Where's Maddy???

Now that Madelyn has lost her umbilical cord, we've had a ton of fun dressing her up in some of her many outfits she's gotten as gifts. For Thanksgiving, we put on this outfit, which has a matching blanket. It's like camoflauge and it's a cute little head with some floating hands!

Big Holiday Doings

It's been a long and fun few days for Maddy with her aunts, uncles and cousins in town for Thanksgiving. She's been a real trooper, especially since the doctor gave her (AND ME!) the go ahead to get out of the house a little more. We've been to lunch, dinner and breakfast .... as well as Thanksgiving dinner and a family portrait.

On Wednesday night, we went over to Maddy's Aunt Berkeley's for dinner. Now, on any normal day, Madelyn loves to be held, especially when sleeping. She was having none of it and promptly sacked out when we simply sat her down on the bed.

Here's a picture of us as a family on Thanksgiving (note how tired I look, the lack of sleep doesn't seem to phase Jim!) ...

Maddy's been a trooper but did finally start melting down yesterday during the family photo shoot. I'm not sure how to explain to her what a good baby she is when the family portrait only has her red faced, mouth open and wailing! We see the pictures next week, but when I got her home, I couldn't help but take a picture before I took her outfit off. It's the first time she's been in a dress.

Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

It's my favorite holiday of the year. Jim and I are extraordinarily blessed and wanted to share a few things we are thankful for:

- A healthy, beautiful daughter who enriches our lives every day.
- We are both thankful for each other and a love that only grows stronger.
- Friends and family who have been so extraordinarily helpful during the past few weeks.
- Fantastic neighbors.
- Great jobs and coworkers we both enjoy.

For everyone in Ohio, we miss you and will miss seeing you this year. We can't wait until next year when Maddy can go to the woods, visit Ohio friends and family and go to the Archbold Parade of Lights. Lots of love from me, Jim and Madelyn!

Healthy Baby

No videos or photos today but I can't wait to get some during the holidays in Maddy's cute outfits. We had our two week check-up for Maddy and the doctor said she is a perfectly healthy baby. She has gained 11 ounces since her birth weight and lost her embilical cord at the doctor's office. He said it was the first time that ever happened!!! She cooed through the whole check-up until they did the screening which involved a needle in her heel. She hollered for that, but promptly stopped once she was rocked to sleep.

Dinosaurs

Before Jim and I found out we were having a girl, we started buying different outfits for the baby. One of the outfits is a little dinosaur onesie in orange and blue. It's really a baby boy's outfit, but I popped a bow in Maddy's hair and put some cute girl socks on and transformed the outfit :)

Jim loves this outfit ....

Videos

I'm not typically one for a product shoutout, but I have to say I love our video camera the Kodak Zi6. It literally took 10 minutes this morning to download our videos and cut several of them for the blog.

Maddy is spending more time awake, cooing and kicking about. We'll work on getting more of her cute moments on video over the next week or so. Here, she is awake in her crib looking pretty darn cute (if I do say so myself!).

Eyes Open!

In the last two days, Maddy has spent more and more time awake during the day. It's been alot of fun as she starts to follow rattles and toys with her eyes and make more and more squeaking noises.

The weather in Dallas is gorgeous. She loves to be outside and in her stroller, we've gone for walks everyday this week. I'm sad that a cold front is moving in and it looks to be in the 50s for some time to come. I've come to love our afternoon walks!

Jim left yesterday for his first overnight trip to Austin. My mom and Aunt Berkeley helped out yesterday and last night with Madelyn. She did very well, I got to nap and sleep (my new reoccuring theme -- how much can I sleep in a day!), but she very much misses her daddy. Here is a cute picture of Maddy helping Daddy work from home last week.

The Dogs

Everyone has asked how Clyde and Lulu have adjusted to having baby Madelyn at home. Lulu is like a protective mom and was gentle and excited to see her from the moment we walked in the door. Clyde, on the other hand, peed all over the carpet when we came in and promptly ignored the baby for about 48 hours.

He's come around though ... he even played with her a bit last night with Jim on the floor. We think he'll really come to love her when she starts dropping food for him!

Hello friends and family. It's day 5 and things are going well for us. Jim stayed up with Maddy last night so I was able to get more than five hours of sleep. Jim is napping now and Maddy is sleeping in her new baby swing.

I've included a link below to Maddy's official baby pictures from the hospital. We ordered prints that arrived todayfor friends and family :) .

I'm hoping to download some cute video snippets of Maddy in the next few days and we want to capture more pictures of her when she's awake!

http://www.growingfamily.com/webnursery/hospitals/Baylor/babypage_view.asp?URLid=4013929464