Tumbling

As if learning to walk was not enough, Madelyn has decided this week to start tumbling or so it seems. She dives in and out of her garden play set about 10 times a day. Normally my pictures are just of a leg or two flopping over the side but I was lucky to catch the entire sequence yesterday.

Her cousin Jr. was in town last week, much to her delight. She played a few good games of "knock the blocks off" with him. New foods this week were Blueberries (big-hit), Strawberries, pieces of bread and Veggie Booty.

Walking

* New 11month slide-show and videos this week

Madelyn is slowing learning how to walk, she can't stand upright on her own for very long or stop after she starts walking, so most of the time she ends up falling on her butt or crashing into whatever she is headed for after 4-5 steps. Each days sees improvement so it won't be long before she's motoring around everywhere, this will surely freak the cats out.

Eating is still a challenge at times, she won't let us feed her anymore and giving her a spoon is just an invitation to watch her fling food all over the place, so it's on to the finger foods. Some of her favorites are black&kidney beans(this sounds strange but our child loves these to no end and will eat about a 1/4 cup of them at a time, cheese(string and cubed), pears, blueberries, raisins, grapes, bananas, avocados, raviolis, and of course what kid would not like Cheerios. All of these foods are subject to her mood at any given time, one week she'll be really into something and the next week she won't even touch it. We went though a stage where she really only wanted to eat crackers for every meal, now she spits them out and does not want anything to do with them. She still will offer you a taste of what she's eating if you show interest in what's on her tray and will gladly stuff as many beans or raisins into your mouth as you can stand.

Here are some more pictures from the photo shoot last week:

"I hate the Grass!! (well this week anyway)"

Toddling around

A few of the Pictures from the last Peps photo shoot with Sandi are in.

Guess who does not like Grass!?

Usually when we are not trying to help her Madelyn will take a step or two. She still prefers to crawl but is becoming more and more excited when she walks on her own. While it's only from the couch to a toy or from the window to the kitchen table, it's neat to watch the progress.

Yes - That's a pack of String Cheese in the Kitchen Gadget drawer c/o Mom. We both find ourselves putting things back where they don't belong lately. We've also found a few interesting items in the fridge that did not need to be there :)

No more Monkeys jumping on the bed!

Never ending box of Tissues

Karin has played a few songs so many times for Madelyn that she's starting to recognize them, her favorite so far is "5 Little Monkeys", who jump on a bed. Anyway it sounds corny but she loves the song.

First Haircut

Two more teeth are erupting in Madelyn's mouth this week. Teething must be a painful process for kids, I can only imaging what it must be like, her upper two teeth have started to poke their way though her gum's and we have our good days and bad days. She's recently figured out that feeding Mom and Dad one of her Cheerios or a grape can be great fun and gets pretty excited about doing so, maybe she's trying to get us back for all the food we have been stuffing into her lately. Her tastes are changing as well, she starting to like sweeter foods as well as her green beans, peas and spinach. "Happy Snack" is what we call her whole-grain fruit bars that she loves so much, this girl would do anything for one of these little treats, maybe the fact that Big Bird is on the wrapper helps out.

We went to the pool for the first time this weekend. Pools have changed radically since our childhood. This one had a huge kids area with only 1ft of water in it and rubber mats on the floor, I'm jealous that the pools of my childhood were not like this. After she warmed up to the place we splashed around for the better part of an hour.

Our first bike ride to the park this weekend went as well as expected. We'll still need to do some more work with the helmet but she seemed to do OK in her trailer.