A Jones? A Roth?

I had been wondering if she was beginning to look like me...

Tara circa 1976



maybe the nose a little bit...


But in reality, I think she's REALLY starting to look like her cousin Nora!


Cousin Nora circa 2006


I guess these are Roth genes??

Just Hangin'

Maddie has been working on pulling herself up on our laps using our thumbs. We looove making her do this because we looove the face she makes... and I guess it's good for her development too.






I also played a little bit of dressup again and put on the socks that Nana Roth made her. And for an added bonus, I turned her into a hippie baby and put on her Crocs. Love it!




Whoa Kona! No more licking!!

And I finally got the laugh on camera!!! YAY!!

saturday happenings

Well, we sold our red truck to a guy in Flagstaff today. (yay! we can eat this month!) While we were up there we drove out to Lake Mary to let the dogs swim and enjoy the beautiful weather. The only thing that could have made it better would have been sharing it with the Perkinses! We miss you Mandi, Steve, Abby and Sadie!


Maddie slept through the whole thing... even when the dogs shook on us.


Chula was born to swim.


Kona is amazingly awkward in the water, but that doesn't stop him.


Summer monsoons are so beautiful!


Keep the sun out of her eyes!

almost a smile

I was so close! I just caught the end of this smile.

Pictures from a happy day on daddy's lap

Maddie was in such a sweet mood yesterday, so I took a bunch of pictures of her hanging out on Jeff's lap, sitting up, playing airplane (working on those neck muscles!) and getting kisses from Chula...








I know this is blurry, but she's so mesmerized it's cute.



She's really smiling a lot now and I keep trying to catch it on camera, but I haven't been able to yet. Soon, I'm sure.

And here's a gratuitous picture of the Scout, Jeff's other baby. I mean, this is supposed to be a family blog, not just a Maddie blog... so here it is in all it's glory... sitting in front of our house, having momentarily emerged from its hiding place in the garage. Thankfully it's back now! For those of you who aren't familiar with the 1979 International Scout II, we rescued it from certain death in the Sonoran Desert two years ago. It was infested with black widows. Since then Jeff has been dedicated to 1. making it run (which he accomplished on his birthday this June!) and 2. ridding it of dangerous spiders.

My babydoll

sometimes I play dress up...



if Maddie could talk she would say...

Fun walk

Well, the temperature uncharacteristically dropped below 100 degrees last week so we decided to take a walk around the hood...


Out we go in the fancy schmancy running stroller (thank you REI Visa dividends!)


For extra "fun" we brought the beasties...


Maddie & daddy



Maddie's first rock climbing experience. We showed her some of the moves we knew when we had time to climb.

why her nickname is Li'l Turtle

Tongue Tied no more

Yesterday we took poor little Maddie to the pediatrician to have her frenulum (the skin under her tongue) evaluated. We thought she might be tongue-tied, which creates lots of breastfeeding problems. We HAVE lots of breastfeeding problems. The doctor decided to do a frenotomy, which is just a quick snip of the frenulum, allowing the tongue to extend. It took less than a minute, there was some blood, and she cried less than she did when she got the HepB shot. I may or may not have had a mild panic attack while they were holding her down, coming at her mouth with scissors.

It's supposed to take about a week for her to get in the groove of using her new tongue, so we should expect to see some improvements of her latch in the days to come. I'm very excited!



Here you can see how the frenulum is attached to the tip of her tongue. I don't have an "after" picture yet. She hasn't been crying much now that she can stick her tongue out at me! :)