All About Madelyn

My sweet cheeks doesn't get much blog attention. Mainly because all she does is eat, sleep, and poop! Madelyn turned 2 months old yesterday. Yeah I know. It has flown by. It's amazing how much she has grown over 2 months. We go for a check up on the 13th. I'm really interested to know how much she weighs now.

First day home from the hospital

One month

Two months

Madelyn's cord stump fell off at 2 weeks (Karlee's fell off at 4 weeks). So, she had her first bath. I think she's going to be like Karlee and love water. She just relaxes in her seat (until Karlee splashes water in her eyes). Most baths involve both girls in the tub with me!

We had a long spell of Madelyn not sleeping well at night. That has slowly gotten better and she only wakes once a night now. (I hope I didn't just jinx it!). She coos and smiles all the time when she's awake. Madelyn is a happy baby for the most part. She definitely lets you know when she's hungry and has a dirty diaper. She hates to be left alone and would prefer to be held all the time. With an active almost 3 year old at home, that's just hard to do sometimes. Poor Madelyn gets left in the swing while I tend to Karlee's needs most of the time.

I think Madelyn's favorite place to be in the entire house is my bathroom counter. This is where diaper changing and dressing happens downstairs. She can be screaming bloody murder and instantly stops when put on the changing pad. I think it's all the lights and the mirror. Karlee loved it too at this age and I even have a blog post about it in early 2008. Check out this chunkster!



A big thing that has happened lately is the thumb. December 26th while we were eating dinner, I looked over at the noise Madelyn was making. She was sucking all over her hand. Then, POP! In went the thumb and it stayed. She does this all the time now, so Madelyn is a thumb sucker. I find it pretty dang funny too. Her middle name is my brother's middle name. Adam sucked his thumb a LONG time. I won't tell you how long to spare him the embarrassment! So, Madelyn was definitely named after the right person. I sit and watch her get after that thumb in amazement. Karlee never took a paci or anything so this just amazes me at how early thumb sucking starts. But, when the thumb goes in, the eyes close. I now leave one arm out of the swaddle and it's great at night.

Big sister Karlee lovers her little sister now and it's so much fun to watch them. Madelyn just stares and coos at her especially when Karlee is in her face while I'm changing a diaper. Seeing Karlee usually creates a little smile on Madelyn's face (until she gets tired of being bothered!).

Newest Family Member

In March 2009, Karlee came home with a goldfish from Hudson Galimore's birthday party. Almost 2 years later, we still have it! He/she/it lived in a small bowl until a few months ago. We finally upgraded to a nicer tank that doesn't require as much cleaning. Meet Goldie (who is almost all white now for some reason).



Now, Goldie has a friend. Meet Poncho!



Karlee pulls a chair from the kitchen to the counter to check on Goldie all the time. She was so excited to go to the pet store and pick out Goldie a friend.



Mommy is hoping she can remember to feed this new fish. Goldie has been fine without food for days(weeks)!!

Big Girl Cup

When school starts back in January, Karlee's class will start practicing drinking from cups instead of sippy cups at snack time. So, at dinner, we are starting to practice too. We have started by just taking the top off the sippy cup. She has done well. I need to find her some cups her size to use instead of our big cups and plastic solo cups so she can hold them better.

Christmas 2010

Due to the busy day before with no nap, we let Karlee sleep until 7:30 before waking her up Christmas morning. Every morning when I get Karlee out of bed, she would ask if Santa had come yet. I now got to tell her YES! She walked out of her room and peaked through the banister to see below. Her face was just lit up. I don't have a picture of her first reaction because I was manning the video camera but it's on video. Words just can't describe it. This is the first year she has truly got what is going on. She ran to check out the cookie and milk situation. Santa had left a piece of cookie so Karlee finished it off! She then headed for her stocking first.

She has turned several clothes hangers into bow and arrows so now she has a real one (and is a dead ringer on a target now!).

All she kept telling people she wanted for Christmas was a green and yellow tractor like her daddy's. Well, here it is!
She started jumping for joy when she got on it!
Next she opened her horse swing. For some reason, Karlee is in love with horses. Now she has one to ride that doesn't require any maintenance!
Checking out the dress up clothes (Santa thought she needed some little girl things too!).
But guess what she wanted to wear first!
Trying out her new camera. I think she took as many pictures as I did that day. Can't wait to download them and see what she captured (probably lots of carpet and walls!). And, yes, Santa brought the Alabama football that Karlee asked for. Mrs. Claus wasn't really happy about it but Mr. Claus was ecstatic!
Karlee opened Madelyn's gifts and loaded them in the bed of the tractor!
Sweet Madelyn just hung out in her swing and didn't have a care in the world. This time next year, she'll be 14 months old and chasing her sister everywhere.
Chip has been eyeing this box for a few weeks. I had it stuffed behind the tree with presents piled on top of it. My hiding techniques didn't work too well! He's been trying to pry out of me what it was and I just loved it. I have only totally surprised Chip at Christmas once. This year makes twice! A new trolling motor for his boat. He cusses about the one on his boat every time he goes fishing. I had a little help on the right kind to get from a fishing friend. Chip was like a kid opening it.
Finally getting outside to brave the cold and ride the tractor.
Time for some deer hunting now!
Trying out the horse swing.
My sweet cheeks just hanging out on the play mat.
Aunt Nina came to visit and eat lunch.
After getting the girls ready for bed, I looked outside and had to wipe my eyes to make sure I was seeing correctly. SNOW! I've never seen snow on Christmas day in my entire life. Having it for Madelyn's first Christmas was just amazing. A little gift from above.
I just had to let Karlee outside for a brief minute since we didn't know how long it would last. Too bad it was gone the next day. It snowed off and on Sunday but not enough to amount to anything. The wind was blowing about 20 mph so nothing was hitting the ground at our house.
I have to mention that I had a pretty good Christmas too. After opening all the gifts, Chip and I finally made it to our stockings. It's usually just little stuff like razors and underwear. But, at the very bottom of mine, I found a little box. Let's just say, Chip totally knocked my socks off. I must have been a very good girl this year!

Twas the Day Before Christmas

Christmas Eve is a crazy day for us. Ever since our first Christmas as a married couple(2002), Chip and I have split the day with my parents and his parents. Then, both families come to our house on Christmas day for lunch. We started this with the assumption of having kids one day and not making them leave their gifts on Christmas day.

Eight years later, we are still doing this. It's harder to make sure we give both sets of parents equal time now that kids are involved. We don't want to feel rushed with eating together, opening presents, and then having time for Karlee to play with the presents before it's time to leave and head to the next place. We try to make it more about spending time as a family rather than gift opening.

We started the day bright and early at Chip's parents. We watched Christmas cartoons and just relaxed. Karlee started opening presents slowly. She would open one, play with it for a while, and then open another one. She would open Madelyn's and take it to her and show her how it worked. Just precious! It was a fun morning.








After lunch, we headed to my parents house. We watched more Christmas shows (and basketball for my brother). We had a wonderful breakfast dinner complete with boiling bag omelets (worth a whole other post later!). And, we all opened more gifts.









This year was bitter sweet for my parents. Adam and Erin married in June. So, this is the first Christmas my parents have had no kids in the house Christmas morning. I would have loved for them to stay at our house but that would have meant Chip's parents would have to be invited too. We just don't have the room and would have had a very cramped living room Christmas morning.

We got both girls dressed for bed in their matching pjs and headed home. We talked and sang songs with Karlee the entire way so she wouldn't fall asleep. We put out the cookies for Santa (Karlee wouldn't let Alphie out of her sight!) and read Twas the Night Before Christmas with both girls. It was finally time for bed!

Cookies for Santa

Being on maternity leave during the holidays has been so much fun. I've had time to play with Karlee and do fun activities with her. The past two years we've had to cram things in already jam packed weekends or fit time in after work.

We have baked cookies several times. Let me just say, I am NOT Betty Crocker when it comes to cookies. A few weeks ago I tried to make cookie dough and use Christmas cookie cutters to make cute cookies. Karlee and I had flour all over the kitchen and were covered head to toe with it. The cookies did not turn out but we laughed hysterically through the whole process!!

When it came time to make cookies for Santa, I opted for store bought (take out of the package and plop on a cookie sheet) cookies. Karlee didn't care and she had fun arranging them on the cookie sheet.




While the cookies were baking, Karlee helped me unwrap Reese cups. We had a good assembly line going of her taking the foil off and me taking the paper off. The line slowed down some when Karlee decided to take both off and eat them!




I put the Reese cups on the cookies since the pan was hot. Karlee sprinkled sugar on all of them and we had wonderful cookies for us to eat and to share with Santa. We also shared some with our sweet UPS man that had come to our house just about every day. I did most of my shopping online this year. Christmas shopping with two kids just scared the heck out of me!



We also made vanilla covered Oreos. I don't have any pictures of that process. Karlee and I were way too sticky with vanilla covered fingers to stop and take pictures! I want Karlee to learn that traditions are not the fancy homemade cookies that matter. It's the fun you have while doing things that you'll remember. Man did we have fun with our store bought cookies!