Finally: We have a One Year Old!!

I have been waiting to post this until I had the words to describe the past year of our lives. The truth is, I still have no words. Madelyn has been the biggest blessing. I really couldn't have asked for a better kid. And she's a kid now. Crazy... Today in particular she got her first hair cut and is walking on her own. I am just speechless. Life is just crazy when I think back to how things were a year ago today. So here's where she is at after one whole year of life.

31 inches, 22 pounds.
Wears 12-18 month clothing.
Can say a number of words. My favorites are "fish", "what's this", "pretty" and "mama" (Josh likes "dad").
Loves her bath time, story time (especially when she reads to herself) and mommy time.
Smiles showing all 7 teeth, one dimple, and eye wrinkles.
Crawls like crazy to the garage door when she knows Josh is home.
Says "Ahhhhh" when she hugs you.
Keeps her mouth open when she kisses you.
She gets so excited about things that she doesn't know what to do. So she shakes her hands and flails her arms.
She is eating four bottles of whole milk along with four "meals" a day. Some days she can't eat enough food. She likes variety, like her dad. Eats everything except chicken though.
Still takes two naps a day. Generally 9-11 and 1-3.
Is extremely imaginative when she plays with her toys.
Plays well with others.
Copies everything mommy does.
Yells at me and tries to climb on me when I am on the phone or computer. I guess she knows...
Pulls Belle's hair and tail on a regular basis. Belle complains but rarely moves.
Plays the piano every night with daddy. And sometimes on her own.
And so much more!

I just can't get enough. She is a dream come true. And God has everything to do with that.

Here is a little photo shoot that we did in her first house and first bedroom. It was a weird day, but the pictures turned out cute.


Here was our family trip to Montana at the beginning of July.


We had a fun birthday party, but I was so busy having fun I forgot to take pictures. So here is her "eating" her cake at her party.




And here is some footage of her walking today. She is so cute!







Love you Mad! Can't wait until the next year!!

11 months- almost one year!!

So I do not have an 11 month picture to show you since Josh is not here to help me take it. I will get one though, next week. She just wants to crawl off the chair and eat the paper. Way too much to handle while taking a photo. But I cannot believe she is almost a year old! The 11 month mark is kind of overshadowed by this fact. And I know I always say it, but time is flying! She is growing up! I know I am going to blink and she will be graduating from college. Wow, I might pass out...

Anyway, we didn't do a ton differently this past month. She is still crawling, EVERYWHERE! I think she is so close to walking too. We will see how long until that happens. Everyone with little kids sees her and tells me so. But I am not buying it some days. She is still very wobbly. She has this little push car that she walks behind, only in straight lines though. Very funny when she hits a dead end. She just stands there waiting for someone to turn her around. Today I just let her stand there just to see how long it would take until she got mad. Surprisingly, it took a long time. Then I just felt mean.

She is feeding herself with a fork and if it the cereal is thick she can get a spoon to her mouth. So that has been fun. Messy, but fun.

She officially has four top teeth and two bottom ones. So I am trying to get her to eat more "real" food. This doesn't work out very often, but I try. However, as you will see in the slide show below, she got a hold of a package of cookies and had no problem opening them up and stuffing them in her mouth. This literally took like two seconds. I guess the girl likes her some cookies. I don't blame her... So b-day cake will be the second sweet snack she will taste.

My favorite things she continues to do is climb stairs and blow kisses. When she climbs stairs her little butt just moves back and forth and she is so happy. I can't help but let her do it. Plus it wears her out! And the other day she was riding in the stroller through the mall blowing kisses to everyone like she was Miss America. It was hilarious. Plus she doesn't understand that the smacking of the lips makes the sound, so she just goes "uhhh" every time she pulls her hand away. Very cute.

Well Little Miss M, your big one year is almost here. I can't wait to celebrate! Love you!!

More milestones...

We finally captured some more milestones on video. Here is a video of her pointing and saying, "Who's that?" We play this game often.

And she is officially crawling. This isn't the best video, but it shows the love between her and daddy. So that is cute.

Pulling herself up on her own:

And trolling around in her walker. This video gets me laughing every time. Love the part where she plays peek a boo. Watch out! I think walking is next... Yikes!

10 Months- Our Perfect Ten

I don't even know where to start. Madelyn is growing up so fast and so much happened this past month. The one thing I do know is that we are very blessed. Madelyn is the happiest baby. I am not even sure what I would do without her some days. Her smile just makes life that much better. And we thank God for that all the time. Here is what she has been up to this past month:

- She started eating finger foods like turkey, cheese, crackers, pasta, pears, bananas, potatoes and peaches.
- We have started transitioning to formula bottles during the day. She doesn't mind this transition at all. I am so lucky!! I can't wait until whole milk though. Formula is pricey...
- She has definitely begun to crawl. However, she does not like to do it. She would much rather scream at us until we pick her up to go walking. She only moves forward crawling if there is a toy or food out of her reach. Once she has achieved her goal. She sits.
- My favorite thing she does is baby yoga. She does plank and down dog all the time. For those of you who do not do yoga, plank is the position you are in when you do a push up and down dog would be on all fours with your butt in the air. So funny when she does those. The girl is strong!
- She went to day care at the gym for the first time. When I went to pick her up the lady said that no matter who was in front of her she just talked to them the whole time. Not sure where she gets that from...
- She is wearing 12-18 month clothing. Yep. Big girl!! Although Josh and I think she is thinning out because her legs rolls are as pronounced any more. See above.
- She is clearly saying "mama" and "dada". She has been doing this for awhile, but now she says them and means us. So now we count it.
- She also says:
"beh" = Belle, our cat. And any other cat she sees.
"nana"= num, num. She does this when she is hungry.
"whah"= what. She does this when the phone rings or she hears a text message.
"dah"= what's that? She does this when she is playing because I always ask her what's that? Or what's this?
- She only really signs "more" when she is eating. Brother... We are working on "please" and "all done".
- The most important thing that happened this past month, she was dedicated to Christ on Mother's Day. A very emotional weekend for Josh and I. All we ever wanted was to be parents. Now we just pray she follows God and his plan for her life.



This video was shot after she pulled herself up for the first time. As you can hear, grandpa was quite excited about it. Although we didn't capture the moment on video, it is fun to see her try.

This video was taken when she went swimming on Mother's Day. We plan on doing this a lot this summer.

We took this video when we were at Brian and Joanna's house. She loves their dogs, Jake and Baxter. She loves playing catch the most!

Happy Mother's Day

We had quite a big weekend. Josh's parents flew in last week, he had his annual band banquet on Saturday, then we had Madelyn dedicated on Mother's Day. I have tons of pictures to post, but I also have a lot work to catch up on. So here's to my moms. I love you all!!

Cheri, Jenni and Madelyn Thye.
My mom, Tammie and my grandma, Darlene. 4 generations!
Grandma Sue holding Miss M before she went for her first swim. More an that later...

Thank you for making me into the woman and mom I am today. I love you all so much. I am glad that I have you in my life!

Twice as old!

Yep. This was as good as it got. See slide show below.

So Madelyn is official as old as she was out of the womb, as she was in the womb. I say it all the time, but I really can't believe it. She is the biggest blessing we have ever known. I just wish she always did what I said, like smile pretty for the camera!! No luck...



April was a fun month! This week Grandma and Grandpa Thye come into town for Mother's Day and Madelyn's baby blessing. More on that to come. I can't wait for them to see how much she has grown. She is still not crawling, but she is so close. Maybe she will finally do it while they are here. Although I am not sure I REALLY want that.

Love you Mad!!

M at the park this spring.

So our new favorite thing to do is go to the park. Now that it is getting too hot to do this, I was reminiscing about the fun stuff we have done this past spring. I can't wait until it cools off again!

We met my friend Bethy and her little girls Ella and Sophie at the train park for lunch. It was a little nutty (and windy of course), but so fun!




Those pictures just make me laugh!


We also went to watch daddy and his bands play at the TCA. It was a Music Under the Stars concert. She is starting to be that kid that yells "da da". So these are the only concerts we can go to for awhile.



We might try and hit the park a few more times, but I am pretty sure we will start heading to the pool soon!