A few cute ones

Jeremy unpacked a box that had all my stuffed animals in it and Maddox had a hay day with them. I guess that's good since they'll end up in her room somewhere.

She carried that Keroppi frog around forever that day.

I let Maddox eat her other cupcake today so here's a couple more messy pictures.

Afterward she got in the bath with her "sister" Jessi. Okay, Jessi didn't really stay in there for a bath. I just wanted to see how well trained the dog was and if she would listen to me telling her to get in a tub of water with a baby, two things she does not enjoy. She's a good dog huh!?All you Midwest people bragging about your good weather and days at the park . . . hopefully tomorrow it will be our turn!

Birthday Party

That one was for Aunt Angie. She wore her new outfit to church on Sunday. Cute! Then she headed off to bed to rest up for her big day. Daddy had to rest up too apparently.

Daddy and the birthday girl, after her nap and ready to party:

First we opened some presents so when she got messy at the next activity she could just go to the bathtub. Here she is in action at her party:

Here's her cake. I made a couple of cupcakes just for Maddox to eat too. After we opened presents we finger painted with colored pudding. Maddox would rather eat it than paint with it.

Even Grandma and Papa finger painted. What artists we are . . .

Time to sing Happy Birthday and blow out the candle! Time to eat cake! Feeding Mommy and Daddy some cake.Cousin Matthew's Flat Stanley got to attend the birthday party:

So that was her big day! She seemed to enjoy it and it was kind of nice just having the four of us there to celebrate. We could do things at a 1 year old's pace. Or maybe it was Grandma's pace as she went to take a 10 minute nap after presents and before painting. Either way, it worked out. Happy Birthday little one!

1 Year Checkup

This morning we went for Maddox's 1 year checkup and all is mostly good! She's developing right on track skill wise, a little slow with communication (I attribute that to having such a laid back child who doesn't feel strongly about much of anything so it's easy to please her without words), and growing fine! She has no first word yet and doesn't point to things she wants. But she grunts and whines when she wants something. And she babbles all the time. Just not quite ready for that next step.


Here's her stats: Weight 18 lbs 10oz. 10-25%

Height 29" 50%
Head 17.5 " 25-50%


So I still can't flip her carseat around which is fine. I figured I keep her backward for a little longer anyway. The seat in her dad's car is forward but she's only in it about once or twice a week for short trips. Such a little thing!


She got three shots and screams more every time we go. She cried a lot today. The MMR vax stings and she did not like that! She also got her finger pricked to check for lead. (Her inquisitive nature found that whole process very interesting and not at all bothered by it.) They found that her hemoblogin was low (what a surprise). Her hemoglobin was low for 4 days when she was born and she's her mother's daughter who has ALWAYS had low iron her whole life! So we've got to buy some iron filled vitamins, push green and leafy veggies, and give a little more baby oatmeal or rice. They'll check it again at 15 months. Luckily she loves veggies so I'll just have to give her the right ones.


We have been giving her milk in her cereal since her birthday which she's pretty much liking. We've also been serving her milk at meals which she's not so sure about. It's hard to believe that I nursed (and still am) her for a whole year! I made it! Who would have thought that during those first 2 to 4 weeks of life??? And I could probably count on 2 hands and maybe 1 foot how many bottles of pumped milk she has had. Which means she still doesn't know how to hold a cup very well, but she never got attached to a bottle. She has never had even 1 oz of formula. I hope all my babies work out that way! What luck! Again, I didn't feel so lucky those first few weeks and thought it was never going to work. So painful and I thought I wasn't making enough milk and on and on. But now, a whole year has gone by!


Enough of that 1 year stuff . . . Here's a video that show her inquisitive personality. An example of things I've already talked about with the moving around of leaves, ripping up and organizing them, and the same with the rose. One day she had a small box, two socks, a piece of mail, and some bookmarks and spent forever trying to get all of that into the box. She'd put in the socks and then couldn't get in the mail. So she'd take out the socks, trying to start with the mail but couldn't fold it up to get to get it in the box. So she start with the book marks, put in the socks, then try the mail. On and on for about 20 minutes like this. Just give her something new and interesting and she's happy for quite a while checking it out.


Last night I put her down with all the mail we got and she spent 15 minutes trying to "organize" it and only quit because I had to feed her. Why can't she do this every night while I"m trying to make dinner?? Here's a 3 minute sample of this:




What skill, or trait, does this portray? Can you take this interesting personality trait and think of what she's going to be when she grows up? I think it's so interesting to watch her little mind at work! It's sort of like the thrill I get when training a dog and seeing their mind work and work and finally click. Yes, I compared my daughter to a dog.

By the way, I fed my daughter collards tonight for dinner and she like them! Who IS this kid??

Sampling of pictures

Here's a sampling of her 1 year pictures. There were 60 of them so here's a few. We had to go twice for this. Wednesday was not a good picture day for her or a happy day for the photographer I think. Sunday went much better. You'll all get yours in the mail soon, hopefully . . .

1 Year Old!

I'm finally getting around to posting about Maddox's birthday. . . She turned one on Feb. 11th! Our neighbor, Jenn, made her this shirt.

We didn't do much on her birthday. We got to watch Grady that day so she got a play date all day.

She got to open a couple of presents. The rest we saved for her birthday party on the 22nd. She opened her present from her Aunt Angie and Uncle James which was a hit.

Two days after she opened the walker she was walking all over with it. Apparently all it took was a new walker. We have one our neighbor let us borrow and Maddox has been so cautious she's been afraid to use it. She's not afraid of the new one! We take it out on the driveway and street too so we don't have to turn so often. Although she's starting to figure out the turning thing too and a bit of going backward. We were really surprised how quickly she figured it out after being so reluctant for so long. (Excuse the poor video. It's hard to tape and turn the walker at the same time.)

My little studying organizer spent almost an hour tearing leaves, studying them, putting leaves in and taking them out of this walker. She's so detailed. Spent a good 30 min. tearing a rose up into tiny pieces and studying it very carefully while we were at a basketball game Saturday.

Update time

Not much has been happening around here to photograph. Jeremy, Maddox and I had our own Superbowl Party.

Here's her first attempt at a bow. Unfortunately she still only has hair towards the back half of her head and it looks ridiculous. I think we'll keep waiting on the bow thing.

One of her favorite things to do is watch the laundry go around, stop, go around, spray water, go around . . .

We tried to nicely organize the toys in the living room. More furniture in there is just what we need, but it looks so much better.We spent a couple of hours outside yesterday. Before we went out it was 60 and sunny. Right when we went out it got cloudy and breezy, but still pretty decent. I gave her some baseball lessons. Probably didn't learn much from me.

She loves to share now. Anything that she has, including this leaf. As long as you take it and say "thank you". If you don't say thank you, she just stares at you waiting.Our neighbor got 2 new dachsund puppies. They are so cute! And this one is very good, even sitting on Maddox's lap. Maybe she needs one . . .

Let's see, the only other stuff she's doing is never allowing anyone else to turn the pages of books we're reading. She must turn them all. Sometimes if you ask her "How do you laugh?" she'll fake laugh for you. It's pretty funny. Of course the funniest is still showing off her muscles. They crack me up! She gets so into it! Still no words, still no walking. She's accidently let go of me or something a couple of times and stood but quickly grabbed on again when she realized what she did. So careful! And now she's climbing the stairs so I better go!