Cabinet climber

Madison Claire's new favorite spot is sitting inside the cabinets. She pulls out the lower ones and takes out anything in them and then just gets in. Pretty precious!

Walking

Madison Claire has really improved in her walking ability over the past week. She is probably walking close to 50% of the time. She has a pretty wide stance when she walks and she sometimes trips over her own feet - especially when she is wearing shoes, but it is still precious!

She also shows a few of her signs. It's so cute...she has learned "Thank you" and says it to people all the time. Earlier today I gave her a bottle and she looked at me and did the thank you sign. Talk about melting your heart!

The funniest thing is that she hasn't gotten please. If you show her the please sign and tell her say please, she will automatically do "thank you". Oh well...at least she has one of them down!

Princess Cozy Coupe

Annie got Madison Claire a Princess Cozy Coupe for her birthday. We started to put it together yesterday before she left while Madison Claire was taking a nap. We did pretty well considering we didn't have any of Ryan's tools but decided we would need to wait for Ryan to finish putting it together. So - last night when Ryan got home we finished it up (though not after about an hour of him hitting the stinking thing and saying over and over "who thought this was a good way to put this thing together" and "they must not pay their engineers very much money"). :)

Once we got it together we put it in the cubby in our room because I didn't want Madison Claire to see it until Monday when Annie got here. Well, this morning I brought her into our room forgetting about it and as soon as she looked that direction, she FREAKED out! She stuck her neck up as tall as it would go and pointed over at the car and started talking/screaming/cheering. It was hilarious!!! She then decided it was her mission to get to it - over daddy, around daddy, whatever it took.

Needless to say - she LOVES it! Thank you, Annie!!!

Pool time!

Madison Claire starts her swimming lessons in one week so we decided it would be a good idea to take her to the pool at the Y so she could get used to a pool again. She was so cute in her little bathing suit and went in like an old pro! She loved it...and you can tell from the pictures that Ryan loved it too! She did so much better than we expected - we were able to get her on her back a few times and she swallowed a bunch of water but did okay with it so hopefully the pool won't be as scary when we go on April 5th.

She LOVED looking at all the other kids & adults that were in the pool. All of a sudden she has turned into a little social butterfly. Every two minutes she would look up at the lifeguard and wave at them until they waved back to her. It was the funniest thing!

Smiley

Check out our little Smiley's teeth! She now has 7 teeth - 3 on the bottom & 4 on the top. She also has a 5th one on the top about to pop through!

Blue's Clues, Blue's Clues

Ryan has been pretty anti-TV for Madison Claire during her first year of life. However, he was reading the book Tipping Point recently which talked at one point about Sesame Street & Blue's Clues. (I'm still not sure how this was relevant to this Leadership book he was reading but I digress...). After reading that book, he decided that Blue's Clues was acceptable for Madison Claire to watch and even bought her 2 DVDs of the show. These pictures are from her first time - she was mesmerized! I don't think she has ever sit that still for 30 minutes. Hopefully this will help on our long plane ride to Maui in 2 months!

Open...close

Earlier this week Madison Claire got fascinated with opening & closing the door upstairs to the bonus room. I swear, she did this for at least 10 or 15 minutes.

Almost One!!

It is so hard to believe that Madison Claire is almost one years old! She is walking up a storm and is still just the happiest little baby. I really don't know how we got to be so blessed!! Annie and I went to Toys R Us today and Annie got her a little baby doll stroller (a Maclaren one no less...just like Madison Claire's big girl stroller). She is so cute pushing it around! Check it out:

Springtime - Yay!

We finally had a few really nice days this week that signaled that spring is on it's way! We met my friend from Bible Study, Mandy Proctor & her little one Grayson at the park one day during lunch and they had a ball. It was the first time that Madison Claire had been in a swing and it was PRECIOUS!!! She loved it and loved all of the kids. She was fascinated with the big kids and kept wanting to play at the bottom of the slide - go figure!

She also really liked the monkey on Grayson's shirt and kept trying to reach at it which scared little Grayson. Too cute! We are looking forward to more sunny days to come!

Spring break!

Ryan's spring break was last week and we had a great week! We decided to stay in Nashville this year and take the money that we would have spent going down to Florida to go out to a fun dinner each night. I lost my camera for about a week so only have pictures of our very last night. This is how our week shook up:

Monday - I had a girls night out at Garcia's with my Bible Study girls

Tuesday - Cheesecake Factory with the Morrows! Big thanks to Annie for keeping ALL of the kids

Wednesday - Virago - yummy!

Thursday - Chuy's with the McSwains

Friday - The Acorn

Saturday - Lime

Sunday - Pei Wei & Pizza

I gained a good pound a half but it was so worth it! The McSwain's kept Madison Claire Thursday night through Sunday and they had a great time...thanks Cheryl & Gary! Here are our few lone pictures from the week.

Big Girl!!!

Another Peek-A-Boo video

I found this cute video of Madison Claire playing peek-a-boo...so cute! Sorry it is sideways.

First Steps!!!

After "cruising on furniture" and "walking with the train" for the past 3.5 months, Madison Claire finally took her first steps on Monday, March 14th around 4pm. Annie, Madison Claire & I were in the kitchen and she took one step, then about 3 steps, then about 8 steps. I tried to catch her on video and she took 3 sideways steps and then crashed hard on her head and started crying. After that, she was crying and upset so she got to be very timid and didn't want to try again right away. Mom says that I was the same way! A little while later, she tried again and got to where she would take 8-10 steps. Of course as soon as I turn the video camera on, she won't do it, so I'll keep trying and I'll post as soon as I'm able to get one.

Kate's visit

Kate came in town for a visit this past week and we had such a great time. We worked a lot but did find time to play with Madison Claire and make a quick run to the mall. Kate always contributes to Madison Claire's wardrobe and she really outdid herself this time!! I don't have pictures of Madison Claire in all of them yet, but I will get some soon and you will LOVE them!

We were hoping Madison would take her first steps while she was here, but no such luck! Kate did have fun feeding her and letting her have all of her electronics! How sweet are these pictures:

Kate contributed to my wardrobe too this week - how blessed are we?? So - the story goes like this, we went to the mall and had some time to kill before we met Ryan for dinner so we went into the Buckle so I could look at some jeans. I've never been in the Buckle before but some friends had recommended I give it a try, so in we went. One of the guys who worked there approached Kate and I and said that we didn't get to pick the jeans - the jeans picked us. I should have known it would be a different shopping experience from that! Over the course of the next hour, after many different jeans & many flattering comments, Kate and I both walked out of that store with 2 pairs of jeans each! Seriously! We didn't even intend to get one pair! Ryan and I have been doing the envelope system for about 6 months now and I didn't have enough in my envelope to get both pairs, so Kate got one for me! She is the best!

Thanks Kate for everything!!!

Dance, Dance!

Madison Claire loves to Dance to music. Here she is during American Idol....

.....and dancing with daddy in the kitchen....

Peek-a-boo

Madison Claire was obsessed with playing Peek-a-boo for a few days about two weeks ago. It was the cutest thing - she would cover up her eyes and when she removed her hands, she'd smile really big, hold her hands out to the side, shake her head and make a noise that sounded like "Hey!". Of course, she wouldn't do it for the video camera! I tried to capture it several times and this was the closest I got. Enjoy!

One afternoon, we were in the car headed to the store and she was in the backseat in her carseat. We got to a redlight and Ryan and I looked back at her and she was playing peek-a-boo with her little rabbit. She was taking his ears and covering his eyes and then lifting them up and saying "hey" like the rabbit was playing peek-a-boo with her. ADORABLE! Wish I had that one on video.

Teeth

Madison Claire's front two teeth are finally coming in...and they are coming in fast! She always has a hard time when her teeth pop through and this has been no exception. She decided to drop all of her naps except for first thing in the morning the week before last and so she is tired and cranky and can't really breathe very well because she is so congested. Poor punkie!! She has a really hard time when she is congested because she can't suck her thumb. Hopefully they will come down quickly so she can get back to her normal sweet self!