's more than a 10 or 15 minute ride, she's out! Even if she just got up from her nap, so I try not to put her in the car unless it's around nap time, or she'll be all messed up and won't know what's going on! :)

Well, that's about it for now, I'll have to tell a couple of the cute stories about her that I have when I have a little more time to blog. For now, here is one of her 6 1/2 month pictures.

6 months!!!!

I should have posted this sooner, but we just went to the doctor on Wednesday for Madilyn's 6 month appointment, so now I have her "stats". :)
Madilyn turned 1/2 of a year old on October 17th... she's growing up so quickly! I say that every month, but I just can't believe it! Here are a few of her new things going on:
She is 15 lbs exactly! That is in the 25th percentile
She is 26 1/2 inches long, which is the 75th percentile. (where'd she get that?)
Her head is 17" around, which is 50-75th percentile.

She is sitting up on her own better and better each day completely unsupported! She has started kind of "lunging" for things from her sitting position and ending up on her tummy all frustrated, and wanting to move forward so badly. She just ends up either on her back, or going in a circle... poor thing!! :)
She's still sleeping through the night. She goes to bed between 8 and 8:30p depending on when she woke up that morning, and whether or not she took good naps... :) She then will sleep until somewhere between 6am and 7am. She's a good sleeper!
She also went with me to the library for the first time the other day! We had a great time, and she LOVED all of the books. We spend some good time looking at all of the board books that they have for babies, and then we looked for books for mommy. I will say one thing, I will never go back to the library w/out 2 things... a stroller or my drivers license. The reason I didn't have my driver's license was because it was in her diaper bag from when we were at the fair, and I of COURSE left that one at home... AND I didn't have a Lexington County library card yet. So, we disturbed all of the library patrons and workers with my darling daughters high pitched, excited squeals for 45 minutes... just to walk out of the library empty handed. Oh well... I'll have to try again another time and will be better prepared! :)
That's about it for now... I will be posting some cute pictures that I took for her 6 month birthday very soon.

Seriously?!

Ok... so, I am wondering what other mommy has experienced this... So, I had to go to my yearly appointment for my checkup at the doctor. My mom was out of town, and John was at work, so I thought, I can definitely do this by myself, I go shopping by myself with Madi, why not this? Right? So I got to the doctor's office with plenty of time to nurse Madilyn in the car before we went in so she wouldn't be fussy while I was in there. Well, that didn't work, because she so expertly exploded out of her diaper, up the front of her outfit... etc. So, it took me almost the whole time I had allotted for nursing just to clean her up! I was standing at the back of the car with her in the trunk wiping her up and trying to keep the dirty wipes and diaper away from her busy little hands... it was a MESS!!! People gave me some strange looks, but seriously, where else could I change her diaper but in the trunk, lol? She's too long to change her on either side of the car seat, she keeps bumping her little head and cries... SO, I finally get done cleaning her up and had to put her in a way less cute outfit and head into the doctor's office with diaper bag, purse and toy. I can't carry Madilyn in her infant carseat anymore, it's just too much. So, I get in, sign in and sit down playing with my sweet girl... suddenly I think.... where am I going to set her while I am being examined? Will I hold her, put her on the floor, have the nurse hold her... what?! Shoot! What am I gonna do? Suddenly I remember, the BUMBO!!! YAY! Bumbo to the rescue! I tell the receptionist that I have to run out to the car quick, but I'll be back. I gather up my "luggage" (lol) and traipse out to the elevator, go up one floor to the garage, get the bumbo out of the car, go back into the building, elevator down one level and get back in and sit down with the beloved bumbo, and the nurse comes out calling my name just as I sit down... So I get BACK up, gather all of my belongings and almost knock out the nurse trying to get thru the door! HA! First they take my blood pressure in a lab room, so I sit down and put Madi on the floor in her bumbo. I guess I put her too close to the chair, because while the cuff was squeezing the life out of my arm, she was licking the leg of the chair! I couldn't grab her either! Oh man, so as soon as they were done, I moved the chair back from her and they did the rest of their questioning etc. Then, I was able to find out (oh joy) how much I weigh, and then put into my room to put my lovely paper clothing on. I was trying to figure out the best place to put my sweet munchkin. Not in the center of the room, people might trip over her, not by the chair, now realizing she likes to lick them... so, I put her in the corner. Then, the nurse comes in and says... oh how cute! Is she in a time out??? HA! Seriously? It was so funny! Then, the receptionist came in hearing how cute my sweet girl was, and took a picture of her in her bumbo: playing with the crinkly package of wipes, sitting in the corner; all the while I am on the table in my paper clothing... so weird! People just don't seem to notice you are in the room when you have your little one with you! It's still making me laugh! So, then Madilyn starts to get hungry, I KNEW I should have tried to nurse her, but I didn't want to miss my appt, oh well! Luckily my Dr. came in and I was out of there quickly, but man... that was an adventure! Has anyone else had such an interesting time trying to just go to the doctor... man, what if it had been the dentist?!
Anyways, I just had to share my story, it was funny, and I know all the moms and dads out there could somehow relate and share a laugh.
Have a good day!

Sitting up, baby dedication and more...

So... the latest... Madilyn is sitting up all on her own! She still tumbles just a little bit here and there, so I put the boppy behind her, but she will sit there and play. She likes her independence so much that unless she's sleeping, she does not really like to lay back anymore, she wants to sit! She will strain to sit up on her own until I pull her up. Oh, the day when she can do it on her own, I will be in trouble! :)
Madilyn is moving up in the foods she has eaten world! :) She has eaten squash, bananas (she seems to be sensitive to these, so we may not do bananas again for a while) sweet peas, sweet potatoes, apples and pears. She loves all of it too! It's so cute! One of my friends gives her little one avocado and I have read what a good food it is. I may be mashing some up for Madilyn since I read it's ok for 4-6 month olds... we'll have to see what the doctor says. She also loved gnawing on carrots and celery and we put apple pieces into this mesh thing she can hold so I don't have to worry about her getting chunks of apple out and choking on it. She really loves chewing on that and getting all that apple flavor out!!
Also, lately... I am beginning to think that Madilyn just might be teething. I have been saying that for the last week or two, but I am beginning to think I am right. Today at church she had a couple of, shall we say, "blowouts". It is such a blessing to have such sweet great people working in the nursery that changed her, and put clean clothes on her... but man, I guess it was an interesting task that Madilyn found quite funny! She also is chewing on anything she can get her hands on... drool is quite abundant, and I keep thinking I can see something in her gums on the bottom... but then I think it's my imagination. Plus, this little cutie pie, has been having trouble with naps... these are all signs... lets just hope that the ultimate sign... a little tooth... comes poking out soon, or we may be having to go to the doctor a little before her next well visit.
On Saturday October 3rd we had a baby dedication with a few of our friends from Sunday school! It was so nice! Adam Beam's dad is a pastor and he dedicated the 4 babies that day. It was so nice to make that commitment to raise Madilyn in a Godly home and to be a good example for her. But it was also nice that the friends and family were also brought into the commitment. It was a very neat ceremony. Then, we all had a picnic and there was some really yummy food!! We may still go through the dedication ceremony with Shandon (our church) next Spring since my parents and grandparents couldn't make it on Saturday, but I am glad that we were able to while Madilyn was still young.
Well, that's about it for now!! Here's some pictures of Madilyn showing how she can sit up on her own, and also of the dedication and some other fun things. Enjoy!!!A family picture... Madilyn wasn't sure she wanted to look at the camer, she was being just a little bit stubborn, but you can see her in her cute dress that Grama picked out before she destroyed it with sweet potatoes at lunch time. I thought her bib would cover the dress enough... but she got to it with her little hands!! :)

Mommy and her little sweet pea

Here I am trying to get her ready, and she is chewing on a hanger...

It's like she's saying "what is this?!", it was her first time sitting in grass, she's so cute!

Here's my favorite picture. You can see how well she's sitting up, and she's got her heart melting smile... LOVE IT!