Back to KS

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!

Go Chiefs!

Our last Atlanta experience was going to the Falcons/Chiefs game. The game itself wasn't so hot, although they looked better than I expected them to. But football games are always great so it didn't matter. And that activity was during the day so Maddox's happiness lasted the whole game.

On the way to the stadium, Daddy was trying really hard to make us get wet.

A pre-game picture:

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?

Braves game

Back to finishing the Atlanta trip . . . Daddy taking her little girl to her first baseball game . . .

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.

Papa's first attempt at a family photo:

The more successful attempt:
At Turner Field they have a nickelodeon area for kids to play a bit. Before the game they had a drum line playing out in front of the stadium. Maddox sat up on my shoulder and took it all in. I danced, she wondered what the heck all this noise was and what these crazy people were doing.

I don't know that she loves baseball. Like her mother, she probably thinks it's a little slow to watch and therefore gets a little long. But another experience added to her list!

Hotlanta!

After a day of recovery for Maddox and packing and cleaning for me, Friday morning we headed to Atlanta a litle vacation. We met Mom and Dad down there for the weekend. Maddox was good in the car and only got fussy when it was time to stop and eat. It's about a 4+ hour drive, that turned into 5 with our long lunch break. Larry makes for a nice pillow:

Friday night we didn't do much, just visited and went to Hard Rock to eat dinner. Maddox was tired and ready for bed. Saturday we went out to eat before we took Maddox to the Atlanta aquarium. Jeremy missed her very first taste with the horrible face, but here's some lemon pictures anyway:

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!":

Just checking stuff out:"That fish is HUGE Mom!":

Before we left we had to stop and touch some sharks and sting rays (which reminds me of a funny Jeremy story I'll tell you below real quick):

Maddox barely made it out the door before . . .

On our way home from running some errands on Thursday I about ran over a turtle in the road about 3/10ths of a mile from our house. I of course stopped to pick it up so I could take it to the woods behind my house and started to get in the car with it. Jeremy promptly (and very quickly) jumped out of the car and backed up saying he was not going to ride in the car with that thing. Put it back, leave it here, get it out of the car, I'm not riding with that . . . Well, he walked home while I laughed hilariously at him in the car. A grown man afraid of a little turtle. Who knew?

Busy busy!

Geesh, we've been busy this past week! I'm going to spread out all the pictures among a few blogs so this one's not huge. Besides, it'll take too long to do it all at once.

Last week started by my needing to take care of Caleb and Leslie Grace Mon-Wed. since their normal sitter had a death in the family. In the mornings I just had Leslie Grace who is 4 months older so the girls had a nice time playing together.

Leslie Grace was supposed to teach her new things like how to crawl and walk but she wasn't much help. She would just push down on Maddox's bottom when Maddox got up on her knees. Maddox did become very interested in trying bigger girl foods. She would watch Leslie Grace eat things that weren't baby food and want some herself. We bought her some Puffs snacks to try out and she's only choked once.

After we got those two kids to bed M and I would head to school to pick up the other two and take care of them. It was a busy week and Maddox sure missed the normality of life at home but once in a while it works.

And that was just the first 3 days of the week . . .

Jessie's playdate

We had a visitor for the week last week. A little almost 5 month old shitzhu named Maple. Both Jessi and Maddox loved having her around. I think especially Jessi went through some withdrawal or boredom after she left. Too quiet around here!

Darn, apparently I accidentally deleted the cutest video. Well, here's the one I have left of the two dogs playing.

Lastly, Abbey died this past Sunday. That is the Bacon's dog for those of you that don't know. They buried her and we've been painting bricks to put on her grave. The yellow one is mine, the other is Morgan's. There are others already outside. She was 13 years old and such a good, gentle dog. We'll all miss her.

Funny videos, firsts, and fun pictures

There's 3 videos posted today. I've had them piling up until I got to work today. I guess my connection is too slow to upload videos.

Maddox loves her a good peach:

I took Maddox outside this morning to sit in the grass and took the camera with us. Digital cameras are so great! I love that I can take tons of pictures and then delete half of them! Here's a few:

See that lower lip? For some reason (thanks to her father's lack of an upper lip) she looks like she's pouting ALL the time! This is how she looks most of the time now. No, she's not at all unhappy. I just have to call soon to get an appointment for a little collagen in that upper lip.Tonight at Jeremy's softball game I put her in the sandbox. She didn't try to eat it at all. Just kept trying to pick it up. I'll post a video of it below so you can see how interested she is in new things and textures. That nice red mark down her face is from her own fingernails. I guess at lunch she was rubbing her eyes and just pulled down and scratched herself up. Blame Jeremy, I was out getting my hair cut.

And finally, she was having a mixed berry cup and chicken in chicken broth for dinner a few nights ago. Can you guess which is which?

Let's just say it smelled like something I should feed the cat. Apparently it tasted that way too!

Bath time

Maddox loves taking baths now. I'll let her play for 10 min. or so and she'll spend most of her time trying to get this little bug toy that scoots around. Once she catches it she'll, of course, put it in her mouth.

Her look when I squeeze the washcloth over her head to get soap off: And her look the rest of the time:

Oh yeah, she's had a cold these past few days. Snot down her face yesterday and a slight fever for a couple of days. I don't think it's teething since she didn't get those symptoms the first time and she was around Camden who was sick with those same symptoms all last week. But she's so good when she's sick! She was a little bit fussy, but not much at all. Probably normal for most babies. She's been getting better today.

There's also this other "problem" we have on Tuesdays now. (I think it's great to be loved so much, but for Jeremy it's a problem.) Choir started back up so Jeremy comes to pick her up at choir around 7:20 after work and take her home for bed. So far both weeks she's cried for an hour when he puts her to bed. Of course that's the only night he puts her to bed and gives up too easily if I make him do it other nights so she'll get used to him. Like I said, not good for him as he gets very frustrated, but I love that she wants only me. So sweet . . . Lots of weeks left, she'll get over it eventually.

Random acts

This isn't the best picture because she's in her Jumparoo and moving too much . . . but here's the evidence that there's teeth in there. They're finally just slightly big enough to see if she smiles big. And this is how Maddox spends her day. Or at least a good half hour or more. I set her on the floor with her basket of toys (thank you sister Jennifer, I think, for giving me a shower gift in that basket) and one by one she takes them each out and plays with them. Just starting her game . . .

And she's pretty much finished . . .