Happy 1 year, Madison!

 
Wow, this year has flown by! I can't believe a year ago today, I was the most nervous I had ever been in my life! At 4:22 pm, after 8 hours of labor, our gorgeous little girl was born! She has grown so much and is so very smart.

She learned how to say "Uh Oh" early in the month. Sometimes she says it clear as day but most of the time she just says "Uh" or "Oh" when she drops or throws something. I also think she has learned to say "I get it". I am constantly saying that to her when she's reaching for something. She has been saying it a few days when she goes to get something. Maybe I'm crazy but I swear she is saying it! She also says "Hey" but it sounds more like "eeeeyyyyyyy" hehe It's cute :)

One night this month, she woke up from 11-1am and then up again from 4-7am. I thought she was teething because she had been acting funny for a few days. That brings us to this picture. This was at breakfast. Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the crib...

And this one was at lunch.. "I am not sleepy, I am not sleepy..."

Enjoying some pasta :)

Eating her first icee. She loved it! 

and a video of it..

She's become really good at copying us. Here's an example:

Her new favorite thing is the food pouches. I bought her some while at the beach and she loved it! I have now stocked up on them for car rides.

She barely wants us to feed her anymore. She likes playing with a spoon and 'dipping' it into her food bowl if we are feeding her something messy but we usually have to end up giving it to her because she refuses to eat from us most of the time.

She has started really loving to read. She will flip through a book the entire time we are in the car and jibber jabber. I love this video! Most of the time the book is upside down but it doesn't matter to her :) Listen out for her to say "Yellow". I know she isn't saying it but it sounds like it and I swear she said "Purple" right after me the other day.

This video was in our beach trip blog but it's so stinkin' cute I had to include it in this one too. This girl loves her some music!

Along those same lines is this one from the library story/music time

Alan coughed the other day and she just died laughing! So of course he did it over an over again and she thought it was just hysterical! Of course the next day she didn't laugh at all when he did it.

She's learned how to take the lid off of her Puff container and get a Puff out on her own.

Her and her Daddy had been doing this over the weekend.. Cute.

Naked baby!

Tall girl!

Blueberry mouth to match her blueberry eyes.

She fell last week and hit her head on the corner of the baseboard.. It was awful :( She cried real hard until I swooped her up and she pretty much stopped right then. She has her mama's pain tolerance for sure! She's a tough little gal!

Alan met us at the library for muic time and then we took her to lunch and to the zoo(blog post to come later). We stopped and got her a cupcake on the way home to eat after supper.

Listening to us sing "Happy Birthday"

"Is that mine?!"
(We gave her 1/4 of the icing and half the cake)

Yum!

This year has been nothing short of amazing. She is the best baby and we are so blessed to have her in our life. She is always so happy and full of love and smiles for everything! She has this little personality that bursts out! No words can describe how we feel for her. Our love for each other has also grown. To see the person that you thought you loved with all you have before you had a child, play and be silly with your daughter is a feeling you can't describe. Mama and Daddy love you so much! Thank you for blessing our lives this past year and the years to come.

Happy 11 months Madison!

On the day she turned 10 months old (July 6th), she woke up pulling up on everything! She wouldn't even nap without pulling up 5 times! She pulls up and cries because she isn't sure how to get back down.  She still pulls up and cries.

We also weaned her from her Paci starting that day. She seemed to do fine for the few days following but naps have been an absolute nightmare ever since-an.entire.month. She won't just put herself to sleep anymore, except for bedtime, which is great, but mama needs her time during the day to do some things while baby is napping and that hasn't much happened this month. She will be absolutely exhausted by as soon as you turn around to walk out, she pops up screaming her eyes out. Sigh.

This month she is really talking a lot. None of it makes sense and she talks to herself constantly. Sometimes I swear she is repeating stuff we say. Today she seemed to be saying "Uh Oh". If she drops throws something, I always say it and today she started saying "Uh" right after it, every time I did it. Of course when Alan got home and I told him about it, she just looked at him like "I don't have a clue what she's talking about"  Her jibberish is so cute!

 She also loves music. I mean this girl will hear music before we hear it. She will bob her head or shake her body and start clapping. It's the cutest thing ever! She has finally started clapping with open hands and it's just precious. She used to clap with closed hands. Such a smart girl! 

and more dancing.. She has learned to hit the green music note to play the songs. Such a smartie pants!

She started walking with her push toy really well. She will go back and forth the living room for a while(with our help turning her around!) She's also a pro at opening the entertainment center and changing table cabinet doors. Both doors are hard to open so it shows us how strong she is! 

She started drinking from a straw cup. She started drinking from a regular straw here and there a couple of months ago so I finally bought her a straw cup a couple of weeks ago. She did it the first time without choking or spitting up or gagging. She really knows what she's doing. It's weird but she will grab the cup when she's thirsty. She's a little person now.

She learned to share. Not only her food but her toys, fingernail clippers and nasal aspirator. Yum!

She also reaches or points to a lot of things now. We make sure to say whatever it is she's pointing at. Fan should be her first word.

She has finally started crawling on her knees! She learned to army crawl/scoot at 8 months but in the past few weeks she has picked up her tummy and crawls on her knees. Now she doesn't even army crawl anymore and she can fly on those knees!

She learned how to crawl up the stairs. Guess it's time for a baby gate!

Bedtime beauty

Kissing Super Grover, or eating his nose.

The buggy I got for Madison at a local Consignment Sale for $14! Now we just have to figure out what to get her for her birthday now, since this was what we were getting...

Driving the buggy!

"Nobody's getting my things!!"

She's found her tongue..

First meal at Waffle House...and she paid!

Sweet baby girl

Peek a boo!

I see you :)

Working with using a spoon

Maybe her first non-furry pet...

Happy girl!

Nothing like a picture of a sleeping baby

Our little bookworm. She loves flipping through books and I have seen her do it for 20 minutes at a time! She will just flip front to back, jibber jabbering away. If there's flaps to lift, she will lift them all and keep going. It's so cute.

 Wilma begging for attention and Madison focused on her book!

Her schedule has changed a bit. She is now getting up between 7:30-8am. I also started weaning her to cow's milk today, so hopefully by her 1st birthday we will both be weaned! I talked to a nurse at the Pedi's office and she said it typically takes 2 weeks for a breastfed baby to get weaned fully. I won't know what to do with all my free time not pumping and I feel a little guilty weaning her. Even though she hasn't actually nursed since she was 3 weeks old, I feel it's a bonding experience somehow. She's still doing great eating finger foods and we will start having to order her something when we go out. This child eats like an adult! For breakfast she will eat 10 oz milk, 3 strawberries, an entire nectarine and some Cheerios! It's crazy!

It's hard to believe we have an almost 1 year old! She is and has always been the sweetest baby. She goes to anyone, smiles at everything and her laugh is the best sound! We can be out all day long, through 2 or 3 of her (should be) nap times and she will just cruise right along! As long as she's fed, she's a happy girl! We are so blessed!

*Disclaimer - that piano is not her only toy, but she does love it! :) *

What I've been doing...

 A friend of Alan's gave us a huge basket of veggies on Friday. Corn, tomatoes(red and green), and speckled butter beans. We are also garden-sitting for one of our neighbors, which means we pick what is ready while they are gone. I gave some of them away. Even after giving away a lot of it,  I still had a ton left and I'm not one to throw away fresh garden fruits and veggies so I go to googling "How to freeze ...." I came across how to freeze tomatoes. Seems silly but I've never frozen anything but some blueberries and a few leftover veggies. Plus I'm all about eating fresh and not buying canned products.

I started by boiling a few tomatoes at a time until the skins started peeling. 

Yes, I mixed Roma with regular tomatoes :)

 

Roughly chopped them up until I had 2 cups

 

I then wrote on the bags and froze them flat!  

15 or so tomatoes gave me 6.5 cups(3 cans) of diced tomatoes!

I made half of the beans for supper the other night and I shelled these and they are now simmering in water, garlic and onion for the next hour or so until they are ready to freeze.

I got 6 cantaloupes from the neighbors garden yesterday and another 5 today! 

I cut up 1 for us, gave 2 to Alan's mom and am saving another 2 for my sister coming over tomorrow.

I can't bear to toss these and there will be another 10 ready probably by the time they get back! 

Who knew you could freeze cantaloupe?  I will start working on this during M's next nap or after Alan gets home, since I've decided to blog during her current nap :) Online it says to dice up the cantaloupe and freeze it in a single layer on a cookie sheet for 12-24 hours.

We have also been planning Madison's 1st birthday party. The guest list is made and I think we have a game plan for food and cake, which I need to schedule.. Just have to pick between 2 places.. Oh the decisions! I have been pinning like crazy ideas for the party. I will leave a teaser :) It won't be this elaborate but the color scheme is what I'm aiming for...

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I am also currently working on her First Year photo book. I am so excited that some one told me about Mixbook. After Shutterfly was taking me days to edit 1 page and being so disappointed I wasn't going to be able to use it, I posted a Facebook status asking if anyone had any suggestions. My last boss told me about Mixbook and I was so thrilled to find a book I loved as much as the one on Shutterfly. Plus I'm able to put text anywhere I want and add pictures anywhere I want. Shutterfly was pretty restricting from what I could tell. I was worked on it from about 8pm-12am and got half of the book done! It's SO fast. I hope the quality is as good as it looks online. And a HUGE shout out to Stacy C. who is doing me a ginormous favor of redoing Madison's newborn photo cd since I was in tears because I couldn't track it down! :(  Thank you SO much Gwyn and Stacy :) 

We have also booked a vacation between now and her birthday. I'm so excited! We took a few days in February to go to Georgia but this time we are headed to the beach and I'm excited to see Wilma and Madison in the ocean/on the beach.  Booking the house was another story! We found the perfect house on a lake with a huge fenced in yard about 20 miles from downtown Charleston. We had all but paid for it when the owner emailed me and said she had a guy interested in renting it for the whole month and she would know by July 15 whether or not we could rent it. We were in a time crunch so we found another house within walking distance of the beach and we've paid half. The original lady emailed me today and said she was willing to rent it to us since she hasn't heard from the month-long renter. We are actually trying to cancel the house we've paid on to get the lake house. Sounds crazy to not be closer to the beach but we aren't going to be on the beach all day every day with a dog and a baby and the lake house would be more fun for Wilma and it looks so much more relaxing. Hoping for good news.

Birth-6 months

Alan mentioned a while back he wanted to see Madison's pictures side by side from birth to now. I didn't do a 0 month onesie but the first picture is her at 2 days old. I can't believe she was so tiny!