Tonight
I am cooking split pea soup for dinner. It is the first time I have
ever attempted split pea soup and I am very nervous about it. It smells
good simmering on the stove, so hopefully it all turns out well. I
love the crisp weather we have been enjoying cause it gets me in the
mood to make soup, and that is always fun. I am also making dessert
tonight which is not normal in our family.....peach cobbler. And, it's
gonna be from scratch! I don't know why I keep blogging about food,
other than the fact that I am pregnant and it makes me super excited
about the food that I cook and consequently EAT!! Maddie
is doing well. I need to take some time and write a little blog about
her. She is getting so big.....today Dan and I took her to the park,
and she figured out how to climb the stairs of the play structure on her
own, without getting down on her knees. She just held onto the lower
part of the railing and walked up the stairs one by one. It was really
amazing to watch, and after she figured that out, she didn't want to
have anything to do with us helping her up the stairs. I often look at
her and forget that she is only 14 months old. She is so big in size
and she just acts like such a grown up girl. There is a little boy
who's parents are in our bible study and he is 2 weeks older than
Maddie, and he looks and acts like he is at least 3 months younger than
Maddie. Everyone was shocked to find out that she was actually younger
than him. Weird. Well, I better be off, soups almost on, and I have a
baby to get ready for bed. Here's a couple pics of what Maddie likes to
do while Mama is busy cooking dinner!
I
think I have the flu. And I think that Maddie has whatever I have
because we are a sad couple of ladies. I honestly haven't had more than
a cold for years!! I had a fever last night and was hot but had the
chills at the same time, I also feel horribly achy and have had a
non-stop headache. I got very little sleep last night because I was so
hot, and poor Dan had to deal with the window being open for his
pregnant sick wife when it was in the 30's.....he froze. lol When I
got Maddie up this morning I was very light headed and felt like I was
going to pass out. I've
been trying to rest as much as possible today, but that isn't so easy
with a sickie poo toddler to take care of. Dan came home from work a
bit early and is currently making me home made chicken noodle soup. It
smells delicious and I can't wait till it is done. My hubby is the
best! I just hope I wake up tomorrow and feel 100% better cause being
sick sucks.
I
was lying on the couch this morning with Maddie watching our wake up
cartoons and something moving near the entertainment center catches my
eyes. Yup, that's right.....we freaking fracking have mice again! I
HATE mice, loathe them, despise them. They creep me out in a way that
not much else does. So, I watch this little mouse scurry around the
speaker in our living room, around the corner and into the kitchen where
I lost his trail since I was snuggling with my daughter and also frozen
in fear! lol I
was telling Dan the other day that I thought I saw a mouse run across
our bedroom floor while I was going potty, and I think that Tyson saw it
too, because his eyes followed exactly where mine did and then he
continued to stare off to one side of the room where I couldn't see from
my seat on the throne. So, not only is the little bugger in my living
room and kitchen, but he and maybe more of his nasty little mouse
relatives are in my bed room too! And on another note, why don't my
dogs chase after them? Why don't they at least try and protect me from
the evil mice? Tyson seriously just stood there like.....hey, there
goes a mouse......weird. Stupid dog. He should at least bark at the
mouse! It's an intruder. I
just really feel like my house is contaminated now. I have no idea
what the mice are getting into, but I know that Maddie gets into
everything and the thought of mouse poops and peeps and my daughter
anywhere near it makes me sick. Also, knowing that there is for sure a
mouse in the house I can not relax. I scan the floor of every room I go
into every time. I have a mini panic attack when I open cabinets
wondering if a mouse is going to jump out at me, and like eat my face or
something. I know these fears are irrational, but I really really hate
mice and I can't help but get a tad hysterical. The getting rid of the
mice isn't any better a scenerio. Dan sets traps which snap their
little necks and cause them the leak their inner goo and blood which is
so not sanitary in any way. I really hate this. I never had even one
mouse when I lived in CA.....is that because I lived in the city and not
out in the middle of nowhere country town? We need to MOVE!!!! Waa
aaa aaa, Waaaa aa. Not my mouse, but still an EVIL MOUSE!!
Last
night I took advantage of the fact that it is fall-ish and made a yummy
pumpkin coconut curry for dinner. It was a little bit spicy, so for
those of you who do not like the spice I would reccomend staying away
from this dish, but I thought it was FAN-freakin-TASTIC! It is always
nice to take advantage of seasonal produce! So.....here's the info!
INGREDIENTS 2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into small chunks 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 (2 pound) sugar pumpkin -- peeled, seeded and cubed 1 tablespoon butter 1 onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, chopped 1 (1 inch) piece fresh ginger root, finely chopped 1 tablespoon ground coriander 1 tablespoon ground cumin 1 tablespoon ground curry powder 1 pinch ground turmeric 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes 1 can coconut milk 1 1/2 cups chicken broth salt to taste DIRECTIONS Season
the chicken pieces with poultry seasoning and set aside. Heat the olive
oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add chicken to the skillet;
cook and stir until browned on the outside and cooked through. Remove
from the heat and set aside.
Melt
the butter in a separate skillet over medium heat. Add onion, garlic
and ginger; cook and stir until onion is transparent. Season with
curry, coriander, cumin, turmeric, and red pepper flakes. Continue to
cook and stir until spices are fragrant. Add pumpkin, cooked chicken,
coconut milk and chicken broth. Season with salt to taste. Cook for 15
to 20 minutes over medium heat. Serve over rice or noodles.
My
husband has returned home from his fishing trip up north. He was gone 5
days and we missed him terribly! I would have rather him come home
without snot drippin from his nose (thanks Chris) but he is home and I
am happy! I guess it was a tough time for trout fishing due to the
weather being too warm, or the area being too crowed......not quite sure
what the deal was, but they caught 3 trout and were given one by a dude
that only catches them and doesn't eat them. Weird. So we currently
have 2 trout cut up and in our freezer, we also have 40 pounds of
boneless skinless chicken breasts, 10 pounds of Italian hot sausage, 10
pounds of chicken legs on the bone, 5 pounds of provolone cheese 10
pounds of red and white potatoes and 2 bags of homemade sauerkraut
perogies. There is a farm up in Erie, PA that sells meat and such
really really cheap so we stock up on things that will keep for a
while. My freezer has never been this full of meat; ever! Guess what
we're having for dinner tonight? Can you say trout? Yumm. If anyone
wants to come over for dinner, we'll be having chicken for the next 2
months! lol.
Yesterday
Maddie and I went to a local farm here in Smithfield and had a jolly
time feeding goats, seeing baby pigs and cows, playing in a corn maze,
picking pumpkins and going on a hay ride! We had a fun time although
Maddie seemed more interested in the bottle of hand sanitizer than the
goats, and she was more interested in playing with the millet than
choosing a pumpkin. I think that next year might be more sucessful when
she is more aware of how fun animals are, and how boring hand sanitizer
is. But it was nice to get out of the house and in the sunshine and I
had been looking forward to this little trip for a few weeks now.
Photographic evidence is below. And yes, my little elf named Maddie had
taken my camera battery and stashed it in a very safe place......under
the couch. Stinker! lol
I
woke up this morning.....well Maddie woke me up this morning at 7:30
and it looked like it was still dark outside. I peered out the blinds
and saw that it was drizzling and wet. We get up, I get Maddie her
milk, put on cartoons.....we need them to get our butts in gear. After a
little while I look out our back door to see if the weather is clearing
up and can't help but notice that our entire backyard is COVERED with
black birds. They were everywhere. I have no idea where they came from
or what they were doing in our backyard, but they were there, and there
were seriously like 300 of them. I held Maddie up so that she could
look at the birds and we just watched them for a little while. They
were pecking at the ground which is weird because our soil is horrible
so who knows what they were getting down there. Then I got the genius
idea to let the dogs out to chase all the birds away. Tyson and Henry
were more than happy to run after birds and Maddie and I got to watch
300 black birds flying off to our neighbors yard. The dogs are still
out there to defend our land, but why on earth do you think so many
black birds decided to come over to our house? WEIRD!!! Oh,
I was going to take a picture of all the birds in our backyard but my
camera battery is missing. It was on the charger yesterday and this
morning it has mysterously disapeared. I think a little elf took it.
Sorry, no photographic evidence of the massive amount of birds......but
they were really there, I promise!
Last
night I made my first ever homemade soup. I've been wishing that the
weather was fall like instead of in the mid eightys so I decided that
making some soup might bring on the chill. It didn't work......it was
still warm today phooey, but the soup was delicious and I am really
proud of my first soup attempt turning out so well. It
was an Itlaian sausage soup with tortellini. It also had zuchinni,
onion, carrots, spinach, tomatoes and fresh basil and parsley. I used
fresh whole wheat cheese toretllini which I think was a good call. Now I
have a huge vat of home made soup and I'm all by myself this
weekend. Anyone wanna come over for some soup?
I
know that it's been a long time since I've blogged, but honestly, I am
too tired to do it.....that is when I'm not feeling nauseous which
usually lasts at least half the day. No throwing up, but that gross
feeling like my stomach is going to implode. So between that loveliness
and feeling like I am going to fall asleep standing up almost all day, I
don't have the time to blog. Oh, and I have a 1 year old to take care
of too.....and a husband to cook for, and a house to keep at least semi
clean. You catch my drift. This
morning we had the wonderful opportunity to get up at 4:15 am. Maddie
woke up burning up with a fever over 100 degrees and not wanting to have
anything to do with sleep. Not even in our bed. She head butted me a
few times, kicked me repeatedly and almost crawled herself right off the
side of the bed. I figured it would be better to get up than deal with
the abuse, so needless to say it has been a LONG day so far. I don't
know why she has the fever, but she doesn't have any sickie symptoms, so
I'm going to guess that it has something to do with this last molar she
is trying to cut. Her spirits seems totally fine after she took a
morning nap, but you should have seen her this morning, she looked like a
zombie. It was pretty funny. But not as funny as the fact that I will
look like a zombie for the rest of the day because of my early casting
call. I'm
going to try harder to blog more, both for my faithful readers (thanks
mom and dad schultz) and for myself. We have had lots going on in our
family that would be fun to blog about, and Maddie is growing faster
than a weed. She can actually reach up and grab things off our kitchen
counters now. Lovely! Such a big girl. Dan is going fishing this
weekend, so maybe I'll use some of my evening alone time to blog. But
maybe I'll just read and go to bed early. Can't guarentee what kind of
excietment might happen in the Schultz house! Happy Wednesday and very early mornings!
So
this morning we get up, putz around, drink coffee. I made some
oatmeal, the baby had some blue berry muffin pieces. We decided that we
needed to go to Lowe's to get a new set of keys made for the front
door. While there we looked at all the Christmas stuff on display....I
LOVED it all! We drove through Hardee's (Carl's Jr. for you West
Coasters) and then drove around a neighborhood looking at pretty old
houses. We get home, put the baby down for her nap, Dan played on the
computer, I watch some TV off the DVR. Around 1:20 we get a call from
Dan's mom wishing us a happy anniversary. Huh? Well DUH!!!! Today is
totally our anniversary! lol I have no idea how we could have
forgotten other than the fact that we have so much going on in our
lives, but seriously.....we forgot our anniversary! Now I could
understand if it had been a long time since we got married, but this is
only our second anniversary, and we should have remembered. Oh well.
We ended up going out to dinner to a Chinese place and our friends
watched Maddie for a while. It was a nice makeshift anniversary
celebration. I am currently so tired I keep making typing errors and
really stupid ones at that, so I need to go to bed. It's funny though
that last year on our anniversary we had a 3 week old and this year on
our anniversary I am pregnant! Yep, for those who didn't know..... I AM PREGNANT!!! Goodnight.
My
poor darling daughter is getting in 4 molars! When is the insanity of
teething ever going to end? I thought it would get better eventually
but it has gotten significantly worse as each tooth rears it's ugly
head! Maddie is pooping fire. Not literally, but it might as well be.
I guess the acid level in her saliva gets much higher when cutting
teeth and molars are really difficult to cut. The result is that she
swallows all of this acid/fire saliva and then poops it out eventually,
which results in the skin on her bum looking like it has caught on
fire. I can not keep up with it. She is pooping like 6-7 times a day,
but it's just little bits and mostly liquid and it is destroying her
bum. She now screams bloody murder when she needs her diaper changed
and I don't blame her in the slightest. Her poor little bum looks like
raw hamburger meat and it's starting to bleed. I've been letting her
run around without a diaper for short periods of time for the past
couple of days and just clean up the peeps when she makes it on the
floor, but today she did a big messy diarreha all over her play area and
that put an end to the pants free-ness. I tried using a "cloth diaper"
today and I think that it lets more air circulate to her bum, but I
have to change her like every 30 minutes or so. When I say "cloth
diaper" I mean I am using one of those burp rags that look like cloth
diapers and safety pinning the sides so that it will stay on. It is
totally impratical to do anything but stay at home while she is wearing
one of these makeshift cloth diapers because they absorb like nothing
and need to be changed OFTEN.....so we are house bound. She has a
normal diaper on tonight while she sleeps and about a gallon of Desitin
extra strength night time formula on her bum, and hopefully it will look
better tomorrow. I'm going to continue to cloth diaper tomorrow so
that air gets to the bum, but she isn't free to poop on my floors, and
if I can't get in under control a little better I am going to take her
to the Dr. and get this burn victim cream that our friend Gary told us
about that we can use to heal her poor hanburger meat bum. I feel so
horrible for Maddie.....not only is she dealing with teething, but her
tummy is all in an uproar because of the acid, and her butt looks like
it has caught fire and I know that it is ridiculously painful! Please
keep us in your thoughts! She has been in a foul mood (totally
understandable) and I really want her bum to heal and for these teeth to
just break through already!
The big birthday party extravanza
was this weekend and it went beautifully! We had a few less people than
we were expecting, but 13 adults and 6 kids is plenty. I still can't
get over how in this day and age with as much technology as we have,
that people still don't take a minute to RSVP and let us know that they
aren't coming......telephone, email, myspace comment, fax, text message,
courier pidgeon. Amazing. All in all it was a wonderful day and
we have a lot of left overs....mmmm.......tortellini salad and
sandwiches! Maddie had a good time playing with the other kids, she
hated the fantastic birthday hat that I got her, LOVED gorging herself
on cake and didn't really know what to make of the present opening. She
got a lot of wonderful gifts, and I now have no idea where to put it
all. I finally got organized with what we had pre-birthday and had a
spot for everything, but now with more toys, I really don't know where I
am going to put them all. What a spoiled little monkey! lol....I'm
kidding.....kinda! It was really nice that most of Dan's
family was able to make it, although I wish they could have stayed
longer, but everyone lives so far away. boo. My mom flew in last
Thursday and was here for the birthday party and she flew home today. I
liked having her here, and the 5 day visit was a good amount of
time.....not long enough to drive me crazy! lol. It's funny though, my
mom wears this plumeria perfume from Hawaii and EVERYTHING in my house
still smells like it, including my daughter. I kinda like it! It feels
like she is still here even when she isn't.....I don't think the
perfume will stick around long what with poopie diapers and dogs, but it
was nice to have it lingering for today! I am super exhausted because I got like
2 hours of sleep last night.....couldn't tell ya why! Attack of the
lame sleeping problems! Hopefully tonight will be a different story and
I will slumber like a hibernating bear! I have a new photo slide show
on my page in honor of Maddie's birthday tomorrow. Check it out and see
how much my baby has changed over this year! We don't have much planned for the real
birthday tomorrow, mostly just hanging out as a family, but Dan is
taking Maddie on a date in the afternoon for lunch and maybe ice cream!
He is going to get dressed up, and I'm gonna pick out a cute dress for
Maddie and they are going to spend some special Daddy/Maddie time. We
may have cake again tomorrow evening since we have a LOT of left over
from the party this past weekend! Fun fun. Pictures are below! Enjoy. eating her lunch Maddie's own little cake to devour! Aunt Hannah and Uncle Kellen opening presents she got a spoon and fork set.....she is trying to eat the spoon through the package! lol the bows seemed to be more exciting than the actual present! I think it's cute how little kids congregate for present opening! she did NOT like this hat!
I
was rocking Maddie to sleep last night and she was wrapped around me
with her head on my chest and I felt so overwhelmed with love for her I
thought my heart was going to explode. There aren't enough words to
explain what I feel for my baby girl. It's a love that is
immeasurable. Sitting there rocking her my thoughts drifted off to my
own mother. I haven't thought about her in a really long
time.....really since I was still pregnant. If I have this much
love for my almost 1 year old how must she have felt for me? How
impossible it must have felt to give up a 4 year old. I put myself in
the situation (in my mind) and tried to fathom giving Maddie up right
now after just a year. This baby that I carried in my belly for 9
months, this perfect baby that I went through the worst pain I have ever
endured to bring into this world, my child who I have watched grow and
learn to talk and walk and who melts my heart on a daily
basis....Maddie. There's just no way! There is no way that I can even
imagine giving her away. For
most of my life I have thought of my mother from the perspective of a
child, she abandoned me, she didn't want me, she was irresponsible.....I
wanted to punnish her somehow. Maybe by being a success (in
comparrison to her) I would show her!! Not that she would ever see me
as an adult, but I felt inside of me.....I'm better, I made good
choices, I didn't get pregnant at 14, I didn't go from home to home
staying on people's couches, I didn't put my kid in foster care, I
didn't have to give a child up for adoption......I'm better.....I'm a
sucess. I remember my 15th birthday, I mentally had a celebration
because I had passed her.....I wasn't irresponsible, I hadn't gotten
myself pregnant, I was better than her! How
different the view is on this side of motherhood. I still feel like she
acted irresponsibly in her life, but really who doesn't? Her
consequenses were just a lot more severe than the ones I lived through
for my bad choices in life. I can't imagine being a child (14) and
finding out there is a baby on the way. How much easier would it have
been for her to have an abortion? Her life would have continued on the
same as it was, but instead of taking the easy way out, she chose to
carry me in her belly, and go through labor and do her damndest to keep
me. How scary life must have been with an infant and no place to live.
Imagine a 14 year old trying to juggle a baby and employment with no
husband, no home, no support. It must have been so hard.....harder than
anything I have been though. I can imagine how empty she must have
felt during the times that I was in foster care, missing her baby but
maybe also feeling the smallest bit of relief way down deep inside
because it was just too hard trying to keep me. And the ultimate
decision to give me up for adoption......I wonder how much she cried
coming to that decision? How do you say goodbye to a child that you
have raised for 4 years? How do you tell her that you aren't going to
see her again? How do you explain that? How? How does your life not
end? Having a baby of my own and understanding the love a mother has
for her child, I can see the sacrafice that my own mother made. I can
see how painful that must have been for her......just thinking about
it has me sobbing. After last night, I feel like I see my mother in a
whole new light. That I have let go all of the resentment that I had
been carrying for all of these years. Because no matter how much hurt I
may have felt, I know that it pales in comparrison to what she had to go through giving me away. I'm
so grateful that I don't have to deal with a situation like
that....with a decision like that. I am so blessed that I get to stay
home every day with my daughter and watch her grown up. I get to teach
her and learn from her and every morning I get to see her smiling face
and I get to kiss her chubby cheeks all throughout the day.I am so blessed!
This
is a big weekend for me! Dan is getting off work early today and
loading up the car and heading out to Charlotte to visit his parents.
The big-ness is that he is taking Maddie with him, and I am staying
home. Thats right folks.....for the first time in over a year I have an
entire weekend to myself! I have mixed emotions about this event, I am
over the moon with excietment about sleeping in and lying around and
reading and taking a bath and paitning my toes and going to bed late
without any regrets the next morning, but I am also a little bit sad and
nervous about not seeing Maddie all weekend! Even when we have a
terrible day, I still love hugging and kissing and snuggling my baby and
I don't know how it is going to feel for the first time ever not to do
that for 48 hours. I really think that I am going to miss her to
death! I'll miss Dan too by the way, but I'm used to being apart from
him for periods of time.....not Maddie! I'm going try my best not to
think about missing her, and really enjoy my time off! I don't know
when I will have an opportunity to have alone time again and I want to
enjoy it to the best of my ability! So, if you call my house or cell
phone this weekend and I don't answer, it's probably because I am
soaking in the tub, or better yet taking a nice long nap! Enjoy your
weekend......I know I will!
It's
been a little while since I have blogged. Life as usual has been
busy. Maddie is dealing with a bit of a cold.....or at least some kind
of illness, she has a runny nose and has been coughing a bit but she
also has the runs (sorry if that was TMI) and a little bit of a fever.
I'm not quite sure what the matter is, but she has been a little
irritable and clingy and that makes blogging time, or any other personal
time pretty nonexistant. She
is walking up a strom. She does not crawl anymore. Such a big girl. I
can't believe how fast she has mastered walking. She still falls a
lot, but her balance is so much better and she can handle the
differences in floors better.....like the change from carpet to hard
wood and back again. She isn't really getting into things much more
than she was when she was crawling which makes me happy, but that seems
to be a big question that people ask now that she is a walker. I have
been letting her walk a lot more when we go to the store and she has
learned the game of run away from Mama which most of the time I enjoy,
but it does get old when I am in a hurry! She walk/runs away from me
and I chase/walk after her saying Mama's gonna get you, and she squeals
with laughter until I scoop her up and spin her around......and then we
do it all over again! Fun game, I highly reccomend it! We
have boo boos a plenty with a walkin' gal. Yesterday Maddie was
playing with a bowl that she got out of the cabinet herself and fell
down and somehow managed to bit her tounge......there was SO much blood
it really freaked Dan and I out. She has two little teeth sized
puncture holes in her tounge now and although it seems to be healing
just fine, it was a huge scare and made me really sad that I couldn't
protect her from that. It also worries me of what the boo boos are to
come. I have a feeling it just gets worse, (I've been told MANY stories
that include my darling husband and bloody limbs) and that I am in
store for some big scares in the lifetime of my children. We
have become a multi-lingual family. Maddie is doing so great at sign
language which forces Dan and I to continue learning new words that we
can teach her. She has about 10-15 signs now. She knows book, juice,
milk, ball, light, eat, cracker, paci, dog and we worked on rain today
because we had a huge rain storm. It is truly amazing how fast babies
pick sign language up, and how wonderful it is that we can communicate
with her. She can let us know when she is interested in something, and
that opens so many doors for us to teach her new signs, and talk with
her about what her interests are. I am so glad that we decided to go
the sign language route.....we were a little skeptical about it, but my
sister in law Angela helped to convince of how useful it is, so thank
you to her!!! Plus it is absolutely adorable to watch Maddie use her
little hands to communicate! Can you think of anything cuter? I didn't
think so! lol. I
am super excited because we have discovered the LIBRARY!! I have never
really lived in one place long enough to take advantage of the public
library, but a friend of ours reccomended the Smithfield library and I
must say that it is a really good one! They have story time for kids 2
and under every Friday that we are going to start attending regularly
and they have a HUGE kids section that has little table and chairs, and a
club house and they even have board books that you can check out for
the very little ones. They have other programs for older kids everyday
of the week, but I didn't really look into those since we aren't in that
age catergory yet, but that is fantastic for when Maddie gets older. I
am an avid reader and used to buy my books off half.com used and cheap,
but now I can just check them out cause the library has a new release
section with great selection and I don't have to spend any money on
books now. I am currently on my third novel this week. Hooray for the
library! Maddie's
birthday is sneaking up on us. September 12th! I can't believe that
we have almost made it to a year. Time has gone by so quickly. We are
planning on having a birthday party at our house on Sept. 8th which is
the Saturday before the big day. I am excited to have friends and
family over, but also a little nervous because we have never had that
many people over before. And I'm only talking like 20 people. To me
though, that is a lot! We are going to have to do some serious cleaning
up!! And there is going to be a lot of food preparation. My mom will
be flying in for the birthday so at least I will have help with Maddie
watching, and food prep, and my MIL is in charge of the cake and will
hopefully bring a fantastic Costco cake which is my
favorite......err......I mean Maddie's favorite! lol. It should be a
good time, and I am really looking forward to having everyone that we
love the most all together at our house to celebrate my baby's first
birthday. *wipes tear away* I really can't believe that she is going to
be a year old. Time goes by too quickly. She has become such a big
girl. It really makes me realize that I need to cherish each and
everyday and try and savor every little thing, cause tomorrow she will
be different. I
guess that's it for now. I always have things that I want to blog
about during the day, but by the time I get a free minute usually after
Maddie goes to bed, I don't have the energy. Oh, we did get new home
phones which we are jazzed about!! We even have a new outgoing message
which is too cute, so give us a call to hear it and tell us something
nice about your day! Ciao
Maddie
and Henry have become the best of buddies. When Henry is in the house,
him and Maddie are stuck together like glue. I have no idea what the
attraction is for either of them, but they seriously enjoy hanging out
together. They will go into the laundry room and I'll check in on them
and they are just sitting there, Maddie talking to Henry and pointing
things out to him in the room, and Henry just sitting there being a good
sport. Their most favorite thing to do is sit under our dining room
table. They don't really do anything, but they can sit under there
together for huge periods of time. Maddie will sit next ot Henry, then
stand up next to Henry, then walk over to one of the chairs and bang on
it, and then walk back over to Henry and sit back next to him. I had
always hoped that my baby would have a good relationship with our dogs,
and so far so good. It is so cute and endearing to watch them
together. I was a little worried about Tyson because for about 2 months
he was not behaving very well around Maddie, he would sometimes growl
at her, and anytime she got near he would bolt to another room.....I
seriously thought we were going to have to get rid of him, but in the
last couple of weeks he has made a total turn around. He lets Maddie
basically sit on him if she wants.....he is still a little skittish and
doesn't like fast movements, but I honestly think that he has accepted
her as part of the pack....either that or he has learned that pretty
much anywhere Maddie goes there is bound to be a trail of food that
follows, and if he's lucky he can snatch up any leftovers!. I am so
happy that Maddie and any future children will get to grow up with such
awesome dogs. They won't have that fear of dogs that children who
aren't brought up with them have, and I really like that until Maddie
has a sibbling, she has a built in playmate with Henry! Playing under the table: Playing in the laundry room:
I
can't believe what a difference a few weeks can make. Maddie is such a
big girl. Not only is she walking....pretty much all the time now, but
she is also talking more, and learning sign language! She can say Mama
and Dada, good, no, oh no, dog and she can almost say Henry (one of our
dogs) She knows how to sign "more" and "all done" and there are a few
more signs on their way. It's so crazy to see how much she has learned
in the past couple of weeks.....she is growing up so fast! We took her
to Blockbuster the other day and she walked around the whole store
laughing. I'm not quite sure what was so funny, but she just
laughs.....all the time! It's also amazing to see what she is able to
understand. I'll ask her where Mama's feet are and she will look down at
my feet and then reach down and grab them. If you ask her where her
ball is, or her bus, she scans the room and walks over to get it. I read
somewhere that babies can understand a lot more than we give them
credit for, and it's really true. She may not be able to express exactly
what she wants yet, or be able to answer me back, but she totally knows
what is up. It's funny with the sign language....now that she knows how
to tell me all done, she signs it all the time. I lay her down to
change her diaper (which she pretty much hates) and she signs all done
over and over. Dan was playing with her on our bed the other day and she
got bored and signed all done. She is such a genius! lol. She is also a
social butterfly. She loves EVERYONE especially kids and she will find
the only kid in a restaurant or store and wave at them, and if she is
walking, she will approach them to say hi. I'm sure that everyone who
has kids think that theirs is the best, but I really feel like mine
is.....the best in the whole world. How did we ever get so lucky? Below
is a video I took of her laughing. I was coughing and for whatever
reason it cracked her up. Such a funny girl. Enjoy!
We
got a pair of little kid chairs from Dan's grandmother almost a year
ago. They are at least 23 years old and have numerous layers of paint
on them.....we know because we have been stripping and sanding them for
the past couple days. I finally got them primed and soon I will be
painting them and sometime in the near future, they will be done and
hopefully my daughter will enjoy having chairs just her size. To go
along with the chairs, Dan has been working on making a little table.
Maddie has been helping.....well, rather getting in the way and messing
around with tools, but it has been a fun family project to work on and I
am so excited to get both the chairs and the table done cause I know
they are going to be super cute and I can just imagine Maddie coloring,
or playing play-doh at her special table! I'll post pics once the
project is complete so you can ooh and ahh over our craftsmanship!
Maddie
has turned into an explorer recently. She has discovered kitchen
cabinets, Mama's purse and pretty much every other nook and cranny of
our house. For the most part I don't mnd that she is getting into
things although from minute to minute there are a number of messes that I
get to discover and clean up. I chalk it up to her learning about the
world around her and discovering what all is in our house and what she
can and can not play with. There aren't really very many off limit
things but I wonder sometimes if letting her get into whatever she wants
to (within limit....there are always things that she can't touch or
play with.....knives for example) is going to cause problem in the
future like if we go to someone else's house and they have more no touch
items. I guess these types of decisions are part of parenting. Trying
to do what is best for your little one and hoping that they will turn
out okay because of, or sometimes in spite of your parenting. Here are
some fun pics of Maddie's adventures.
It
is a magical time in the Schultz residence. We have a toddling little
girl among us. Yep, thats right, Maddie is walking. She has been
taking one or two steps for a little while now, but yesterday she
started toddling around the house. Of course she falls a LOT, and still
crawls because at this point it is faster, but she is walking. We even
got it on video yesterday! I'm really excited that our big girl is
able to get around on her legs because in so many ways it makes life a
little easier. When we take her to the pool, often times she crawls
into the water and is quickly in deeper than she should be, and the park
will be a lot more fun with a child that can walk around. Dan and I
made a bet about when she was going to walk, and neither of us won
because we thought it would be a little later than 10 and a half
months. It really is so hard to believe that time has flown by so
quickly and we now have a upwardly mobile child. It seems like only
yesterday that we brought her home from the hospital and had a little
budnle who would just lie on her back. Such a big growing baby! In 6
weeks or so, she is going to be a whole year old and we get to have her
very first birthday party. So much fun. I think that we are really
going to enjoy having a toddler around the house!
content
sick
frustrated
hungry
crazy
creative
tired
exhausted
cranky
eating her lunch
Maddie's own little cake to devour!
Aunt Hannah and Uncle Kellen
opening presents
she got a spoon and fork set.....she is trying to eat the spoon through the package! lol
the bows seemed to be more exciting than the actual present!
I think it's cute how little kids congregate for present opening!
she did NOT like this hat!
excited
awake
ecstatic