Happy Halloween!

Maddox had a great first Halloween! He was the cutest puppy in the whole world. I was a little afraid that he wouldn't do well in his costume because this is what happened when I tried it on him the week before... But luckily for us he felt much better about it on Halloween and spent most of the night dressed up. We went over to Scott and Jessica's house for dinner and we had so much fun playing with all the other cute little munchkins that were there. In addition to Maddox, we had Jackson, the giraffe, Justin, the pumpkin/puppy, and Avery, the ballerina. They were all adorable! We did miss our little friend Whit who I believe was supposed to be a hot dog. Sorry we missed that! Hopefully he and his parents are feeling better.

Maddox and Jackson even took part in their first trick-or-treating experience. We only went to two houses, but they had fun ringing doorbells and getting candy. Maddox even got himself a king size Hershey bar. I told the lady we didn't need it, but Maddox stuck out his hand to get it, as if to say, "Speak for yourself!"

All in all, we had a great Halloween!

First Tooth!

After much anticipation we finally have a tooth! Maddox's bottom left tooth has broken through. We've been waiting on this for a while because he has been chewing on his fingers (and pretty much everything in sight) and drooling like crazy for a while now. I am pleased to report that this tooth didn't seem to bother him much...no fussiness, fever, bad diapers, or anything that everyone has been telling me about. Let's just hope the rest come through this easily!

Halloween is Almost Here

Since Halloween is less than a week away, we decided go ahead and carve our pumpkin the other night. Maddox was excited to help carve his first pumpkin. His daddy did most of the work, but Maddox was in charge of the newspaper under the pumpkin (or at least that's what he decided his job would be). I don't think he could have been less interested in the pumpkin or more interested in shredding up paper and tossing it around.

Maddox taking his newspaper duties very seriously.

The work in progress. Notice that Maddox is still making sure the newspaper is properly laid out.

Posing with the finished product. Didn't they do such a great job? They are lucky the design I picked out was the easiest one or this could have taken a lot longer! :)

Even though he wasn't all that interested in the carving process (after all he is only 8 months old), he was very interested in the finished product, especially once it was lit up. He also tried to eat it a few times, but that is pretty typical of most things.

Maddox's Favorite Jingle

Recently I have discovered that Maddox is quite entranced by the Milos commercial. He seems to love the tune and he is captivated by the giant pictures of food they flash across the screen...maybe he is trying to tell us he is ready for some real food (although we are still waiting on teeth). Tonight we were playing on the floor with his toys and the commercial came on. Of course, as soon as Maddox heard it, he immediately stopped what he was doing and turned to watch with a big smile on his face. He watched the whole thing and as soon as it was over, he went right back to playing with his truck. I decided that I needed to capture it on film since it is so funny to watch. I rewound the commercial (I love DVR) and recorded Maddox's reaction, which was exactly what I thought it would be. He usually isn't all that interested in tv (except when Baby Einstein is on of course), but this gets him everytime. This may only be funny to me, but I just had to share!

Sick!

Maddox is finally recovering from his first sickness. Over the past two weeks he has been very congested. Last Monday night was really when he first started it all. We put him to bed and a little before midnight he woke up hysterical because he was so stuffy that he couldn't really breathe well. He sounded horrible! Naturally it scared us (especially since this is our first experience with this), so we tried a few tricks like the steamy shower and baby rub, none of which seemed to be working. We called the afterhours number for the doctor and talked with the nurse. She asked several questions and then recommended that we take him to the ER at Children's. We kind of thought that was unnecessary, but since that's what we were told to do, that's what we did. Needless to say we were there until around 3:00 in the morning. By the time we got there, Maddox seemed to be feeling a whole lot better and he was enjoying playing with all of the doctor's equipment like the stethoscope. We joked about how everyone at the ER was probably making fun of us for being there since Maddox seemed to be in such a nice mood, but at least we got peace of mind in knowing that he was okay. Anyway, they examined him and he was fine, just a lot of congestion. Unfortunately they don't give babies anything for congestion so we've pretty much had to wait it out. We have been suctioning his nose nonstop it seems and he is definitely not a fan of that. It takes two if it to do it...one to restrain his arms and head and the other to do the dirty work. I think he is finally past it all though and now that he is breathing better, he is sleeping much more peacefully at night. Luckily, it wasn't a bad illness. Cross your fingers that we can avoid the flu this year!

Sitting Up

Maddox has been sitting up pretty well for several months now, but I ran across this old video tonight when I was playing around with my flip camera and thought I'd post it. This was back at the beginning of August when he was between 5 and 6 months old. He was still getting used to sitting up on his own and was still quite wobbly, but he was so proud of himself for doing it himself. He squealed pretty much non-stop the entire time!

Six Month Pictures!

Here is the link to Maddox's six-month pictures: http://MelissaHardin6013.zenfolio.com/p251066824/slideshow

They turned out great! I've been meaning to post the slideshow for a while, but of course life (and by life I mean work) keeps getting in the way. Enjoy!