A July Full of Cousins

During the month of July we spent a ton of time with the Young family. Two of McKays sisters came to visit from out of state and brought spouses and their 13 kids with them. Add them to the other two sisters that he already has living in Orem and their 2 kids, plus his parents and us, you have one crazy full house. His sister Marissa stayed for about 3 weeks and his sister Sasha stayed for just a few days more. So we had 3 weeks filled with food, fun and cousins. At first Madelynn did NOT like being around all the cousins. There was too much noise and too many people who wanted to pick her up and play with her. You would think having over 20 people fawn over you and want to hold and hug and play with you would be a good thing, but no. She spent the majority of her first few days with cousins very nervous and crying. She eventually developed a defensive "put me down!" squeal, but by the end of the 3 weeks she gave into being picked up by tons of random people with apathetic silence. Maybe someday she will actually like to be played with by people who are not her mother and father. Maybe.

While all the Young cousins were in town we celebrated a bunch of birthdays, saw a lot of fireworks, had lots of family dinners, went to the movies and seven peaks a number of times and we had a Lobsterfest. The girls also all had at home manicures complete with my niece Julia giving us a foot bath and massage. So funny! We also went to Kennecott copper mine, an extended family wedding, and played with Jet Ski's on Utah lake, and then subsequently fell victim to the mosquitoes who live on Utah lake. I still have the remains of  the welts those stupid mosquitoes left 2 weeks later. We made a lot of fun memories while they were here, however, I think Madelynn's favorite part was playing with her twin cousins, Collin and Mark, who are only 4 months older than her. They were so cute together, and she put up with a lot from them. They would constantly steal her hairbows, toys, sippy cups and pacifiers. They would climb on top of her, pull her clothes and poke her in the face, and she seemed to love every minute of it. It is crazy to think that the next time this type of family gathering happens, we will be the ones visiting from out of town. Weird. Thank you Young family for a fun month.

Here are a bunch of super cute pictures of all of our July activities. Enjoy!

 Twins holding Twins!

I married into one awesome family. I love you guys! We will miss you all in Wisconsin!

Baby Contest

I am quite slow in posting this, but about a month ago I decided to enter Madelynn in the Strawberry Days baby contest. She was darling. I was worried that she would be cranky because I had to wake her up about an hour earlier than usual so we could get there in time. I worried for no reason at all. She was happy and smiley and had fun interacting with the judges. I think baby contests are a little bit pointless and a waste of money, but it was fun anyway. As part of the entrance fee each baby got their picture taken. She is pulling kind of a silly face, but I think it is pretty cute anyway

Feeding the Baby Princess

If you  know our family at all, you know that in our home Madelynn goes by many names. The most common thing to hear her called in our home is Baby Princess. Well, baby princess was started on solid foods over a month and a half ago. She has not liked said solid foods. We have tried all kinds of different foods like the standard rice cereal, barley cereal, carrots, peas, squash, sweet potato's, green beans, apples, and banana's. All of which she turned her nose up at. She would either take a few bites and then start grunting and growling at us, or start crying. Or she would just clench her teeth and not let the spoon even get close to entering her mouth until we discovered pears. Madelynn doesn't love pears, but she will eat 5-10 bites without getting fussy. She also likes barley teething biscuits but she doesn't really eat them, she scrapes them with her teeth and then plays with them like a toy. I considered them a victory until today.

I think we have finally turned a corner on feeding our baby princess. I don't know what changed and i really don't think I care, all I know is Madelynn happily and willingly ate her entire bowl of peas and her entire bowl of pears! She ate more in her feeding today than the last 2 weeks combined! I am so proud of her! I just hope that this behavior continues and that we can finally make the gradual journey to her eating like a regular person some day. I never knew all the silly things that I would care about and that would make me happy before I became a mother. If you had told me a year ago that I would be clapping and cheering and absolutely genuinely happy and thrilled because my baby ate about 2 tablespoons worth of food I might have thought you were a little bit silly, but now I am the silly ecstatic mother of a baby who will finally eat something other than milk! YAY!

Notice the two amazingly empty bowls!

Now enjoy a montage of pictures of us feeding our Baby Princess.

Magnets

I feel like such a smart mom right now. I am sure I am not the first person to do this, but I felt pretty smart when the idea to do this hit me.

I spend a good chunk of my time in the kitchen because that is just who I am. I love to cook and bake, so the kitchen is my happy place. Well, since I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, Madelynn does too. Now that she is mobile she likes to crawl around on the kitchen floor. About 2 weeks ago she discovered the magnets on the fridge and realized that she could pull them off. Since then she will spend quite a while just sitting in front of the fridge playing with the magnets.

 Now McKay and I collect magnets. Whenever we go on a trip somewhere we buy a magnet. We have some super awesome magnets in our collection, but they are NOT baby friendly. So I decided to make Madelynn her own collection of magnets to play with. I went through the random stuff that we have lying around our apartment and then went through my mothers massive collection of kids toys and hot glued some strong magnets I bought at the craft store to the back of a bunch of toys and nick knacks. I have to say, they are a hit. She will play with them in front of the fridge like usual, but now she will also crawl over to the fridge and pull a magnet off and crawl away with it in tow! Like I said, I feel like one smart mama right now.

Madelynn loves the tub!

Warning! This post contains naked baby pictures... I think they are adorable, but you have been warned!

When we first brought Madelynn home she HATED taking baths with a fiery burning passion. About a  month ago she started flipping over to her tummy in the bath tub and ever since then they are her favorite thing in the entire world! She will play in the tub for over half an hour if I let her (which rarely happens because I have to watch her every single second of her bath and I get tired of stopping the baby from drinking the bathwater, which by the way, she LOVES to do). She loves the water and is not afraid of getting on her face. She frequently splashes herself in the face and will dunk her entire head in the water on purpose! I just thought I should write a post that pays homage to Madelynn's very favorite activity. So here are some pictures and a video clip of Madelynn and her beloved bath.

We dropped the Crib....Twice!

Little Miss Madelynn is keeping us on our toes. About two weeks ago Madelynn started to pull herself up on everything she could find, but she stayed on her knees. Whenever I came to get her out of her crib I would see her cute little face, and her upper body, above the crib railing. We quickly decided that was a little unsafe and dropped her crib mattress down a level. little did we know just over a week later we would have to do it again because she is now standing fully erect on her cute little legs. She is only six months old for Pete's sake! I didn't think we would have to lower her crib all the way until she was closer to one. Well now I know better. it is nice to know that she is safe and won't be falling out of her crib anytime soon, but I dislike having to bend over so far to get her in an out. here are a few pictures that i tortured Madelynn to get. it did not make her happy to see me walk into the room and then walk back out again to get my camera before rescuing her from her crib. Here are some cute pictures of said baby pulling herself up in said crib.