A collection of Madison

Miss Maddie LOVES it outside. Every time that we open the front door she either starts running or starts waving and flapping her hands. The other day Mike went out to get the mail and Maddie 'waited' for him inside the door. Evidently she was being a little silly, so he went in and got he camera. This is what he captured..........

Do you think maybe she was hungry? Needless to say we had to wash the windows later that afternoon.

Speaking of eating and dinner we had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner the other night. We have Maddie a meatball to start dinner, while we waited for the pasta to cool down. (I went ahead and threw in so rotini in the pot along with our noodles, thinking that it would be a little easier for her to eat) However, the minute we let her eat the pasta she wanted nothing else to do with her meatball. The little girl went through about 15 rotini noodles and then insisted on more, so she got some of our spaghetti.

 She had a hard time figuring out that she had to let go of one end of the noodle when she put it in her mouth/ She kept sticking a strand in then unknowingly pull it out. This made her frustrated and mad and in return she got tired. Tired girl + spaghetti = bath time and scrub down. 

New friends and fun times.

What a fun summer we are off to. I am excited to get to spend the year at home with Maddie next year and all of the adventures that we will have. We have already gone swimming, gone on runs in our new jog stroller, played at the park and had music time. We are excited to add another friend to our play group as well. Starting this week I have started watching a friends daughter, Marley, part time. Marley is almost 7 months and the girls are already having a great time.

On our first day together Maddie wanted to show Marley all around the house. We showed her how to play the piano and Daddy's guitar. Miss Marley even gave it a try herself!

Sharing Mommy has been a bit of a challenge, but something that Maddie is learning to do. Since Maddie is so mobile its hard for her to understand that Mommy has to hold Marley and take her places when Maddie can just go. As you can see from the picture above we are creative with how we do things.

The girls are also working on sharing toys. The first day we had a lot of talks about playing nice and being careful when touching each other...(ie not pulling on hair and poking each other in the eyes) I think that Maddie has finally figured out that Marley is real and not a doll. She is being much more gentle and kind and often offers up toys for Marley to play with (however most of the time she takes them right back.....we are still working on that part of sharing).

Here are some pictures of Marley and Maddie trying to figure each other out a little bit.

Doesn't this one look like they are up to no good? I have a feeling that I will be seeing a LOT of this over the next year.

New Best Friends. I can't wait to see what becomes of their friendship and time together as they grow up.

Weekend Fun

What fun we have had this week! Maddie got her pictures taken at JCPenny. She did a great job concidering I changed her into 3 different outfits and there was a random stranger talking to her and waving a big black box in front of her face with flashes! I will post some of her pictures later this week. After our pictures we went to the play area at the mall. Maddie LOVES it there. She just squeals with delight and tries to chace the other kids around. As you can see she likes to now climb up the animals! I am not ready for this yet. She definitly has a mind of her own and when she wants to do something she does it! Below are a few of the pictures that Mike took while we were playing. We have a video of her going up the stairs, but it is sideways and I can't figure out how to flip it around.

I have been busy this week making cakes as well. Maddie loves to sit in her high chair and watch me mix everything up. Her eyes get sooo big when the mixer goes on and she just claps and claps. This weekend I gave her a spatella to play with while I was working and she continued to carry it around the rest of the day. She is also a big help at clean up time as you can see.......She likes to go over and grab the towel off of the frig door and carry it around.

Now here is the result of our work........ This is a baby shower cake for my college friend Jami's new little neice. It turned out great.

9 months old

Maddie had her 9 month check up on Thursday. It's hard to believe that 9 months ago we just found out that we were going to be parents. Oh how our lives have changed! There is never a dull moment that is for sure. Madison brings so much joy to our lives, we can't imagine what we did without her.

Here's Maddie at Dr. Fulop's office. Our little peanut is 16 lbs. 8 oz. That puts her in the 10 percentile for her weight at 26 3/4 inches she is in the 15 percentile for her length. Her head circumference is in the 75th thought. Mike likes to say its because she is so smart! We were worried about her being little, but she has constantly stayed in the 10-15 % since she was born. The doctor said that was just fine.

By no means has that hindered her development. Maddie is already walking....and has been for about 2 weeks now. At about 8 months she started taking 'steps' but has been a woman on the go for a good 2 weeks now. She loves to pick up things off of the ground and carry them around the house. Her favorites are a stuffed cow that is the size she is and her Johny the Tractor book. It is a blessing that our house is set up in a circle down stairs....she just walks and walks and loves to chase Mommy around the kitchen island.

Speaking of stairs we had to go buy a baby gate this week. Mike was working in the living room the other day as Maddie was taking her daily stroll around the house when he didn't hear her any more.  "Maddie...Maddie....' he called, but she didn't come pitter pattering like she normally does. He went to the front door and there she was sitting on the 3rd step of the stairs. Later that day when was working on the computer he turned to find her on the 4th step! The little one is adventurous for sure! So that afternoon we took an outing to Babies R Us and are officially sporting the baby gate....which does SO much for the overall decor of the house (Vern Yip would NOT approve).

Madison has been adventurous as far as her food goes too! Now that we are home for the summer we are trying to do less baby food and more people food. She loves it. To the point that she really doesn't want baby food now except for her cereal and the occasional canned fruit. Some of her favorites are bananas, bread, chicken and steak......yes steak (grandpa Joe and uncle Robbie would be so proud!) He have recently tired hummus which she loves. She was a big fan of the roast pork and cheesy potatoes that we had at Lauren's graduation party, so we have already got her set for all the Porteus/Buxton/Wells reunions! Speaking of family favorites, she also has her love of spaghetti and meatballs like her daddy. She had a grand time eating them the other night.....but would refuse to be fed with a fork. She would only eat them with her hands.

Life has been amazing the past 9 months. We can't wait to see what the next 9 months and many more years have in store for us. I'm sure there will be smiles and a few tears as well, but we wouldn't change it for the world!

               Madison before her shot at the doctor.................

Madison after her shot at the doctor.

Summer is here. Maddie and I are so excited about getting to spend some quality time together. With only a few short days left to tie up loose ends at school we have already begun having fun. We can't wait to go to the park with Daddy, watch Uncle Dominic play baseball, go to the mall on rainy days and check out the Columbus Zoo.

Not only will Maddie and I get to spend some mommy and daughter time together I am excited to get to add some new friends to our play group.  Starting this summer I will be watching Marley as well and can't wait to see how the girls interact and play together. Two bubbly, happy little girls that can't wait to explore the world are going to be so much fun. In October we will add one more to our group as I am privaleged to get to watch my new nephew (as of now we will call him superhero according to his big brother Carson) when Janna goes back to work. There are SO many changed happening in my life right now and I can't wait to experience them all.

Here are a few pics of what we have been up to so far with many more to follow!

Maddie getting used to the water in her new swimming pool. Don't you just love the ruffles on that bathing suit?

After a while she decided that 'cruising' around the edge of the pool was so much more fun the playing in the water.

Finally getting used to riding in the stroller without tears! The key you ask..............Cheerios!

Maddie loves to walk around the jungle gym and hold onto the bars. Daddy thought that she would like to swing on the monkey bars for a while as well. This was at the beginning of the fun. Maddie however had a different idea of fun about 2 minutes into playing.

She LOVES her new jog stroller. We are so excited about this one. It is a double stoller that will hold up to 2 kids and 150 lbs. It also converts to a bike cart as well that you use to attach to any bike.

This is Maddie after the Grove City Community Winds Concert at Pinnical Golf Course in Grove City. Maddie was so great for the concert. Here she is next to Mike's tuba after we changed into our pjs for the ride home in the car. We were hoping that she would fall asleep on the way back to the house and we could just put her in her crib......again, she had different plans for us.

This is at the play area of the Polaris Mall......or as Mike lovingly refers to it 'the germ pit'. Lucky for us Daddy wasn't with us on this trip. Miss Maddie LOVED playing here. I think part of her fun was just to watch and chase after the other kids. I took so many more pictures, however most of them are blurred by Maddie's hands wiggling in excitment!

Toe Tapping Good Time

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More music time at the Porretta household. This time it's with Daddy and cousin Carson when he came over to play.

Piano lessons

From the moment that I could feel Maddie moving in my belly music has always spoke to her. She heard me singing everyday in class, she sat through countless piano lessons and attended more concerts then most kids do before she was even born.

Now that Maddie is her it is obvious she has a love of music. Whenever an upbeat song comes on she is flapping her hands and bouncing all around (most of the time to the beat!). She will sit in the music room while I teach piano lessons and just listen and play. Sometimes she likes to crawl under the piano bench and know that she can pull herself up will try to 'play' along with my students. If Mike isn't around she will often times sit on my lap for a part of the lesson and just wave and 'sing'.

So I guess I shouldn't be surprised when I was making dinner tonight that the piano started playing. I turned into the music room where Maddie was playing and this is what I saw..........enjoy.