Baby's First Steps!

I don't have any pictures of this yet, but I will try to get some soon. I just had to write it down before I forgot.

Maddy has been taken a lot of steps lately. It started as a few quick steps and then a fall. But on the 29th of October (two days after her birthday) she took 3-4 real, controlled steps in Grandma Simpson's room. She stood up, saw grandma's medicine bottles, and walked right to them. What a motivation, eh? Both Grandma and I clapped, but Maddy didn't even realize she did it.

Just yesterday (Nov 06) she started walking a lot more around our living room. It's funny. There is no rhyme or reason that I can see as to why she chooses to walk or crawl. It still seems she doesn't even notice she is walking. But right now she can get around much faster with her half bear half scoot-on-foot crawl so she prefers crawling to walking still. But it's fun to see her grow....no rush though! I still haven't baby-proofed my drawers and cabinets.

Parties, Parties and Candies

It has been a busy busy week for our family! We had A birthday party for Madison with Dave's family at our apartment and then I flew out to my parents' house where we had a pumpkin carving party, a halloween party, another birthday party for Madison with my family and of course, Maddy's first experience trick-or-treating.

This is Maddy's 1st party. I was surprised to see how quickly she learned how to rip the wrapping paper off her presents!

And then we had a smash cake. She only took a little corner of it. That's all she needed, I guess.

The orange tootsie roll was Madisons first halloween candy. We got it during the day and Penny Wise in Caldwell while shopping with Grandpa Simpson.


Having fun on Halloween at Great-Grandma's house!

This time around opening presents she was a little too distracted with all her presents and everyone around her to be interested in unwrapping them.




Another Smash cake!

And yet again, she only needed a little corner of it, lol.

Her great-aunt made this cake for her. Isn't it great! Thanks Great-Auntie!





Here are all the pumpkins that were carved at the pumpkin carving party!

How Big is Maddy?

So you know the game you play with your baby when you say "How big is [insert baby's name]?" and you raise their hands and say "Thiiis big!" Well just a couple weeks ago Maddy started doing the "this big" herself. She raises her hands and says "deeeh daaaah". It is sooo cute.

In other news, we are in the process of switching from bottle to sippy cup, and she loves it.

I have mixed feelings. I find sippy cups are a lot more messy and easier to create spillage!

We had a Halloween party the other day.

Maddy was so cute in her butterfly costume. When we bought the costume that was the only one she reacted to. In the store everytime we showed her the butterfly head she laughed and held out for it. So she basically picked out her costume this year!

We carved the pumpkins we got from the pumpkin patch. We have a daddy,











a baby,

and a mommy!

I also toasted the pumpkin seeds using this recipe. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Toasted-Pumpkin-Seeds-with-Sugar-and-Spice/Detail.aspx They turned out good, I would use half he sugar it asks for next time though!

Pumpkin Patch Blast!

Today was Pumpkin Patch day! I guess Washington is having problems with their pumkins this season so we went to the first pumpkin patch and it turned out to be a huge bummer. all the pumpkins were rotting and gross. They were suppose to have a corn maze, but all the corn was smashed down....it was a huge bummer. So We traveled 40 minutes away to try out another pumpkin patch...and there we hit the jack pot. We found a whole community of farmers and pick-your-own places. So everyone was in compitition with the other and it made things very fun and interesting. One place did a festival with live music and different vendors and another place shot pumpkins out of a pumpkin canon every hour. The best part though, is that Madison watches Baby Einstines, A Day at the Farm a lot when we go on car trips. ( we strap a portable DVD player to the headrest of the passenger seat). In the DVD they sing "Old McDonald had a Farm". Well today Madison decided to pick up on the song and sing "EeOohEeOohEee" When the kids in the song sing "Ee I Ee I Oh". I thought that was so fitting as we were driving past the different farms. Needless to say, I took a lot of pics!

Well, Sleeping is not going well. I know this isn't what should be going on, but I gave in to her. After a night with many tears from both of us, we decided to keep her in our bed and figure out another way of getting her to her room. The last two nights she's been great because she's back in mommy and daddy's room. The nights where she had to sleep in her crib she was oh so clingy to me all day the next days. So even though it makes me a wishy washy mom, she won this battle. Our Idea for the next attempt, is a little wierd. But at this point, I'll try anything. We're going to get a mat to put in her room on the floor. And then I'll nurse her to sleep on the floor and sneak back to my room. If she wakes up, I'll come back in and nurse her again....fool proof, right? riiight....
In more happier news, Every Friday Maddy and I take a music class. It's called upbeat music together. She absolutly loves it, and this time I got pictures!

This ones a little blurry but it's cute because she decided to become queen of the drum. Looks like she has someone who wants to overthrow her...literally.


We love music class!

Who came up with the saying "sleep like a baby?"

So Madison has been sleeping with me and Dave every night as she nurses the night away. A couple of days ago we decided it was time to put her in her crib. It is a struggle! I nurse her to sleep and then try to put her in her crib, she wakes up. I let her cry for a few minutes and then come back in and nurse her to sleep again. I attempt #2 to put her in her crib, she wakes up. I let her cry again and then come back in and nurse her to sleep again. The first night i just had to hold her down during the 3rd attempt to put her in her crib and she just let out a cry or two of protest and then she slept for a few hours. Last night however, I held her down and she just continued to cry and cry. We started this process at 9:00 and it was coming onto midnight at this moment. Well proving that great things come in small packages, Maddy, as she was crying, looked around the crib and spotted this little lamb stuffed animal.
She immediately stopped crying and just stared at him. And then she felt his ear and just laid there looking and feeling him. 30 minutes later she fell asleep. Thank goodness for Lamby!

Two hours later she woke up again...and ended up in our bed again.

It's going to be a loooooong and tiring week!

And I thought I had bad hair days?


I wanted to take some cute fall photos of Maddy so we went outside and I put her on top of the hill and let her crawl down as I went camera crazy.

We had tons of fun! She loved crawling on the grass.





Things were going great until she found some dog poop and almost put it in her mouth. (I took the picture cause at first I thought it was a leaf.)

All Grins

Maddy's working on her third tooth. They are all three in a row on the bottom. I have been working for a while to get a good grinny picture, this is as close as I can get. But hey, It works.

She looks so thrilled to have her picture taken..."Mom, you want to see my teeth, here you go!"

A Little More Independent.

Maddy is starting to not like her baby food anymore. She has officially graduated to grown up chunky foods. But we still have some baby food in the cupboard and I wanted to use it all up. So today to get Maddy a little more interested in her green beans I let her take over the spoon.....needless to say, she loved it!

Bath Time!

I'm soo happy! For the first time Madison enjoyed her bath this week! I was so excited I had to take a pic.

She was just splashing and laughing away.

Yay!

Summer of Many Firsts.

So I'm finally settled in My new home and have quieted down enough that I can blog again! yay! I'm going to play a little summer blog catch up. Being Maddy's 1st summer she got experience many new things.

Maddy hates water. She wont take a bath and will tolerate a shower only if I'm showering with her. I attribute it to the day after she was born. I took a "how to bathe a newborn" class and Maddy was the example baby. While the nurse was bathing her she was throwing her around like a sack of potatoes. Maddy screamed the whole time. They say babies can't remember things long term, I beg to differ. But anyway, my parents have a heated swimming pool. We decided to take maddy on her first swim and she didn't like it. But over the summer we went a few more times and she learned to tolerate it better each time.


She went to her first wedding. My brother got married (yay!) to a fabulous lady. And I found this dress for Maddy for 25 bucks or something like that. It was the perfect match because Mike and Kim's colors were sage and purple which happened to be the dresses colors. Thanks to my aunt http://taffisblog.blogsome.com/ I got this awesome picture.





And we also had her first fourth of July party. I was nervous she would hate the loud noises of the fire works but she didn't mind them at all. In fact, by the end of our fire work show, she was asleep.

We took many trips:

And got into some trouble:

She learned so many new skills. She can stand on her own now.

play peek-a-boo


And Just a few days ago I opened the fridge to get something to make dinner. I went to the counter to put it down and when I turned around there was Maddy in front of the fridge eating a peach. Somehow she found where they were hiding.



That's the summer very breifly! Till next time!

A Stormy Night

The weather around the world has been insane lately, hasn't it? Every day I turn the TV on and think "okay so where's the tornado today?" and sure enough, there's a tornado somewhere in the world; or an earthquake, or a wild fire... Although we haven't gotten any tornadoes in our little town (knock on wood) we have been getting a lot of rain and thunder storms. The other day when it was storming a little bird came knocking on our window wanting protection from the storm. We ignored him at first but he persisted and soon Grandpa couldn't take it any longer, he just had to see what would happen. So he opened the door and...
He spent a good 30 minutes in our house until I asked "What if he poops everywhere?" (luckily he didn't). So we opened the doors and tried to fly him out but all that did was let a ton of bugs in. so eventually Grandpa had to capture him.
The bird was incredibly friendly and calm. He didn't struggle at all in Grandpa's hand and let me pet him. Maddy thought he was pretty neat too.

In other news, Maddy got her first computer already.
She knows exactly what to do with it.