Here, there, everywhere.

This past Monday (or, just 5 short days ago) we posted an update about Maddie's first crawl. Since then, she's pretty much found every corner of the house, as seen in the following pics:

Cruising through the kitchen:

Whee, Dad! I found the Martini pitchers and wine racks!

Rounding the corner into the kitchen after being dropped in the living room 15 seconds prior (she's soooo pleased with herself)

Perhaps the scariest and most surprising new trick is that she can pull herself up to her knees, giving her a bunch of new wrecking capabilities. Loads of books, knick-knacks, knives, guns, broken glass shards, explosives, poisons, and other no-no's have been moved to higher ground.

Note the evil "just wait!" look in her eyes..

***UPDATE*** Less than 5 minutes after publishing this post, Maddie suffered her first crawling "incident": She fell forward and bit her lip. A little boo-boo, some love, and she's right back at it.

Crawling Creature

Today, after placing Maddie on the floor and looking away for a few seconds, it appeared that She'd magically (and quickly) made her way some 10 feet across the carpet. So we tried placing the object of her desire, a magazine, about 10 feet away from her once more, only this time we happened to remember the camera! ..here's what we shot:




So fun!

More Holidays..

Following Hanukkah in Santa Cruz, Maddie dragged us down to LA to see her Cousins Aunts, Uncles, Nana, Papa, Grandma, Grandpa, and lots of good friends.

Happy Holidays!!

With my Dad on Christmas morning in my beautiful dress!

Maddie amidst all her loot on the left ..although she seemed more interested in the bows and wrapping than the actual gifts, which'll probably change once she starts playing with them. On the right we see Maddie with cousins Megan and Rachel watching Bridget open gifts.

Here's Maddie with her Nana, Papa, and Cousins Taylor, Kaitlynn, Aaron, and Zachary.

Play it, sista..

A quickie post today. ..and a thank you to our most generous friends who stopped by and loaned this piano to Maddie (not to mention so many other things -- including the sorting toy that Maddie's turned into her Piano stool):

And of course, a couple pics of Maddie with her favorite new doll, "Madeline":

Hanukkah

Maddie's first Hanukkah has been wonderful. She's mesmerized by the candles, and loves tearing the wrapping off gifts. Unfortunately she then plays more with the wrapping than the actual gifts, but we're hoping that will change, because she's received tons of stuff! Too bad she's too little to eat the homemade rugelah, cookies and latkes that have been around for the past few days.

Some of Maddie's Holiday Pics, which you may see in your mailbox in the next few days/weeks:

Here's a pic of Maddie sitting amongst her "loot":


..and a couple more: On the left showing off her wrap-ripping talents (with her new "Madeline doll" next to her, and on the right playing with a mobile that made it's way all the way from Prague just for her.

Fall!

We've been settling into fall, and enjoyed an amazing and particularly thankful Thanksgiving feast. While we haven't been so good with the camera lately (or with the blog updates) we did manage to get a few bits to post:

First, Maddie on Thanksgiving:

Second, Maddie a few days later just before going to "Infant-Sing-Along" at the library. Note the two brand new teeth!


Just for fun, a little video of Maddie playing peek-a-boo with daddy behind the camera! We're thrilled to have found this trick for getting her to hold a giggle when a camera's around. Better yet, it allowed us to capture the elusive fang coming breaking through her upper gum:

That's it for now! ..more to come.

Attack of The Spider Queen!!

This is a strange but true story.

Shortly before Halloween a deceptively cute but devilishly dangerous spider showed up in our neighborhood. Unsure of what to do, everyone in the neighborhood watched and waited to see what she would do. Here we see a few courageous people getting a closer look.

Very strange spider, indeed!

Then to our surprise (and horror!) she just showed up on our living room floor!



She also had strange powers, and we decided that she must be some sort of Spider Queen, as she summoned two giant fly servants to her side.



She made them do her evil bidding and even had the flies (which she named Vinnie and Randall) pick her up and carry her in a very royal fashion.

Things seemed to be going well. Nobody was getting hurt. Then it all changed as her minions slowly started to descend, covering our house!

Very quickly, The Queen lured her fly servants to her giant web, made them pose for a picture, and then she ate them.

The end.