I LIKE RICE!!!

I actually started this post on Friday, August 27th, but I'm just now getting to finish it!

Our sweet Madeline has started eating rice cereal! We talked to our pedi a week or so ago and told him that we just couldn't fill our little piggy up! She would get SO HUNGRY during the evening before bed - she was eating 5 ounces of formula every hour and a half. He told us to go ahead and start feeding her some rice cereal.

We started last Friday night and she has done very well! We fed her a few ounces of formula from her bottle before we tried the rice so she'd be happy having something in her tummy. We were afraid she might push the cereal out instead of swallowing it, since she's just over 3 months and might still have the "tongue thrust reflex". My understanding is that babies usually have this until around 4 months, but for the most part she kept it in her mouth and swallowed it.

The cereal was pretty soupy - we mixed it with 5 tablespoons of formula. She seemed to like it immediately - in fact, I couldn't get it in her mouth fast enough! She looked just like a little birdie waiting for its mama to feed it a worm. Everytime the spoon got close to her mouth, it opened wide! She seemed to get pretty frustrated after a while because she couldn't get it in fast enough. It was so soupy that she swallowed it fairly quickly. We eventually poured the rest of it into her bottle and she gobbled it down.

 


Trying out her travelling booster seat we were given to use when she's at her grandparents' houses. We didn't think she'd need a highchair so soon, so we haven't bought one yet!



Yum, yum! Faster, Mommy, FASTER!




Staring at Daddy, the photographer.

The aftermath! Not TOO terribly messy for the first time!

We've made the creal less soupy recently, so it's worked much better! She's starting to be extra hungry in the mornings, too, so we'll start rice cereal for breakfast tomorrow morning!

Playtime

One of Madeline's favorite things to do is play with her ocean-themed play gym. It has a bright green seahorse and orange octopus with a mirror hanging on one end and baby-sized beach ball hanging on the other end. She bats at Mr. Seahorse and Mr. Octopus with each hand and kicks the stuffin' out of the beach ball with her feet - all the while talking to them in her own special language. They're big buddies. :) You can also take the toys off and attach them directly to the mat for her to play with during tummy time. As she continues developing, you can eventually turn the whole thing into a tunnel she can crawl through. I LOVE toys that grow with her...a sweet friend gave this to her before she was born.


Madeline and some of her best friends, Mr. Seahorse and Mr. Octopus



Playtime with Madeline is SO much fun! It's always been fun to watch her learn things, but it's WAY more fun now because she's starting to really interact with her toys. She's been able to follow a simple little rattle with her eyes (by sight and sound) for along time now, as well as hold it and shake it if you work with her on it. But NOW, she can GRAB it on her own and shake it and play with it! SO MUCH fun to watch her do it! Of course she loves to hear me say 'good girl' when she does it! She also has a little soft rattle that looks like a flower (we call her "Flower Power") that has crinkly stuff in the petals - sounds like crumpling cellophane. She usually just follows it with her eyes as I play with her, but now she's reaching out for it and making the petals crunch! She's also started putting things in her mouth, not a lot yet, but some. You can just hear her thinking...hmm, I wonder what this tastes like? Of course, that includes her fist! Yummy!



Madeline's Favorite Rattle



  



Madeline and Miss Flower Power



She has also decided that my face is a jungle gym! While hovering above her talking to her (picture her on her back on the floor or on the bed) she LOVES grabbing my lips, nose, and poking at my eyes. She's even grabbed my hair a few times. I LOVE smooching those precious little hands while they're exploring my face! I'll suffer making the sacrifice to be her jungle gym any day!

Madeline is the BEST Medicine!!!

Alan's Dad had another chemo treatment this past Monday for his colon/liver cancer. He felt "okay" until Thursday when he started feeling really bad. There's no real set pattern as to how he'll react to his treatments.

Alan's parents live in DeSoto (Dallas area) but have a lakehouse on Lake Frankston, which is around 30 minutes from our house. They are spending more and more time there - especially after Harold's treatments. They're actually in the process of moving to Tyler, which we can't WAIT to happen. They're just waiting for their house in DeSoto to sell. Anyway, I digress. They came to the lake the middle of the week. Alan and I decided to surprise them last night and bring Harold a little "Madeline Medicine". We think it did the trick! :)

We ate dinner with them and they each had fun spending time with Little Miss. We enjoyed watching a GREAT Rangers game together and had planned to come home after the game was over. It was quite late by the time we left, as the game went into extra innings, but it was a lot of fun!

Please pray for Harold (aka Papa - "pawpaw") that the Lord would completely heal him of his cancer and that he would live many more years to spend with Madeline and the rest of his family. We love you, Papa!



Madeline and her Papa



Oh, My Aching Back!

After just getting started in the "blog" world, I've been absent for about a week! I woke up last Thursday morning feeling as if I'd just "slept wrong" - kind of had a kink in my back - but it didn't keep me from doing any of my daily activities. Madeline and I went to Longview to hang out with my parents that night as Alan was preparing for two hearings on Friday and would be very busy. He was to join us Friday night after work. It was a good time for us to visit my parents and my grandmother as well, who hadn't seen Madeline in a few weeks.

I woke up Friday morning feeling MUCH better and thought everything was okay, but started progressively getting worse early that evening. By the time we started back toward Tyler Saturday night, I was pretty much miserable. I could hardly get in and out of the van to drive us home (we ended up with two cars in Longview). As soon as we got home, I took a full dose of my regularly prescribed muscle relaxers (for my Fibromyalgia), applied an Icy Hot patch (felt GREAT!) and went to bed. Needless to say, we didn't make it to church Sunday! I took it easy all day Sunday and Alan took care of Miss Madeline all day and night. I have NEVER had that kind of back pain and hope I never have it again! The slightest movement in the wrong direction made my back scream! I was walking around like I was 102 years old.

Our regular physician was out of the office on Monday, so I went to Tyler Urgent Care first thing that morning. They had me in and out in a flash with a diagnosis of acute lower back pain and prescription for a steroid. By the time I got back home, my sweet parents had arrived from Longview to help me take care of Madeline for the week. Not just my parents, but half a kitchen's worth of food to take care of us for the week as well. What would I do without my precious parents? I don't know. Love them so much.

I iced my back off and on the rest of the day, took it easy, and let my parents do what I couldn't. The steroids worked a MIRACLE. By Monday night I was feeling much, much, better. Each day of this week has been spent pretty much the same way. I thought I might be ready for Mom and Dad to go home last night, but I had a dental checkup and a regular checkup at the doctor today, so they graciously stayed one more day so I wouldn't have to get Madeline in and out of her car seat to take her to her Aunt Michelle's while I was at my appointments.

I was grateful to already have an appointment scheduled with Dr. Bentley (our WONDERFUL regular physician) today so that he could also check my back. He thinks it's healing well and says I'm doing everything I can for it right now. Whew! Praise the Lord! I'm able to care for Madeline as usual now with a few modifications, like changing her on the guest bed instead of her crib. That particular movement - like bending over in front of the sink brushing your teeth - is still quite painful, especially when you add her weight to it!

So, I'm trying my best to get back into the swing of things. Thanks again to my wondeful parents who took such good care of us this week. We love you! And Happy Birthday again to my Dad - he didn't mind being away from home another day today since he got to spend his birthday with his beautiful granddaughter. :)



Happy Birthday to my Dad!!!



Happy 5th Anniversary!

Happy 5th Anniversary to Alan W. Pigg, P.C.! Alan's law firm celebrated it's 5th Anniversary this past Sunday, August 1st. From day one, Alan and I dedicated our new business to the Lord, striving to provide quality legal representation to those seeking workers' compensation and social security disability benefits. It was a HUGE step of faith, but we have certainly been blessed! It's easy for Alan to truly enjoy what he does every day when he has a great staff and good clients. It's a WONDERFUL thing to be able to pray for our business and clients on a daily basis as a staff.

Alan's legal assistant, Marty, has been with us for the majority of the time we've been open, but we recently hired someone to work part-time to help ease the work load. Alexis began working for us last week, and we are extremely excited to have her as part of our team!

Our staff (all four of us!) went to lunch today to celebrate at Sonoma Grill. The food was delicious and we had a great time. We even splurged for dessert - something we never do. I had some Kentucky Derby pie, a warm chocolate chip Georgia pecan pie served with vanilla ice cream. It was yummy!

Thank you, Lord, for providing a source of income for our family and for the added benefit of it being something that Alan loves doing!

This Little Piggy

We've started playing "This Little Piggy" with Madeline during bathtime, so this was especially funny to me. I saw this commercial in the "wee" hours of the morning while feeding her. Classic.

Just Because She's Cute

First Day in the Church Nursery

I'll be doing some backtrack posting here and there - so here we go with the first one! This past Sunday, August 1st, was Madeline's first day in the church nursery! It was also her Mimi's birthday (Alan's mom). We have been to church twice since Madeline was born - both times keeping her with us during SMBS (Sunday Morning Bible Study) and sitting with her in the balcony during worship. Per our pediatrician's suggestion, we hadn't planned to take her to the nursery until after she'd had her first immunizations at 2 months old.

We got her checked in at the Children's Ministry desk and took her to her room to meet the workers who would be with her. Everything went so fast, we didn't have much time to think about it until we started walking toward our SMBS class - just the two of us. Then we got a little sad! Although we knew she was in good hands, it was hard leaving her since it was the first time she'd been in the care of someone other than family.We checked on her once between SMBS and the worship serivce and she was sound asleep in a swing next to Caboose (the nickname of the little boy of some good friends of ours). We picked her up after the service and she was getting her diaper changed. We were told she'd just finished a bottle and that she had done great!

The dress she wore that morning was given to her by her cousin, Elissa, before Madeline was born. I've always thought it was darling and couldn't wait for her to wear it.

Well - one successful day in the nursery down, a gazillion to go!

Taking the Plunge

Okay. I'm doing it. I'm taking the plunge into the blog world. I started setting this up MONTHS ago, but never did anything with it because I never really thought I had much to write about. Well now that we have precious little Madeline, I thought this would be a great way to document her life and keep her grandparents updated more often. So, here we go...