Tulips

As expected the Tulips fields were a zoo of people, but we managed to take a few pictures and make a run for it.

Pepere and Madelyn

New Push Toy :)

Kitchen Chair

Madelyn is starting walk forward with the assistance of her favorite new toy, a kitchen chair. It's just the right height for her to grab on to and push all around the kitchen. Of course she has to stop on occasion to gum the wicker but then it back to trotting around. It's great fun to watch and she loves the fact that she can move around. She has started to wave hi/bye and seems to almost know what it means, of course she waves to you in the tub, from her high chair and most any other place, grins and smiles are to be had when other people wave back to her.

Karin had these pictures taken the other day, if the weather holds out we'll have some pictures from the Tulip fields this weekend to share.

He nine month checkup went well as did her checkup at Children's Hospital to have her hips checked out again.

Ahhhh Sleep....

Yogurt tends to make a mess, but she seems to like it :)

Sleep training is going well much to our delight. Madelyn will sleep for 10-11 hours at a time now and will go to sleep with little coaxing. And perhaps most importantly she can put herself back sleep when she wakes up. Neither Karin or I have slept for 8 hours straight for about the past year, so we are elated and crossing our fingers that this behavior will stick.

Madelyn has been very quick to giggle this week. Peek-a-boo, watching the cats or an unexpected sound from Mom and Dad put her into all sorts of giggles. She will crawl over to you and hoist herself up on your pants leg when she wants to be held. Sometimes you can get her to walk for a few steps when she does this as well. She's also discovered how to splash herself silly in the bath tub, its amazing how much water a 9 month old can toss around when she really wants to.

Finger Food

Our friends the Gustafson's had their second girl on Friday, Claudia Bea, yippie.

Mealtime is always fun, after 20 minutes of trying to convince Madelyn to eat we finally gave in and let her just play with her food, none of it ended up in her mouth but she enjoyed making a mess of herself. We are on to cheese and yogurt this week and she seems to like them so far. Anything with spinach and peas are still her favorites.

This was a big weekend for us. 1) Karin has gotten her to take a few steps while holding her arms this weekend. 2) We finally got more serious with sleep training on Friday night. The first night was rough to put it bluntly, but last night she slept for a 9 hour stretch, her last record was about 6 hours so we are impressed and hoping for good results on Sunday night.

Her bottom two teeth are in, these are hard to take a picture of as you could imagine, she likes to hide them from people when you go looking for them.

In the backpack with Dad. We went to the zoo on Saturday, she saw a few animals but seemed to enjoy looking at all the people instead.

9 Months

It's hard to believe that 9 months have slipped by in what seems like the blink of an eye to us. Each weeks brings us something new to marvel at, be it a new tooth, a new sound or the realization that Madelyn is big enough to ride on the swings at the park now. Teething has started up again this week and for some reason it has made her more clingy and quick to cry when other people pick her up. My bet is that the top two teeth are on the move.

Her favorite thing to crawl over is still her mother and her father. We spend several minutes every day playing the crawl over daddy game.


Our neighbors the Glovers gave us this Tiny Tot garden. She absolutely loves it and checks the mailbox every day to see if we have stashed something new in it for her.

Behind Bars

Well, the house has now been baby proofed, gates downstairs, and locks on all the drawers in the kitchen and the bathrooms. No sooner had the gates gone up than Madelyn was trying to figure out a way to break out of them. The cats can wiggle though the sides of the gates so they get some time away from baby when needed now.

Maddy is still showing interest in eating much to her parents delight. She has taken the occasional step sideways and a few steps forward but seems content at the moment to pull herself up on anything that she can find be it a pants leg, the wall or a one of her toys. She's figured out the concept of inside this week. One of her toys has a compartment where we keep several small plastic toy blocks. Karin had thought I was the culprit in tossing the blocks all around the family room lately, that is until she watched her daughter reaching her hand inside the toy and tossed the blocks all over the place today. We are also hearing lots of new sounds this week, she often turns to us from time to time and speaks her gibberish baby talk, it must make perfect sense to her but it just sounds like, "Bahhh Bahhh MMMmmm AAAAHHHH AHH!" to us.

Easter Ears

Karin found a pair of Bunny ears for Madelyn the other week and she actually did not seem to mind wearing them on Easter. Memere had placed a few eggs in the Family room and she did not quite grasp on to the concept like x-mas and opening presents. However she did like her Easter basket and dove right into the stack of books and the other goodies.

More and more we Love the Crabby pictures :)
"What to you mean no Candy this year!!"

Shamrock

It's been fun to watch Madelyn romp around the family room lately. She wakes up most mornings and is absolutely on fire, dashing to all her toys, tossing them aside and sticking others in her mouth to make sure they still taste the same. She's figured out how to squat down and pick up toys while standing and take a few side steps while holding on to the couch or the hearth. Baby gates have gone up as her crawling speed has picked up another notch. Perhaps the best trick she learned this week is how to put herself back to sleep. A few times this week she's started crying in the middle of the night and then after a few minutes it tapered off and she fell back asleep. I think we both did a back flip when this first happened, the "cry-it-out" method never worked with Madelyn. We also have been able to give her a bottle a few times before bed, something that we have been unable to do for the last 8 months, life is good.

Naptime again...

Up Up and away

Since Madelyn is getting heavy we finally decided that she might be big enough to try climbing the stairs. (She is far, far away from being able to do so without us right behind her, so no worries) I plopped her down on the bottom step a few nights ago with a toy a few steps out of reach. She made a good effort at climbing a few steps. I thought that it might take a week or so for her to get the hang of it, then the next day she managed to climb all the way up to the second floor for Karin, and again for me that evening. Sleeping is starting to settle down. She's back to waking up once a night and getting about 12 hours of sleep per night.

Madelyn and Kaitlyn

New Videos

New You Tube videos are here. The bottom one is very funny.

Cat Toy or Baby Toy?

Much to our delight it appears that many of Madelyn's toys double as cat toys and vice versa. Simon and her will hang out on the floor while she tosses a ball down the slide. Wyatt is still hesitant to join in on the fun. Notice the crazy bed head. Maddy has learned to open up a few drawers in the kitchen this week, followed shortly there after with learning how to slam her fingers in the same drawer. It's funny how these new experiences go together sometimes.

Karin's Peps group met at our house this week, this is Evan and Phoenix. All the kids are starting to play with each other rather than roll around on the carpet and play by themselves.

• "What do you mean my friends have to go home!?"
  
• "NAP what makes you think I need a NAP?"

This was hard to resit, not all of our pictures are cute and cuddly :)

Picking up Speed

Madelyn is thrilled beyond belief that she can crawl. We sit(exhausted) every night and watch her play in the family room as she crawls to every toy in the room to either gums it or tosses it aside for later. She's also learned to play a small game of Hide n' Go seek with her Mom. Karin will sit her down in the upstairs family room and then crawl to one of the bedrooms. Madelyn will flash a big smile on her face and charge off to chase Mom. Just as fun to watch is her make an escape from any room that Mom is in. She wiggles her way into the hallway smiles, looks back at Mom and keeps right on going. Another discovery this week is how much a bouncing ball can make her laugh. We had her and ourselves in absolute stitches when I bounced her small green ball this week. Why this is so funny to a 7 month old we don't really know, small bounces got small giggles, big bounces left her cackling for several seconds. If she likes bouncing balls that much we'll have to take her to a Basketball game sometime soon.

Standing Up

Wow, Madelyn is continuing to surprise us every day. It was just last week that she decided that standing is a good thing and now she can't seem to get enough of it. She reaches out and grabs anything over a foot high and tried to climb it. We've caught her standing up on her own this way a few times now. She still likes to stand on her tip-toes. We've had to buy a few new toys that she can lean on and play with. I'm sure the cats are looking up to her with horror, I'm betting that we are only a few days away from the first belly-flop on a cat.

She's fun to watch as she's now a little whirlwind crawling all over the family room floor and getting into everything. She still loves to take baths, we splash around and blow bubbles almost every night.

Locomotion

Wow, changes are happening fast this week, I started this post last Friday night and had to edit it by Monday night. This pictures sums things up lately. My edits are in italics...
Madelyn has figured out about 9/10 (everything)of what it takes to crawl this week. She's graduating from the inchworm that we loved to watch and has learned how to move her hands to crawl forward. She wiggles forward for a few feet and then sits up to take in what she's just done. Big smiles can be had as Mom found out if you get down on her level about 5 feet away and crawl towards her. She just thinks that's the greatest thing in the world flashes her toothless (Scratch that, tooth number one has finally erupted from the gum line) grin at you.

Thankfully, she still thinks that legs are for bouncing for now and has no desire to lock her knees (umm she decided this weekend that standing is not such a bad thing after all and will hold herself up on the couch to play with toys) and stand up. She does like to crawl over pillow or people given the chance.

Lets Eat :)
Picture idea credit to Ken Rockwell.

Eating is still a on again off again experience. She still favors green peas and rice cereal over anything that we have tried so far. Thankfully sleeping is back on a somewhat normal schedule with a once a night wake-up for a snack (Spoke too soon :( teething can make her wake up 4-5 times a night). We are trying to wean her of this as she's capable of sleeping 10 hours at a stretch on occasion now. Maybe there is hope after all for us to catch up on our sleep (LOL).

Baskets seem like fun places to play in.

Bedtime!? Not!

Kauai part 6

* The six month sideshow is also available now, click on it for larger pictures.

It's always a bummer to leave Hawaii but we are looking forward to sleeping in our own beds and crib again tonight. Our trip was great but it was difficult at times, a vacation with a 7 month old is still work no matter where you are.

Madelyn decided to give us one last present from Hawaii and slept the entire red-eye flight home after she settled down after takeoff. She's already used her new skills to tackle the cats this afternoon.

Kauai part 5

We hung around our Condo today and did our best to soak up the fun on the beach on our last full day here. Madelyn always seems content to chew on the nearest object that is not one of her toys, be it a water bottle, hat or a scrap of paper. Garbage mouth might be a better name for her lately.


She's gaining more mobility at a scary rate lately. Today she learned how to sit up on her own, we watched her shove herself backwards with her arms and spread her legs and before you know it, she was sitting up. It's been fascinating to watch her learn all these new skills. This afternoon she figured out how to yank herself up on to her knees and grab stuff off of the coffee table. It's funny to see these two tiny hands creep over the top of the table followed by a bobbing head and a quick grab of whatever is closest to the edge. Crawling is still the inch worm with a few kicks of the legs to get her where she wants to go. To go along with all of these new tricks are a few extra bumps to the head from the unforgiving furniture. Mom and Dad have a few adjustments to make as well, as she's not that little girl that would just roll around the room like she used to.

With all of the rain lately comes rainbows in abundance. This one popped out this morning, the view is from our Lanai.


Yes, that's me on a surfboard during the shorelesson. It was time to finally give it a try. A local pro was giving lessons right next to where we were camped out on the beach today so I could not pass up a opportunity like that. It was fun but exhausting, just like the first few times skiing you spend tons of energy just trying to stay on the board. Keep you head up, spread your legs, lower your sense of gravity, stay loose, tilt your hips, what do you mean my stance is called goofy foot, watch out for the rocks that somebody left on the beach, Whooooa I'm standing up now what the heck do I do? Wipeout and hey is that Karin up there on the Beach recording all of this, aggggg....

Kauai part 4

The rain lightened up long enough today to let us go snorkeling for a spell. But true to form, we were chased off the beach by another shower after an hour, feels just like home.

We ate dinner at the Marriott tonight. Luckily for the past few nights Madelyn has been completely occupied with her clip on strap. We bought a clip so that her toys would not fall on the floor but she of course prefers to chew on the clip rather than the toy. Her second favorite toy on this trip has been a 1/2 full water bottle, she can roll around on the floor with one of these for 30 minutes and have a great time. It's always the cheap toys that she likes best.


Yeah Dad, it's the cheap toys that I like best...

Wow both Madelyn and Mike smiling in the same picture. Almost as rare as a Monk Seal. This guy was on the beach the other morning and he had a tracking device on his back, or maybe it was a device that shocks tourist who get to close...