Have you met my bestest buddy?

He may be out of season. He may be small and bounce up and down. And he may sing the same song over and over again . . . but Maddie loves him. I’m serious people, Maddie loves Santa! Aunt Melinda picked this out for her for Christmas (duh), and Maddie has gotten kind of attached. He now has a “bed” which he rests in at night. It’s an old wipes box complete with pillow and pink blanket. The “bed” also doubles as his “sleigh.” If you even think I am joking, I have the proof in the pictures. Maddie and “ta ta” go for sleigh rides all the time! Maddie really does love her “ta ta,” he has gone to the grocery store (when we are sick and not feeling well), he has gone on car trips, and an occasional birthday party or two. Here are some sleigh rides around the house. Let me know if you want to come over and join in, I can get a bigger box!

And you thought I was joking…

Did I forget to mention Santa wears a purple bow? Yeah, that’s because the red holiday one, dare I say it, really is too big for him!



Kisses!

Pasta, pasta!

I will try anything, make just about anything for Maddie to eat. In case you can’t tell from the pictures Maddie is what we call “petite.” She is little, the 3rd percentile for height at the 9 month appointment. So when we were having eggplant parmesan the other night, Maddie had some too. She also got her own little baked spaghetti too. Well I am here to tell you that she loved it. Just look at the face, uhhh I mean whole body. Yes, I took all her clothes off for this meal. Have you tried getting spaghetti sauce out of clothes??

. . . we like to point, can you tell??


Maddie, what’s that you’re eating?? Oh yeah, it’s ice cream. At least it is strawberry so it can count as a fruit too, right?

. . . . the damage done . . .

Clearly we went from here directly into the bath. And, I still found pasta on the shower floor and in the tub drain the next day.

Mama look at me!

I always joke as we get ready to go out the door, “now Maddie go get in your car seat.” Or, “Maddie go get on your coat.” Well, Maddie can’t quite buckle herself in but she sure does like to “ride” in the car seat.

. . . looking for that paci.

ok Mama, I’m ready to go!

Chores

I’m teaching Maddie early to pull her own weight around here. All 17lbs that is!

Bubble Bath

Donny is officially gone out west – he is in San Francisco for the next two weeks. Fortunately I have my mom in town to keep up company. We have been doing lots of baths lately because, well, Maddie loves them, and there are completely different toys to play with. Maddie would stay in the bath until the water ran cold or ran out. We have started to add more bubbles to the bath now to add some extra fun. Poor Maddie of course thinks that she can eat whatever is in the tub. With Donny being gone we have also tried to do a lot of “photo worthy” activities because Donny wants pix messages all the time.


I’m telling you . . . she eats them . . .

Here fishy fishy . . . .

. . . and yes that is “scuba Steve” in the background.

Wintergreen 2011

This past weekend we had the opportunity to go up to Wintergreen with Donny’s parents. We usually always join them up there around this time because Dr. Pop has a medical seminar he attends. This year we were super excited because it would be Maddie’s first time up there. And, they have a great fitness center complete with an indoor pool. We took full advantage of this and swam for over an hour on Saturday. Maddie borrowed her bathing suit from Miss Emery because we don’t have one her size yet (I will rectify this problem). Maddie loved the water and all the splashing. My only wish was that the water was a little bit warmer so she could have stayed in longer, because she would have. She also did four complete dunks, yup, all the way under. And she loved sitting on the side of the pool and reaching back into the water with a splash.






Of course, when we got out we had packed Maddie her little “towel” to wear. Unfortunately the camera didn’t want to cooperate and kept fogging up, but the picture is precious anyways.

W&L Swimming edition

Perhaps I have mentioned in the past the Uncle Rick swims for W&L. Perhaps I have mentioned that we go to as many meets as we can to cheer him on. Perhaps I have not mentioned the fan favorite of the meet – Maddie! Ok, so maybe I dress her in a onesie I made myself with Rick’s name on it. And maybe I made a tutu of W&L colors to go with it. And of course a bow too. The team loves to see her banging on the glass from up above, and Maddie loves to see all the boys come up and talk to her. At the last meet she also loved that there was cake – blue icing and all – that I let her eat. Yes, I gave her cake, and she loved it. And, she went from 11:45am to bedtime at 8:45pm with no nap and was still a peach! Here is the cutest little outfit I was talking about – that’s right, fan fave!


Yes, I wrote “kick butt”


Cake, what cake??

And for the record I did drive to Christiansburg to get tulle for the tutu because there was none here in Roanoke.

Maddie Mischief

Now that little miss can crawl – she is getting into all kinds of things. It is so hilarious to watch her go around and be entertained by such simple things. Here are two places that she loves to hang out at:
…oh, can you not see her??

yeah, there she is…

In case you are wondering what she is eating, let me tell you. you know those little caps that cover the bolts that bolt your toilet to the floor – yes, those are her favorite. Needless to say my bathroom is pretty clean.

Now Maddie likes to stand up in her crib too. She pulls up on everything when she is out, but now she is always up and on the lookout when you come through the door – see what I mean?


peek-a-boo!


One super-sweet, melt-your-heart thing that Maddie does now is give kisses. Of course by give kisses I mean come at you mouth open and tongue wagging, but it is so stinking cute regardless! especially with food all over her face anyways!

Dada goin’ in for the kiss!

oh yes!


Kisser beware though….sometimes you get a nice juicy raspberry in your face instead. Mmmm.

Farewell Boston.

Well, it finally came time for us to head home, back down to Roanoke. I decided that since I was going to be traveling back home by myself with Maddie, that it was probably best to split up the 11hour drive. We book a hotel room for us with a king size bed and a pack ’n’ play for Maddie. Sweet child thought the bed was a great crawling ground. Could be worse right?

Snacks in the new jumper.
Crumbs, what crumbs?

I think Jesse probably gained five pounds while we were up just cleaning up all of Maddie’s crumbs. Poor guy will be sad to see her leave for sure.

A good shot of Maddie’s “powerful” legs. So what if her skinny jeans don’t fit because they are too tight and she falls over because she cannot keep herself upright in them. It obviously has nothing to do with her legs, the pants must be small!

And so what if her tights leave the little prints on her legs and hug her many folds and creases, they are tights after all.

Maddie decided to “pack” for herself by taking all of her coats and blanket out of the car seat.


Who me?

Oh, and the king size bed, how could I forget?

Happy New Year!