First trip to the zoo!

A couple of weekends ago we took Maddie for her first trip to the zoo. The Asheboro Zoo is split up into 2 parts- North America and Africa. It's a very spread out zoo, so we decided to do Africa in the morning and then see what happened after lunch. It was the end of April, but the high was over 90 degrees that day! So needless to say, we got moving early and were at the zoo (about 2 hours away) a little before 10.

There were lots of animals out, and the zoo wasn't too crowded, so that was nice. However, Maddie didn't care a thing about looking at the animals. She thought the viewing machines were extra cool though- she wanted to eat them, which is high praise in Maddie's book. She also enjoyed looking around at all the people. We were amazed at how well behaved she was, b/c we were strapping her in and out of her stroller every 5 minutes, and she skipped her morning nap.

After we were done looking through Africa, we met up with some friends and their babies for a picnic lunch just outside the zoo gates, and it was a lot of fun! There were scary geese trying to get our food, and those suckers were aggressive, but we managed to keep them from eating Maddie.

We headed back into the park after lunch with the intentions of taking a tram over to the North America side to see the polar bears, but the tram line was at least 50 people deep. The walk to the other side was estimated at 40 minutes, and Maddie had already passed out asleep in her stroller, so we decided Africa was probably enough for her first visit and headed out. I can't wait for next year when she will be excited to see all the animals!

National Champs 2009!

I think we know who the Tarheels really have to thank for their phenomenal season. I'm just sayin'....Maddie was born, then they had an awesome year. We're waiting on our thank you card, Mr. Hansbrough.

Bow ties are better than chocolate

Maddie had a fun first Easter. We went to church, where she continued her usual pattern of hating being left in the nursery. This time we were not "beeped" to come check on her, but it turns out they tried and our beeper just didn't work. Poor Mads. She is just not too sure about this nursery thing.

The week before Easter we attended an Easter Egg Hunt (Maddie was just SO excited to look for Easter eggs), mainly for the photo ops. What good is a baby if you can't take lots of silly pictures that they won't remember? We had fun though, it was a nice day and Maddie was very well behaved. Here are some of my faves:

I'm ready for some fun Dad!

Rockstar

Hey look, I found an egg all by myself. With no
help from my parents at all.
This bunny thing is kinda creepy looking- guess
I'll just taste his bow tie.
Easter is fun!!!

Sitting up!

I think the last time I posted, I was lamenting about Maddie still not sitting up. Of course, as soon as I wrote that, she started sitting a few days later. I guess maybe she reads the blog and wanted to prove me wrong. Here's her first official sitting picture, when she was a few days shy of 8 months:


It's taken her a while, but now at 9 months she's a pretty good sitter. She was still tipping over quite a bit for that first month, but she's getting the hang of balancing now. Although we do still usually have a pillow behind her, just in case!

Now that Maddie is sitting well, she's graduated to a "big girl" bathub (it even quacks!) and a portable high chair that is great for when we're eating out. She loves her new bathtub and also loves sitting right at the table with her mom and dad.

I won't lie though, I miss those days when we'd take her in her carseat and she'd fall asleep mid-meal. Or if she got hungry, I could just feed her a bottle and be done. Now she wants to be entertained and gets quite indignant if we even think about eating our food without sharing some with her. This girl LOVES to eat! (I swear she isn't drunk in this pic)

So we've conquered sitting, and although she was on the late side, she was still in the normal range. I'm really enjoying having a sitting, but non-mobile baby. I know that crawling, standing and cruising are coming up, but I'm in no hurry!

WAY behind!

Once again, I find myself behind in my attempts to blog all our latest happenings. So instead of doing one big mega post, I'm going to try and do a few posts to catch up on the last few weeks. Here goes!

Etsy Easter Egg Hunt

As many of you know, I am slightly addicted to the site etsy.com. It's a website that sells homemade goods, crafts, toys, clothing- pretty much anything you can think of. It's a wonderful place to go for unique gifts and purchases, and the coolest thing about etsy is that you are in direct contact with the person making the item you're buying- so in most cases you can completely customize anything you buy. Good for a control freak such as myself.

Anyway, the ACE team on etsy is having an Easter Egg Hunt contest. 21 local NC shops are participating, you just visit their stores online and try and find the hidden eggs. If you can find at least 10 of the 21 eggs, you can enter to win some fun prizes from the shops. And it's a great way just to check out some local etsy shops. Here's the link to the contest: ACE Blog. Happy Hunting! I'll let you know if I win anything :).

Time for an update!

It's been awhile! My port surgery went well, I was pretty sore for a few days but it was actually much easier recovery than I remembered. My mom was a huge help, she came up and stayed with us here for a few days, and then Maddie and I travelled to SC to stay with her and my dad for a week so I could have a little break from full time baby duty while I recovered. Mike missed us both, but luckily he had March Madness to distract him.

Maddie had her first cold while I was recovering- it was so pitiful! She didn't actually get that sick, she just had a really stuffy nose for about a week. She did have a little fever one night, but it went down quickly with some Tylenol. Even though it (thankfully) did not develop into anything serious, we did have to endure many days of saline drops and the nasal aspirator to keep her clear enough to eat- and that was not a fun task. Maddie is NOT a fan and doesn't hesitate to let you know. On what was probably the worst night, she ended up sleeping in her carseat in her crib to keep her head elevated so she could breathe. Hey, whatever works!

But that's over now, we're home and life is back to normal! Maddie took a little break from solids when she was sick (and immediately got constipated again) but now she's back on track. She is proving to be way too much like her mommy when it comes to veggies. So far the only vegetable she will consistently eat is a sweet potato. We will keep trying them and hopefully she will get used to them, but right now she tends to spit them in my face. She's a bit more adventurous with fruits (although she doesn't really like apples- what a weirdo!). Pears are by far her fave, although she won't hesitate to gobble down some blueberries or banana.

She also loves pretty much anything you put in her mesh feeder, so far I've tried ice, green apples, red apples, blueberries and black beans. For snacking, and practicing feeding herself, she loves puffs and Mum-mums. I let her feed herself some table foods if I think she won't choke on them, and so far she seems to like that- although WOW what a mess! Baths are becoming more and more frequent.

Maddie still isn't sitting up unsupported, but I think she's getting really close now. I haven't gotten a pic or video of it yet, I'll have to do that soon. I think she's going to be really late to walk too, b/c she still doesn't put any weight on her feet if you try to stand her up. But I've decided that it's fine with me- just means I'll be able to enjoy having a non-mobile baby a little bit longer than most people!

Here are some new videos I took recently:
Eating a pickle at Bruggers- eeewww (she liked it, I thought it was gross)!
Eating a slice of avocado- she loved it! And officially become a professional mess maker

When I was in SC, my mom and I had a dress making competition to see who could make Maddie the cutest dress. We went the easy route (good for me b/c I've never made any clothing before!) and bought t-shirts at Target. Then we just made the skirts and ironed on a cut out design. I think mom won the contest, but I'm very proud of my first dress too :). We both made them a little too short, so the search is on for matching bloomers I guess!

Mom's dress

My dress