Madison's 6 Month Happenings!

This past month flew by once again and now my baby girl is a half a year old! August was a fun filled month, with the highlight including a visit from Maddie's Uncle Jason. Madison also experienced solid food for the first time, saw my all time favorite tennis player, Rodger Federer, and made the most of summer with Daddy by taking advantage of his first two easy rotations. Being 6 months old also brings many new milestones for Madison:
*Solids- We introduced Madison to solid foods while Uncle Jason was in town. She handled spoon feeding like a champ, and has now had rice cereal, carrots, and a taste of Mommy's french fry. I am waiting a week in between introducing new foods.
*Sits up by self
*Moves all around the floor by rolling from tummy to back, back to tummy, etc
*Responds to the phase "look at Mom"
*Uses both hands to play with toys and seems to be understanding cause and effect (ie. pulls on toy to make it play music)
*Can put her pacifier in her mouth all by herself
*Can blow bubbles in the bath tub and swimming pool!!!
*Starting to make more consonant sounds (still doing plenty of vowel sounds too!)

Our 6 month photo shoot with Tinkerbell was a lot easier because I had Daddy home to help me get Madison to smile and leave Tink alone. Once I snagged some good pics we let her "go at Tinkerbell" see below.

Madison=" Oh hi there Tink, come a little closer"

Madison= "Let me look into those big blue eyes of yours"

Madison= "Now let me do my FAVORITE thing and put you in my mouth!" "Boy oh boy do you taste good!)

Here is Madison trying rice cereal for the very first time! We were so excited, and loved watching Maddie conquer this new skill. She just took it in stride and did so well, I was so proud of my baby girl. We also got to have Uncle Jason in town and do face time on the Ipad with Grandpa and Grandma Parker for the monumental event.


See, there are the proud grandparents on the Ipad!


Madison was a champ again for her 6 month shots, check out both her bandaids. Madison is our little shorty and is still below the 3rd percentile for height (23 in). Other stats= 5th percentile for weight (12 lbs 13oz), and 10th percentile for head. Great things come in small packages, and it's looking like Maddie is going to be like her Mama and be small!

Family pic in front of THE Rodger Federer. While Jason was in town we all went down to the Cincinnati tennis open, and had a great time seeing all our favorite players up close and personal.

Maddie keeping cool and avoiding a sunburn


Jason, Me, Maddie, and Scottie

Madison writing birthday cards to her important Grandpas

Family outting at Alum Creek Beach

Dr. Parker is starting his residency with some easier rotations, so we are trying to take advantage of it and do every fun thing we can think of. Here we are exploring Columbus at the Santa Maria (*above) and Columbus Museum of Art (*below).

Madison meeting Uncle Jason (notice how they match). Jason- Thanks for being willing to spend your vacation time on a visit to see us! We loved having you, and miss you lots!

It was a good month....month 7 might have a hard time beating it!

Summer Fun

It has been an awesome summer, full of LOTS of FUN!!! One of my favorite things I have done is go to the water park Zoombezi Bay. This summer is the first time in my life that I have been a season pass holder, and boy oh boy have I loved having access to this park whenever I want! The pics above and below were from an especially fun day at Zoombezi, because Scottie watched all our kiddos so I could go ride the slides with these lovely ladies! We had a great time screaming our hearts out, being children free, and even conquered the blue speed slide!

Here we are pointing at the blue slide, we all conquered. I am not going to lie, I was pretty darn scared to go down that thing, but had great time and managed not to have a heart attacked when I shot out of the tube, got some air, and then went STRAIGHT down!

Another fun summer past time for us has been golfing. We have been able to get out a couple times as a family, and I am so impressed with how well Maddie has done. I guess we are starting her out early.

This particular outing was monumental for me because I got my first ever birdie, and yes, at that moment I did feel like Tiger Woods! Here is a pic of me flashing the number 2 at the hole where my birdie took place.

Bringing Maddie along means we get to have a cart...whoooooooooooot whoooooooo


Us during restaurant week with Scottie's fellow residents and their families. Scottie has a really great group he is working with this year!

Take me out to the ball game- Scottie's program had a family night at the Clippers Baseball game, so we took advantaged of the free tickets and had a fun night watching the game.

Maddie looking pretty stylish as she tries to avoid getting a sunburn (Don't worry I had sunscreen on her too!)

Another golfing trip picture! This has been the best summer ever and I am so thankful for the easy rotations Scottie has had to ease us into residency. I hope Summer decides to linger again this year...

Before/After- Maddie's blessing pictures

My friend and I played around with photoshop on some of Maddie's blessing pictures!!!!!!!!! I am blown away with what she can do in the program. Just look at these before and after pictures and see if you can tell what changes we made!

Before= hand, knee, and shadows in the picture. After= All gone!!!!!!!!!!!

Before= Scary baseboards and wall. After=the baseboards turned into beautiful hardwood floor, plus we made it black and white.

Before=Maddie's normal blue eyes. After= Maddie's blue eyes enhanced:)

Here are some more unedited pictures that Steph took! I just loved them all and wanted to show some more off. Enjoy my sweet baby girl!






Well there you have it! Don't you just want to pinch those cute little cheeks?????????I just love them and smother them with kisses everyday! Stay tuned for BEFORE AND AFTER pictures of Maddie's room!

Our Parker Family Garden

Before

After

Before- Just seeds

After- The fruit of our labor!!!

Tis the season for gardening!!! I just love this time of year and always look forward to the time when Scottie and I can plant our garden and then reap the rewards of our labors. Well now is the time that we are reaping, and I totally love it! We have had an amazing growing season this year and got our garden into the ground early in May. Then we started watering, weeding, and praying our plants would grow....and they did!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have tomatoes (100+), green beans (bags full), peppers (5), cucumbers (too many to count), cantaloupe (3), and lettuce...all my plants (except the lettuce) are still producing too!!! Serisouly, I just love gardening and think it is so amazing to watch things grow!!!

My amazing Hubby getting the soil all ready

Us planting a green pepper plant-speaking of which my plants have done an amazing job this year and I have been getting peppers since late June....normally I don't get peppers until the end of August.

Well there you have it! Another wonderful gardening season under our belts. I can't wait until next year when I will have a home which= a BIGGER GARDEN!