Stairs?

Madison Claire discovered the stairs for the first time today. She crawled right up to them and immediately began to pull herself up onto the first stair. Wouldn't you know that little stinker crawled right up them the very first time!!! I pulled out the video camera to capture her second attempt. This one took her a little longer because she kept getting distracted, but you'll get the idea:

Standing up

Madison Claire is pulling herself up on anything & everything in sight. She pulls up on books, the ottoman, your leg, etc. I was hoping that I could delay her learning to pull herself up in her crib by keeping her lower half swaddled. I mean seriously...how do you pull up your legs and get them steady enough to stand when they are bound?? Well - I underestimated my little smarty pants because she has somehow figured it out.

The problem is this - she doesn't know how to sit back down once she gets up! So after a while, she starts crying because she is stuck standing up!! Here is a picture and a short video from her doing this today:

Fun night out!

Nate, Anne, Ryan & I had a fun night out on Friday night. We were planning to do dinner at Cheesecake Factory while Nanny Annie kept all of the kids at the Morrow's place. Well, halfway to dinner, Annie called to ask where Madison's bottle was...turns out we had left it at home! So the boys dropped Anne and I off at the mall to put our name on the waiting list and shop while they went back to the house to get the bottle for Madison Claire.

Anne and I had such a great time!!! She was looking for a dress to wear to a New Years Eve wedding party so we went into BCBG and had some fun! I decided I'd try some on just for fun too...check out these awesome dresses (Anne - don't kill me for posting the pics)! I so wish I had some reason to buy one!!!

After our fun dress party, we met the boys for dinner and enjoyed some good food & good company! What a great night out!

Family Photos

Nanny Annie's friend Kathryn Campbell took some photos for us last week. Madison wasn't in a very smiley mood...she was so curious about everything going on around us! Even so, the pictures turned out great...THANK YOU KATHRYN!!! Here are some of our favorites:

Top Chef Tour

Ryan and I embarked on our first annual Top Chef Tour this weekend. It all started in late October when Ryan came home from football practice one night and said that he wanted to take me away for the weekend when football season was over. I know, I know...he is the best! He asked me to think about what I would want to do...our budget couldn't really afford to fly somewhere so we started thinking about options within driving distance and ultimately decided on a weekend get-away to Atlanta for a Top Chef Tour. We have loved watching the show Top Chef over the past few seasons and have always wanted to try some of the contestants restaurants. We left Madison Claire with my family and stayed at the St. Regis hotel in Buckhead for 2 nights...it was very close to a perfect weekend - fabulous hotel, fabulous food, fabulous weather, fabulous company...it doesn't get much better than that! I am BLESSED!!!!


So this is how the weekend went down. We drove to Atlanta on Friday afternoon and barely made it in time for our reservation at our first stop - Woodfire Grill - a restaurant by a current Top Chef contestant. We didn't have time to go to the hotel first so I was in my comfy travel clothes which was a little of a bummer, but we still had a great meal! I did a blind chefs tasting, complete with scallops, oysters (yuk!), quail, and chocolate crepes. Ryan ordered off the menu so we would be guaranteed to have some dishes we knew we'd like - shrimp, scallops, steak & carrot cake. All in all, the food was great & the atmosphere was a lot of fun. This ended up being our best meal of the weekend...we highly recommend it!

When we left Woodfire Grill, we went to the St. Regis Buckhead to check-in. The hotel was BEAUTIFUL...check out our individual doorbell and beautiful balcony! When we checked in, they gave us a handout of some sort that had a picture of these pancakes that looked absolutely to die for so we ordered some room service on Saturday morning. $40 later, we had a great breakfast...and the pancakes were really that good!

After breakfast, we went back to sleep and didn't get up until 11am! What a treat for me! We then got ready and left for lunch at our second stop on our Tour, a burger place called Flip. It was such a beautiful day...we sat outside on the patio to eat and it was almost hot! Our lunch was great...in fact, we liked it so much we went back on Sunday with the whole fam!



Saturday afternoon we went shopping and found shoes for both of us! Ryan has been into this whole "barefooting" trend, which basically means you don't wear any shoes while working out. They've created these "shoes" (if you can call them that) that aren't really shoes...they are more like water socks...but they have more stability than socks so you can workout in them. They are really hard to find and we found a pair at our first stop in Atlanta! As Ryan said - all the more reason to move to Atlanta! We then headed over to Lenox Mall to look for me some cowboy boots. We found some (see below for pics!)...Happy Birthday to me!


That night we went to our final stop - Craft. The owner & executive chef of Craft is a judge on Top Chef so we were really looking forward to this one! I had heard that there is usually a very long waiting list to get a reservation but luckily, we were able to get in. We had another good meal...not quite as good as Woodfire Grill...but still good. We decided that we aren't foodies yet...but it was fun to pretend like we were!




While we were away, Madison Claire was having fun with my family. It took her a little while to get comfortable with my dad...she's started having this stranger anxiety only with men lately...this of course makes Ryan really happy! He hopes that it sticks around until she is 21! When dad and Meredith first met us, Madison would not go to dad at all...she just cried and cried. She did the same thing all weekend with other males - my Uncle Dave, Ron Sewell, Ryan Fetz, etc.! Saturday morning dad got her up and fed her and she decided that anyone who would get her out of the bed & feed her couldn't be that bad! By the time we met up with them on Sunday she was loving him. Mom and Dad taught her how to play Patty Cake and it is quite precious. If you start singing the Patty Cake song, she will start clapping and the new part they taught her was to "throw it in the pan" which basically means throwing your arms up above your head. Like I said, precious.



My heart was full as we came home...with love for my sweet family (past & present)!

Madison update

Sorry for the late update from Madison's last doctors appointment. We met with Dr. Heil and her weight was at 15 pounds, 8 ounces so she had gained exactly one pound. This kept her in the 19th percentile which is exactly what she was at her 6 month appointment. Dr. Heil was pleased with her progress...he said the most important thing was that she didn't go down in her percentile.

He did recommend that we continue to give her the antacid medicine and that we start her on some soy formula to supplement the breast milk and solid food she is currently eating. He said that we didn't have to do either...it wouldn't be hurting her if we didn't...but that he would recommend we do both so we had some difficult decisions to make. I am reminded in times like these that though these seem like difficult decisions, they really aren't when compared to some of the decisions our friends battling childhood cancer have to make. It really helps put everything else in perspective.

That said - Ryan is pretty against the medicine & the soy formula so right now we aren't doing either. We are trying to beef her up the natural way, through adding chicken and beef to her diet (which we can start doing now that she is 7 months). We are going to check her weight again at the end of the month and if she isn't keeping pace, we'll add the formula supplementation.

Thanks for your prayers for Madison Claire!

The Pumpkin Roll

To close the loop on our pumpkin extravaganza...we let Madison Claire roll the pumpkin down our hill! It didn't go near as far as the first one, but it was still fun! Here we are right after the big roll.

Visit with Auntie Kate

We had a fun visit with Kate last weekend. She came in to see us (mostly to see Madison Claire) and as usual, the visit was filled with some work, shopping, FANTASTIC dinners, and more than anything else, great company!

Last time Kate was here she helped me organize my closet. This trip we decided to tackle my office...and tackle my office we did! It is now in ship-shape and I feel like I could be on a Container Store commercial! THANK YOU KATE for everything!

She bought these Lucky jeans for Madison Claire and they are ADORABLE!!! Only problem is, they are a size 6-12 months and our little shrimpy doesn't even come close to fitting in them. It looks like she is on a weight loss commercial!!! They'll fit her one day!!!

Madison loves her Nanny Annie!

I probably couldn't make it through most days without our Nanny Annie. She has been such a HUGE blessing to us! She is so great with Madison Claire and Madison just loves her to death. Most mornings when Annie arrives Madison is awake and as soon as the doorbell rings, she looks to the door and gets a big smile on her face.

It makes working so much easier for me to know that she is in such capable hands! Not to mention, I LOVE having another female in the house! It is so fun to be able to talk about shopping, shoes, eating, Vampire Diaries, etc....

I know that there will come a day when we won't have Nanny Annie and for now, I just can't even begin to imagine so I'm choosing to live in denial about that day! We love you, Annie!

Crawling, Clapping, Eating

Sorry bloggers for the late update! This has been a very busy month with me for work, so it's been hard to get motivated to update the blog. Madison celebrated her 7 month birthday on Saturday and we still can't believe that we have a 7 month old!

Madison Claire is continuing to learn new things everyday. Here are a few highlights from this past month:

*Madison Claire is officially crawling

*She can clap on demand (all you have to say is "clap clap"

*She enjoys playing peek-a-boo and will actually pull a burp cloth over her head to hide herself and then pull it down really quick to do peek-a-boo....*so* cute!

*She has really improved in her ability to stand up. She can stand unassisted for long periods of time if she is holding onto something. Her favorites are the ottoman, glider, and a toy courtesy of Nate & Anne

*She is eating like a champ and we are stuffing her. A typical day includes rice cereal & bananas for breakfast, squash and pears for lunch, and oatmeal, sweet potatoes, green beans, and pears for dinner.

We also had some great visitors this past month! We had a fun weekend visit with Sarah & Ryan - complete with homemade pumpkin muffins from Sarah. We also had a last minute visit from my mom - who we are leaning towards calling Pat Pat, Aunt Debbie & Joanie. This picture about sums up how the visit went ...Madison Claire had NO attention :)

Madison Claire has also spent a few nights with Nana & Papa Gary so Ryan and I could have a night out by ourselves...thank you Cheryl & Gary!

I had a busy month with work - I've worked anywhere from 50-70 hours/week but the worst of it is now over and my schedule should start stabilizing now. I will not have to travel again for the rest of the year, so we are very thankful for that! On my trip to UT in mid-October, I took advantage of being so close to Dallas and drove up for a one day visit with Ashley. It was such fun to spend time with Ash...I so wish that we lived closer to one another and could see each other more often! Ellie was as cute as ever...I can't believe that she is getting so big and that little baby Wes will be here soon! I was also able to see cousin Jaime so I was surrounded by preggos! They were both glowing in their pregnancy!

We go to the doctor this Thursday for Madison's weight check to see if her weight gain is acceptable. We had to stop giving her the formula supplements because she had a reaction to the formula. They have recommended that we switch to a soy based formula but we are waiting until our doctors appointment to talk with Dr. Heil about it because neither Ryan or I really want to give her soy formula because of the extra hormones found in the soy protein. Madison had also had a rough last week - she ran a temperature all weekend and we thought she was teething but she has now broken out in a rash all over so they think she might have had a viral infection. I'm glad we have an appointment scheduled for Thursday so they can check her out. I'll update this weekend with the results..thanks for all of your prayers!