The House of Payne

Madeline's Stats

Madeline had her two month check-up today (even though she is really 2 1/2 months). She didn't do very well during the appointment. She cried pretty much the whole time. She got three shots and had a drink vaccine. The doctor said that she was very healthy. Here are her stats...

Weight: 13.21 lbs (84.7 percentile)
Height: 24.25 inches (90.55 percentile)
Head Circumference: 15.5 inches (45.62 percentile)

We knew before she was born that she would be a tall girl but apparently she has a pretty small head for her body...not bad small though. I guess she doesn't take after her Uncle Jeremy.

I was worried she would just cry the rest of the day but she was pretty happy when we got home. Here she is with her band-aids.

Happy Birthday Emily!

Today is my sister Emily's birthday. She is turning 21. So old! Since she reads this at work everyday, I wanted to say Happy Birthday and I love you! I hope you have a great day!

Isn't this a cute picture of her? She is cute.

The Latest Pictures of Madeline

Madeline has been pretty fussy the past couple of days. I don't know why. I think she might be going through a growth spurt so she wants to eat more often than she usually does. She is starting to get pretty chubby.

She has started holding onto her rags a lot. We have found that if we give her a rag when she is crying she will usually calm down. My little sister Abby used to have a "rag" like a blankie. I don't really want Madeline to have a crutch but I guess a rag is easy because it is small and easily replaceable/interchangable. Here she is holding her rag.

In other news, Madeline is getting a lot better at holding her head and neck up during "tummy time" although she still hates being on her stomach.

Madeline has also started wearing 3-6 month clothes. This is a cute outfit that our family friend Renee bought her.

Here are a few more pictures that I like of Madeline that we have taken recently. Emily made fun of me because she looked through the pictures on my camera and found out that I have a million. We decided first children have the most pictures not only because it is a new thing for the parents to have a kid, but also because the mom gets bored and needs something to do being at home alone all day with a little baby.

Looking at mom.

Watch out! She's not afraid to fight!

When she's crying a lot I try to remember how happy I am when she smiles.

Madeline's Blessing

Madeline was blessed last Sunday, July 5. Ian was able to give the blessing and he did a really nice job. Madeline stayed quiet until the very end she started to fuss just a little. I thought that two things were kind of special. First, my brother Elliott stood in the circle since he was ordained an Elder a couple weeks ago. Second, my mom had saved my blessing dress so Madeline was blessed in the same dress that I wore at my blessing.

We were also blessed to have so much family attend. Ian's whole family came from California on Saturday night. It was a quick trip for all of them since they left Monday. We were really happy that they were willing and able to come, even though we wish they could have stayed longer. My family also came from Washington for just a few days. We also had my Aunt Linda and her daughter, my Uncle Jeff and his family, and my Uncle Greg and his son come. Even my Grandma Moss and Aunt Marie came down for the occasion. After Sacrament meeting, we all went up to a park in Provo Canyon and made sandwiches, took pictures, and visited.

Here are a few pictures of the family and Madeline in her blessing dress. Notice my pretty awesome sunburn on my arms from mini golfing on the fourth.

4th of July

For the 4th of July weekend, our families came up for Madeline's blessing. My family came on July 3rd and stayed at a condo in Park City. Ian and I drove up on Friday night to hang out with them. We had a fun time playing games, specifically a game that my mom and brothers learned while they were in Germany. It is called Ligretto and I thought it was really fun to play. I'm glad they brought it back for us and taught us to play. Saturday was the 4th and Madeline got to wear her new festive outfit from Grandma Payne.

We went up to the Park City resort to play mini golf. This was the view. I thought it was pretty.

We had a pretty fun time putting...

although the course was pretty crappy. Each hole was really tilted so all of our balls would always roll together.

Oliver wasn't having his best game.

Elliott looking studly in his new shirt from London. I told him that he was wearing the wrong side for the 4th of July.

I did pretty bad too, although I did get one hole in one. Notice everyone elses balls all congregated to the corner. Emily told me to hurry and putt so she could get a picture of all our golf balls together. I was pretty excited to mess up that picture.

I don't have any pictures of Emily golfing but I do have a nice picture of her modeling her camera case, or as Elliott called it, her "fanny pack for her wrist."

After we went mini golfing, we were hot so we decided to go swimming. Here we are playing 500 in the pool.

Later that evening, we played croquet. Abby won the first round but after that, Ian started beating us pretty bad.

He was done with the course and we hadn't even started going back.

Since we were losing we just started taking random pictures instead.

Somehow Oliver managed to get hurt.

At the end of the day, we went up on the roof of the condo to watch the fireworks. I'm not going to lie, I was kind of scared climbing up the scaffolding to get to the roof. We had a really nice view. My mom held Madeline during the fireworks and said she slept through the whole thing. She can sleep through anything if she wants to.

Overall, it was a fun 4th of July and I was glad to be able to spend it with my family.

Smiling

This afternoon I was going to clean the kitchen so I put Madeline in her chair to bring her with me and this is what she did! She has had little smiles for the past couple weeks but I am starting to get her to smile when I play with her. I decided to procrastinate cleaning for the next half hour by trying to get more pictures. This was all I could get. It is hard to get her to smile long enough to snap the picture. Good thing for digital cameras with a delete button. I would have wasted a whole lot of film.

Life since the first (and only) post

Okay, so Ian and I are officially lame. We say we are going to start a blog and then don't tell anybody or post anything for almost a month. He will say that is my fault because it was "my turn." Maybe it is my fault. Anyways, he said that I had to tell about the labor, so I guess I will start with that, in case anyone is interested.

My water broke at about 1 o'clock in the morning on May 15. We went in to the hospital at 2 o'clock. My labor wasn't progressing very fast and they told me we would wait for a couple hours and then maybe induce contractions. After a couple hours, they said it was going fast enough so we would not have to induce (it wasn't going fast enough for me). At 6 o'clock in the morning they told me that there were lots of women having babies so if I wanted an epidural then I should tell them and I would be put on the list. I probably could have gone a little longer without it but I didn't want to get stuck waiting forever when the pain was really bad. Even with the epidural, it was still pretty painful. By the way...Ian was asleep for most of the night...lucky. At about 8 o'clock a.m. the nurse checked my cervix and it still appeared that I would have a long time to wait. However, at ten she told me I was ready to start pushing. She taught me to push and was surprised that the baby was ready to come out. She told me not to push and she would go find the doctor. I only had to push for 20 minutes and at 10:51 Madeline was born. She weighed 8 pounds and was 20.5 inches long. Overall, I can't complain. A 10 hour labor with 20 minutes of pushing for the first child is pretty good in my opinion.

My mom was able to come a week after Madeline was born and stayed for a week. Ian's mom also came after my mom left. It was nice to have them here and help me. It was really great to have them here to stay up with Madeline at night so I could sleep.

Thanks Grandmas! We love you!

At Madeline's two week appointment she was really healthy. The goal is for the baby to weigh the same or more than they weighed at birth (they usually lose weight the first week). She weighed 8 lbs 15 ounces and was 21 inches long. Now we are all doing really well. Madeline turned a month old on Monday. She is getting so much bigger. She is a good baby, although we are still working on getting her to stay awake during the day so we don't have to go to bed a 3 o'clock in the morning every night. Ian and I are getting used to being parents. Here are a few more pictures of Madeline...