Mobile Maddie

It's hard to believe it, but Madeline is 8 months old. She continues to surprise us every day.
She went from rolling to crawling to pulling up to cruising all within 2 weeks.
She loves her new freedom and she cannot be stopped. I always knew we would have to keep our eye on her when she became more mobile, but had no idea how much. Wow! She is a mover!
It's so fun watching her explore her "new" world. She is so curious and alert. It's like we could see her brain taking everything in.
She is quite the ham too. Whenever we are in public she will show off by blowing razberries, making a scrunched up face and sniffing (you'd have to see it...funny) and screaching to get attention. Attention is exactly what she gets too. She makes people laugh and smile wherever we go.

Our Big Day in Court

Thank you Aunt Hughena for eveything! We love you and words cannot express how much we appreciate all you've done for us. We can't wait until Madeline is old enough to hear the story of how you helped bring us all together. Uncle Pat, we love you too! This picture was taken 5 minutes before we went into to court for Madeline's big day.

Cousin Margaret helps show off my beautiful dress that Aunt Hughena bought me!

Princess Maddie demands someone peel her a grape!!

From left to right, Grandpa Dan Walker, Grandma Barbara Walker, Judge, Mom, Maddie, Dad, Atty Henry Gerhardt, ad litem Atty.

Halloween

We Are a little behind on our bloging lately but here's a quick update.
These are a few pictures of our little "Monkey" on her first halloween. She was the hit of the neighborhood. It did turn out that she had an alergic reaction to the costume though, but not a bad one.

Pumkin Patch

Madeline went to her first Pumpkin Patch this weekend with some mixed results. Turns out she likes animals, but hates Pumpkins!!

Waaaaahhhh....this thing is creeeeeeeepy. Waaaaaaahh!!

When we first put her down to take a picture she decided to grab a huge hand full of hay and shove it in her mouth (captured at the exact moment below).

She loved staring at this donkey and a Texas longhorn. She just smiled away as if she were seeing a rainbow for the first time.

BRAINS!!!

We told Madeline about Halloween and zombie's.....she seemed very interested and then waited till I got down on the ground and mumbled "BRAINS!!....NEED BRAINS!!!"

Remember this basket from her first month post? Now she looks like she is ready to attach a steering wheel and drive it around the house.

WoooooooHooooooo!

Bath time.

Picnic

A couple of weeks ago we took Madeline to this great park right next to our house with lakes, bridges and scupltures from famous artists. The park is actually right in the middle of a business complex that has 5 high rise buildings surrounding it. It's great because on Saturdays and Sundays there is nobody there and we had the entire 100 acre park with 250 sculptures in it to ourselves. We have never seen Madeline so happy. She really seems to enjoy nature and seeing things for the first time.

Yes this sheep sculpture did indeed say please do not climb on the sheep.....oh well....couldn't resist.

This is dads favorite picture ever.

Fruit, Veggies and Teeth

We had a surprise visitor last week...a tooth. It was followed by another tooth a week later. We couldn't believe it. It's amazing how quickly Madeline is growing. Her two new teeth are a reminder of how quickly she will change and grow. They look so cute. Well, really, we have to fold back her lip to see them, but they're still adorable. Maddie is still loving her Exersaucer. She's turning all the way around in it, on her own. She has figured out how to work all the toys too. This week, her favorite is the stack of shapes. Of course, I make everyone call them by their 3 dimensional name. There's no reason why we should confuse her and call it a triangle when it's a triangular prism.



I love it when Madeline falls asleep on Chris. It's rare these days. She is so good about sleeping in her crib. We are able to put her in her crib, while she's awake and she usually puts herself to sleep. Every now and then she is extra fussy or overly tired and this does the trick. She's so peaceful

We are so excited that Maddie is sitting on her own now. She is a lot happier, therefore we are too. She has figured this toy out, kind of. She loves to take the rings off. Before we know it she'll be putting them back on too. Mostly, she just likes to gnaw on them.

We started Madeline on vegetables. The carrots did not go over too well. She kept making funny faces and spitting them out (see picture) She got really sick that weekend. Our doctor told us to do the BRAT diet with her (bananas, rice, apples, no toast of course) and that helped. He said she may have an intolerance to carrots which is rare, one in a million or something. She loves applesauce and likes bananas. We're afraid that she's not going to want her veggies after trying the apples. We'll see.