Happy Easter everyone!

The last couple weeks, Madeline’s been teething and had a cold so things have been trying, to say the least. But these last few days she’s been our good old happy Maddie. A true joy!

Today was no different. We started with a video iChat with Grandmom, Popper and Great-Grandmom. Then we hosted Easter dinner for Jenn’s family. Madeline had a great time playing with Pop-Pop and enjoyed spending time with everyone.

We had a little Easter egg hunt for her, as you’ll see in the pictures. I under-estimated her hunting skills; she was quite adept!

Enjoy the pictures!

How long have I lived in the Philadelphia area and I’ve never heard of this place??

Anyway, Jennie and Madeline are going there with some friends on Saturday. It looks like it will be an awesome time!

Yay, Philly!

Well, Madeline did really well at her 15 month check up. She is now 25 lbs, 10 oz. and she is 32 inches long. Both are 90 percentile.

She is way ahead of kids her age with her verbal ability (she says about 25 words easy, and 5 words is average for her age), she’s also ahead as far as feeding herself with a fork and spoon. Most kids don’t even start having an interest in using utensils until about 18 months of age, but not our Madeline, she’s been doing the fork and spoon thing for a couple of months now.

Also, the Doctor said that she also exceeds the beauty scale by almost a hundred percent. Okay, just kidding on that last one, but Daddy and I seem to think this is case =) We just can’t ever seem to get enough of our little love bug. We’re continually amazed day by day at all the things she says and does. She sure has come a long, long way!

Madeline wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year by providing this little video snippet! Madeline loves to dance, especially to the new CD she got for Christmas. It’s from Dan Zanes and Friends and Mommy and Daddy like it too. The song featured in this video is “Go Down Emmanuel Road.” You can buy it on iTunes if you’d like. Enjoy, and we’ll see you next year for more fun and excitement!!!

Oh boy, WHAT a Christmas Day. Madeline may not “get” it yet, but she was a real Energizer bunny today. We woke up this morning and went downstairs to open presents. Madeline is a little afraid of the TMX Elmo but enjoyed the blocks and the jack-in-the-box.

Then we went to church and Madeline made friends in the crying/baby room.

On our way home, Madeline fell asleep so we put her down for her nap around noon. After that we went to Jenn’s Uncle Flavio and Aunt Terry’s house where Madeline proceeded to run around in a circle for about 2 hours straight, dragging Daddy with her almost every step of the way. They have a dog named Kennedy who is so sweet and Madeline just loved her so much! It was great to see everyone and Madeline really had a ton of fun.

After that, it was off to Nonni and Pop-Pop’s house for MORE GIFTS AND FUN! There was a lot of great stuff there but the big hit was her rocking horse. Once we put her on that, we couldn’t get her off. And we were all surprised that she knew what to do. We’ll name the horse “Seabiscuit”, because of the (admittedly weak) connection Madeline has to the ‘Biscuit (and Daddy loved that book).

Anyway, Madeline showed no signs of letting up once we got home, and we FINALLY put her to bed a 9pm!

We’re both pretty sure this was the greatest day of her life, and it was such a blessing to be able to enjoy it with her.

Merry Christmas!!!

Madeline is fast asleep upstairs with visions of sugar plums (or sugar Elmos) dancing in her head.

Tonight, we went over to Uncle Bob and Aunt Leigh’s for dinner and to exchange gifts. It was great to see them and Harrison, as well as Grandmom and Popper of course. It’s so neat to see Madeline and Harrison together. They had lots of fun playing with Grandmom and Popper. Madeline was really cracking up!

It’s really amazing how fast these kids grow up, and it was awesome to watch Harrison open his presents because he “gets” Christmas now. Madeline is still a year or so away from that, although she did really enjoy her new piano(s) and the Dora car she got.

All the excitement wore her out pretty quickly, and she needed to rest up for more Christmas fun tomorrow, so we called it an early night and headed home to wait for Santa.

Enjoy the pictures and have a Merry Christmas!

This Saturday we went to visit Aunt Bridget and Uncle Chris. Uncle Chris is very talented with the camera and asked if Madeline would model for him so he could take some photos for his up-and-coming side business (which will be a big success, we’re sure), and of course we were more than happy to oblige! Click here to view all of the pictures.

Thanks for having us Aunt Bridget and Uncle Chris. We had such a wonderful time that day. We love you (and Madeline really, really, loves your dogs).

We’re a little late with this post, but Madeline’s first birthday has come and gone. It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a year. Sometimes things seem to be moving so slow, and the next thing you know a year has gone by and your daughter is eating her first birthday cake.

We are truly blessed to have such a happy and healthy baby (ok…toddler) as well as such an amazing and supportive group of family and friends who have helped out greatly whenever we’ve needed them.

Madeline is now really walking around, so much so that I finally relented and put up baby gates this past weekend. She’s also now totally off the formula and bottles (HOORAY!!!!) and she’s moved up to the next room in daycare. Today was her first day and she did great. I think she enjoyed seeing her old friends who moved up a couple months ago.

What a year…we can only imagine what’s in store for us this next year!

Well, it’s been a couple weeks since she took her first real steps, and for the most part she still prefers crawling to walking, but she’s starting to make the transition now.

Happy Halloween everyone! As you can see from the pictures, Madeline was a ladybug this year…her first Halloween. We went to the Media Halloween Parade on Sunday which was a great time. Unfortunately, since then Madeline has come down with a little cold and Mommie now has a stress fracture in her foot!

As a result, we took it easy Halloween night. We just went around to a few houses to show off the cutest baby on the block! Hard to believe that at this time last year, we were still anxiously awaiting Miss Madeline’s arrival. My how time flies!

Anyway, hope you all had a great Halloween and don’t eat too much candy!