Madeleine's First Birthday Party!

We had Madeleine's First Birthday party at our home on Sunday November 8th (her actual birthday is on Monday the 9th).  We had about 20 adults and 9 kids at the house!  The kids ranged from 3 months to 4.5 years old.  It was a lovely day full of local family and friends.  Maddie had tons of fun playing with her friends and eating nonstop!

We had a small smash cake for her and she loved the cake! Everyone else's cake was delicious as well.  We had a lovely afternoon celebrating with everyone!  We look forward to opening up her gifts! Thank you so much to everyone who came and celebrated.

Here are lots of photos and videos from her birthday party.

The delicious cakes! White cake with banana cream filling, and whipped topping!

Playing with cousin Emilie (2 years old)

Playing with Lillian (2 years old)

Family picture

Selfie with Mama

Click below for many more pictures and videos, including some gorgeous pictures our friend David took with his camera.

Monthly Photo (12 months / 1 year old!)

Wow, Madeleine is 12 months old today!!!  We celebrated yesterday with local friends and family, and we celebrated today with a trip to the doctor and 4 shots of immunizations!

Official Stats:
Weight: 22.2 pounds - 80th percentile
Height: 31.25 inches - 99th percentile!
Head circumference: 46 centimeters - 80th percentile

Maddie is the height of an average 16 month old!  The doctor was very impressed with her and said she is right on track or even advanced for her age, which of course we knew, but is nice to get professional confirmation.

At the end of the doctors visit Maddie got four shots, 2 in each leg (MMR, Chicken Pox, PCV, and the flu shot) and a finger prick to get her blood count and test for lead. Her counts are fine and negative for lead :)

In the waiting room at the doctor's office

Down to her diaper, ready for her appointment. She loved the poster on the wall, it is of children from around the world and the word for "hello" from their countries.

Birthday Weekend - Bulls Game

We took Maddie to the Bulls game on Saturday night. It was a 5:00pm game versus the Minnesota Timberwolves. We made it just in time to see the Bulls' starting line up announced!

Maddie did pretty well during the game. She seemed interested during a few of the time out segments on the big screen. We mainly kept her occupied by feeding her. She had popcorn, had a baby food pouch, and also some soft serve ice cream!! We left at the beginning of the 4th quarter and I am secretly glad we did, as the game went into overtime and the Bulls lost.

Putting things in and out of containers

Maddie hit another "12 month" developmental milestone before reaching 12 months. We've been waiting for this milestone for a while.  She has been taking things out of a container for a while. She finally began to put things INTO a container! She will even put things into multiple containers of different sizes.

First, here is a video of her at the park. She was completely content playing with the leaves. She played with the leaves for at least 20 minutes! She placed the leaves from one side to the other, then she started to place leaves on top of the playground tube, then placing them on the ground, then back in the tube. She was so upset when we went home, she wanted to play with the leaves!  I didn't realize until now this was her developing the skill of moving things into and out of spaces.

Here is a video of her placing things into a basket. After this, she did it with 3 boxes!  I would have taken photos but my phone ran out of battery.

Early November Photos & Video

Just before taking this video, I showed Maddie a video I had taken of her the day before. She seemed to get a kick out of it, so I put my camera on reverse mode and took a video of us so Maddie could see herself on the screen. She loved seeing herself on the camera!  When I played it back for her, she even started talking to herself when she started to talk on camera!

End of October Fun - Pictures & Videos

Some fun stuff from the end of October!

More Halloween

On the Thursday before Halloween, Pau Pau took Maddie to the park where they were having a costume contest! Maddie won third place! (most of the kids won third place)

Joseph and I went as the Dad and Mom Lion to a friend's party on Friday night.

The weather on Saturday Halloween was pretty terrible. It rained all morning and afternoon. We had plans to trick or treat along the 606 trail but it was raining and they changed to a facility much farther away, so we did not do anything on Halloween.  But we did get this super cute picture of Maddie in her pumpkin shirt!