hooking her tongue

6 second video for posterity. Maddie has always liked to stick out her tongue and now she is hooking it up at the corner of her mouth.

Fun with cousins

Starts with pushing....

Turns into chasing.

Madeline is on the move

Last week Madeline started army crawling! She would reach as far as she could, get up on all fours, and basically squirm to inch forward. This week she's been hard at work perfecting her army crawl. She hasn't figured out the traditional crawling on hands and knees, but I know we will be there soon.

She's having fun with her new found mobility and all the opportunities it opens up for her! And of course, Joseph is less than enthusiastic that she now can reach his toys. :)

I scream, you scream, Maddie screams for ice cream!

Updating our walls

Back in January, when Madeline was about 4 months old, I took advantage of the fact that Jill still has the same green blanket that Lisa used out in Phoenix during Joseph's 4 month photos, and opted to try and replicate the poses with Madeline. Jill's new walls, pre painting, were a bit darker, but Joe and I worked hard and after about 300 pictures, managed to find a few (ok, more than a few) that were really cute. Lisa helped us out again by photoshopping out an outlet and cords in the background and touching up Maddie's skin, and I finally got around to having a few of the pictures enlarged and printed.

The picture below is Joseph (he's on the right in the above picture) at 4 months.

And Madeline's 4 month picture - they definitely look a lot alike! It's almost weird now, when I glance up at the picture, because we chose one of her that was so similar to Joseph, so I have to remind myself that it's her, not him in both frames.

Hooray for finally showing Madeline some love in the living room! I think she now has just as many pictures hanging and on display around the house as Joseph!

First official trip to the dentist

Yesterday was Joseph's first trip to the dentist! I wasn't sure how the visit was going to go, especially after being diagnosed with a double ear infection the night before, and his hives still going strong. Poor kid. I swear, it was kind of like a page out of Finding Nemo, though - we walked into the office, he spotted their giant salt water fish tank and was immediately thrilled with being there!

The hygenist did a great job of explaning the tools she was using and letting Joseph hold/try them before she started to clean his teeth. He didn't want to lay all the way back, so she just did the cleaning with him sitting most of the way upright.

 

Joseph was "in charge" of using the suction device, which he thought was pretty cool. The whole visit lasted about 15 minutes, with the dentist's reassurance that everything looks great! So glad we've gotten this milestone out of the way and that Joseph was so cooperative!

Madeline's 6 month professional photo session

The weekend of Maddie's 6 month birthday we took her back to Sarah Swade, the photographer who did her newborn photos. Maddie acted quite a bit like how Joseph did at his 6 month session - all serious, and cracking very few smiles.

At least she's cute enough to eat even when she's not smiling! I'm posting these pictures, b/c they are the ones I liked the best from the session. Lots of favorites!

I had to stick this picture in, as when I was looking at the photos from Sarah and got to this section, I immediately had deja vu back to Joseph's 6 month pictures. Yeah, there's no denying these two are siblings!

We saw a picture online of a baby about Madeline's age sitting in a field wearing bunny ears and a fluffy cotton tail. Since it was right before Easter, we opted to try a few of her naked baby pics with the ears. I'm so glad we did, as these turned out so cute!

We love our little miss Madeline and all of her crazy personality!

Maddie clapping and 7 "sharing"

Practice makes... Not so perfect

This week we are babysitting Mason while Ashley and Mikael are relaxing on the beaches in Mexico. I'm not the slightest bit jealous at all ;). They are coming back tomorrow night, and I will probably celebrate by going to bed early and hopefully sleeping in... Till at least 6:30am. Or 7.

It's been fun seeing what our future might be like with 3 kids. On Sunday and Monday I had some déjà vu back to the first days of Maddie coming home and not feeling like I had anything under control. Last night I graduated to giving all 3 kids a bath solo, and no one drowned! I wish we all were healthy and the weather were nicer, so we could get out and play more. But regardless, I can say the week has taught me that yes, I still want to have more kids, but I really hope those twin genes stay über recessive and don't grace our family! Two babies almost the same age is really difficult! It seems like one of them is always fussing about something. But at least only one is mobile, thank goodness!

I have lots of blog updating to do- maybe I'll get to it tonight after the kids are in bed. Then again, don't hold your breath!