The Adventures of the Two M's
Always eager to lend a helping hand, and give advice on how to install the new dishwasher. Dad's socket set must look better than a pile of Christmas presents to her.
Feeding Mom for change
Pepe
I don't need no stinking bib
Kaitlyn asking, "Where did you get all that hair?"
The bike trailer was not a hit until it got moving.
"Well ok, I guess I like it"
Loving the backpack
Checking out the horses.
Mom got her first day apart from Madelyn last Saturday as part of her first Mother's Day present, however it came with a bribe in the form of a massage at a spa.
Always eager to help out.
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 :)
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.
Yogurt tends to make a mess, but she seems to like it :)
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.
Our friends the Gustafson's had their second girl on Friday, Claudia Bea, yippie.
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.
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.
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.
More and more we Love the Crabby pictures :)
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... 
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 
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!?"
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.
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.
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 :)
Baskets seem like fun places to play in.
Bedtime!? Not!
