Peekaboo

By the way, this is a video so if you actually want to watch it you'll have to click on her blog link. You can't watch it from the email.

Tanglewood

We went to show Maddox the Festival of Lights at Tanglewood tonight. Of course she was in awe by it all. We got in line about 1/2 mile out of the park at 6:40 and got out at 8:20. Not too bad for a week before Christmas! For those of you who don't know, it's like Krug Park lights but a lot bigger, fancier, and more expensive. It's always on the top 10 list of Christmas lights to see in magazines and such. Here's the whole fam checking out the lights:This is how Maddox looked most of the ride:Here's a few more light pictures. There are 74 displays total so I guess I won't post them all. ;) And these pictures don't do them justice. Obviously everything is lots brighter, clearer, and much bigger than they seem here.

Music lessons

I gave Maddox a little music lesson after dinner last night. Start 'em young around here! Here she is learning the recorder. And actually, today, she wouldn't stop blowing it. And then she figured out I was blowing on her food so she blew on that too. I guess you could say she's figured out how to copy my actions a lot these days.

This one's for Mr. Hatten . . . she's got some work to do before I can enroll her in Professional Conch Blowing classes to become a Master Conchnician. We're working on it . . . But I can tell you that someday she'll be at least as good as her mother, and MUCH better than Mr. Hatten. She will not sound like a sick and dying whale on my answering machine!
We've been practicing her conch embouchure on the window. It's a little loose still. A little more blowing on the window will do her good. Or she can just continue licking it so she can also continue licking the conch. Getting that lip buzz might take some time.

She started this piano lesson on her own. She knows what's way up there . . .some cool buttons that make a lot of noise!

All better

Just in case you were wondering, Maddox is better. It seemed to be a 24 hour thing. She threw up 5 different times between 2:30pm and 10:30 pm and had no food left for the last one. I was beginning to get worried because it was Saturday afternoon before she had a wet diaper. But I woke up about every hour Friday night and had her sip a little water (she was sleeping with us). At 4 am and 7 am I let her nurse and she kept all that down. So I knew the pee would soon have to come. Here she is Friday night hanging out with dad. (I had a concert Friday and Sat. afternoon and had to work Sat. morning, Dad got the brunt of it. But he did say "Maddox, you've finally christened me into fatherhood" after he got puked on.)And here she is Sat. morning, with a low fever, but much more energy and smiles. She just took it easy all day and was back to normal by Sunday.Sunday we went to the church's christmas program and kept her with us. She clapped, danced, and intently watched the show for an hour and half. She was a good girl!

Christmas is coming!

And with Christmas comes the stomach flu! I was actually going to post just a couple videos and a few pictures. But as I picked up Maddox today to go get the kids she threw up 3 times all over me and the carpet. This is the first time she's had that kind of illness. Ick! Poor girl! She's sleeping now and that seems to be her only symptom so hopefully it'll pass quickly.

Now on to the happier days . . . Wednesday night Maddox and I decorated the Christmas tree. Well, she fussed, tried to eat a tiny lightbulb, and played with the beads and bells while I decorated. But apparently all the activity made her deliriously happy. She was a crazy girl that night! She discovered a new sound at dinner and wouldn't stop doing it and crawled between parts of the living room to parts of the kitchen over and over and over again. Back and forth, back and forth. And couldn't stop giggling if I even looked at her. It was strange. You would have thought I had served her Mt. Dew for dinner (and no, I didn't have any either).

Here's her active, very talkative dinner with me. She's figured out a high pitched, grunting "UHHguh" I could have made this a 10-15 minute video. Seriously, she never stopped.

She's also clapping now. She wouldn't stop doing that at dinner a few nights before, makes it hard to feed her.

Lastly, she's starting to wave at people. She waved at the waitress yesterday at lunch and twice at Jeff when he's come home to relieve me from work and a few other more random times. I don't have that action documented. Neither Jeremy nor I can hardly believe she's almost 10 months old! I'm now doing the whole "last year at this time you were___ and we were preparing by____ and we did_____ for you for Christmas" etc. Slow down!

Thanksgiving trip

We drove to Nashville for Thanksgiving and Maddox traveled very well. She only got fussy when it was time to eat so we fed her and kept going. We only had to stop once on the way there (it was time for us to eat anyway) and twice on the way home. Anyone want to help me invent a contraption so babies can nurse while in their car seats on the go?

Here's what we did for entertainment part of the drive, ripping paper, her favorite pastime:

Here she is with Memo. She still does very well sitting on her lap and just hanging out. Uncle Rob had to put on a ventriloquist show for her. She was enthralled. She was also enamored with the kissing Mr. and Mrs. Claus that move. It doesn't take much for her to be enthralled. There's so much to check out! Here's a couple of pictures from home. We played in the pile of leaves one day. I'm not sure she enjoyed it, but she did it.Here's the day we found her reclining on her Elmo in bed. Makes a comfy pillow!Not really any new news for her. She's all over the place now. Her favorite place to play is the dog bowls conveniently enough. No more unsupervised baby while I shower. Can't wait to get that Christmas tree up this week so she can try to pull up on that!