7 Months

So all day yesterday I kept thinking, tomorrow Maddox is 7 months old! Only today did I realize that yesterday he was actually 7 months old. Whoops!

We had to go to the doctor yesterday for his second round of the flu shot. He's gained over 2.5 pounds since his 6 month appointment, yay! We have our first case of diaper rash, boo, but it had already mostly cleared up by our appointment yesterday and today he looks even better.

- Not crawling yet, but, he does get himself into the crawling position quite frequently. 

- He is squealing, a lot! Not babbling too much yet, but lots of screams. 

- Still loves his excersaucer. He plays in it a lot everyday. He got a new walking toy for Christmas, its one that he can play with sitting down as well, and he loves it! He has a huge smile on his face while he plays with it. 

- Still loving his Lily Belle. He wants to pet her, and she obliges most of the time. He does get a little annoyed when she licks him in the face too much, but he puts up with it for the most part.

- Sitting up like a champ. I still put the bobby pillow behind him, just in case, and he actually likes to lay back on it and play with his feet.

- He's kind of got himself on a nap schedule. Naps at 9am, 1pm, then a little nap between 5 & 6. He's happier, I'm happier, its pretty awesome.

- Sleeping through the night again! Whoo hoo! We still have a night here and there where he wakes up, but most of the time he's going to bed 7:30/8 and sleeping until 7:30/8.

- We moved his small bathtub to our big bathtub and he loves, loves, loves playing in the bath! He splashes and plays with his toys. Uncle Chris got him a few new bath toys, one of them blow bubbles. Needless to say, it takes all the willpower that Lily has not to jump in that tub and get those bubbles. But she does a good job and stands by the tub and catches as many as she can :-)

- He's starting having "snack time" I feel like he's growing up too fast! My little boy is eating snacks!!! At our last doctor visit he said we could start giving him puffs and yogurt melts. We were already giving him Mum Mum crackers here and there. He LOVES the puffs! I think he really loves feeding himself more than anything. But we love it too because it actually gives us time to eat while he eats his puffs. He is such a quick learner, in the beginning it was tough for him to figure out he had to open his hand to get the puff in his mouth, but now before I know it he's finished all that were on his tray and wants more.

- We've started sign language, and by started I mean like yesterday. They say that 7/8 months is a good time to start, and it will be most likely at least 10 weeks before you see any signing back from them. So far we've been using sings for more, mommy, daddy, all gone and milk.

Those are all the updates I can think of at the moment! Here are his 7 month photos. 

Christmas Tree Farm

We visited the Christmas tree farm this past weekend! No, we did not cut down a tree, we just used the farm as a backdrop for photos :-)

It was actually pretty chilly that day, and we felt like pretty bad parents for not bringing a jacket for Maddox. In our defense it was much cooler at the farm than at our house. Also, he had on long sleeves under his flannel shirt, so honestly I think he may have been the warmest one of all!

In case you missed it....

Here are some photos from Maddox's 6 month photos

Here is Maddox visiting Santa!

A Day in the Life of Maddox....2nd Edition

You may remember that I did a day in the life of Maddox when he was a month or two old (I could go back and link to it, but I'm just too lazy to look for it) And I thought it was about time that I did another one!

Funny enough, the day that I finally remembered to start taking photos at the beginning of the day our friends Darci and Jackson came over. While they were over Darci mentioned that a friend of hers had done "a day in the life" blog post and she was going to do one too and had been taking photos all day. I swear, I think that we may have been separated at birth, its just too freaky how similar our families are :-)

So here we go!

Good morning! (We didn't get a shot FIRST thing, I don't think that would have gone over too well with Mr. Grumpy Hungry)

Getting some b-fast with Daddy

Time to play (and wake up some more)

Oh, what is that? Its time for Maddox to eat!....again!

Yummy squash! I promise he does actually like it, this pissed off look is because I stopped feeding him to take this picture.

Hey! Where'd MD go?

I'm taking a snoozer ;-)

Up from my nap! Ready to P-L-A-Y!!!

Look who came to visit! My BFF Jackson!

Seriously dude, our Mom's totally suck....

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Jackson, my Mom sucks more than your Mom. She keeps taking me to the park and trying to take pictures of me....ugh!

I'll show her what I think of that!

Seriously worn out....

What's that?? Lily wants to play?!?!

Lily left us...I guess I'll just play by myself....naked. Don't worry Granny, it was warm in our house that day.

Time to eat! Holla back, I love peas!

One of my favorite times of the day! Bath time! I just learned how to splash, splash, splash and it is fun, fun, fun! My Mom keeps talking about moving me to the bathtub, whatever that means.

What is this? I'm happy getting out of the bath? That never happens, Mom must have been super funny that night or something.

Mom, I'm so not ready to go to sleep. I'm ready to PARTY!!

I guess I'll go to bed anyways...Night!

'til next time....

6 Months

Well! Maddox is already 6.5 months old and I'm just now getting around to this post. I've been so busy with my photography business! Its a very good thing and I'm very blessed, but it doesn't leave me much free time to do much else.

We had Maddox's 6 month appointment a couple of weeks ago. First thing, he was down a few ounces from his 4 month appoitment. Last I heard babies are supposed to GAIN weight not lose it! He had been sick in between there and he was up from what his weight dropped down to while he was sick, but he still should have been higher. Turns out the poor thing was hungry. For some reason, and I'm guessing its because I was not eating or drinking enough, my milk production had slowed down and I'm just not able to keep up with what he needs. To say that I feel like the worst mother of the year would be an understatement. The doctor wasn't too concerned and he said it was totally up to me if I wanted to supplement with formula. He told me to add another meal of solids in and that would help. After stressing about it non stop for a few days I finally decided that we would just start supplementing. He's taking about 10-16 ounces of formula a day, a few days its been more and some days its less. And it really has made such a difference. He is so much happier now, he's like his old self again. He's still not doing a great job of sleeping through the night, but the doctor also said he's getting his bottom teeth so I'm sure that doesn't help!

Other than the fact that I was starving him, he looks great in every other way, thank goodness! He got his vaccines and his flu shot like an old pro. His height is right on track (25.5 in)

So, highlights of the new things he's doing:

- Sitting up like a champ! I can definitely leave him on the floor to play with toys and he's fine. I still put the bobby pillow behind him in case he tips back, and sometimes I think he does it on purpose just to recline.

- When he does tummy time he pushes himself backwards. He will scoot to the side sometimes too, and he can spin all the way around on his belly. I'm sure it won't be too long before he's crawling and I'll be thinking "Why did I want him to crawl?!?"

- He's had so many different foods: 

Liked - butternut squash, acorn squash, pears, sweet potatoes, green peas, apples 

Disliked: avocado, zucchini

Jury is still out: bananas (he liked them pureed with apples), peaches (he eats them but makes a funny face while doing so)

- His first Thanksgiving was a success. Jeff's grandmother and aunt were in town to celebrate with us. He had sweet potatoes as his Thanksgiving dinner and he stole the show (pretty much the entire time)

- He loves to give big, wet, slobbery kisses. He likes to pull hair, noses, ears, whatever he can get his little hands on.

- He definitely knows his Mommy and Daddy and is not too big of a fan if he doesn't see at least one of us.

- I made the mistake of letting him drink a little out of my cup one day and now whenever you're holding him and have a drink in your hand he wants a drink of it.

- Its becoming pretty near impossible to eat with him in my lap anymore. He tries to grab anything and everything and when I eat he just cries for whatever it is I have. So at home I have him on one side crying for my food and Lily on the other side begging for my food. Once he starts eating our food it might be the best diet ever, because I'm pretty sure I'm never going to get to eat anything ever again!

There is plenty more going on in our lives I just can't think of it to write it down! We have lots of Christmas fun coming up. A visit from Amanda, Eric and Layla this weekend to Christmas movie marathons and cookie baking. We get to see SANTA this Saturday (who has already been to our house, cause we're so special!) We have a family date with our friends the White's to go to the Christmas tree farm next weekend, we're also planning on seeing a Christmas play this year as well as go to a tree lighting. Our little family Christmas will be on the 17th before we all hit the road (and air!) for Indiana to celebrate the holidays with my family!  And so we'll have something to look forward to after Christmas, Ice Skating at Discovery Green. Whew, I'm kind of tired after just writing that!

I will leave you with photos, because I know thats what you come here for anyways :-)

As you can see its getting a little harder to get the photos with the blocks...because someone doesn't want to leave the blocks alone!

The first 6 months of Maddox

Just Keep Swinging

Recently we were out on a walk with another Mom and her little girl, Lucy, who is almost 2. Lucy loves to "wee!" (swing) so we stopped at the park. While Lucy was swinging Shana (her Mom) asked if I'd ever put Maddox in the swings, I hadn't, so I tried it. And he LOVED it! He was giggling and smiling. And I totally understand why Lucy says she wants "to wee" because as soon as I got Maddox in that swing my natural instinct was to go "Weee!!"

I didn't have my phone with me that day, but a few days later Maddox and I went to the park by our house and played again.

P.S. I really need to learn to STOP talking while I take video :-)

Eating

So we've graduated from rice and oatmeal cereal to actual foods! I decided I'm going to make all his food, because really, why not? I started out with squash and he loved it! I basically had nothing to wipe off his face because he wanted to eat every last bit of that delicious squash. I've been following the 4 day rule, so we waited 4 days to introduce a new food and I decided to try avocado. 

Here is the results...

He's not a fan....

But we moved on to peas and he loves those!!!!