Feeding Firsts

A little over a week ago, on September 20th, we introduced Maddie to her first solid - rice cereal. We were a little curious as to how she would react because we've heard it's not the tastiest meal, but she loved it! We took photos of her eating the cereal twice - her first time we didn't have the greatest light, but we wanted to capture the momentus event regardless! So some of these photos have her wearing a short sleeve shirt (her first feeding) and some have her in a long sleeve short (a subsequent feeding)...but they are all adorable!

This past Sunday we introduced her to her first solid with some flavor! Sweet potoates won out as her first tasty food and she loved it! We have some great photos of her orange face! On Thursday we'll be able to start her on the next veggie...I think it may be green beans, another favorite of David's and mine!

Here is a great rice cereal shot from her very first try...

She loves helping out and grabbing a hold of the spoon to feed herself...or knock around to play drums with on her tray table...or drop on the floor!

And some from our second rice cereal photo op...





Right now she loves looking at things upside down! So instead of turning around to see something, she lean her head all the way backwards and look at it upside down. We had definitely lost her interest in eating at this point, but it was funny to watch her doing this!



And her first tasty veggie...attack of the sweet potatoes! The lighting in these isn't too great either...our Pizza Hut chandelier just isn't cutting it! They are cute though! Her expression in the second photo just cracks me up!





All our love!
Nile, David & Maddie

Swimming with Daddy

My apologies that this post is a little late getting up! On Sunday Maddie had her second swim lesson and David went in with her this time. I tried to get photos that were as great as the ones that David took of us. Mine aren't quite as good, but I did manage to get a few cute ones!

Daddy and Maddie just before the swim lesson...

Maddie enjoying the water with Daddy...



Maddie smiling for her humpty dumpty time and being lifted up high as she "falls" off the wall...



Just chilling with Daddy and taking in the views...

Maddie practicing her swimming technique...

Having fun with the big orange ball at the end of class...

Sunday was also Maddie's first day of eating solids! She tried some rice cereal and loved it! We took some fun photos of her eating too that I will post as soon as we get the photos uploaded.

Love you all!
Nile, David & Maddie

First Swim Lesson

Maddie had her first swimming lesson yesterday and she did great! We found a really nice facility that focuses on children's lessons and keeps their pool heated to 92 degrees, so there's no temperature shock for anyone - got to love that!

We signed up for a series of six lessons and each lesson is a half hour. The time went by very fast and Maddie seemed to enjoy it all! She just sort of laid back and went along with everything and soaked it all in. She's going to be a little fish in no time! Check out what a babe she is in her swimsuit too!

The teacher we had was really nice and did a good job at modifying each of the activities for the little ones. Here's a shot of our whole class...

Here we are getting our feet wet...


After everyone was in the water, we started out by singing "It's raining, it's pouring" and dripping some water over their heads. Then we worked on the skill of blowing bubbles. We walked around in a circle singing "Ring around the rosy" but instead of "ashes, ashes we all fall down" we sang "splashes, splashes, we all blow bubbles". Since Maddie can't blow bubbles yet, I bent down and blew bubbles in the water so she could see what those are.

The teacher then had us work on kicking and I rested Maddie's head on my shoulder and then kicked her legs for her. She did so great! She hasn't quite gotten into the "splash around and get everything wet" mentality, but I'm sure it'll come soon!

We walked around in a circle singing "Pop goes the weasel" too and would pop the babies out of the water when we got to that part of the song. I think we worked on floating next and we just took her around the pool holding her belly up.

They had us work with them on going underwater too which freaked me out, I have to say! Due to Maddie's age, we just did a partial dip, but it still scared me! The teacher came by and showed me exactly how to do it. We would count to three and when we got to three, I blew in her face. As soon as she made that funny look like "air has just gotten in my eyes" I would do a quick scoop, taking her under water (so that it just covered her nose) and bringing her in close to me. She did great with it, but I was nervous! You can see I was holding my breath too!


We sang "Put your right arm in" and went through all their body parts too! That was fun - it brought me back to my junior high days at the roller skating rink! That's the only place I've ever sang that song before!

Then we sang Humpty Dumpty and put the babies up on the "wall" of the pool and had them "fall" into the water when Humpty Dumpty fell. It was all so fun!


Then it was time to get dried off and change into her dry outfit. Isn't she just a sweetheart?!


David is going to do Maddie's lesson with her this weekend and I am going to do my best to take pictures as great as the ones he took!

Love you all!
Nile, David & Our Little Swimmer

6 Months of Perfection

Today Maddie had her 6 month check-up and the doctor said she is absolutely perfect! (insert image of mommy smiling ear to ear when she heard that!) She grew an inch and is now 25.5" tall and gained about a half pound so she's now weighing 13 lbs, 13 oz. Both of those kept her along the same path she was last time - 50th percentile for height and 25th percentile for weight. Her head measurement was right on track too and kept her in the 50th percentile there. Wahoo!!

When she turns 6 months on the 20th, we get to start introducing her to solids. I am so excited to do this and see her reaction to foods! The last couple of weeks she has been really noticing when David and I eat and watching what we're eating or drinking so I think she's going to love having something of her own to eat! We are supposed to start out with rice cereal and give her that once a day for a week and then introduce her to all the veggies. We try each veggie for three days before introducing another one so that if she has any reaction to the food we can easily pinpoint what caused it. We can give her as much or as little veggies as she likes, as often as she likes. Once we run through all the veggies then we can move on to fruits. I know this is going to be insanely messy, but I'm really looking forward to it!

I was also able to reach my goal of nursing Maddie until she's 6 months. I'm so happy I was able to do that and we've had such special times together while she's feeding. With her 6 month birthday though, we're going to start weaning her from breastmilk and slowly introduce formula to her. We're going to introduce it slowly so that it hopefully doens't upset her tummy and we can make sure she's adjusting to it ok. The plan is to have her completely on formula by mid-November.

So all in all, everything is going great! We couldn't have been blessed with a more wonderful daughter!

Love you all,
Nile, David & Maddie