Standing Up

This girl is on the move. She is now starting to pull herself up. So, we are lowering her crib tonight before she decides to jump out!

Memorial Day Weekend

While mommy was packing up for our trip down to Roanoke, Daddy and Madeline hung out on our balcony for a little bit.

Once we arrived in Roanoke, our weekend was full of hanging out with family. We can hardly hang out anymore without playing a little Guitar Hero.

We spent a lot of time outside since there was beautiful weather. One night we decided to make Hobo meals. Mom and I are preparing them in the kitchen.

And then we cooked them in the firepit outside. It was pretty fun, easy and yummy. Our Hobo meals consisted of green beans, corn, onions, potatoes and ground beef, topped with a little A-1 sauce. All of the ingredients were put into an aluminum foil pouch and then cooked in the firepit.

Another night, Nathaniel grilled up some Filet Mignon for us and we ate it on the back deck. It is pretty fun eating outside.


Madeline enjoyed some time in the swing and grass. It is so nice to have warm weather now. Madeline is so happy being outside.

She Wants To Crawl

Madeline has been up and rocking on her hands and knees for the past week or so. She hasn't figured out how to go forwards yet. She only goes backwards, which makes her frustrated because she gets farther and farther from her toys. I am hoping that she will stay in this stage for a while because I am not really ready for a 6 month old to have free reign through the house. That means we will have to start disciplining and who wants to do that.

Happy Mother's Day

Mother's Day was a very special day for me for several reasons. First of all, it was my first Mother's Day with our sweet little Madeline. I can't remember a time when I didn't want to be a mom and I am so glad that God has allowed me to be the mother to such a sweet little girl. Being a mom is all that I expected it to be and more. Andrew came home from work on Friday with a fun "mom" balloon (which Madeline isn't too sure about), beautiful flowers and a sweet card. Without Andrew, I don't think being a mom would be as wonderful as it is. He is such a supportive husband and father.

The other reason that it was such a special day is because we dedicated Madeline to the Lord at church on Sunday. There were 3 other couples along with us. We came before the church, just as Hannah did in 1 Samuel 1:27-28~"I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD."

We understand that God has given Madeline to us to raise and it is our responsibility to teach her about her sin and her need for a savior, Jesus Christ. We pray that she will choose to make Jesus her savior at an early age and that she will follow him all the days of her life. She is such a joy already and we are so blessed to be her parents.

Sleep Bootcamp

Disclaimer: This post is rediculously long. Feel free to skip it if you want. (not that you needed my permission to read it or not)

Well, Madeline has been a pretty good sleeper since she was born. But, lately she has been getting a little worse. She has still been waking for a feeding in the night and sometimes she wakes up TWICE to eat. This has thrown off her schedule for the day so she doesn't eat well during the day. So, we decided that we needed to change that. Before, when she cried, I would give her her pacifier and she would usually fall back asleep or she would continue to cry and I would just feed her. But, since she is 5 months old and should have been sleeping through the night a long time ago, we decided to have "Sleep Bootcamp" this week. We have been reading Babywise since she was born. But, I guess we can't claim to be babywise parents until she is sleeping through the night. So, here is a "novel" about our bootcamp this week.

Monday: We started with Madeline's second nap. We put her down without her swaddler (she has been swaddled since she was born) and she fell asleep pretty quickly, about 1 minute of fussing. But, she woke up about 15 minutes later. I decided to let her cry herself back to sleep without giving her her pacifier. She cried for about 30 minutes while I dried my hair and turned up the music on the computer so I couldn't hear her. She eventually fell asleep flat on her face with the pacifier in her mouth. She then slept for another hour. Her next nap went great. She laid down and went to sleep pretty quickly for about an hour. That night, we gave her a bath, read her a book, fed her and had her in bed around 9:00. She fussed for a minute and then fell asleep. She slept until 12:30am and then woke up. This is the moment I had been dreading for a long time. I knew that it was best to teach her how to sleep through the night. But, it is hard to listen to your baby cry when you could just feed her and be back in bed in 20 minutes. So, we let her cry and she went back to sleep after about 30 minutes. Not, as bad or as long as I thought it would be. We shut her door and ours (and I tried to get Andrew to stuff tissue in his ears. But, he was too tired to get up and get the tissue.) so we could barely hear her. But, it was still slightly painful. :) I think I heard her a little later in the night. But, she didn't cry enough to really wake us up. So, she slept until about 7am.

Tuesday: She did great with her naps. She fussed for a few seconds when I laid her down and then she flipped over to her stomach and fell asleep with her face planted in the matress. That night, I tried to feed her before she went to sleep around 8, but she wasn't hungry from her last feeding around 6. So, I just put her down and she slept until 5am. I would have let her cry herself back to sleep but it had been 11 hours since she had eaten. So, I fed her and then put her back down. She slept until about 8am.

Wednesday: Naps went great. That night I tried to feed her again around 8pm before I laid her down and she wouldn't eat again since she had eaten at 6pm. So, I laid her down. She went to sleep, but woke up at 9pm. I decided to feed her so that she would sleep in a little longer in the morning instead of waking up to eat at 5am. She ended up sleeping until 8:30am. That's 11 1/2 hours. I think I may have heard her fuss a little through the night. But, not enough to really wake me up. Her little cries sound pretty pitiful now. She is really hoarse. I don't know if it is because she has been crying more than we think or if maybe she is a little sick. But, it is making it even harder to listen to her cry. Thankfully she isn't crying that much anymore.

Thursday: I laid her down to sleep around 8:30pm at our Bible Study Leader's house in their pack n' play. She was asleep in less than 5 minutes (once again, flat on her face). We put her in her car seat around 10pm and came home and put her in her bed. She gave a slight wimper, rolled over and fell back asleep. (Which I was very thankful for since we were missing the first part of LOST. :)) We heard Madeline wake up around 5am. I went in to check on her and she was trying to get her pacifier back in her mouth. So, I just shut her door and ours and I went back to sleep. I don't know how long she fussed. But, I don't think it was long because I probably would have heard her. So, she went back to sleep and woke up around 7:45 Friday morning. So, that was about 11 hours of sleep.

Friday: We seem to be on a better schedule now. I am leary of saying "this is her schedule now" because she always seems to change it as soon as I figure it out. And I can't always predict how long her naps will go. But they are usually between 1 1/2 -2 1/2 hours. But this is basically what we are doing:

8am eat and play

10am nap for about 2 hours

12pm eat and play

2pm nap for about 2 hours

4pm eat and play

6pm nap for 30-45 minutes

6:30pm wake up and play

8pm eat and bedtime

So, we made it to the end of our bootcamp week and I am still waiting for a "bad" night. I am sure there will be more sleepless nights due to teething and sickness. But, things are looking up. She is doing very well. I will always keep my moms advice in the back of my mind that she will probably try to test me every now and then and I just need to remind her that I am serious about her sleeping through the night (or whatever area we are trying to discipline her in). :) Well, we have a very happy daughter now and a very happy mommy!

I'm sorry this post is soooooooooo long. I am actually writing it down so that I can look back at it with our next child and remember that it really wasn't that bad and that we should do it much sooner with the next one.

Swinging

My parents have a baby swing on one of the trees outside their house. So, we put Madeline in it to see how she liked it. She LOVED it. She swung/swang/swinged (which one is it?) for about an hour.

Swinging Higher

By the end of the hour, she was swinging really high! She loved it. We finally took her out of the swing because we wanted to go do something else. Not because she was tired of it.

5 Months Old

Madeline turned 5 months old on May 1st. She is just getting more and more fun each day.

-She smiles pretty easily. But, it is still pretty hard to get her to laugh. We have no idea what will strike her as funny. Last night as we were putting her to bed, Andrew walked in the room and she just cracked up at him. Then for about 5 minutes, she just laughed and laughed everytime he shook his head side to side. She thought it was the funniest thing ever. (She may have also figured out that we can't put her to bed while she is laughing.)
-She is rolling over (both ways)very well now and she can skoot around to get things that she wants. But, she gets a little frustrated because she usually skoots backwards and away from the things that she wants. Sometimes we help her by putting our hands by her feet so she can push off of them and go forward.
-She is starting to sit up better now. I can put the boppy around her and she can sit there for a long time.
-She also likes to stand (while we keep her balanced) to play with toys on the couch.
-She is eating solid foods for breakfast lunch and dinner. She is eating rice cereal, sweet potatoes, squash, and green beans. She has tried carrots, but doesn't really like them. We will try some peas this week and then we are going to start the fruit! She also gets one more feeding right before she goes to bed.
-She pretty much needs to wear a bib at all times now because she drools so much. But, we haven't seen any teeth popping through yet.
-She thinks she has "go go gadget" arms because she always puts them straight out if she sees something that she wants. I guess in a way, she does have "go go gadget" arms because we usually give her whatever she is reaching for.
-I will let you know about her sleep habits after "sleep bootcamp" this week. I know I said in the last monthly update that she dropped her middle of the night feeding. But, she decided that she wanted it back and sometimes another feeding as well. So, we are working on stopping that this week. I will let you know how it goes.

I am sure that I am forgetting some things. But, that is a basic update on our little princess for now. If you are still hanging in there through this lengthy blog, thanks.

Smith Mountain Lake Triathlon

Well, several months ago, Andrew got it in his head that he wanted to do a triathlon. So, he found one down at Smith Mountain Lake, near Roanoke. It is a sprint triathlon. Which means it isn't like the Iron Man or anything, but it was still pretty hard. He had to swim 750m, bike 20k, and run 5k.

He had a blue swim cap which means he was in the young male division. He was the second group to begin. He did a great job swimming and caught up with some of the people from the group in front of him.

He finally made it out of the lake and is heading to the transition area to get ready to bike 20k.

Here he is on his way back from the biking and now he will begin his 5k run.

Last turn...

home stretch...

The finish line!

A proud wife...

and daughter. ( I am talking about Madeline, not Nathaniel.)

Maybe next year we can get more people to do it. I like the "idea" of doing one. But, really, it sounds pretty hard. There are relay teams too if you want to do just part of it. We'll see...

Andrew Loves Chicken!

Last Week Andrew and our friend, Johnny, decided to attend the grand opening of a Chik-Fil-A in Roanoke. The first 100 people to be there get 52 free combo meals. The restaurant opened at 6am on Thursday morning. So, they arrived at 6am on Wednesday morning so they could be one of the first 100. They ended up being numbers 39 and 40. Not too bad.

As you can see, everyone brought tents so they could spend the night. There were a ton of JMU people there and it made me really sad that Chik-Fil-A didn't do this when we were in college. I would have totally done it. But, I didn't think Madeline would have enjoyed the 40 degree weather through the night. And the other people probably wouldn't have liked her crying through the night.

Chik-Fil-A provided lunch, dinner, a chicken nugget snack and ice cream for all the participants. To serve them the food, they lined everyone up by their number and then marched them through the drive through like a herd of cows. It was pretty impressive. Cristen Sink and I came to visit the guys and we got numbers 105 and 106 so that we could get a free dinner as well.

Kathryn won the hearts of many throughout the parking lot.

Here are the guys right before we left for the evening.

The next morning at 6am, the employees rang cow bells and gave them their free combo coupons in a chicken nugget box.

Here is the proud owner of 52 free chicken combos. Well, actually 50, since we had chic-fil-a for lunch yesterday :)

If you would like to see some more pictures and find links to all the news reports then visit The Sink's blog. Andrew and Johnny were on almost every news station. And we found out that everyone in Roanoke watches the news because all of my family saw Andrew on the news even before they knew we were in town.