Crawling and a Tooth!

Our lil' bug is scoot-crawling :) Mainly after things she's not suppose to have; the remote control, our cell phones, the Christmas tree! I'm a little nervous for what this will mean when she starts walking.. yikes! I have a sneaking suspicion that she'll be into everything. Ryan and I have been cuddling with Madelyn a lot the last few days as she has a tooth coming in on the bottom right. We're excited but sad to lose that toothless smile. Poor girl is hurting though.. chewing on everything and not feeling so hot. Wow.. how the time is flying by. This morning I was lying on the floor playing with Mad and she turned around and hugged my leg, then she grabbed my jeans tight and persisted to pull herself to standing! Oh my, what's next!

Christmas Tree Hunting...

I love Christmas! I was so excited to take the new family into the hills to pick out a tree. After quite the search we finally found "the tree" .. but by then our girl was fast asleep. She awoke to find a tree in her living room?!! Probably strange to a small mind. (We gave her a small branch to play with, you would have thought it was a new flashy toy..) As the lights went up she grew more and more excited and now, at random times throughout the day, I find her staring at it in awe. Merry Christmas baby girl.

We want SNOW!

Sorry for not keeping up to date with posts.. This last month has been crazy busy for us.. Filled to the brim with swim lessons, Seahawks games, concerts, dinners, birthdays, a car in the shop, shopping for a new bed and selling our old one;).. and a surprisingly clear weekend North, at Birch Bay.. We have had so much fun, but are exhausted. Madelyn has been growing like a little weed! And it's fun to see her little personality coming out. She's eating a lot more, (she would eat the whole fridge if we let her) and her sweet babbles of communication never stop, we love her squeaks and squeals and random dadada yayayayaaa's... (she even does this heavy breathing thing, it's hilarious!) Most days are filled with sleep and playtime, but she's improving her fine motor skills and LOVING her swim lessons and the water. I've even caught her throwing her head around at lightening speed to catch a glimpse of the water coming out of the faucet.. It's a sweet little obsession she has right now. She loves it when we help her stand up, and still bounces like crazy (about a mile a day I swear).. and I can tell that she desperately wants to crawl, which scares ryan and I because we are not even close to having our home child proof. I guess that will be another "to do" in December. I hope everyone is well.

The long awaited Halloween Pics!

Our Lil Duck..

polkadot swimmin bug..

Madelyn and Papa at swim lessons.

Ha-key.

Wenatchee Wild. (hard to believe Wenatchee has a semi pro hockey team) The bank handed out free tickets and of course we were more than happy to venture out. Madelyn stared at the ceiling then fell asleep.. It amazes me how little ones can do that.

Trees, leaves, and bottles?!

Yesterday, for Madelyn's 1/2 birthday:), we took her hiking. She really LOVES being outside. And we really enjoyed the time as a family as well.

Madelyn's 6 Months old!

At Mad's six month appointment she weighed 15.3 pounds, and was 27 inches long! (30percentile weight/ 90percentile length).. She might be tall like her papa?! Her doctor, Darcy Jeffrey, said she's doing great and very energetic for six months.. uh oh ;)

Our little "baby peach"

in training.. to run over that papa.. or should i say 'waluigi'?!!

Papa has been teaching Madelyn to sit up. She's been doing really well, and only crashes when she lurches sideways to grab something of interest:) I can definitely see a desire in her to be more mobile.. sometimes she stares so intently at things that I swear she's trying to teleport herself over to them. We can hardly believe she'll be six months on Saturday!

grey skies and hoodies.

What is it about the skies turning grey that makes us pause.. reminds us to slow down?

Maybe it's because we want to soak up the last of a season or maybe we're ready for a new season to begin... or possibly, we've just been waiting for an excuse to call in sick, drink coffee and contemplate life. For me the grey skies allow time to catch up on chores that seem all to quickly to accumulate these days.. And of course, my favorite part, cozying up with ryan and madelyn in my favorite hoodie. (it's a pretty good excuse to play mariokart too:)

Shades of pink.

Mad's laundry.

A little daddy time.

So while the older girls, including Mommy, decided to go to the opera...who goes to the opera anyway...Madelyn and Daddy got to spend the whole day together. Even though we had the whole day pre planned for us by Mommy (just kidding), we still managed to have some unauthorized fun. In between losing socks on our walk, refusing to take an afternoon nap, and having a little fussy session during dinner, we really did manage to have a great time. I can see a fun personality starting to develop, and she can sustain longer periods of playtime. I can't explain how exciting that is. Go Seahawks. Papa

A day by the river.. inspecting leaves

I love watching Madelyn's face as she examines her surroundings.. she stares, furrows her brow, squints, moves her head side to side, and of course tries to taste everything. One of my favorite things is to ly her under a tree and watch her.. she looks above, in complete awe, and watches the leaves blow in the wind and the sun shine through them.. then she puts her hands out reaching toward the sky and moves her wrists back and forth, back and forth. I'm not sure why she does this but I love that she loves it so much. I laid next to her the other day and looked up into the trees. It was such a needed moment, both of us with no other cares or worries, fascinated with the small but incredible things.

Ryan & I have officially changed the spelling of M-A-D-E-L-Y-N's name..

(and we're excited to hear people pronounce it correctly:)

FIVE MONTHS AND GROWING.

When people ask me how old Madelyn is I often find myself answering 5 months.. and then immediately question my response, is she really 5 months? Did I just make that up?! no way, if that's right, next month she'll be half a year already! Oh. My. I'm finally starting to realize why everyone says they grow up so fast! Ryan and I are truly enjoying being parents, we have possibly the sweetest child (I'm sure everyone says that about their own, but it's true..) Madelyn keeps us on our toes, and more importantly keeps us smiling.. yes, even if it's at 1am with a poo-ey diaper.. If you haven't spent much time with our Madelyn it's hard to explain, she's funny, or amuses herself anyway (i'm sure she gets that from her papa:), and she's a total flirt, whether it's with her coo's, smiles or eyebrows she'll suck you in! Needless to say it's been somewhat of a struggle at times when she wants to be cute and play, and you need her to go to sleep. She's doing really well though and we are so very proud of her.

some of my cousins..

Halle, Jones, Maia, & Madelyn enjoying the last days of Summer.

Sitting, watching the Momma cook.

Sitting up like a big girl, it's exciting but sad that she's growing so fast.

little water bug.

We've wanted to take Madelyn into the water for awhile now.. this weekend we visited her Auntie Pat and ended up spending the afternoon in the pool. Mad seemed awestruck by the sun reflections in the water, and kicked her feet a bit.. but got a little nervous getting too far from the papa.

Momma & Papa @ Jack Johnson

When we got tickets to jack johnson we contemplated taking madelyn but decided in the end that it wouldn't be the best environment for her, plus it would give ryan and i some much needed alone time.. It was a long LONG night, especially missing our 'little bucket'.. but i think we both agree that it's nice to be able to go out and do things that don't revolve around baby toys and diapers. (it's still sooo hard though).

cousins..

Lael and Madelyn.