Baptism Planning - Mark your Calendars!

Matt and I have gotten into gear and are planning Madeline's baptism. Luckily, I'm a fast planner and was able to schedule both the baptism and the luncheon. Invitations will be going out this week, so put it on your calendars!
Here are some new pictures of Madeline. She is such a happy baby!

She is always smiling. She has just recently started laughing
Her expressions are priceless!!

Meeting the Fredendalls

Our cousin JoAnn had a surprise party on March 2nd, and it was the first time the Fredendalls got to meet Madeline. We were so glad that we could make it! It was an hour and a half drive, and Madeline had never been around that many people before, but she didn't cry the entire time (well, she did when she was hungry :) )
Here are a few pictures...

Three Months Old & A Growth Spurt

I don't know where the time has gone, but Madeline is now 3 months old. In the past month, she has grown by leaps and bounds. She is now 15 pounds (last month she was 12 pounds 2 ounces) and she is now 23-1/2 inches long (she's grown 2-1/4 inches). We still can't believe how fast time has flown by, but we're constantly taking pictures.




Madeline is such a happy baby. We are lucky enough that she has slept through the night since she was 8 weeks old. When she wakes up in the morning or from a nap, she doesn't cry. She'll just start talking, and when you say "Good Morning" to her, she is all smiles. She won't even cry when I go downstairs to make her bottle. We are very lucky.

Future Supermodel

She is also doing well at daycare. Pat, our daycare person, says that Madeline doesn't cry there either, she'll just start talking. There is another baby at the daycare, and Pat says she'll put Madeline and the other baby in bouncy chairs facing one another and the two babies will talk to one another. Very cute.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We didn't do much for Valentine's Day...we had a nice steak dinner at home. Here's some pictures of "Daddy's Little Valentine."

(yawn)

Are we done here?

Because She's So Cute...

We bought Madeline one of those Fisher-Price activity mats and she absolutely loves it. She now talks to the dangling toys and swats at them.

We cannot believe how much she's changed in the past 10 weeks! She's getting bigger by the day and she's talking and laughing a ton!

Daycare is a Go!

I dropped Madeline off for her first day of daycare last week, and Madeline faired a lot better than I did! I had training at the steakhouse, and our daycare person, Pat, was nice enough to take Madeline last minute. Of course, there were tears (mainly mine), but Madeline did well. She was at Pat's for a total of 5 hours last week, and she did great. No major crying or reflux issues, so we're doing well.

Pat's house is decked out with all the toys you can think of, and her entire basement has been converted into a child-friendly enviornment. She also has a lot of activities she does with the children. She doesn't let them watch t.v. during the day, and would rather take them to the park than sit in front of a t.v. All in all, we think this is going to work out very well.

The Nursery

Prior to getting pregnant, we used the nursery as a spare bedroom and a place for our cats to escape from the dog. The room was cream in color and pretty boring. Once we found out we were pregnant, we weren’t sure what we wanted to paint in the room, so Vicky found a very very pale ice blue color for the nursery walls. It’s a soothing color, and it was the only color Vicky really liked.

We didn’t want a “cookie cutter” nursery that everyone else had, so Matt came up with the idea to use stencils and create our own wall border instead of using a pre-made border. (We also didn’t want the room overly pink and girly). Vicky went to Michael’s and picked up stencils and different color acrylic paint and spent hours painting the nursery with butterflies, dragonflies, and bumble bees. It took Vicky a little longer because she was about 7 months pregnant when she began the project. We think the results were worth the time and effort.




Madeline still isn’t sleeping in her crib yet (today is the first day she’s taken a nap in her crib for longer than 10 minutes without crying), but she still spends plenty of time in the nursery. Since she still has reflux, she doesn’t want to sleep flat very often so she still sleeps in her swing. Here and there she’s beginning to sleep flat, so we’re taking that as a good sign that the medication is really helping her out.