Eight (and a half) months

I'm a bit late on the eight month update. Life has just been keeping us busy. Last week I started teaching again for the spring semester. As much as I LOVE being home with Mady I do really enjoy being able to teach. I think I have a great group this year and am really excited.

One of my best friends, Mady and I also took a trip this past weekend to San Antonio to visit our other best friend. It was Mady's first girls trip and she had a great time! Our other big news is we got a new car this week. After a couple of trips out of town we realized our car just wasn't big enough so we traded it in for a GMC Acadia and I love it! I never thought I'd be able to drive a big car like that but it drives surprisingly well.

Lunch by the riverwalk

As for our little girl, she is a mover and a shaker these days. She can army crawl like a pro and gets anywhere she needs to go. She gets up on her knees a lot more now and crawls on them for a little while and then gives up and goes back to her army crawl. She also is pulling up a lot more. On the coffee table, bookshelf, toys, crib. She has such a look of accomplishment once she pulls up to standing. Mady can also wave, shake, kiss, drum, dance, and somewhat clap. Clap to her means hit her hands against her legs. My favorite has to be her dancing. When she hears music she starts bouncing up and down. It's so cute:)

Her favorite word these days is dada. She says it all the time and as much as I try to get her to say mama, dada is all that comes out. Her daddy loves it of course! They say dada is a lot easier for them to say so I'm giving her a pass...for now ;)

She's still a great eater and loves everything. She eats three meals a day and soon I'll start giving her little finger foods. As for sleeping we are doing great in that area too. She normally has two naps a day around an hour and a half and sleeps about twelve hours at night. 

A couple of weeks ago Mady's first tooth started cutting through.  Luckily, it didn't seem to affect her too much.  She still slept normally, and we didn't have any fever.  The reason I had a feeling she might be was because of all the drool coming from her mouth.  When I went to feel her gums, sure enough it was the bottom one popping up.  The second tooth on the bottom started coming up this past weekend so she now has two teeth!  I'm so glad that it hasn't been too hard on her because I've heard such sad stories of other babies while teething.

No doctor appointment this month, but there will be one next month when she turns nine months!  I can't believe that.  Where does the time go?!

Holidays 2011

Holidays are now over and we had a great time celebrating with all of our family.  We spent actual Christmas day here because Nick had to work but we had a great time.  Mady was able to open her presents and spend the day at home playing with her new toys.  We got her a dino ball popper toy and an outfit.  Santa brought her a push walker that she can also ride on which she loves, a piano toy, some new books, and a few little stocking stuffers. 

The day after Christmas we headed down to Port Arthur for about a week but first we had a pit stop in The Woodlands to celebrate Christmas with Nick's side of the family.  The week went by so fast and we had such a great time with everyone. Sometimes I wish we lived closer so we could see each other more!

Last year was the best year of my life because of Mady's arrival and it will be hard to top but I cannot wait to see what this year has in store for us!

Here are just a few of the many pictures we took:

She liked the paper more than the gifts

Our nephew Beau.  Love this game!

Isn't our niece Claire so cute?!

Love this picture!  Looks like our nephew Trevor liked his dinosaur!

Seven Months!

I'm a bit late this month but what else is new?! With the school semester coming to an end and the holidays I've been a busy girl. Mady turned seven months on the 12th and I cannot believe how much has changed from a month ago. She is our little mover and shaker now. She has the army crawl down. In the past couple of days she has gotten up a lot more on her knees but she can't quite crawl on them yet. It may not be too much longer now. She also loves to stand up and hold on to the coffee table and is getting better at pulling up. The other day we were in her room playing before bath time and she was playing by her bookcase with her books. I went to the closet to take some clothes out that didn't fit her anymore and when I turned around she was standing up holding on to the bookcase! Can't leave her unwatched in there anymore!


She is still a happy little girl and every time we go out it never fails she smiles at everyone and I always hear the comment "what a happy baby!" She is also very proud of herself lately for figuring out how to click her tongue and will do it over and over again with a huge smile that shows she is so proud of herself for the big accomplishment. Just today she waved back at us which is something I had been working on with her for a while and it felt so awesome to see her do it! I swear she said "hi" too which is what I say when I wave at her, haha. She can also splash in the water during bathtime when I say splash and shake her rattle when I say shake.


As for her solids she is on three meals a day and loves everything. I can't really tell what her favorite food is because she eats it all!

Christmas is just a few days away and we are so happy to be spending it with our baby girl. We are going to spend Christmas day here at home and then we'll head down to Port Arthur the next day to celebrate the holiday with our families. Wish everyone a great holiday and hope you are feeling as blessed as we are this Christmas season.

She's not Santa's biggest fan

Can we go home now?  (After our visit to see Santa)

Aren't they cute?!

She still loves her bath time

Favorite Time of Year

Thanksgiving has passed and we had so much to be thankful for this year.  Nick had to work so my parents came up here and spent it with us and we had a great time.  Now we are in my favorite time of year and I am so excited to have Mady this year to spend it with.  I love everything about Christmas.  The lights, decorations, spending time with friends and family, and reflecting on the whole reason for the season.  This year we are so blessed to have our little girl with us.   I'm a bit behind with her six month stats.  She had her doctor appointment over a week ago.  Better late than never:

Weight: 16 lbs  (50th percentile)
Height: 24.5 inches  (7th percentile, yes she is our short little girl)
Head size: 16.5 cm (20th percentile)

In the last couple of weeks she's really started to get into a great schedule.  I heard it would just happen around six months and thankfully it did.  She usually has two naps during the day and is down around 7:45 at night and sleeps until around 7:30 in the morning.  She is doing really well with her solids now too.  She eats solids twice a day and nurses four times.  Once in the morning which is usually some oatmeal and fruit and then a vegetable for dinner.  We'll move up to three meals soon when it looks like she's ready.  She loves to eat her solids and gets so excited when she sees us coming with the bowl and starts banging her hand against the table!

She's really changed since the last six month post.  She now will lunge forward on all fours and rock back and forth but not moving anywhere quite yet.  She also does a type of army crawl and though she doesn't get very far she is able to get to a toy that she wants that is fairly close.  She gets so frustrated when she can't get there.  She also loves to stand up and hold on to our coffee table.  She would be happy doing that all day and gets mad when I pull her away.  She's getting better and better at pulling up on the table. 

She also has started reaching for us and I have to say it melts my heart everytime she does it.  She especially does it when she's getting tired.  She is such a sweetheart and so much fun.  She loves to be tickled (especially by her daddy) and we can get some really good laughs out of her.  Another one of her favorite past times is sucking on her toes.  Wait until I use this against her when she grows up, haha.  Well, just a couple of more weeks and I'll be writing her seven month post.  Wow....

And for the best part...

So silly!

She looks like she's concentrating hard

Happy Thanksgiving!

First Christmas Tree

Putting her ornament on the tree

Super Mom

Nick here.....

I am finishing a wonderful 3 days away from work on an actual weekend. The best part of it all, was that we had no plans. We had 3 days at home with nothing to do. This was the first few days I have been really able to experience Mady in the stage she is in now. She's much more aware of everything, and knows what she wants and how to get what she want. Whether she wants to be held, wants this toy, or whatever....she knows what to do. I had a great 3 days "off" with the family, but I must admit that I was exhausted at times. Seeing what Alex does every day is astonishing. She is a super-mom who never complains about being tired or worrying about the list of things she has to do. Mady keeps her on her toes and she always makes sure she comes first. I had a great time with them this weekend, and came away with a greater respect for her and the job she does with Mady.

Thanks Alex!

Halfway to a Year!

Our little girl is six months old today!  Time flies when you're having fun and we have been having some fun with her.  She is starting to form such a personality and it is so fun watching her grow everyday.  Her six month doctor appointment isn't until next week so no stats yet.

We started solids a couple of weeks ago and it's been a slow process.  We started with oatmeal for a few days and then followed that with a few days of sweet potato and avocado.  She didn't seem to like any of those and would just cough and make the most awful faces.  It didn't seem to be getting any better so I decided to give it a break and try again in a few days.  Well today we started up again with pears and either she really loves pears or she is getting better at eating solids because she loved it and was scarfing it all down!  She kept opening her mouth and trying to grab at the bowl.  We'll keep on with pears for a few days and move on to something else and see how that goes.




She has been sitting on her own for a while and now prefers that over anything else.  She loves sitting up and playing with her toys and watching everything around here.  She also loves to pull up when you grab her hands and stand up.  Whenever I grab her hands she immediately starts pulling up.  She is not a big fan of laying down and every time I lay her down to practice her rolling and scooting she cries.  She'll end up being one of those babies who never crawls and goes straight to walking.

Her personality is definitely showing and she already knows how to use her charm and work a room.  It never fails, every time we go somewhere someone stops to see her and she smiles and babbles at them and they just eat it up.  Today we were out starting some Christmas shopping and she was working the whole store.  All of the employees were around her and she was smiling and talking and they were loving it.  I don't know what that means for what we have in store!

And for the best part...pictures!   We got a DSLR camera a week ago and the amount of pictures we've taken has definitely gone up since then.  I'm loving it a lot more than I thought I would!

She loves to swing at the park

One of her favorite things to do is knock down the blocks

Like I said, she doesn't like to lay down

Have enough toys there?

So sweet

I love those cheeks!

Happy Halloween!

We had the cutest little chipmunk this Halloween.  Everybody that meets Mady always comments on her big cheeks so we knew her halloween costume needed to be something that could go along with that and what would be better than a chipmunk?  Thanks to my wonderful friend Mindy, we were able to make it ourselves and I think it came out great!  She had a lot of fun watching all the kids coming to the house but no candy for her this year!

We had another big first around here yesterday.  Mady had her first taste of solids.  She won't be six months for another ten days but she started taking a big interest in watching us eat and smacking her lips.  We gave her some oatmeal and as you can see from the video she didn't seem to like it very much.  She did much better today and actually swallowed some.  We'll give it to her again tomorrow and then I think we'll move on and try avocado.  Maybe it's just the taste she doesn't quite like.