E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E at 9 months

I woke up this morning in total disbelief that Madelyn is 9 months old today. She is the happiest, most laid back baby most of the time. She's growing like a weed and her "talking" sounds are getting more developed. She is saying "da da". Breaks my heart that it's not "ma ma" first. At first I thought she was saying it but didn't know what it meant. Not the case. She looks at, or crawls to, Chip saying "da da". I hold the bottle in front of her and she says "ba ba" sometimes. She may be an early talker like Karlee was.

One of her favorite things to do is "fly" on my knees. It gives me a good ab workout too (which I desperately need)!




Madelyn thinks her sister hangs the moon. She follows Karlee everywhere. Those little hands slap the floor about 100 miles a minute when she's chasing Karlee around the room. They play so well together, even when Karlee torments Madelyn with costumes and playing dress up.







The stairs have been a big issue. It's hard to keep a baby gate up because Karlee goes up and down the stairs to her playroom and bedroom all the time. I keep telling Chip we need to install gates that have a swinging door at the top and bottom of the stairs. He's not convinced that attaching it to the wall and handrails is a good idea. A busted head may change his mind!



Madelyn is pulling up on anything and everything. I pulled a few toys out of the attic and cleaned them up for Madelyn a few weeks ago. She loves the push toy but would rather try to crawl up it than stand behind it. She walks a few steps with it but is still a little wobbly. It won't be long before she's going full force with it (Lord give me the energy to chase 2 kiddos!). She loves the toys that sing and play music. She bounces her little body to the beat! Karlee has enjoyed the "new toys" too.









I finally had a chance to clean (or at least straighten up) the playroom. You don't realize how many small parts come with games and dolls until you have a little one crawling around that puts EVERYTHING in her mouth. All Barbie shoes and accessories, small puzzle pieces, and games pieces are safely stored away in a place that only Karlee can get too. Madelyn now has a new room to roam around in and loves it. Karlee is getting better at sharing and not grabbing everything saying "mine".






I have to keep my eyes wide open all the time to see where Madelyn is. She can slip up on you in a matter of seconds. Her favorite place to get is the dishwasher. It pretty much runs non-stop these days since I'm cooking every night and cups from 2 kids pile up quick. Madelyn thinks moving the racks in and out is funny. She giggles and claps when she pushes them back in. But, when it's time to close it up, she is NOT happy.






The sneaky child is in to absolutely everything. She almost pulled the fire screen on top of her the other day. When I walked out of the room for about 10 seconds to put the screen away, I came back to find Madelyn up on the hearth with her head stuck in the fireplace playing with the little rocks around the gas logs. Looks like I have another active, fearless child on my hands.

As you can see in the above picture, Madelyn still doesn't have a single tooth. I need to write a letter to the tooth fairy! It hasn't slowed her down on eating though. She's on a little bit of table food, only fruits and veggies. Bananas are one of her favorites, but extremely messy. She likes english peas and carrots. I am still only giving her water in a sippy cup. Haven't moved to watered down apple juice yet. She likes water so we're sticking with it.

Madelyn is continuing to sleep well at night. She has even started napping better during the day. Naps are not on a schedule like Karlee's were (and still are). It's hard to have a schedule for the 2nd child. By the time Madelyn gets to sleep, it's just about time to pick Karlee up from summer school or we've been at swim lessons during her nap time. Madelyn has just learned to sleep well in the car and I leave her in the car seat on the floor of her bedroom to continue the nap when we get home. Don't judge me, just trying to survive!

I'll report back with 9 month stats after her check up on Monday.

Karlee Van Gogh

Karlee's absolute favorite thing to do these days is paint. We usually spread everything out on the kitchen table but it gets burdensome when trying to make her pick everything up to get breakfast, lunch, or dinner on the table. The art table wasn't getting used much in the playroom because I refuse to let her paint on carpet. So, the dining room has been transformed into Karlee's "art center". At least that room is getting used daily now instead of once a year at Christmas!




We made a trip to Hobby Lobby to get an art box to store all the paint, brushes, scissors, stickers, paper, crayons, and color pencils in. I knew having them out would just draw the attention of our little crawler.



While at Hobby Lobby, I picked up a canvas for Karlee to paint. There's a blank spot in her room that I've been trying to think of something to fill the space. Why not let Karlee be the artist for something special to hang in her own room? She started painting with lots of colors. I showed her how to outline the section and color it in so the colors wouldn't run together. She had a ball doing this. I loved watching her little mind think of what color she would use next while rinsing off the brush.




The finished product! Since Karlee can't sign her name yet, I let her mark it with a hand print. Which as you can see turned into 4 hand prints!



I told her we would let it dry during her nap and then hang it later that day. She then told me she wanted to give the painting to her daddy so he could hang it in his office. I was totally not expecting that. But, who am I to argue with the artist! When Chip got home from work, Karlee surprised him with "his" painting. She was so proud. Looks like I will be making another trip to Hobby Lobby for a canvas she can paint for her room.

1st Swim Lessons

Karlee started swimming lessons on July 8. Since we live in the water all summer long, Chip and I knew it was time to get her some water training. She loves to swim but it has always been with her "ladybug". I had a terrible fear that Karlee would fall in the water somewhere and not know how to get back to safety. Ironically, she jumped in the pool on the 4th of July without her ladybug while playing with friends. Sweet Hudson said "Karlee's under water" and Jay got to her first. (I was inside feeding Madelyn and Chip had turned his back about 10 seconds to put on chap stick.) I was so glad that swim lessons started that same week! Karlee had lessons on Friday and Monday mornings in July.

I chose to put her in private lessons to start off. I have heard of children crying and screaming at group lessons and I didn't want Karlee to see that and think water was scary. Her teacher was Amber Fulford. I have known her a long time (she's my brother's age) and she is so sweet. I knew Karlee would instantly like her; and, she did! The first day, Amber started off seeing what Karlee could do. She already was swimming with her head in the water so Amber taught her to breath out of her nose and keep her body on top of the water. She taught her how to correctly paddle her hands and kick her feet while keeping her head in the water. By the end of the first 30 minute lesson, Karlee was swimming correctly all by herself!





On the second lesson, Amber taught Karlee how to jump in and swim back up to the top of the water and then swim back to the side. This satisfies my fear of knowing what to do if she falls in. They also worked on floating on her back if she gets tired of swimming. No pictures of this because Madelyn was DONE with sitting!





The freestyle technique was taught on the 3rd lesson. Karlee is still so little so her arms don't come far out of the water when bringing them around.




The 4th lesson was rained out so on what was supposed to be the 5th lesson, Amber had Karlee swimming a longer distance. She started at the end of the shallow end and swam by herself to the steps. Then, all of a sudden, she touched the step, turned around, and swam all the way back to Amber. I was so proud and Amber was shocked! At the end of the lesson, we decided not to make up the rained out session and let this be Karlee's last one. Amber and I both felt comfortable that Karlee could get back to safety if she ever needed to. That was my ultimate goal. I mean, she's only 3 so I'm not expecting her to learn how to be an Olympic swimmer (yet!). And, I would never leave her in a pool to swim alone. I am always by her side (with Madelyn on my hip) anytime we are in water.





So, Karlee is officially a fish. Madelyn wanted to get in the water so bad every lesson. She would reach her hands out like she wanted Amber to take her. She already wants to do everything her big sister does. She may learn to swim by the age of 1 if she keeps this up!

White Water

Saturday morning, I woke up and told Chip that I had the craziest dream. We were at White Water in Atlanta and Karlee was riding all of the water slides. I'm not sure why I had this dream. I guess it's because Karlee talks about riding water slides when she gets bigger all the time. She passes Surfside Water Park every week going to Chip's parents house. We tell her she can go there when she gets bigger!

Later in the day on Saturday, I asked Chip if he thought Karlee would have fun at White Water. He said "probably" so I looked up the age requirements and found out it was based on height (36 inches minimum for several slides). Out came the measuring tape! She was right at 36 inches! Great! We called my parents to see if they could keep Madelyn on Sunday and, of course, they could. The plan was set in motion.

We woke both girls up at 6:30 and headed out the door shortly after breakfast. Karlee was super excited. We told her we were driving a long way to play on lots of water slides all day long.

I didn't take my camera because I knew we would be getting soaking wet all day. But, the look on Karlee's face was absolutely priceless when we walked through the gate. We found the first kids section and she took off. Running and playing in all the water fountains, sliding down the little baby slides, a smile plastered across her face. We then moved to the next kid section with bigger slides and play things. Chip and I took turns going up the playsets while the other stayed down to catch her as she came out of a slide. She'd hit the water and immediately head back up to do it again. Sometimes coming down on her tummy and sometimes on her back. You never knew what end was coming out of the shoot! We then moved on to the Tree House section which was totally cool (even for an adult!) We all 3 made it up the rope wall to check things out. Like before, one of us went down to catch and one stayed up to make sure she got on the slide. These slides were a lot bigger and so was the smile on Karlee's face. All you could see were teeth and eyeballs! Chip and I were drenched from all the water buckets being dumped by other kids and water guns shooting from every direction.

Around the middle of the day, we walked to the big slides to show Karlee some other things to do. There were 3 that she could ride with her height. We stood at the bottom of them and showed her how they worked. She was ready to do all of them with no hesitation. This child is 100% fearless! The photo below (taken from the website) was the first big slide we did.



The 100 Meter Splash. It was an individual ride, meaning no parents could ride with their children. We all grabbed our mats and headed out to the start of the slide. Karlee laid down on her mat like she had done this 1,000,000 times before. A smile still plastered on her face! The lifeguard had to put her foot on the mat to keep Karlee from instantly going down (she didn't weigh enough to keep it still in the running water!). The whistle blew and off we went. Chip and I were on both sides of Karlee the whole way down (6 people ride at a time). It was fast! Karlee hit the bottom and jumped up saying she wanted to do it again, which we did later in the day. Now I know she is 200% fearless!

We rode the other 2 slides too. They were family rides in big rafts down long stretches of winding and tunneled slides. Karlee liked these but the 100 Meter Splash was her favorite.

We ate lunch some time during all of this and played in the kids sections again. I don't know who had more fun, Chip, me, or Karlee! We were all worn out by the time we left (5:00). And, 2.7 seconds after leaving, Karlee looked like this. The chocolate on her face is melted M&M's (her good behavior prize!). She was actually pulling them out of the bag and eating them with her eyes closed and head bobbing up and down. It was hilarious!



We had a blast and will definitely be going back. I'm so glad I had that dream!

Rainy Afternoons

We are making the most out of these rainy afternoons around here lately. And, my child prefers to wear nothing but panties most of the time. I am learning to pick my battles!












And, yes. I have had Karlee's hair cut since this picture was taken. It was starting to get pretty nappy and stayed in tangles all the time.