Go Hawks!

Here I am again....so sorry our computer is terribly slow so my ability to get the BLOG updated has been less than frequent lately. We have been busy bees over here. Most of you got the pictures on Walgreens so you saw that we went to a picnic for The Planning Center. It was out in Orion so we took advantage of being in the 'country' and wore our Roper boots. Maddox loved the grass and even attempted to eat it several times. She crawled around and played with the big blue ball and the other 2 kids that were there, ages 3 and almost 1. We had a good time. She slept well that night with all the fresh 'country' air. Speaking of sleeping she is still a great night time sleeper and still taking usually 2 naps during the day. One is typically 1.5 to 2 hours and the other one varies, sometimes only 30 to 45 minutes. It seems lately she can go longer before she gets tired. She still only has 2 teeth on the bottom. I thought a while back that we were finally going to see another tooth, but nothing yet. She has definitely mastered cruising around the furniture and when she wants to she can crawl like a banshee! It is funny, she definitely has varying speeds depending on the time of day and her desires. Eric and I are convinced that she is saying 'hey there'. I'm sure it really isn't but it sure does sound like it. She pretty much says Dad, well it isn't quite Dad but we know what she means....but nothing lately that really sounds like Mom. She is eating really well. Her menu consists of bananas, whole wheat pasta with marinara sauce, carrots, animal crackers, gold fish crackers, green beans, acorn squash and sweet potatoes...all in their real form. We don't do too much TRUE baby food anymore. She loves to pick up her food from her high chair tray and definitely appears to be right handed. She still gets cereal mixed with formula usually 2 times per day and then 2 big bottles of formula/vitamin D milk, one in the AM and one in the PM. She is good with just the sippy cup during the day. Eric and I got the chance to go to the Hawkeye game on Saturday. We had one of my co-workers stay with Maddox. Jennifer said she was very good...an EASY baby. We think so too. Then Labor Day we went to our neighborhood block party. Maddox had a blast, there were over 100 adults and 100 kids! She had PLENTY to look at and was really good...so happy playing with the other little babies. One of our neighbors had their daughter's walker out on the sidewalk. So we had Maddox take a turn. She grabbed right onto the bar, pushed it and walked behind like she had done it 100 times over. She did really well, just needing a little assistance with steering. She loves to walk with assistance and sometimes you can coax her to just hold onto one of your hands instead of 2 but she is definitely still hesitant about one hand and her trunk control still needs a little work with only one hand. She will occasionally stand for a second or 2 by herself without holding onto anything but, this apparently scares her because she quickly sits down and then sort of cries. If you try to get her to let go of your hands while she is standing she SURE doesn't like it and sort of fusses. It doesn't seem like she is going to be the daredevil type kid. She is able to get one knee up onto the first step heading to the upstairs...only one so far because we are quick to say NO so she doesn't have the opportunity to get the other one up, but I"m sure she could. You can always tell when she is up to something, such as trying to get up the steps, it gets REALLY quiet. She has definitely mastered the art of being sneaky. I don't know which is worse sneaky or daredevil! She loves to hold onto the end table with one hand, drop toys down off the top of it, bend down and pick them up with one hand and then put them back on top of the table just to do the same trick again. She'll do this several times in row...kindafunny...great workout for her quads...up down up down. Can't believe she is going to be 1 in just a week. We gave her a taste of Eric's birthday cake a few weeks ago and she LOVED it so should be interesting to see what she does with her cake. We start swimming lessons tomorrow at the Y.