What's been going on lately...

How did I let another three weeks pass by without a post? I guess running after an almost nine month old is the reason why! Maddie is standing up next to me as we speak trying to mess with the computer and get to the keyboard. Maddie is a MESS! She is so funny and is starting to get into everything! She is crawling so fast now and with a blink of an eye she is gone. We really have to watch her now. She loves going into my mom's bathroom and investigating. She has learned to open drawers, so I get so nervous that she is going to smash her fingers. I'm sure it will happen eventually. She is pulling herself up to stand on EVERYTHING and cruising now! I predict she will walk during her ninth month. Gabe doesn't think it will happen until ten or eleven months. I guess we shall see...

And she is off....



Aunt Teresa came to visit last weekend! She hasn't seen Maddie in a couple of months, so she had a great time loving on Maddie! We went downtown Greenville on Friday afternoon and got some really great pictures. It was a beautiful day!! On Saturday we had a little Oyster roast with Gabe's new "King Kooker". The thing is really awesome. I think we will even try to fry a turkey this year for Thanksgiving! We had a really fun weekend, but too bad the Gamecocks couldn't bring home a victory against Kentucky after beating the #1 team in the nation, Alabama. Oh well...there is always next year...

Downtown Greenville at Smoke on the Water

Falls Park

Yay! Aunt Teresa is here!

Maddie checking out her new shoes that Omi brought back from Germany!

Loving on Uncle Ryan

We devoured the oysters!

Maddie is eating more and more finger foods. Just yesterday I made her a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch (of course I cut it up into tiny pieces). She gobbled it down! It is amazing how big she is and I'm actually starting to make her "big girl" food. She eats graham crackers, animal cookies, nilla wafers, peas, bananas, melon, cheese, waffles, and pasta. She is really beginning to tolerate more texture without spitting it out right away. Of course she still loves her baby food purees. She eats just about any of those now. She is still on Nutramigen formula for her milk protein allergy, but here in the next few weeks we will try and switch her to a milk based formula. Pray she tolerates it and we can get her off this extremely costly formula!!!

Grilled cheese for lunch!

Awake from a nap

So many toys to play with!

What a big helper!

Yesterday marked a year since my dad passed away. I honestly can't believe it has been a year already. The year just flew by. So many changes has taken place all in a year. Now we have this beautiful, healthy baby girl who has brought so much joy into our lives and in a way has shadowed our grief and pain. We don't know why things happen the way they do, but we are so thankful that we were blessed with Maddie. The timing was exactly the way it should have been. Mimi talks about Poppy all of the time for Maddie and lets Maddie kiss on his pictures. Maddie is going to know all about her Poppy, even though she will never meet him. We will cherish the memories forever. And now Natalie is expecting! I haven't even mentioned that! I guess it was on the down-low for so long that I forgot to blog about it. She is about 18 weeks pregnant and will find out on November 17th if Maddie will have a little girl or boy cousin! We can't wait!!