Happy New Year

Happy New year to all! As you can tell, I am still trying to figure this stuff out. I did want to update everyone on what is going on in the Diebel house! We had a wonderful Christmas here at our home with our 10 month old little Madilyn. It was so much fun to see her eyes light up every time she saw the Christmas tree. It was very magical to her and for us to watch her, too! If you have never watched the magic and wonder in a child's eyes during the Christmas season, you are truly missing one of God's greatest gifts! Needless to say, our home is now full of noisy toys and lots of books that entertain Madilyn. She is a huge fan of books! She will actually spend more time with books that her toys, if given a choice! I hope that this love continues throughout her life. We read together a lot around here.
Well, the latest news is that Madilyn finally started to crawl on January 16, 2009. Just 2 days after turning 11 months. She has had her own funny way of getting around until this day. She has this funny way of turning and spinning around to get where she needs to go. It just so happened that on Friday the 16th, she was in between a doorway and she realized that she would not be able to spin through this one, so she stayed on all fours and took (4) crawling movements and out the door she went, like she had been crawling all along! My jaw just about fell out of my head! She didn't get why I was so excited! Then she decided that crawling was a little faster, so she took off crawling from then on. It was the funniest thing. Now our house is being quickly taken over by little 11 month fingers.
I have to admit that this last few weeks have been pretty hard as a first time mommy. Not only is she totally crawling everywhere, but in the same month she decided to become a little fishy in the tub, NO FEAR! AND, she decided that mommy doesn't need to help her with her bottle at night! I am noticing that this is just the next step of heartache as a mommy...the letting go! She is already such an independent girl! She wants to get the toys all by herself, she doesn't want me to hold on to her in the tub anymore, and now I am not needed for the night time bottle! It has been a mix of emotions around our home. I am truly excited to see her change & grow, but it has been very hard to let go! She is slowly becoming a little girl...in her looks, her actions, and her little gestures! She is such a sweet, snuggly, lovey, happy, problem-solving, social, babbling little bundle of pure JOY!
We love her more and more everyday!