Ten Months

Madelynn is now ten months old. In only a few more months she will reach her one year birthday. Wow! This month she really has started to be a lot of fun, especially when she interacts and plays games like peek-a-boo with us. She is walking everywhere, not crawling barely at all anymore. She figured out how to stand up all by herself tonight so I'm guessing she won't need to crawl much at all anymore. She still walks with her hands in the arm though.

Babbling is about all we get out of her in terms of communication. She babbles a lot, at a high volume sometimes. I'm really excited for her first word, but I think I'll have to wait until her year birthday. :(

Below are her 10 month pictures, which were pretty much impossible to take. We made her sit down on the step to try to keep her stationary, but it didn't take her long to figure out how to stand up off the step.

"Just take the picture already."

Maddy's personality these days is captured in this picture.
"I'm TROUBLE with a capital T!"

"Gotcha!"

Swimming this week was baby and dad week.

Kendal and Mike joined us now that the Schmidts are back from Mexico. Mike was a very bad student, not listening to the instructor at all. He almost got in the pool with his sandals on too. What a character!
The girls had a great time swimming and playing with their dads. (Check out the size of Maddy's gut in the first picture...kinda looks like her dads.)Unfortunately, Ben didn't have such a good time. Poor Greg had to listen to him cry for the first 20 minutes before he got out of the pool to let Ben catch his breath. I feel so bad for them and hope that next week is better.

More Teeth

Tonight when Maddy got home from daycare I noticed she seemed irritable. She hasn't been crabby like that in a long time. I quickly found the reason...two new teeth broke through on the bottom. Poor girl!

Well, this week Maddy met a few more milestones and had her first diaper rash. She figured out how to crawl up the stairs the other night. Actually, I think she just decided like trying it for the first time and had no problem doing it. She is just so tall it wasn't hard at all for her to get her knee up, actually it is much easier for her to bring her left knee up rather than her right. My dad always said he wanted to teach her to crawl up the stairs, but apparently she didn't need anyone to show her how to do it and she wasn't waiting until the next time Grandpa visited. We showed her how to slide down on her belly feet first, which she thought was great until she bumped her chin. Oops.
Jason has video he will have to upload HERE. Check back!

Another new thing she figured out was how to squat down to pick up her toys without holding onto anything and then standing back up. I was wondering how long it would take her to do this now that she is walking around the house all the time and trying to pick up dog toys. I would have never expected it to be so soon. Sometimes, I am just taken back by how physically strong she is.

One more quick thing to share since I am on a roll and so proud of our little Miss Maddy. Tonight while giving Maddy her bath I showed her how to make baskets in her Bathketball Net. She used to be scared of the basketballs and cry whenever we took them out but tonight she wasn't at all. She would pick one ball up at a time and dunk it in the hoop. It was adorable. We will have to get it on video to prove to everyone that she has a shot like her dad. :)

Bonk

Ok, this is really old video, but I have to put it up. This was shot about a week before Christmas actually. Please ignore the wonderful singing by me and concentrate on Mads singing and smiling. Funny, funny!!!


Sing Maddy Sing!

Swim Class

Ok, so dad's on a roll. Two blogs in two nights!!!

Tonight was Maddy's first swim class. Maddy and Ben got to go as a couple tonight. Kendal was out of town on vacation this week. The mom's went and got the two dressed and showered up for the big swim.

Mom and Mads were pretty excited cause the water temp was 84. Much warmer than the last time we went swimming in Gaylord.

Dad got some pretty good video of the big swimmers. I'm only going to show some of the big swim. Ben struggled a little, especially when he wasn't close to Sarah. Mads did well though, and splashed a lot more tonight than she has in the past. Check out some of MADS SPLASHING!!!

Here's some some video of MADS SWIMMING!!!

By the end you could tell the kids were getting pretty tired. But as Maddy was getting out the pool she was pretty fired up about her first swim class!!!

Good Job Mads and Ben!

Hide-n-Seek

Ok, so dad is trying to get into this blogging thing better. I've actually got my own account now and I'm trying to get better with posting videos.
Here's one from this evening of Mads playing hide n seek with us and one of her toys.
Hope you enjoy.

Click HERE!

Hawaii Journal and Pics

Well, I was hoping to post the blogs from our Hawaii trip once we had all our pictures. It now is 2 months later and I still haven't gotten all the pictures back from the Zoellers so I just decided to post what I have. So if you go back to February 3 - 12, all the posts from our Hawaii trip are up. Enjoy and sorry for the delay!

Dinner Date

Ben and Maddy had their first dinner date Friday night.


It was supervised though and good thing it was because Maddy was taking it a bit fast for Ben. She took it as far as trying to take Ben's clothes off...she actually got one sock off but we stopped it there.


This weekend Mads was a big helper. She helped with laundry and e-filing our taxes.

Big Sister

Maddy apparently fed a baby doll a bottle at daycare yesterday all by herself. Jason said he thinks it means she is ready to be a big sister. I don't think so. I believe it was just a fluke probably something she just picked up on from watching all the babies being fed this weekend.

Happy Easter

Madelynn's first easter was a ton of fun. We went up north so the 9 grandchildren could spend it together. It was quite a sight with all the kids, but truly special. The easter bunny had to hop through snow in below freezing temperatures, but he still found his way.

We decided to leave Thursday night after Maddy went to bed to get a jump start on the trip. The weather was miserable so we ended up stopping in Gaylord for the night. Jason, Maddy, Makinac, Molokai, and I all snuggled and stayed warm in a king size bed together. It was kinda fun. Friday morning, I did some work at the hotel while we waited for the pool to open and then Jason took Maddy swimming.

"Burr...this water is freezing"

"Now, I can handle this hot tub"

"This swimming tired me out"

We got home Friday late afternoon and the whole family was there. We all ate dinner together while the kids played. Maddy was trying to hang with the big kids and ended up with a bump and bruise on her forehead. It was weird seeing Maddy no longer as the baby. She was like a toddler, cruising around with her older cousins. The three babies were adorable. Maddy unfortunately earned a new nickname from the family..."Big Red." Her hair is really looking red.

Saturday we went to the Rochons (my second family growing up) and visited for almost 4 hours. My friend Tricia's son Jack is only 3 weeks younger than Maddy so the two of them played. I forgot my camera but I'll just say the two of them are great friends. They played great together, it was fun to watch.

Izzy's 3rd birthday party was Saturday night. All the grandkids came to celebrate. I've got a bunch of pictures from the evening.

Jordyn, Izzy, and Brooke with Izzy's birthday cake

The oldest 6 of the 9 grandkids
(John V, Mads, Jordyn, Izzy, Brooke, and Jaelyn)

Someone's about to lose a tooth
(Addisyn, Brooke, and Jordyn)

Who's the Mexican?
(Elizabeth, Izzy, Auntie MaryJo, and Lexi aka. Juanita)

Lexi don't cry...Juanita is better than Big Red

Birthday girl
(Aundrea and Izzy)

Auntie Nicole, Maddy, and Jack

The only boys in their camo
(John V and Jack)

Jack's first recorded smile

Easter Sunday started early with Addisyn's baptism during mass. The kids got all dressed up in their Easter outfits for church, it was adorable. After church we went to the nursing home to visit my grandpa Carl.

Grandpa Carl with his great grandson Jack

The Guys

Grandpa with a handful of his great grandchildren

Brooke taking Grandpa for a ride while wearing my high heels

After our special visit at the nursing home, we went to Addisyn's baptism luncheon.

Here's the crew
(John V - 23 mon.; Izzy - 3; Alexaundrea - 1 mon.;
Brooke - 5; Jack - 1.5 mon.; Jordyn - 7;
Addisyn - 2 mon.; Jaelyn - 2.5; Maddy - 9.5 mon)

Jason and I tried to get a few pictures of Maddy in her Easter dress before we took it off but it was near impossible to get a good picture. Enjoy our efforts...

The weekend was so much fun, but terribly exhausting. A minute down the road, Maddy was out for the count.

Sock Madness

March Madness is almost over but Maddy has started the sock madness. She is all of a sudden obsessed with her socks. With socks in her mouth, she can...

crawl...

and sit...

and kneel...

and stand.

Playing just isn't the same anymore without a sock in her mouth. I really think her mouth must be hurting and chewing on the socks feels good. Why else would anyone want to put their own socks in their mouth???

Who you laughing at?

Well, Friday I took Maddy in for her 9 month wellness visit. No shots, yeah! I was gladly surprised to hear she didn't have an ear infection either. She has been tugging on her left ear again so I thought maybe she had an ear infection, but the doctor said its probably just pressure from teething. Maddy is still a big girl...as if you haven't noticed. She weighed in at 21 lb. 1 oz. (80%ile), measured 29 3/4 in. (>100%ile) tall, and still possesses a bobble head 18 in. (90%ile) around. Her length decreased from her 6 month appointment, which was blamed on a nurse measurement error last time. She got to show off some too, by walking across the room to Dr. Kelly.

Thursday Mads had a great day at daycare, especially after Tuesday's nightmare. She took two 2 1/2 hour naps, and got a very happy mood on her report card. Apparently, the trick was leaving her blanket with her at daycare. Hopefully that continues to work, although I'm afraid the solution seems too simple. We're keeping our fingers crossed.

Friday night Mike, Marnie, and Kendal came over for fish fry. Jason shared some of his french fries with Maddy.

The girls crawled around and played most of the time. The night actually didn't end with a fight this time. Instead, it ended with Kendal peeing her pants! Poor Kendal. The girls actually got along great. There were a few tug-of-war battles over a couple toys though.

Last night, I put together a new toy for Maddy. She got it from Grandma and Grandpa Kreider for Christmas, but we just hadn't assembled it yet. Maddy loves it, especially crawling through the door. She must have crawled through the door fifty times last night. Here are a few pictures. Sorry some are blurry, Jason needs to work on his photography skills.

Look who has her tongue out again!

There's the sock again!