Summers in South Carolina

As Maggie and I get ready to head back to Wisconsin tomorrow, John is working on getting together his new baseball team, (hence the title). John was offered a head coaching job for a summer college league in North Carolina. No, I didn't make a mistake. The league is a North Carolina league, but John's team, the Pageland Red Roosters, is actually located in the very northern part of South Carolina. (Approximately 1 hour from Charlotte, and 3 hours from the beach). John's extremely excited for the opportunity (which just kind of fell into his lap), but a little stressed, because now he has to hurry up and find players and assistant coaches on top of everything else he has going on. We aren't sure yet if Maggie and I will be going with him, it depends on how much money they raise in their spring fundraiser. If there is enough money to get us an apartment, we'll go, if not, we'll be spending most of the summer in Wisconsin and John will be living with a host family. So, that's our exciting news for the month.

Now, for the important stuff. Maggie is getting so big. When I tried to measure and weigh her, she was 28 inches and 18 lbs. We won't get another official measurement until her 1 year check up. The doctor was happy with what he saw at 6 months and said we could skip 9 months. She's getting better and better and standing and sitting down. We still have about one accident a day, but Maggie's balance is much better, so she's getting more daring. She's walking down the furniture and goes from one piece of furniture to another. Her personality continues to grow, too, along with her stubborn screaming fits. I'm sure everyone will get a taste of that over Christmas, be prepared. Not much else to report; here are your pictures...

Maggie loves to feed herself. Her favorite, at the moment, is egg yolks.

Going along with her stubborn streak, when Maggie sees something she wants she goes for it.

EVERYTHING goes straight into her mouth. Do you know how hard it is to wrap Christmas presents with an inquisitive 7 month old?
Our little cocoon baby. Gotta bundle up against that Nebraska wind.

Maggie is so smart. She's already reading at a 10 month level.


Grandpa would be so proud. She's already a fan of Jack.

The weather outside is frightful...

...so we never leave the apartment. It's getting too cold to walk anywhere, so aside from our weekly Lincoln trip, we are hibernating. I feel bad because I think Maggie gets sick of our two rooms, but there isn't much else for us to do. We have started going to MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) Meetings every other Friday, so at least Maggie gets some sort of interaction with people other than me (John's baseball season is picking up again, so she doesn't get to see him much either, unfortunately). But Maggie is more fun every day; her little personality is shining through. She's part goofy(look at her pose for the camera), part stubborn (she now screams - like she's in the worst pain of her life - when you try to take her away from something she wants to be doing), and the faces she makes keep me smiling all day. She also keeps me moving all day now that she's really moving. John wonders why I get so little done during the day, but now that Maggie pulls herself up on everything and still learning the concept of gravity, I feel I have to be next to her at all times. (Today we only had one injury. It was a good day.)

I didn't take a single picture while we home for Thanksgiving, which was very nice and relaxing, but here are some from the last couple days.

(Note the soaked t-shirt, the drool and the spitting up are at a peak right now, but I've read that it has a lot do with her doing a lot of sitting and crawling. Once she's up and walking, it should decrease significantly. I know I'll regret it, but I hope she starts walking soon, but I guess our apartment can't smell anymore like puke.)
One of those goofy faces.
To keep her occupied, I scatter the floor with cheerios. It's a great time to check my email.
We'll make her a movie buff by the time she can talk.

She's getting more and more brave. Now she uses just one hand and is learning to sit herself back down. (Hence the reason I get excited about single injury days.)
Dinner time doesn't usually end up this messy anymore, but Maggie just kept going.

Another one of those faces.

Mid-November Update

Just a quick update before we head off, again, to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving. Maggie is finally back on schedule just in time to get messed up again. Oh well, it should be a good time. Since we got back, we've experienced two milestones in Maggie's life. 1. She started to actually crawl (no more army crawl on her belly), and 2. she started to pull herself up to a stand. It's pretty amazing to see her grow and change. After seeing Owen, and watching his blog, I can't believe that Maggie has accomplished so much in just 6 short months. This is going to be a great adventure!

Here you can see Maggie showing off her standing skills (and her Ripon Pride). This also one of the few times she managed to sit back down. Usually she finds her way back to the floor by throwing herself backwards, head first!

The weekend after we got back, John's brother, Jim, came to visit. The four of us went to the Concordia football game in Hastings about an hour away.

The rest of these are just random pictures from the last two weeks.

Maggie, the couch potato. Would you believe her favorite toy right now is the remote?

Now that she's on the move, I find her the strangest places. Here, for example, she crawled in between the wall and the couch and got frustrated because she couldn't turn around.

When she turned 6 months, we introduced yogurt. It was obviously not a texture she was happy with, but after the first week or so, we now get her to swallow more than she let's ooze out.
She's already learning to pose for the camera. Do you think maybe I have it out too often?

Wisconsin Trip

Maggie and I are back from our week-long Wisconsin whirlwind adventure. We saw a lot of people, missed a lot of naps, and had a lot of fun, but we're happy to be home. Although, he got a lot done while we were gone, John's pretty glad we're home, too.

Our photojournal for your enjoyment...

Maggie was so excited to be going to Wisconsin, she didn't care how she got there!



Even our first day in Wisconsin was exciting. Maggie went to her very first hockey game to watch her Uncle James. (Ofcourse, she had to wear her new Halloween outfit from Grandma.)




The big excitement for the trip was the birth of Maggie's first cousin, Owen Marc Holdmann. John's sister, Sue, was induced Sunday night and had Owen Monday night. He weighed 6 lbs, 7 oz and was quite a bit smaller than any of us were expecting (but just as cute). Maggie and I visited on Tuesday.



We were lucky to catch one his brief awake times during our visit. His proud daddy (Ben) was more than happy to show him off to the camera.



Maggie was mesmerized by him and probably amazed that there was someone smaller than her. As you can see, she wanted to hold him, too, but I didn't let her have a turn.



Grandma is so proud of her two grandbabies.



For those interested in following the Holdmann family as well, Sue started a blog, too.
http://www.babyholdmann.blogspot.com/


Monday (sorry I'm out of order) all of the girls on my mom's side went out for lunch and to Bayshore Mall for a girls' afternoon out. After a rough day of shopping, Maggie needed a bath, which of course means naked time.

Naked time is Maggie's favorite time.

Maggie is starting to move pretty well. She can get where she wants to go, mostly by army crawl, but she's talking her first walking "steps" and especially likes to practice the downward dog.

After their interactions Monday night, which consisted mostly of Maggie pulling his hair, Quincy avoided her the rest of the week. If she started to move towards him, which was anytime they were both laying on the floor, he would get up and move out of reach.

Maggie and Uncle Andrew

Ok, so like normal, I went a little crazy with the pics this week, but can you blame me? Maggie's been doing really well with the solid foods. Last week, she had sweet potatoes and this week was peas. She loved them both, as well as the beets, the french fries, the toast, the graham crackers, and everything else she has tried so far.

Thanks to John's mom, Maggie had a Halloween costume (I wouldn't have bought one, but that's what Grandma's are for). Here is the little pumpkin. This first one is, by far, my favorite picture she has ever taken!

By the end, she was obviously sick of me trying to make her sit still.

That's it for the photos, but that's not to say that everyone else we saw wasn't equally important. We had a great dinner at Grammie's, where everyone showed up, and a nice lunch with Grandma Romens. We wish we would have had more time to be able to see those people we missed, but we will be home for Thanksgiving (briefly) and for Christmas (for a while).