The Many Faces of Maddox

 No matter where we go, or what we do, Lily is always there with us ;-)

 Achoo!

 Are you looking at me??

whoo hoo!

Baby Proofing

.....is never complete

We have a gate for the bottom of our stairs, but I really do not want to actually install it properly because it will put holes in our woodwork, so instead, I'm improvised.

Please excuse the massive amount of dog hair. UGH! I cannot wait for her to be done shedding this summer coat, its out of control!

It was ok for a long time, he never bothered moving the gate, until we had some friends over and their little girl moved it and walked upstairs. Lily used to do it all the time, but for some reason Maddox never tried it until he saw Natalee do it :-) I had to weigh that nightstand down because he would just move that out of the way too. On the other side (where my $75 craigslist buffet is now...woo hoo!) We did have a bench there and he would just move that out of the way and go up the stairs. He's actually very good at the stairs, but it still makes me nervous to let him have free reign, because he likes to play on the stairs, not just go up and down. Side note: I found that buffet and bought it, telling Jeff that I planed to refinish it and then sell it. Funny thing, he knew I'd keep it even before I knew I'd keep it ;-) It WILL be refinished some day (month, year) soon!

We have more cabinets than we should with no locks on them. Either they broke, or we lost them (when I repainted the island) and we say all the time, we really should put new locks on those. Its not that there is anything that he could hurt himself with in any of the open ones, he just makes huge messes and gets dog hair on everything. EVERYTHING gets washed before we use it in those bottom cabinets!

We had to move the trash and Lily's bowl into the laundry room and keep the door closed, but whenever he gets a chance he runs in there, dumps Lily's bowl and I'm sure throws something away. He also loves to things into the washer, we've washed more than one dog bone, toy and bowls. Starting the washer and dryer is always fun too, thankfully the washer won't actually start unless the door is locked. I started letting him help me load the clothes and then I tell him what buttons to push to get it started. Ding dong head me finally figured out that there is actually child lock buttons on both the washer and dryer, which saves me from doing the same load of clothes multiple times because I don't know where they were in the cycle when he shut the machine off :-)

In a nutshell he is into everything we don't want him to be into. But we still love him, how could you not love this sweet face :-0

In the mornings Maddox usually wakes up long before I actually get him out of bed. He plays with his toys, talks a lot, blows his airplane mobile to try and move it. Then he'll finally get annoyed that I haven't come to get him, throw all his toys out and start crying. That last part doesn't happen every morning, sometimes I just go ahead and get him before he gets to that point, like this morning. I walk into his room, he's on his back with his Teddy Blue just talking away. He spied me thorough the bars on his crib, rolled over on his belly with his head buried in Teddy and pretended to be asleep! He's done this a few times now, to both Jeff and I, and it totally cracks me up! He'll lay there for a good minute or two and then he looks up with a huuuuuge smile on his face.

Thankfully, unlike his Momma, he is a morning person :-)

In the past few days he's really gotten into his books. Thanks to Granny, he has TONS of books. Used to, if I would try to read him a book he just wanted to slam it shut then open, then shut, then open (you get the idea!) the only book that he really ever payed any attention to was dog book. But recently he's been sitting down and actually looking at his books, page by page, and he'll hand me a book and actually pay attention, sometimes even gets in my lap, while I read it. This has been a big change. We've been working on counting 1-2-3, and colors, shapes and animal sounds. If I ask him what a cow says he goes "mmmmmmm" So far, cow is the only one!

He is so, so into Elmo again. He kind of lost interest, but I had downloaded the Another Monster at the End of the Book with Elmo and Grover on my iPad. He wasn't really interested in it until just a few weeks ago. Now, he could read/watch that book 100 times a day if I let him. We've had to take a break from the iPad because he was having meltdowns when I made him put it up. For the first time this past weekend we put Elmo on in our bedroom in the morning and Jeff, Maddox and I laid in bed while he watched. It was a nice way for Mommy and Daddy to rest for a few more minutes :-) I don't want him to be so dependent on technology to entertain him though, so TV and iPad time is very little.

He loves, loves, loves music. He loves to dance, and "head bang" to the music. We realized last time we were in Indiana that apparently he likes Jimmy Buffet :-)

He also is loving to climb on things and jump off.

*Sorry the photos don't really coordinate with the text...but they sure are cute photos huh?!?! :-)

Bad blogger

Hello to anyone who still reads my blog!! I've been horrible at keeping up to date with it since Maddox turned one, I guess its kind of true that the older they get the less free time you get.

He is constantly on the move and into everything. He is great at the stairs now, going up and down all by himself. He likes to go up the stairs, go to his room and "read" his books . We put a gate at his room, so most of the time he accidentally locks himself in, which he is ok with. It was very nice when I was redoing our upstairs bathroom, I could work in the bathroom for a little bit while he played in his room.

Still taking two naps a day. He hasn't really shown me he's ready to go to one, so I'll take the two for as long as I can! Still sleeping 7:30/8pm - 7/8am. 

He is saying ball, he has said airplane and Lily as well. They obviously don't come out all that clear and if I ask him what something is, or to repeat it he won't. I did point to Lily the other day and say "who is that?" and he said "Mama" So I guess Lily and I are interchangeable in Maddox's eyes :-)

One day after church he started signing for "more". We had started signing when he was about 7 months, but didn't keep up with it. I'm positive that he saw another little one signing more and getting a snack in the church nursery and he picked that up super quick!

Although he isn't saying much, he is very good at mimicking others. Any kind of noise we'll make he'll copy. He "jumps" (bends his knees and shoots up, no feet off the ground....yet) he does "somersaults" (bends over and puts his head on the ground then stands back up smiling at us waiting for us to clap) He claps when asked it, he does "Boiler Up" (no harm in planting that Purdue seed early!) He does things on a daily basis that crack us up.

I'm a little afraid that the next baby we have I'll be ready for it to grow up and get fun. I have so much fun staying home with Maddox every day and as he gets older he gets more fun and funny.

Piper - 4 days older than Maddox

Jeff's parents dog Lola, we dog sat for 2 weeks. Maddox definitely liked her more than she likes him ;-)

Sharing is caring

First time at the beach!

Dancing

Its been pointed out to me by my husband that I have not updated this blog in awhile...whoops!

Here is a funny video (because I'm lazy and posting a video is easy!)

Warning! You may experience a little dizziness while watching the video ;-)

Camera Dump - April

I've been bad at keeping up with blogging and I have tons of photos that need to be added, so I thought I'd try to do it by month.

First time at the splash pad!

So, I was going to April and May together but there aren't very many April photos....but TONS of May ones! So May will have its own special post :-)

Not Ashamed....

....to admit that we are started the brainwashing early ;-)