So we flew back to KC on Monday. Maddox's first flight. She was very good and slept for most of both of those flights. On the second flight there was a young couple across the aisle who had an 8 1/2 month old boy, Fletcher. He was pretty cute and really wanted to play with Maddox. But M wanted to sleep. The couple was a little jealous of our sleeping girl and said they wanted to trade us so they could play cards and read a book (what we were doing since she was sleeping). Fletcher was fussy and wouldn't hold still.
While we were home Maddox got to meet ALL of her Dad's side of the family. Uncle James:
Maddox playing with cousin Hayden (and Gabby and Avery but Jeremy didn't get them in any pictures):
Grandpa Randy . . .the first thing he did with her was show her the pictures of the tractors on the calendar behind him:
Grandpa was pretty good at making her laugh. She thought he was pretty interesting.
Daddy and M all dressed up for the visitation:
Grandma lookin' pretty . . . is she trying to scare my baby?
Family photo time at Grandma Winkel's house after the funeral:
She sat outside after eating for an hour just playing in this high chair with various relatives stopping by to visit her.
Playing with 2nd or 3rd (something distant, Jeremy's cousin's kid) cousin Kaelynn (I'm sure I spelled her name wrong, sorry!):
That was all Tuesday and Wednesday. Thurday we got up at 4am to fly back home. As usual, Maddox slept on both flights. She was worn out though. Today she slept until 9am and has napped 2 long naps. She has a lot to catch up on. The day of the funeral she was quiet for about 45 minutes of the funeral in my lap on the front row and then we had to step out for about 5 minutes and we went back in to walk out with Jeremy. She fell asleep in the car on the way to the cemetary so she got a 30 min. nap in and then didn't nap the rest of the day. Strangely she was very happy and pleasant the whole day while being passed from relative to relative. Hence, why she has some catching up to do today on sleep.
Okay, I'm all caught up now on our busy past couple of weeks! Hopefully life will be a little more normal for a few weeks before we head home again in October!
She's still not crawling forward. She pushing herself all over backwards and around in circles to get to stuff. She gets up on her knees and rocks but hasn't figured out the rest yet. Sometimes she even gets up on her hands and toes and makes a big bridge. Haven't caught that one on camera yet. 
She's getting better at standing. She doesn't pull up to this, we put her there. She's still very wobbly about it so I'm always within arms reach to catch her.
We went to the Chiefs game in Charlotte yesterday. We didn't buy tickets until we got down there and ended up getting row 9 end zone tickets for $50 a piece (face value $78). We did that an hour before the game though and probalby could have gotten a much better deal if we'd waited until right before the game. There were tons of scalpers right around the stadium still. Oh well, now we know. I thought I'd hate sitting in the end zone but it wasn't so bad. I've never sat that close so it was kinda neat to see them up close in action. You do end up watching the jumbotron a lot more though to see what the yardage gains were.
Maddox liked it, even though it was very loud down there and pretty hot, for the first 3 quarters.
At almost the 4th quarter she, like the Chiefs, gave up. Well, actually I think she lasted longer than the Chiefs did.
On the way to the stadium, Daddy was trying really hard to make us get wet.
That was the end of our Atlanta trip. We were going to spend the night after the game and drive home Monday morning but we found out Friday evening of the trip that Jeremy's grandmother passed away. We left right after the game so we could get back to WS, do laundry, re-pack, and catch a flight to KC on Monday afternoon. Strangely enough Grandma Winkel died on the same day as Grandma Garrison, and had her visitation and funeral on the exact same days too. Kinda weird huh? 
Saturday night we went to a Braves game. The only problem with that is that it started about Maddox's bed time. She did pretty well until about the 6th inning. She and I finally had to find a quiet spot out near the ramp where she cuddled in her front snugli and fell asleep. Just as I had her to sleep Dad (my dad, papa) decided we needed to leave so we could be sure we'd get a taxi. She did pretty well considering it was about 9 when she fell asleep.
The more successful attempt:
At Turner Field they have a nickelodeon area for kids to play a bit.
Maddox loved the aquarium. She gets a very intense look on her face when she sees new interesting things. She inspects closely. You enter through this underwater tunnel where there's zillions of fish swimming alongside you. She thought that was very interesting.
"Would you two stop reading the map and just go see stuff? Where next!?":
"I can't see!":
"That fish is HUGE Mom!":
