Thanksgiving Weekend

For Thanksgiving on Thursday we joined my Aunt Joann's Family ("Mama Jo") here in I.F. My cousin Kynwynn (her husband is in Iraq) just moved back with her little girl who also just turned one, so Maddie and Jordan got to play together. They were really cute together and had fun checking each other out!

Maddie also had lots of fun with her cousin Alyssa (who is four). She kept laying on her and cuddling with her.
Then on Friday we had a birthday party for Jordan (who like I said just turned 1), and another friend, Jaxson (who turned 3). Esther and I made three bear cakes for the party, and they turned out pretty good.

On Sunday we got out all our Christmas decorations and had fun putting up our tree and spreading the Christmas cheer throughout our house. Parker was old enough to really participate, and he had a lot of fun helping put decorations on our tree (we made sure we did this when Maddie was asleep). He is such a good helper and loves doing "big boy" stuff.

Maddie reached another milestone this weekend. We finally decided to put her in a big car seat (instead of the baby one she's been in since she was born). She was so sick of her baby car seat, and so ready to be upright, and even though she's still not 20 lbs yet, we couldn't get her big car seat to tighten enough faced backwards, so we just turned it around. She is MUCH happier (as you can imagine!) and loves her new carseat. What a big girl!! (and she got a 2nd tooth too!)

Dance Time

Parker's favorite pass time is dancing. He has a favorite CD (from Grandma & Grandpa Lewis-Thank You!) and his favorite songs on it too. He dances for at least an hour everyday and never gets tired of it (and we have to repeat his favorite songs over and over and over...). Madisyn loves to dance with him (she climbs up on the chair and boogies away) and it is hilarious. I think she'll be our little punk rocker when she grows up. Here's some videos of them dancing.

We hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!!

First steps!

Madisyn is finally taking steps!! Again, it seems like it's taken her forever to decide to try walking, but now she's finally decided to give it a try. She loves to hold on to one of our hands and walk all over the place (which she has absolutely refused to do before), and she's also taking steps in between things. I love how stiff they are when they first take steps! What makes it more funny when she walks is how Maddie gets going. She pushes her bum off of the couch, and that propels her forward so that she takes steps. What a funny girl! I've just started babysitting a baby that's a month older than Maddie, and she's been walking for a long time. So I think that has inspired Maddie to give it a go. It's been so different with Madisyn than it was with Parker, but it just goes to show you that each kid does their own thing at their own time! We love our little girl!!

Eureka!!

Finally, finally, finally, after waiting over 13 months I looked into Maddie's mouth yesterday and she has her first tooth!!! After thinking she was just about to get it for like three months now, and really really get it for the last 3 weeks, she finally has one! Of course it's just barely there, poking through a little tiny bit (even if you zoom in on her picture, you still can't see it-but it really is there on the bottom!), but I definitely count it as her having one. It may not be that exciting to everyone else, but I'm so excited because we've been waiting so long and although she does pretty good gumming things, teeth can definitely help!

Bed-head Maddie, 13 mo old

Reading Time

The other day I peeked into Parker's room to see what the kids were doing and I found Parker reading a book to Madisyn. So I ran and got the camera before they noticed, and took a picture. Cute!!

Then yesterday in the bath, I got Madisyn to show us her new kiss. She has been able to smack her lips for a long time, but she would never do it when she kissed someone. It was still the mouth open slobber kiss. But she finally decided that it would be better to kiss the right way, instead of the slobbery way. So here's a video of her in the bath giving kisses. She also blows kisses at the end too, which is new.

And just to let everyone know, Maddie is finally over all her sicknesses, and is eating like a horse and gaining weight. I'm guessing she's at least back up to 18 lbs by now. Yeah!!!! And my oldest sister is finally in the hospital to have her fourth kid. She was due on Wednesday, so we're all really glad the baby finally decided to come! I'll put some pictures up when I get some.

Our crazy girl

Madisyn makes me laugh so hard sometimes. Whenever she hears music, or gets really excited about something, or is just being silly, she loves so shake her head back and forth and say, "Ahhhhhhh." I've tried so long to get it on video since I love it when she does it, and we finally got her to do it (a little). After I took the video, I realized it was sideways, and I don't have any program that will flip it (sigh). So I tried to get her to do it again, and kind of got her to do it. So I'll go ahead and put both videos on since they're not very long, and since the first one is a little better, but sideways, and the second one is right side.

Take #1:

Take #2

"C is for Cookie"

Parker and I were just making some apple crisp together (okay, he was just eating the apples as I was cutting them), but he was singing some songs and I got him to sing on camera. He kept singing the "C is for Cookie" song over and over. If anyone doesn't know the song, it's from Sesame Street, and the Cookie Monster sings it. The words for the part that he is singing goes, "C is for cookie, that's good enough for me, Oh cookie, cookie, cookie, starts with C (except he always says me)."