Fun times!

This blog isn't quite as much about Maddox as it usually is. Sorry! We just had a lot of fun stuff this weekend! But she's still here! With a couple cute videos too!

We'll start with Maddox's teeth. I couldn't catch them very well with her smile and laugh, but she's cute anyway. So I found them myself (which for some reason she thought was quite funny). She's actually got 6 right now, 3 on top and 3 on bottom. The newest one on bottom is just peeking out and you can't see here. She's about to get another top one too. It's starting to change her smile! No teeth for such a long time!

Friday we spent some time outside where Maddox could spend hours playing along the edge of any garden. She loves to pick up a piece of mulch, push the other mulch around with it and move dirt.

Saturday morning Jeremy and I worked it out so that we both had a Saturday off! I don't know if that has happened since I was on maternity leave. It was so nice! Jeremy ran the Hospice Hope 10k. Here he is on the last homestretch.

Here's how he felt on the last homestretch. He only did 1 training run beyond about 4 miles so adding another 2 didn't feel too great.

He finished 6th overall and 2nd in his age group. His award was a tin of Moravian cookies and a paper with his place and race info on it. At least we can eat this award.

Right after that we went over to Hanes Park for a dog fundraiser benefiting a shelter here. They had the Triad's Top Dog Event which involved 1,2 and/or 3 events. We did all three for the fun of it. It was Jessi's (and my) debut of performing in "events". Mind you, the events were musical hoops (like musical chairs), "leave it" hot dog event (stay in a sit/stay and don't eat the hot dog placed in front of you, waved in front of you and teased with), and a mini agility course (a jump, weave through cones, and teeter-totter). We had lots of fun!

Here we are going around the circle for musical hoops.

And here she is sitting in her hoops when the music went off. Dogs had to sit and have at least 2 feet in the hoop. We finished 2nd in this event.

Jeremy didn't watch the hot dog event so no pics but Jessi didn't budge her rear, stayed in a sit, and never even looked at the hot dog. Neither did a couple other dogs (although they layed down, no fair) so we tied for 1st in that event.

Here are Jessi and I on the agility course. I so wish I'd pushed her harder and we could have won, at least I'm pretty sure. I just wasn't sure if going faster would cause her or I to make a mistake and get a 10 second penalty. Oh well, 2nd for this event too is pretty good for our first time.

We had a really good time doing these events and I really wish I could do agility with Jessi. But unfortunately it's not cheap. I'd love to have agility stuff in my own yard and just teach her and do it for fun, but I don't think it would look very nice in our yard nor is the equipment cheap. Maybe someday. She is VERY good at it and listens SO well and learns SO quickly. Someday when we have a bigger yard with an area we can donate to an agility course . . .

And now it's Sunday: Maddox has somehow learned to play basketball. It think she picked it up by watching Jeremy and the other neighborhood kids play in our driveway. I really only showed her once or twice what you're supposed to do with the ball and now she won't quit. You'll see in the video that she is VERY pleased about this new activity too!

She was sort of a strange, very happy girl on Sunday. Her other new activity is trying to play her piano with her foot. She'd try to lift it up there and the keys wouldn't play so she'd grab her ankle and try to pound her foot on the keyboard, usually resulting in rolling backward onto her back. It was so funny!

She was also very into acting like a dog. We got some dog new dog treats at the dog event yesterday so she was feeding them to Jessi, then she'd try to put one in her mouth just to carry around. I finally took all the treats away so she resorted to an empty Nerds box. She'd just carry it around in her mouth like a dog with her bone. Strange kid today.

Sunday afternoon's activities: (during nap time or M might have ended up tie-dyed too!)Video of M playing basketball.

Video of M trying to play the piano with her foot. I didn't take this video until she had almost grown tired of trying so it's more of me trying to get her to do it again rather than what she was doing 5 minutes earlier by herself. But you'll get the idea.

Couple videos

Daddy is trying to get her to dance to his castanette playing and singing.

Tom came to stay with us this weekend so here she is playing with him. She loves animals and always points them out and gets excited when we're out or they're on tv or in a book.

Easter weekend

What a weekend it's been! Busy with egg hunts, working, egg coloring, visit to the ER, dog sitting and lots of fun! Maddox turned 14 months old on Saturday and I marked the occasion by finally quiting breastfeeding altogether. She was only doing once a day anyway in the morning and it was so little it was just a snack. It was time to stop. I already miss it.

Thursday before Easter we went to an egg hunt at the library. She was probably the youngest one there so at a severe disadvantage. They did divide the into age groups of 2-3 yr olds and 4 and up. Hello? What about 1 yr olds? She did as best she could . . .

Counting her eggs . . . every 5 eggs gets a goody bag. She got 8 and even that was a challenge. She didn't want to put the eggs IN the basket. Just pick them up, shake them, inspect them, drop them and move on. Saturday was quite an eventful day. I worked a bit at the vet in the morning but Jeremy called me about 10am in severe pain (almost in tears) and needed someone to come help with Maddox because he just couldn't do anything. I called around to all the neighbors and no one answered their phones. Finally Jenn and Susan called back after I called them twice and they went over to get Maddox. To make a long story short Jenn ended up driving him (with Maddox) to the hospital and meeting me there. He was having severe back pain on the lower right side, throwing up,shivering, and white as a sheet. They couldn't get him in fast enough! He finally got his turn, went to the back, and after a little cajoling from me got some morphine. He had a CT that showed one kidney stone in his bladder and several more in both kidneys. He got a referral to a urologist, some pain killers and other meds, and a strainer and was sent home. He spent the afternoon zonked out on pain medicine on the couch. He did drink lots of water and about 5 finally got up and felt much better, took a long slow walk, then mowed the yard. Maddox spent the day with us at the hospital but when we got home at about 3 still didn't want to take a nap so she ended up not napping at all on Saturday.

That night we forced a very sleepy baby to quickly color easter eggs with us:

Some pictures of Maddox Easter morning before church:

After church we attempted to take family pictures by putting the camera on top of the car. Maddox had fallen asleep in the car but woke up after my jostling her so much.

Awake picture, but a little blurry for some reason. A breeze must have blown the camera.

A year ago at Easter when she was 2+ months old:A year later at 14 months:

"Forget the eggs, I see a dog across the street!"

Time to wander to the back yard to hunt for the real Easter eggs in the tall grass.

Found one!

"I see it Mommy, I don't want to pick it up."

Last updates: I gave her a dog toy in her Easter basket and she said "Daw!" She'll identify a dog like that once in a while. It helped that I was wearing a dog scrub all day on Saturday while at the hospital and we spent a lot of time talking about all those dogs. Still not walking, but still taking a few steps by herself here and there. Oh, and Jeremy passed his 1 stone Sunday morning. We'll visit the urologist this week and give it to him to hopefully find out the cause of his stones and find out what to do about the rest of them that are sitting in there.

I also have a funny video of her playing with Tom, the dog we watched this weekend, but I'll have to figure out how to edit it since I took it on the real video camera. Videos to come!

Condo Time

I don't have too many exciting pictures to post but poor Jeremy wanted to see some pictures of his two girls that he hasn't seen in days.

Here's Maddox's new swimming suit. She wasn't very happy that Mom wasn't holding her.

Laying out, relaxing . ..Then we went down to the condo to spend a couple of nights there so we could wake up at the beach. She much better at the beach now. She still doesn't love the water, it's a little scary. But by today I had her walking along with the shallow waves lapping at her feet. Yesterday though the water looked scary. Big waves and 30 mile an hour winds so that didn't help. Today was a little calmer, and so was Maddox. I didn't take any pictures of her in the water since I had to hold her, but here she is playing in the sand the first day.Here's a couple of pictures from last night when we were just hanging out and being silly. Some cute ones for her Daddy:
I made her put a big shell on her head. Then she kept trying to do it too.After dinner we went up the Fort Myers Beach to watch for a rare scarlet ibis that flies up the bay every night (supposedly). It's so rare that we didn't see it. But here's Maddox and Papa hanging out on top of the picnic table to stay away from the fire ants waiting.Passing time with the lizards:Practicing her walking back to the car with Papa:Today we ate lunch at PF Chang's so that was exciting for me, but I really can't post any pictures about that. maddox didn't like anything, too much seasoning for her.

Here's a video of 3 guys kite surfing at the beach yesterday in the 30 to 40mph winds. not a great video since it was with my camera. Looked a little too exciting for me! Oh, and I can't zoom in and out once the video is recording so M is really big, and for some reason I did it on it's side and I can't rotate it. So turn your head.

Let's see, most of the time she says "Hi" now to people that she sees. She's also pointing out "kitty kitty" when we see a picture, cartoon, or real one. And the first night at the condo she was caught 3 different times walking without my prompting her by sitting in front of her holding my arms out. She was just walking, no prompts! Not very many steps but still trying by herself now!

Corkscrew Swamp and Lakes Park

Our first morning in Florida we got up early to go to Corkscrew swamp. They've had a drought down here so the water in the swamp was getting low and all the little fishies were stuck in a couple of areas called lettuce beds. When that happens the birds flock there for feeding. It is pretty rare for this many birds to be all in one place. This event has even made the papers here and attracted many photographers, hence my dad wanting to leave the house by 8am to get there. We're standing on a boardwalk right on top of the water so anywhere from 5 to 40 feet from the birds.

Here's lots of birds and an alligator. the alligator crawled over to the shore, stuck his head way up in the air and bellowed really loud. It was so cool!A couple of alligators, a boy and a girl, on the shore a few feet away. It's almost mating season and alligators of the same gender don't really hang out. That's how I know it's a boy and a girl. A wood stork on top and a snowy egret on bottom.

One of the same alligators in the water. We saw a total of 4 that day which is the most I've ever seen there.

A roseate spoonbill. A pretty rare bird to see normally. They're kind of shy. There were probably 4 there and none of them cared that humans were around. Too many fish to be eaten for them to care!

Here's a short video of the birds in action, flying, fighting, eating, pooping, ya know . . .

After we got back from Corkscrew and Maddox had napped we went swimming for a while. Papa's actually IN the water! I HAD to take a picture of that! (for those that don't know my dad hates being in water. I might remember once on vacation as a kid that he actually got in water. retired now, he does it now . . .) I tried to teach Maddox how to make a basket. She doesn't get it.

Today we went to Lakes Park. It's an awesome park! It's got the coolest playgrounds, a water playing area for kids, trails, a lake that has paddleboat rentals, surry,bike, and other weird wheeled things to rent, and this little train and museum.
We rented a surry first for an hour and rode around on all the trails. There was no fringe on the top so I was disappointed. Maddox loved sitting there out front the whole time.

"What's going on back there?"

"This is pretty cool! I don't have to pedal!"

Here are maddox and I on the 15 minute train ride.

After we rode the train she and I played on the playground for a bit.

Tomorrow we're heading to the condo for a couple of nights so we can spend time at the beach. Oh yeah, Maddox took 6 steps in front of her Grandma and Papa. She's getting a tiny bit braver! And even in this strange new house she's sleeping by herself in her own room all night long. She's such a good girl!