Madison celebrated her very first Thanksgiving yesterday. This is my favourite holiday because we always have so much to be thankful for! Most of the day was spent crawling and playing. Madison has noticed that the sisel rug in the dining room is a little hard on her knees so, whenever she arrives at it, she crawls on her hands and feet instead of her knees. When she gets to the end of that rug, she goes back down onto her knees.

In the afternoon, Kurt took Yarra for a walk. Madison and I stayed home since it was so cold (below freezing). When he arrived back home, Kurt started to cook a couple of side dishes to take over to the Duffey’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. What a meal! Madison even had turkey and rice. I think we all may have eaten way too much but everything looked and tasted so good that it seemed like it would have been wrong to miss anything. There was turkey, of course, and stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, mashed pototoes, butternut squash soup with a chipotle creme fraiche, and a noodle dish topped with candied walnuts. Kurt’s two dishes were brussel sprouts with caramelized shallots and bacon pieces, and a butternut squash casserole with goat cheese. I think I must be the luckiest person on the face of the earth (for a LOT of reasons but Kurt’s cooking is definitely one of them!). There was a pumpkin pie cheese cake and a lemon meringue pie for dessert but only the children had any room for them!

It was so nice to be able to spend Thanksgiving with the Duffey family. We had some nice phone calls during the day from Stephanie and Grandma Agnes in Madison, from Karsten in New York, and from Sally in Indio, California. Of course, our next holiday will be Christmas and New Year everyone is planning on coming to Denver to celebrate for part of the holidays. We are looking forward to having our families here. I, for one, cannot wait!

Madison celebrated her 11 month birthday on Tuesday 13th November with her friend, Tybee Yamamoto, who came over for a play date. There was some laughing, some crying, some playing with toys, and some sleeping (Madison, not Tybee). I guess we’ll have to brush up on the visitor etiquette! I think you will be able to see some big changes in Madison when you see her 11 month photos. There is one in the Milestones for Madison album and the others are in Favourite Photos.

We’ve learned a new word…tummy.  Madison is very happy to be able to show you where her tummy is!

Today (Saturday 17th November 2007), we are taking Madison to not only one birthday party but two! Yes, Mummy overbooked us. First, we will be visiting Tybee for her “Welcome Home/Happy Birthday” party (Tybee’s 1st birthday is tomorrow) and then we’ll be going to see Tatum for her 1st birthday party which is today.

Both parties were great. Madison had a fabulous time playing with Tybee and then with Tatum (and her sister, Lexi, and brothers, Lachlan and Spencer) and Baylee.

Now we can see Madison’s top two front teeth clearly. The right one is a little longer than the left but they are both definitely there! Until now, we have only seen her two bottom front teeth when she smiles or giggles. I wonder how this will change the way she looks.

Saturday was the two month anniversary of us becoming a family and this coming Tuesday is Madison’s 11 month birthday. It seems like we have been together much longer (in a very positive way) and we keep wondering what’s next? What new thing will she do, what will she learn. She has become very interested in a couple of things this past week. We have a few pictures in the house with fish in them and she loves to ask “what is that” in her own special way (”eh?”). She has also found the butterflies in her room. She has three butterflies flying up one wall between her two shelves, another couple on her lamp, and one on the tissue box. She even has a couple on one of her blankets and on the bumper around her crib. The butterflies have made going to bed a little easier. For a few days there, we would put her to bed and she didn’t seem to want to go. Since finding the butterflies, she seems to want to go to bed!

I’ve been making fresh veggies and fruit for her rather than use all the store bought baby food. This week it’s been pureed peas, cauliflower, carrots, corn, sweet potatoe, potatoes, apples, and pears. She had scrambled eggs for breakfast this morning.

We went for our usual walk with our puppy dog again tonight but I’m not sure how long we will be able to continue with that. We’re expecting some snow to fall tomorrow, so we’ll just have to see if that happens. Luckily, we have a snow suit for Madison, so she will be able to play if it does snow. I bet she will show us all four of her adorable teeth when she laughs at how much fun it is!

Kelly

It’s been an exciting week with Madison showing us that she has learned more words. She isn’t able to say them yet, but she now understands button, zipper, watch, ring, bangle, pink pig, yellow ball, hello and hi, puppy dog, bird, fish, head, kisses, blanket, and dance. We were very excited to learn that, on Kurt’s birthday (1st November), she also learned how to say her second word in sign language (milk). She was already able to say “more” in sign language. Madison babbles and talks jibber jabber a lot. She is chatting right now as she plays with her toys. It’s exciting to hear that and exciting to see her move around. She crawls from one room to another and can now climb the stairs (up, not down yet). She likes to pull herself up on things and can even stand up by herself for short amounts of time (seconds). Dancing is also one of her favourite passtimes.

Each day, we try to do some different activities: dance, listen to music (including some Chinese childrens’ songs on CDs that we purchased for her in Nanchang), play with toys, read books, walk around either City Park or Wash Park, go to the store, or do some gardening. Each afternoon or evening, we take her puppy dog, Yarra, for a walk with her. Today, it looked like she was interested in the trees, the cars, and the street lights. One of her favourite things to do is to have bathtime. She loves splashing around in the water.

Last night was our first night away from her for a few hours. The Duffey family had kindly offered to watch her and they gave Kurt some hockey tickets for his birthday so we went to see the Colorado Avalanche play the Vancouver Canucks. Every so often, I caught myself thinking about her and I was glad to get back to her. She was sound asleep by that time.

Since our last post, Madison has been able to meet her Uncle Karsten (Shu Shu). She finger painted a pumpkin for Halloween while Karsten carved one. Madison even got dressed up for Halloween - she was a kangaroo with a little joey in her pouch. Too cute! We all went trick or treating together but this year, instead of asking for candy, we were handing it out!

Madison has also had a play date with her friend Tatum. That was fun because there were lots of new toys to play with. We hope to be able to have another play date soon. In the meantime, we’ll see how many new words we can learn!

Love from Kelly.