Five months and counting!

Where does the time go?!  The Madruga family has been busy!  Here's an update of what we've been up to since the last post!

Quinito turned 30 in January!  To celebrate we took a mini-vacation to Chicago.  Despite the COLD weather we had a great time exploring (eating our way through) the city.  Highlights were the hot chocolate at XOCO (we later found out it was rated top 10 in the US!), and the Willis tower (got some great pictures of Harper "floating" over the city).

Harper is 5 months old!  As of her last check up, she weighed 13.5 lbs and was in the 25 percentile for weight.  Her head is in the 75-90th percentile.  On February 10 we introduced her to brown rice cereal.  We've now introduced sweet potatoes and banana.  Avocados are next on the list.  She is a great eater!  We've had a lot of fun watching her faces as she gets used to new flavors!  She is also now scooting all over the place!  She gets in crawling stance all the time but hasn't actually crawled yet.  I predict it will be any day though!

Here are some new pictures of Harper Ann!

meeting Great Grandma Moon for the first time

on the plane

First Christmas present from Grammie Annie

Present from Santa--Jumperoo!

watching football on the iPad in Pensacola

first trip to the beach in Pensacola!

Toes in the sand!

Feet in the ocean for the first time!

A milestone

On January 4th, 2012, Harper rolled over for the first time from her back to her tummy.  She even waited until I got home from work so that I could witness her first roll. :) I caught this video of her roll today.  This is her 3rd successful roll over. :)

My first week back to work was a success!  Harper had a great time with her Grammie Yo and I felt like a more well-rounded and productive member of the adult community.  I found out I can still hold a conversation about topics other than my baby!  She is still my favorite topic of conversation but it's nice to change it up sometimes!

This month is Quinito's 30th birthday!  I have a big surprise planned, stay tuned to find out more!! :)

Christmas 2011

I've neglected our blog this month, sorry for that!  It's been an incredible Christmas, definitely a memorable first Christmas for our little girl!

Our Christmas fun started with a weekend trip to Colorado to visit family.  This was Harper's first flight and we were both a bit nervous that we might have that baby; the one we've all resented and given dirty looks to at some point on a flight.  Luckily, our baby is perfect ;)  Not really, but we did manage to find the right combination of feeding, sleeping, and iPad to keep her happy and quiet for 99% of the trip.

The amount of stuff you need for travel quadruples when you add one baby.  Lugging all the stuff to and from the airport was tougher than the baby on the plane, for sure!  Thankfully, we had lots of help since Grammie Yo and Kyle joined us.  We stayed with Q's grandparents and they were so excited to meet their very first Great-grand child!  While on this trip, Harper also met her Uncle Mike, Aunt Shannon, Aunt Quentin, Great Aunt and Uncle Kim and Bill Moon, 2nd cousins Brendan and Caley, Great Aunt and Uncle Lorrel and Lee Vetten, 2nd cousin Gillian, and Grandpa Gary!  Harper also got to see Great Grandma Vetten, Grannie Annie, Uncle Brandon, and cousin Branden again!  This baby has lots of family and love around her, that's for sure.  It makes me happy to know there will be so many people around to help guide her in the right directions in life. :)

Christmas was right around the corner when we returned from Colorado.  We celebrated Christmas Eve at our house with a fried prime rib and a board game.  Next year, we're going back to the traditional Marley recipe for prime rib, but it was fun to try a new method.  That night, Santa Claus brought LOTS of fun things!  Harper enjoyed looking in her Christmas stocking (gift from Grannie Annie) for hair bows, onesies, and new socks.  Santa also brought her a jumperoo!  She is still a bit small to do any jumping, but she loves sitting in the seat and playing.  We went to the grandparents house for Christmas day and enjoyed a very relaxing afternoon of gift opening and eating.  Harper had a pretty good haul for her first Christmas!  She got new blocks, her first race car track, an adorable poncho, a big friendly caterpillar pillow, new giraffe toys, and more.  Most of it she hasn't played with yet, because the day after Christmas the Madrugas went on our first cross-country road trip to Florida!

I was naturally quite anxious about a 12 hour long road trip, but when we heard Auntie Jenny was homesick and wanted to see her family for Christmas, we couldn't say no!  The plan was to meet  Jenny in New Orleans on Monday night, spend the night and Tuesday in New Orleans, then drive the rest of the way to Pensacola on Tuesday evening.  The trip to New Orleans was rough because of car trouble (battery died), heavy rain, and lots of traffic.  Our sweet baby, however, was a delight!  She really was the easiest part of the entire trip!  We packed lots of toys, including her favorite Christmas present Winnie the Pooh.  She spent a lot of the trip babbling to Pooh.  When we arrived in New Orleans we took our baby to Bourbon Street and told her about how she needed to stay away from the half-naked girls; they will not be good friends.  While in New Orleans we walked around the French Quarter, ate beignets, went to the French Market, and ate a Muffuleta at Central Grocery.  The weekend before I found out I was pregnant last year, right around this time, we were also in New Orleans.  It was awesome to revisit it after exactly one year with our little girl!

Next stop was Pensacola to spend time with Jenny and Matt.  They had scoped out the town and found all the best places to take us.  This trip seemed to center around eating...lots and lots of eating.  We had a great time!  Harper really loved having a house full of family to snuggle and play with.  And she slept through the night---8 hours every night!  It was an amazing trip. 

It's really been amazing to watch Harper change in the last month.  She is so giggly and smiley now.  She loves music and movement.  In the past week the biggest change has been her ability to just "be".  You don't have to entertain her at all times when she is awake, now she is perfectly happy to just hang out and take in her surroundings.  She loves being with everyone in her family and she seems to have a special, unique relationship with everyone.  She has lost her "newborn" look; she looks so grown up now!  She seems to have a very easy going personality, way more "go with the flow" than her mother (which I love!).

Tomorrow I go back to work.  I am so thankful I have had so much time to be at home with her.  I have very mixed feelings about it, but overall I think it will be a good balance for me and the family.  I will be working 2 1/2 days a week and while I'm at work Harper will be with Grandma Yo.  I have no doubt that Harper will love spending this time with her Grandma, but I will miss being with her everyday.

Enjoy the recent pictures and video of Harper looking at her stocking!

2 Month Appointment

Harper's 2 month appointment went well.  I was very appreciative that Grammie Yo joined us.  She even baked delicious brownies for the staff (it's good to make the people poking your baby with needles happy). 

Harper is right on schedule with her development.  She is over 11 lbs now, is 50th percentile in weight and height, but is now 75th percentile in head size.  Perhaps she is growing a Marley noggin' after all!  It looks like she might be an excema princess just like her mommy!  She has a very light case of it right now, so we're lubing her up good to get rid of it.

If I were to give advice to someone expecting a baby (which everyone LOVES to do), I would say pick your baby's pediatrician carefully!  I am absolutely thrilled with our choice.  He's amazing, his staff is amazing, we never wait, and he never makes me feel like the crazy neurotic mother that I clearly am.  Anyone in Round Rock looking for a pediatrician: I highly HIGHLY recommend Treehouse Pediatrics (both Dr. Travis and Dr. Chang are AWESOME!)

She's great!

Harper is doing so well!  She can lift her head for long periods of time and can now grasp toys and grab at your fingers to pull them to her mouth.  On Friday, we have her 2 month appointment (even though she will almost be 11 weeks old by then).  I'll post another update on her progress after her appointment on Friday!

Thanksgiving

 Our awesome Thanksgiving family photo.

I have been meaning to add actual text to this post for a long time, because it was definitely a Thanksgiving to remember!

We all had a great time at Q's parents house for Christmas.  The best part was that Jenny and Matt were able to be there!  Harper loves Auntie Jenny and Uncle Matt.  Both of them were so careful and loving with her!  They are going to be very important people in her life.  I think they will be the cool relatives that she will call upon when her parents just don't understand, or when we are too embarrassing to be seen with in public.

The day after Thanksgiving, Brandon drove down to Austin with Victoria, Branden, his new girfriend Brianna (weird and creepy name situation, but she is pretty nice ;) ) and her daughter Marilyn.  Everyone had a great time at the Madruga's house.  It was a good thing Grandpa Quini brought all those old toys down to Texas because they kept the kids well entertained!

We finished off the weekend with some Call of Duty MW3 and lots of leftovers.  It was a wonderful first Thanksgiving with our little girl :)