Catch-Up

Ian and I have been really bad at posting. In our defense, our internet is really slow which makes it a little frustrating. Anyways, this is a little bit of what we have been up to lately...

Madeline woke up a four o'clock in the morning Christmas morning and she was so happy and talkative. I thought kids weren't excited for Christmas until they were a little older!

Needless to say, we were a little bit less excited.

Madeline was grouchy Christmas morning because she was up half the night.

Ian got the second book in the Joseph Smith Papers series. He was happy.

Footy pajamas are the latest winter fashion. At least in the Moss home.

Emily and I both got Snuggies. I started telling Ian I wanted one as a joke, but then I decided that I really did kind of want one. They are awesome!

Madeline demanded all of the attention. She is a diva already!

Ian and I went to Seattle for the weekend for his birthday (child free!). We went to the Space Needle...

...the Experience Music Project...

...the Science Fiction Museum (not really our thing but it comes with the EMP tickets)...

...and Pike Place Market.

This was the view from our hotel.

We took this picture for Liz and Jason.

Then we came home and had our traditional german chocolate cake for Ian's birthday. He turned 27 years old!

Madeline liked birthday cake too.

Madeline now pulls herself up to the furniture and stands all the time. A couple days ago we she got brave enough to let go and stood by herself for almost ten seconds. She is going to be walking soon I think!

This is her new favorite toy. Her Great Grandma Spears gave it to her. It is a little dog that barks to the tune of Jingle Bells and then wags it's tail. It always makes her happy.

I have been wanting to try to actually do Madeline's hair. Today I was bored before church so I tried pig tails. I think they are so cute! Mom and Abby said they look like devil horns. I don't think so.

I took so many pictures of Madeline this morning. I think she got tired of it...

Here we are together.

Other things that have happened this month that we did not document with pictures...

• We went to Danielle's wedding.
• We TRIED to go to Alex's wedding. It happened to be on the one day in the year it snows here. we tried to go anyways and it took us 3 hours to drive about 25 miles. The freeway was a parking lot. Nobody here knows how to drive in the snow. It was very frustrating. Luckily we got to see them before they went back to Utah.
• We made the annual Moss/Huskey/Black Nativity movie with the usual lack of interest from most people involved. It has to be done though...it's tradition!
• For New Year's we opened a time capsule we had made with the Huskey family in 1999. I was excited to see what I put in it because I couldn't remember. All I put in was a tag from Old Navy because it was my favorite store. Lame. We also wrote little papers about what we liked, what we wanted our ten year older self to know, etc. I wrote about how much I HATED Woodland and how I didn't want to be here and to never forget my Hillsboro friends. What a brat. Now I am back here. ha.
• Madeline now has two teeth which she has figured out are nice little weapons.

I guess that is all for now!

First Tooth

First an update on Ian's last post: Madeline is really about 29 1/2 inches long. Both her weight and height were in the 95%. She is a big girl!

Last Thursday, 10 days ago, I put my finger in Madeline's mouth for her to chew on and I felt something sharp! Her first tooth popped through! I've been trying to get a picture since then. It's hard! This is the best one I have been able to get so far. You have to look really closely and there is a little white. It's easier to see in real life...

Here are some pictures that I took of Madeline today in her Christmas outfit.

Madeline always lays like this now. We call it her "model pose."

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.