So Big!

It's hard to believe how fast time is flying by! I told myself I would be better about updating Maddie's blog more than just once a month, but here I sit on Feb. 27th, and she is 7 months old today. Oh well. Here goes.
It has been the BEST month. Just when I think Madeline is at the cutest, most fun age....it gets better! Her personality is really starting to form and she is turning into a little person right before our eyes. She is loving solid foods, sitting up all by herself, standing (with support of course), sleeping well at night, playing hard, getting mobile on her tummy, and making all kinds of funny sounds and babbles. Here are some of this past month's highlights.

SITTING PRETTY! This rocking chair is from Chris's Aunt Sandy and it is beautiful and so cute! The shoes were a gift from my Uncle Jack and Aunt Linda and she gave us the idea of taking a picture of her sitting so you can read the bottom of her shoes. How neat!

AUNT ReRe's VISIT

Great Aunt ReRe (my Aunt Marie) visited this month. She was in town for work and we were so lucky to see her twice. She came over and was very stealthy in her approach to win Madeline over. Maddie has stranger anxiety and Marie was warned that she may cry. So she took her time and just talked to Maddie at first, made silly faces, and silly noises (she's good at that) before she held her. Then, when the time was right, she held her and then proceeded to play with her for the rest of the day! She even claims to have taught Madeline to sit up by herself!

Notice the bow in Maddie's hair (or lack there of). It was just for the picture...it looks like the bow is floating in mid-air!

HANGIN' OUT WITH DADDY!

Chris loves to hold Maddie in a standing position and pretend she's walking, as you can see from the following pictures!

THE GIRLS!!!

Here is Maddie with Marissa and Kaitlyn Marcoullier (Paul and Dre's girls). They are so fun to see all together. Marissa is so sweet, she always says "Hi Maddie" and Kaitlyn loves having another little baby around. I couldn't get them to all look at the camera in the first picture; they were watching a Baby Einstein video. Maddie is apparently more interested in the camera than the video!

LOVIN' HER TUMMY!

Maddie is always on her tummy now. As soon as you lay her down on the floor on her back she flips right over. She still prefers to sleep on her back, but once she wakes up she rolls right over. One morning when I went in to get her after her nap, she was on her tummy looking right through the rails and just smiling away. It cracked me up so I ran and got the camera. The picture is below.

OUR SNOW ANGEL (sort of)

It snowed a very pretty snow last Sunday and Chris went out to shovel. I decided to take Maddie out and get a picture of her in the snow, thinking it would be so pretty. Well the combination of being immobile in this snowsuit and the snow falling in her face did not make for a happy baby for the pictures. I tried putting her down in sitting on the snow, but she fell over as you can see. We were outside for all of 5 minutes! Oh well!

DANCING WITH NANA
So my mom and Maddie have their "special time" at Nana Day Care. Whenever Maddie starts acting tired but it's too early for her naptime, my mom dances with her. She puts on classic songs like "In the Mood" or "Mack the Knife" or anything from that genre (you know Frank Sinatra, Natalie Cole, etc.) and Maddie just mellows out. She starts by kicking her legs to the music and then eventually just relaxes, puts her head down on Nana and sometimes dozes off for 10 minutes for a little power nap. Then she wakes up refreshed and content and lasts a while longer until her nap. I witnessed it last week and it's so cute to see. I know my mom will be sad when she's too big to do this with her.