Half a lifetime's worth of catching up to do! Madelyn Reese is 12 weeks old!

I'm so sorry I haven't posted since she was 6 weeks old - SO much has happened, and she's kept us so busy, it's been hard to keep up with this blog!

First and foremost, THANK YOU to everyone who made it out to our humble abode on March 2nd for Maddy's party! It was wonderful to see everyone, so sorry we weren't able to spend much time with each and every one of you, but it meant the world to us that you took time out of your Sunday afternoon to come and meet our little girl!

Much has happened since my last post!

Her thrush didn't go away with the gentian violet, so the next plan of attack: diflucan. One mL a day for 2 weeks straight, GUARANTEED to kick the thrush out.

Well, not out of MY baby, apparently!

Dr. Martinez (her pediatrician) was baffled - told us we should start back at square one with the Nystatin (the yellow stuff), and just do it all over again. I decided NOT to - my baby had been on meds since January 23rd, and nothing was working, so I decided to go back to nursing her without any medical treatments, and BAM, like magic, her thrush disappeared!

Too bad we had to spend all that money on her meds before trying the "no-med" approach, but it was worth it to help us believe our little girl would get better!

She had her immunization shots on March 17th, where she weighed in at a whopping 12LBS, and 24" long!!! You'd never know she was a baby that just had needles in her thighs - she didn't fuss or cry or show any symptoms we were fully expecting, and prepared, for her to have! I was almost going to phone Dr. Martinez to ask him if he actually GAVE her the needles!

On to other news: the March 22nd, Saturday edition of the Winnipeg Free Press ran her birth announcement (click on the image to read the posting):



And what better way to follow up a birth announcement than to celebrate her FIRST Easter?!

We got her all dolled up in the outfit that Cyn and Abby bought for her (thanks girls!), we took her to church, and afterwards went to Baba and Didi's house to enjoy a fabulous Easter feast! Here are some pics of our little Maddy in her Easter dress, snuggling with (and trying to eat!) the little bunny that Baba and Didi bought for her:


















I've also found some time to upload some video of our little girl! Here, on March 24th, as Daddy was getting her bath ready, I was sitting on the stool in front of Maddy, sticking my tongue out at her and making silly noises, just to make her smile - well, it blew me away that SHE STARTED TO MIMIC ME! Dono grabbed the camera and we managed to capture just a touch of this exciting little development...enjoy!:





The recent Maddy'isms are as follows (so many, I hope I don't forget any!):

- she's able to pull herself up to a sitting position now! (with the help of Mommy or Daddy, of course!)
- she smiles A LOT. Especially first thing in the morning! Gone are the days of us waking up to her crying because she's hungry - now, we wake up to the sounds of her cooing and talking in her bassinet, and when we peek in at her, we just get the biggest smiles! (Donovan puts it best when he says it's like her whole body smiles at us, she's just so excited to see us!!!)
- drool, drool, drool! I've started calling her Droolia Roberts!
- she's starting to suck her thumb! Not all the time, just every now and then we can hear the fervent sounds of her sucking away on her digits!

I'm sure I'm missing some - I have to go nurse Maddy now, so I'll let Dono fill in any blanks! I promise to try to keep this more updated!