Sleep!!!

I really hope I don't jinx this, but the past 2 nights have been amazing. Maddie has truly slept thru the night. She has been a horrible sleeper from the beginning, and I had all but given up on either of us ever sleeping thru the night again, and then a miracle occured. We had decided to do a variation on the cry it out method. I say variation, because the thought of her crying for an extended period of time was hard for me. So we decided that we would give her 20 minutes and if she didn't stop crying by then Ster would go in and love her for a couple minutes and put her back down. We knew if I went in to her it would only make things worse and she would want to nurse.

So the first couple nights Ster had to go into her once around 2 am and then she would wake around 530 and I would feed her and put her back to bed. This was actually a big improvement for us, as she was still waking twice and sometimes 3 times during the night. I noticed as I really let her try and get herself back to sleep, each night the time in which she would cry would get shorter. 2 nights ago she slept from 10pm til 815am. OH MY GOSH.... I forgot what a good nights rest really felt like. I felt human again, I had energy without any help from caffeine, and I could complete sentences without stuttering. She slept pretty well last night and I'm praying for this to continue.

Maddie has learned to fold her arms and enjoys when we say prayer. It's so cute now, Ster or I will just casually say "Let's say prayer" and she will immediately fold her arms. Every morning I make her cereal and before I feed it to her we say prayer. Well this morning I forgot about that, but my little angel reminded me by folding her arms as I was getting ready to feed her. I was shocked! Not quite 1 years old, and she is already keeping me in line. I can't believe how attentive she is, and all the things she picks up on. It's so fun to see her personality emerge a little more every day. I can tell she is going to keep Ster and I on our best behavior!

I thought these pictures were awesome of her praying while riding her pony in nothing but her diaper. We've told her she can pray at any time no matter what. Looks like she's truly taken that to heart!! ;)

Flashback!

Ok ok ok. I know it's been forever since I blogged, and I'm sorry. I know many of you have just been sitting on pins and needles waiting for me to blog, so here it is! The holidays were AWESOME! We had so much fun in CA with my family. They spoiled Lil M rotten! So much so, that we had a little trouble transitioning back to "normal"-- meaning not being entertained, played with or fed non-stop(thank you Aunt Jen for insuring Maddie was not starving to death! ;0) Jen told us to pack light enough that on the way home we would have 1 seat open... I kept secretly hoping that was because she was coming home with us. When you look at the pics below, you'll see why.

I think my favorite story from while we were down there was that one day, I had put Maddie down for her nap and Ster and I decided to go out on a lil date. (We did that quite a few times while we were there. Free babysitting!) When we got back my mom and sis were laughing so hard and proceeded to tell us that when M woke up they went to change her diaper and inside was our dog Kali's dog bone. A dog bone!!!! How in the heck did it get in there you might ask??? Well it's still a mystery to us... especially since she was wearing a onesie.

Aunt Jen is usually very protective of Maddie (exception: when bathing and Maddie won't cooperate, she just dumped a cup of water over her head to rinse out the shampoo. Scarred her for life and she hasn't taken a bath since!) That pic is of Jen trying to comfort my poor baby. J/k Jen!

As you can see our little babe got spoiled rotten and loved every minute of it! She loves her little baby dolls and HUGE duck. Now she gives everything soft luvs. Couch included!