One Year Doctors Appointment

We saw Dr. Heil on Thursday for Madison Claire's one year appointment. She was NONE to pleased to have to get examined and started crying in my arms as soon as Dr. Heil pulled out the stethoscope to listen to her heart. She also went crazy when we had to hold her down for the shots - I made Ryan do it this time. Luckily, she LOVES to eat ice these days and I had a diet coke with me (shocker...I know...) so she stopped crying when we gave her ice.

They were really impressed with how much she has grown since her 9 month visit. She shot up in her height from the 63rd percentile to the 89th percentile and her weight went up slightly from the 24th percentile to the 26th percentile. She was 19 pounds, 9 ounces. For the first time since her second doctors appointment, there was no concern about her weight - praise the Lord!!!

Happy Birthday, Madison Claire!!

Madison Claire turned one on Wednesday. I jumped out of bed that morning as soon as I heard her make a peep (usually I let her stay up there by herself for a good 30-minutes before going to get her) and ran up the stairs. I opened the door and started singing Happy Birthday to her. It was about at that point that I realized I had been in such a hurry to get up there that I didn't put on my glasses so I couldn't even see her sweet face!! Oh well!

She had a rough morning....she didn't really eat very well and was just kind of in a crabby mood. It was so sad because she was too little to understand that it was her birthday so it was supposed to be a great day! It was beautiful outside so we went to the park to swing (her new favorite activity). The park was packed so we left and went to Annie's apartment complex where we had the swings all to ourselves.

That evening we had fish for dinner (her favorite!) and then gave her a little Baby Cake from Whole Foods. She was so cute with it...she picked all of the little pink dots off one by one before she went after it with her hands. You can watch the video below for details.

I'm going to post some one year reflections sometime this week...for now, enjoy the pictures & video (one note - the video is kind of long so don't say you weren't warned...and...I left in some of her crankiness so you could see she really was in a bad mood all day)!

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!