Monday, August 24, 2009

Spaghetti and Cheerios

Spaghetti and Cheerios... Maddie's new favorite meal! Yummy..

She's decided lately that she's too big of a girl to have mom feed her anymore (except for the beloved nursing of course!) so we've had to get creative with our table food. It certainly is messier but has been allot of fun lately. I can handle blueberry oatmeal up the nose every once in awhile. We got smart and bought her some bibs with the pocket in the front.. Bumpkins brand are awesome! After each meal we find a nice pile of things that didn't make it into her mouth. I guess it's a numbers game.. give her 20 pieces of fruit so 10 make it in. :)

I am able to sneak in a few spoonfuls here and there to make sure she's getting the foods that would be too messy or dangerous to feed her like blueberries and applesauce.




Is there something on my nose?



The little devil herself getting a bath after dinner.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Papa and Grandma Lena Visit



Sorry I haven't posted sooner.. I've been working on Maddie's 1st Birthday invitations. Yep, I decided to design and print them at home.. it's like planning my wedding all over again! :)

Last week we had a great visit from Papa and Grandma Lena! Despite not sleeping great, Miss Maddie was in a great mood each day. (The day after they left she took a three hour nap! She was pooped!)
We went to the fair one day and to the Ventura Harbor another day. We also enjoyed Lena's famous chili.. Matt LOVES this chili and we ask her to make it every time we see them.

I haven't been to the fair in several years. Matt took me once when we were dating but since he's done "woo-ing" me (hee hee) he no longer has to go. I will say, the fair is VERY expensive. $10 to park, $10 to get in.. geesh! My favorite part of the fair is FAIR FOOD! Yummy! Where else can you get chocolate covered bacon. Oh yes, that was there but I chickened out and couldn't do it. Instead I ate this disgustingly good fried indian bread covered with whip cream and chocolate.. oh my! Alyx said fair food doesn't have calories so I feel better knowing that.

Papa and Maddie enjoying the fair


Tom had an awesome Turkey leg (I told him to pose for the blog!)



Maddie had the best fair food she could find.. her foot! mmmmmm



We had a great time watching the pig races, playing games, and walking off all our yummy food. We were all pooped at the end of the day. Papa and Maddie took a little snooze on the way home.

The day before they left, Alyx, Papa and Grandma, Maddie and I went to the Ventura Harbor. It's a cute little area where you can check out the boats that are docked and eat at a variety of restaurants. They also have a game area with a carousal.




Maddie's first carousal ride! She held on like such a big girl.




The Harbor is right by the beach so we stopped by to show Maddie the waves. Papa D took her down by the water.. as they were going, she kept looking back to make sure Mom was still there. She heard all kinds of stories and even got her feet a little wet... anyone ever tell Papa the Pacific Ocean is freezing!? :)



Just checking!


What a great trip! I'm glad Papa and Grandma Lena were able to come out. Maddie has changed so much since they saw her in March. She seems to change every day! They're going to try to make it back out for her 1st Birthday Party which is coming up very soon.

A Girl and Her Balloon



We ran some errands the other day and a lady at Ralph's (grocery store) gave me a balloon for Maddie. She LOVES balloons and couldn't take her eyes off of this one. The second photo is dark but if you click on it you can see the admiration in her face. Gosh, I love this kid!!!

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Feeling Better

As of Sunday morning, Maddie's fever is gone.. it went as quickly as it came. By Tuesday we were back to napping well. We may never know if it was teething or a virus but all that matters is Miss Maddie is feeling better which also means Mommy is feeling better!

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Disco Fever

Ok, we aren't exactly dancing over here but Maddie does have a fever... she's been at 100-102 since Friday morning. She woke up burning hot. We recently had a friend who's little boy had a febrile seizure so that was first in my mind. (Thank you Heidi again for sharing your story!) We've been giving Motrin every six hours but it hasn't seemed to make any difference. We also have been giving her luke warm baths and placing a washcloth on her forehead when she's nursing (which has seemed like every waking minute during the day). Sleeping has been nil in our household but I guess every parent goes through this at some point, right? And it's surely bound to happen again.

Being new parents we did take her into the doc this morning (Saturday-hope they don't have emergency plumber rates!). Of course she didn't have a fever the nano-second it took the doctor to take her temperature but she did have swollen lymph nodes and enlarged tonsils. He checked for strep but that came back negative so he said it's probably just viral and to keep an eye on the fever and watch for any other symptoms. It could be teething but I'm glad we went to rule out ear infection or something more serious.

Unfortunately we missed Shane's 2nd birthday party.. darn it! We just got into the "birthday party" club and had to miss our first event! :) I'm sure everyone had a great time, so sorry we missed it.

Hopefully she'll be feeling better before Papa Dimino and Grandma Lena arrive on Thursday. They're coming out from Denver to see Miss Maddie and we're just starting to get good sleep at night and be a "happy baby" during the day. She is also scheduled to get her vaccinations on Thursday afternoon.

Other than being clingy, we have had some giggles out of her so it could be worse!

Here are her 9 month JC Penney photos I promised you. The scans aren't so great (I made them lower resolution to get them to upload) but the copies of the photos turned out nice, now I just need to cut them out and distribute. I'm not very impressed with their photos but they're a cheap option and it's relatively easy for us to make an appointment and go.

Here's my attempt a few weeks ago.


Here's their attempt.. ok, a little better. lol






This one sums up how the appointment went! :)



We're going to have her 12 month birthday photos taken while we're in WI by my friend Trisha Faber. She just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Kora Lynn. (She's actually the daughter of my parent's friends but we didn't meet until we found each other online while planning our destination weddings.. so technically we haven't actually "met" yet!) She's very talented and I can't wait for our session!