Madeline's New Stats

So I took Madeline to the doctor and wanted to post the new stats that we have for her. First of all, let me say that she was very good for how long we waited to see the doctor, and she was excellent and didn't even cry when she got her immunizations.

Madeline's Stats:

Height: 27-1/4 inches (although I think she might actually be a bit taller; no effort was made to stretch her out all the way)
Weight: 20.2 lbs. This is a healthy weight, but drastically less than Amy was claiming. I believe before the appointment, Amy was saying that Madeline was somewhere in the neighborhood of 27 pounds. Off by just a little. To be fair, she was judging solely off of how hard it is to hold/carry Madeline for long periods of time.
Head Circumference : Fits. So I might has zoned out while she was taking Madeline's head reading. I would like to think that I was calming her down for it, as I was holding her for the measurement. However, I do think her head does look more proportional to her body than it did when she was first born. Maybe I'll get into Keri's sewing kit and borrow her measuring tape and take my own measurements.

Like I said before, Madeline was perfectly healthy and the doctor loved her. The only frustration about the visit -- from my perspective at least -- is that they were out of stock of two of the immunizations she was supposed to get. They told me we could just get those next time, like it was normal practice. I am not sure what we will do, but we may take her back before nine months just to catch up on some of these immunizations, and I will consider it worth the co-pay. All in all, we are happy our little girl is happy and healthy.

Madeline's First Christmas...Picture

So there was a bazaar at the high school here in Woodland, and while I had no interest in going, Amy really wanted to go and have Madeline's picture taken with Santa. As a quick aside, I have always found these pictures to be a bit forced and creepy, and I am surprised that I didn't put up more of a fight. I am sure it wouldn't have mattered anyway; Amy put on the Christmas dress Grandma Payne gave her, and went to see Santa. Well, we finally got the picture delivered yesterday, and we wanted to show everybody how much Madeline has grown.



I do not mean to be too critical of a guy who puts up with holding children all day long, but Santa sort of ruined the dress in the picture. The dress is rolled all the way up to her waist, and so you see her diaper cover; so much for baby modesty. **Sigh** That dress was really cute. Additionally, while we still think she is adorable, it is clear that this is not her best picture. It is somewhat revealing of how many actual pictures it takes before Amy gets one she finds appropriate for the blog. From what she told me, it took herself and Grandma Moss forever just to get her to the point where she was looking at the camera. That is all for now, but we will post a more robust update in a few days. Thanks again to Grandma Payne for the cute outfit.

If a Tree Fell in the Forest...

...I would probably hear it. If you knew that I had to take a hearing test on Friday for work, you might think I am referring to my near perfect hearing that I have been bragging to Ian about all weekend. However, that is not the case. Saturday night it was really windy here. At about 2:30 am, I was awoken by a loud thump and the house shaking. It scared me. I was pretty sure that a tree fell on the house. I got up and looked in Madeline's room---no tree there. Then I looked in Abby's room---no tree there. Nobody else was awake and something had happened! I went outside and noticed that a tree that is on the side of our house was leaning and there were cracking noises. This tree has a lot of ivy on it so I was worried that it could be dead and was now falling over. I also saw a pretty big branch on the ground below where our room is. I figured that the branch had fallen off the tree, hit the roof above us, then fallen to the ground. Anyways, I was too worried that the tree was falling over so I finally woke my parents up to ask if it always leaned. They got up to look at it but said that it did usually lean. By the time I went back to bed it was after three. It was so windy and I kept hearing branches fall so I couldn't fall back asleep until after four. Unfortunately, I kept Ian up the whole time too. He wasn't very happy about it. He kept telling me that a tree was not going to fall and crush on top of us. This morning, this is what the yard and house looked like...

Our Favorite Hippie

There was a ward Halloween party tonight. We weren't going to dress up but Halloween is no fun without costumes! I quickly whipped together a costume for me and Madeline. She was a little flower child and I dressed up 80's. We tried to find another decade for Ian to dress in but we were unsuccessful. Anyways, here are some pictures.

At the party there was a chili and cornbread cook-off. Ian signed up to bring cornbread. He made a really delicious cornbread recipe that had green onions, jalapenos, and bacon. What isn't delicious with bacon? He ended up winning best cornbread! Here was his prize...more cornbread.

The Art of Sitting

So one thing that we have learned over and over about Madeline and her growth is that things happen suddenly; it looks as though she isn't even close to being able to do something, and then the next day she does it perfectly. The latest example of this is sitting.

Amy has been concerned for a while that Madeline wasn't progressing in her ability to sit up. The blame for this 'shortcoming' falls to me since I am with her most of the time. However, this past week I started to put stuff in front of her to entice her to stay balanced. The result is that she can now sit up for a minute or two on her own now. Here are some pictures:



This is one of Madeline's new favorite toys. It does the whole 'A B C' thing and it lights up, so I suppose it isn't stunting her mental growth, so I'm all good with it. Although, I must be honest, the songs it puts out drive me nuts (it is a jazzed up version of the ABC's; just leave well enough alone).


Here she is gaining a conceptual understanding of shapes and colors well beyond her age...or she might just be drooling on the toy; who knows for sure.

And this picture is the reason for the post. We think she is amazing and wonderful, and even better when she is in a good mood. If only she could always be this happy.

More Dr. Seuss

Ian's sister, Liz, left a comment on the last post saying that the Cat in the Hat picture was the second great Seuss picture Ian has taken. I had totally forgotten about this picture! It used to be the background on my computer (actually about 30 copies of this picture in a tile pattern) when Ian and I were dating. I found it on Liz's blog and stole it to show everyone. Doesn't he look so cute?!

Pictures Plus a Little About My Job

It's been a little while since we have put pictures up. Madeline is getting so big. She will be five months this week. So old! She has learned several new tricks the past few weeks. Here are a few...

Madeline has learned how to roll from her front to her back. She can't do it all the time but is getting better.

She learned how to eat more solid food (rice cereal). We started feeding her rice cereal. She is a little on the young side for solid food but she is so big and it seems like she is hungry all the time. She caught on really fast to eating from a spoon.


I guess she wasn't so interested in eating in this picture.


Ian also figured out how to do this trick with Madeline. It scares my mom when he does it. This picture reminds me of Cat in the Hat.


I pretty much think that Madeline is the cutest baby in the world. I hate having to be away from her half the day!

She has such big BLUE eyes!

Work has been okay. I have been there a month now and am fully trained (or so they say). I like the job okay, although I would not want to work there for the rest of my life or anything. I think I would like it more if I didn't have to drive almost an hour each way. A typical day for me, in case anyone is interested, goes like this...

I get to work at 5:15 am and inspect all the equipment until 6:00 am. I make sure that it is clean and tell the sanitation crew to fix anything that is still dirty. For the next couple of hours I test the samples of food from the day before to make sure they meet company specifications before they are shipped to the customers. For the testing, I taste the samples, look at the color and watch for defects such as lumps, test the pH, sugar level, and viscosity (thickness). If any of the products fail, I test the color using a machine called a colorimeter and set the samples up for management to decide if they still want to ship the product out. For the rest of the day, I collect samples from products being made, check the big kettles before each batch to make sure they are clean, check magnets and metal detectors, and generally make sure that people are keeping things clean and following good manufacturing procedures.

I am usually standing and walking around the whole eight hours and sometimes I get very busy and a little overwhelmed. It becomes difficult because the workers usually can't start something new until I get there and it usually turns out that they all need me at once. I have to try to time my lunch so that not too many people will be stuck waiting for me. It is also difficult because almost all of the workers are hispanic and only speak a little broken english. I really wish I had Rachel and Peter's spanish skills!

Overall, I think I am starting to get the hang of the job and am settling into a good routine but it makes me sad to be away from Ian and Madeline for so long everyday.