Let's GO fly a KITE!

In my family, it was always my dad who was the big kite flier. Every trip to the beach, or even just to the park, he had to make sure that we brought along a kite. My dad always bought the nice BIG ones that took at least two people to get it into the air. So naturally I've never thought to buy a kite, let alone take Madi kite flying- I just always remember it being so much work! Luckily I have GREAT friends who are AWESOME moms and actually get their kids kites (and even nicer to share them with Madi and I)! Yesterday we had a little bit of wind, which mixed with some warm sun, was PERFECT for kite flying! We met up at the grassy area behind my house to let the kites FLY!!

Now I see why my dad LOVES it so much!! We had a great time!

Yes, even I got into the action! I have to admit, I wanted a LONGER turn! There really is something therapeutic about it!

Madi did a surprisingly awesome job handling the kite. I was nervous to let her do it alone, but she flew it like a pro! 

Except that as she held on, she had the habit of walking closer and closer to the trees (maybe just going with the wind). Like in this picture, she had walked over to the railing while hanging on and the tail accidently got caught on a branch. Luckily, we were able to pull it free!

Unfortunately, our kite flying experience ended not so lucky. Madi and Lexi had been sharing Lexi's kite, which is always kinda tricky to have 2 toddlers SHARE something! After giving Lexi back her kite, Madi threw a little FIT! SO as I'm off disciplining Madi about being nice to her friends and sharing things (that aren't even hers!), Lexi's happily enjoying her turn, when all of a sudden a big gust of wind blows the kite out of Lexi's hand (well, at least I think that's what happened). When I turned around (after my pep talk with Madi) I see Melissa chasing after Barbie!  The kite had flown up into the tallest trees, getting stuck momentarily, only to then continue flying UP over the housetops- gone FOREVER!  

Good thing they're only a couple bucks at Target. I'm sure we'll have many more kite flying adventures to come!

BUBBLES!!

Now that I've recovered from my last SUPER long post, I thought I'd share some pictures from this past weekend. I got Madi one for those "spill-proof" bubble tumblers thinking that she'd enjoy blowing bubbles all by herself. She sure enjoyed watching daddy blow all the bubbles.

 

So she decided to give it a try! Dip dip dip. . . . 

Now blow!

Harder Madi, you gotta BLOW HARDER!!

Needless to say, she only SORTA got the knack of it. We still need some practice. I  sure am looking forward to warm spring days spent outside blowing bubbles, drawing on the sidewalk with sidewalk chalk, long walks, and picnics at the park! 

21 Months

I've had several sentimental moments this past month with realizing that Madilyn is growing up, and WAY too fast! As I've been looking through pictures and watching old videos of Madi, I've been feeling that I need to document more. She changes so fast and I feel like I'm already forgetting what she was like just last year at this time. So you'll have to forgive me for the EXTRA long post this month. I included LOTS of pictures for those of you in more of a "looking", rather than reading mood! 

As of last week, I am thrilled to report that Madi has been LOVING nursery! For 3 straight weeks in a row, Spencer would drop her off and she'd run right in to play with her friends. She was always happy and full of hugs after church. Every week her nursery leaders would report on how impressed they are with Madi and how she plays so well with all the kids and is so happy to be there. Well.... it was this past Sunday that we had a little set back that broke her record! I was SO bummed! I blame it on her FOUR canine teeth coming in AND the fact that there weren't any kids in the room when Spencer dropped her off (everyone's seemed to be sick lately)! She cried hysterically for 15 minutes, with both fists in her mouth, before I came to rescue her. I joined her in nursery for the remainder of second hour and then she joined me in YW's for third hour. Better luck this week! It does feel good that she's on her way to no more break downs though. 

This past month Madi started doing MY trick for getting her attention. Let me share. When Madi's fussy, whining about something, or refusing to get out of her bed, I'll usually let out a big GASP and whisper some random question to her. It's funny how the simplest things get her attention and distract her from what she was whining about. For example, "(GASP), Madi, where are the birds? Are they sleeping?" Madi immediately perks up and stops what she's doing. She then wants to look out the window and tell me all about the birds being awake or asleep. Well the other day,  I was busy going through clothes in her room (trying to make some room for #2) when Madi let's out a big GASP! I quickly look up to see what's wrong. Very seriously (in a whisper voice) she says, "airplane". So of course I went along with it. We sat and tried to hear the airplanes, and then ran to the window to see if we could see them! 

Listening to Madi talk is probably one of my favorite things of her growing up! I love that we can actually have conversations with each other. I love that she can answer my questions. I love that she can help me make decisions (this is VERY helpful for a mom who's terrible at making decisions on her own :)! I DON'T love how demanding she can be with her requests, but I do love that she's able to express herself with words and not just with screaming and crying! While Madi now says pretty much anything and everything we want her (and don't want her) to say, I had to make note of a couple particular phrases this month:

1) "You comin' mama?" This is Madi's question anytime she is walking ahead of me or when she wants me to go somewhere with her. Kinda hard not to love it when she turns around, checking on me every few steps, making sure that I'm still comin. 

2) "Wanna go to temple, RIGHT NOW!" Madilyn started insisting on doing stuff "RIGHT NOW" awhile back when I told her we were going over to her friends house. She kept insisting that we leave "right now". At that particular moment it wasn't the cutest thing to have my toddler screaming these words at me. However, I have to admit, it was SUPER cute when after talking about the temple one afternoon, she walked around the house the rest of the day telling me, "Wanna go to temple, RIGHT NOW!" Yep, Spencer and I scheduled a visit to go that weekend. 

Madilyn contemplating the purpose of life after visiting the temple.

3) "SO CUTE" and "That's SO pretty!" I'm always able to know the things Madi approves of by what she says when I show them to her. For example, she's VERY picky with the shoes she wears and I know the 2 or 3 pairs that she LOVES by how she responds when I go to put them on her. If she approves, she'll say "cute shoes". If she disapproves, depending on her mood, she will run away from me, freak out, or yell "NOOO!!" 

Then after putting on a necklace, she'll comment, "That's SO pretty!" She uses these phrases (referring to being "cute" and "pretty") particularly when looking at herself in the mirror after getting dressed, putting on hats, and/or wearing necklaces. Ya, we've got a daughter who's cute and sure knows it!

Being a good talker, Madi feels pretty confident when it comes to reading her books. She has all of her favorites memorized now and she's able to finish the sentences when we pause. Spencer and I both love being able to read with her, letting her fill in the words. But many times Madi just gets frustrated and wants to read the books alone! I've been making sure to read new (or not as familiar) books before bed now. It's the only way I can get her to sit back and actually enjoy the story without freaking out and wanting to read it herself. It is really cute listening to her read the story completely by herself though. While it's definitely a modified version, I'm able to tell exactly what page of the book she's on by what she's saying.

One thing I forgot to note last month when mentioning personality traits of Madi is that she is an incredible self regulator. Let me explain. I never thought I'd hear of any kid (let alone actually have one) that refuses cookies, ice cream, suckers, or even favorite snacks. Well, meet Madilyn. Her self control is amazing to me! On more than one occasion she'll have a sucker, suck on it for quite awhile, and then hand it to me saying either, "Here ya go" or "All done"! The first time it happened we were in Safeway doing some shopping. We always stop by the bakery counter first to get Madi a free cookie. She's such a slow eater that she'll usually eat the cookie for the majority of our shopping trip. Well, this particular time she finished about 3/4 of the cookie and then handed it to me, telling me she was done. I was shocked! What kid DOESN'T want to finish a cookie?? She's done it with many other treats as well. I was sharing ice cream with her the other day and after several bites she turns her head and when I ask if she wants more, she says, "no." Alright then! I guess I have finally found an area that Madi does NOT take after me! Oh how I wish I could be more like her though!

Every month I feel like I find more things that Madi DOES takes after me in. She really is a little Anie and I'm PROUD of it! One of these things happens to be her obsession with being clean. On her signing video (that we watch almost every day) there's a clip that teaches the signs for, "clean" and "dirty". Then there's a cute little song about their hands being clean or dirty. After watching this movie over and over, Madi now always checks out her hands. If they're the least bit dirty, she makes sure to tell me and then insists that they be washed. Since we DO wash hands so often, she usually just walks around, proudly telling me how clean her hands are. 

Madi being very concerned about her dirty hands after playing outside.

As I think I've mentioned before, Madi loves having "alone" time- in her own isolated space (another thing just like her mom). Before our most recent purchase of the new tent, Madi preferred getting into her pack-n-play to hang out, read books, look out the window, and just be alone. She'd stay and hang out in there for an hour at a time. Now, don't get me wrong, we NEVER force Madi to get into her pack-n-play. She actually asks to go into "pack-n-pay"! Then when she's ready, she'll ask to "git out!"

One thing I must include about this age is that Madilyn has started to hit. I am very much NOT ok with it and Spencer and I are still at a lost with how it started. So I'm including this in here as also a question to all you moms out there. What do you do about the hitting? She thinks it's so funny to give Spencer or I a playful slap on the face or the arm. Then when we reprimand her, insisting that she apologize (which thankfully she always does), she'll give us a few more playful taps, as if trying to show us she was just kidding around. However, I've seen her hit a random kid at the park because he was invading her space. This is not ok and I'm wondering what I can do to get her to stop.

While this is already a SUPER long post (and if you've even made it this far, I'm impressed), I wanted to include a video I took the other day. We started working on our colors at the beginning of the month and I was happy to see that she got them down a lot faster than I thought she would. She now knows her basic colors (black, brown, red, blue, green, yellow, orange, pink, and purple). I attribute it to daily drawing on her white board (telling me what color she's using and which one she wants next) as well as doing some serious Fruit Loop sorting and snacking! Yeah for yummy yummy Fruit Loops (a treat I only got because I was craving em. Thank goodness for pregnancy cravings)!!

 While she only demonstrates counting to 10 in the video, Madi can now count to 14 (I'm guessing because that's the number of stairs in our house). She's gotten up to 16 before, but usually when she gets to 14, she'll just keep saying 14 over and over again!  

How lucky I feel to be a mom and especially to be able to stay at home and hang out with Madilyn all day. I couldn't ask for a better job! Love you Madi!

She's a KICKER!!

Pic of baby #2 from our first ultrasound.

Yup, it's still a girl! And she's quite the active one too. We had another ultrasound this morning (just cause the doctor wanted to get a better look at her fingers and toes. No worries, they're all there)! I'm not sure if it's just because it's my second pregnancy or what, but I've felt baby #2 move TONS more than I ever felt Madi. At our first ultrasound the nurse was commenting on how the baby kept doings flips! Awesome, does this mean we've got a super ACTIVE child in store for us!?  Ultrasounds are the best- I just LOVE seeing her wiggle, squirm, and move around. Even more, I love FEELING her move WHILE I'm seeing it on the screen! SO cool!

Pic from todays ultrasound. Not as great of a profile shot, so I had to post both (now that our scanner's up and working)!

Now that I'm in my 24th week, I thought I'd do a quick update! I've been feeling quite BIG lately!  And it must be true because my young women have nick named me "fattie!" Nice huh! I've already put on a whooping 15 pounds and I'm definitely feeling every pound of it! However, I'm just so dang excited for another baby that it's hard to care. As I was working on her first year calendar this past month (which I finished last week- yeah!), I kept looking back at Madi's calendar with all her pictures. I'm just so excited to have another baby in the house. Never thought I'd feel that way either. Before Madi, I never got excited about babies. They're just so boring and don't do much- so I thought. Once it was my own, all those thoughts and feelings changed! Madi grew up way to fast and I'm definitely ready for another (ya, we'll see what I'm saying when she's a few weeks old and I'm totally exhausted)!

Just happened to be with Melissa this afternoon and she snapped a belly picture for me. Ya, I felt like a dork doing it, but it sure beats the quality of pics that I can get with my camera! 

As for now, I'm feeling GREAT! I don't take daily naps anymore. I'd like to, but found myself not needing them as much. When I do nap I'm not as tired at night and then find my schedule all messed up the next day. I wake up an average of 2 or 3 times every night to go the bathroom. It's not bad though cause I have no problem getting right bak to sleep. My pregnancy breakouts aren't as bad anymore (knock on wood)! My only complaint is still my legs. It's such a pain to put the compression stockings on every morning and I'm not able to wear flip flops with them (that's my staple summer shoe, so I don't know what I'm going to do once it really warms up)! Good news for the week is that I went to my PCP and got a referral to see a vascular surgeon!  I've got an appointment scheduled for the 22nd of next month! I'm not sure what he'll be able to do for me while being pregnant, but hopefully we can get things fixed up after this baby so that I'm not as miserable with my next pregnancy! 

On the First Day of Spring. . .

Today we welcomed the first day of spring which unfortunately was accompanied by a whopping 45 degrees (and that was the HIGH)!! Despite the chilly temperatures, Spencer, Madi and I made the most of our day. 

We spent the morning at IKEA, where I wish I had a couple extra hundred dollars to spend on fun things for the girls bedroom. Instead we were frugal and only got Madi 3 necessities:

1) A Chair for her desk.

2) A lamp to give her some light while she works.

3) A tent- just because it looked FUN!! Every kid needs a secret place to play right?!

 

Upon leaving IKEA we saw a fire truck and an ambulance pull up. We where lucky enough to receive an invitation to hop inside the fire truck- probably because Madi was frantically waving at it. Wow- what a treat (sorry, no pics- didn't think to bring my camera to IKEA)!

With a drive by the temple (which is one of the most exciting things EVER for Madi) our morning was complete!

After nap time we busted out Madi's new toys. They were quite the hit! 

After some serious play time, we topped our day off with FREE Italian Ice from Rita's- just because it was the first day of spring (thanks Candis for the heads up on this)! I think the only thing that could have made this day better would have been a little warmer weather!

Who is Saint Patrick Anyway?

Spencer and I's conversation at lunch today:

Me: "You're not wearing any green."
Spencer: "Ya, that's dumb."
Me: "Were people wearing green at your school today?"
Spencer: "You're kidding right?"

Spencer then tells me that St. Patrick's Day is the dumbest holiday ever. So not to offend any of you, his obvious bad attitude stems back to elementary school when some kid pinched him for not wearing green. Spencer then proceeded to punch him in the face (yes, followed by a "white slip" to be sent home to mom). Hence the bad attitude! 

While Spencer's not the biggest fan of St. Patrick's Day, Madi and I sure had a fun day wearing our green and joining some friends for a St. Patrick's Day celebration. We ate green rice krispie treats, green pudding, bread with green butter, green candy popcorn, and drank green punch!

Madi with her friends (L-R) Logan, Kate, Tess and Tyler (missing from the picture: Lexi, Brooklyn, Bella, and Jake).

After nap time, Madi and I ventured over to Melissa and Lexi's with plans to do the fun craft Candis had organized for our morning play date (that unfortunately we had run out of time for). However, once Madi saw Lexi playing out at the tot lot, plans temporarily changed and we found ourselves outside for the next hour!  Aren't they just the cutest little friends?!

Hope you all had a HAPPY Saint Patrick's Day!

Same number- New phone

After over seven years of being faithful T-mobile customers, Spencer and I have now made the jump to Sprint. After moving to MD we struggled with T-mobile because we were only able to get a weak signal in our house. Unfortunately this meant that we had to have a home phone as well, bringing up the cost each month to over $100. Now with switching to Sprint, we FINALLY have cell phones that get a GREAT signal in our house, plus we were able to get rid of our home phone, bringing our bill down to $60 a month! SWEET!

SO, to make a long story short, for those of you that we talk to on a regular basis, don't bother with calling our house phone anymore. Now that we have awesome cell coverage in our house, we've gotten rid of our land line and will only be using cell phones. We've kept our numbers the same to make it easy on everybody!

Spring Break 2009!!

This past week was Spencer's spring break and instead of going on some exotic cruise, traveling to visit family, or even going on a family trip, Spencer choose to do something completely different this year. With Spencer's mind on fly fishing the past couple of months, he and another friend from law school decided to drive 2 1/2 hours to north-western Maryland and spend a few days doing just that- FISHING! Spencer had been looking forward to this for quite some time. When I objected about him leaving me for TWO days he was quick to remind me that just last month I took off to California, leaving him for TWO WEEKS!! Ya, I realized that I was being a bit unreasonable and gave him my blessing!

Luckily Spencer didn't leave until early Wednesday morning, so it actually gave us 2 days for some quality family time. Monday was a gorgeous day so we decided to go to the zoo! We spent a fabulous day checking out the sloth bears, elephants, hippos, oragatangs, birds, zebras, lions, cheetahs, and pandas (just to name a few that we saw)! We did lots of walking, enjoyed the warm sunshine, and had a great time. Unfortunately, we were having so much fun that neither of us were in the mood to take many pictures. We documented the day with video instead. The couple pictures that were taken are all of the backs of our heads like these ones:

After an action packed family day on Monday, Spencer spent Tuesday getting ready for his trip. Then from Wednesday morning until Friday night, Spencer and his friend Wayne went fishing. They made their base camp at an old inn in this little Amish town called Grantsville-which is right on the Pennsylvania-Maryland border. On Wednesday, they fished the Casselman River. The fishing conditions weren't the best-there was tons of wind and it was cold. No one caught a fish but Spencer didn't care-he was just happy to be on the water,  actually learning how to fly fish. On Thursday, they decided to head a bit more west and fish the North Branch of the Potomac. In the morning, it was so cold that the guides on their rods were icing up. Fortunately, once the sun came up over the mountains, it warmed up enough to unfreeze everything and they found some good pools to fish in. Wayne caught a couple nice rainbows, but Spencer was skunked once again. On Friday, they decided to try out the Savage River. This was Spencer's lucky day!! Around noon, Spencer caught a nice 14 inch rainbow!! Needless to say, Spencer is totally into this fly fishing thing!  

With Spencer off catching some trout, Madi and I stuck around home and had our own kind of fun! We went to the park, hung out with friends, cleaned the house, did some organizing/ dejunking, and had LOTS of Mommy/ Madi bonding time!

My little Artist!

For the past 3 months, one of Madi's absolute favorite things to do is draw. She's created more pictures than I can count and we're running out of wall space to display them. While drawing pictures is her favorite thing to do, she also loves coloring. Sometimes I'll find her laying on her stomach, in the middle of the room, with a coloring book open and crayons/colored pencils strewn around her. We've ventured out to doing sticker art and even water painting. I have to admit, I like activities that are clean, easy, and don't make a big mess! The only time I've done actual paints with Madi was for Father's Day when she made her daddy a card with her picture and hand print. I guess I'd decided she was still too young and painting is far too messy!

Well, Spencer's always encouraging me to do new activities with Madi, so when Melissa suggested painting, I decided to give it a try! Melissa is the brave, crafty one who has NO fear of having open bottles of paint with 2 toddlers running around. So, this morning Madi and I headed over to HER place for painting!

We stripped the girls down to their diapers, layed newspaper out on the kitchen floor, hung up two sheets of paper (onto a board that Melissa uses for painting), and let the girls get to work! They both LOVED it! Madi delicately dipped her paintbrush into the paint, making careful strokes on her paper.



While Madi is the type who does NOT like getting dirty (yes, totally takes after her mom), Lexi sure had a great time experimenting with the colors, splattering paint with her brush, and creating a beautiful masterpiece (regardless of how much paint got on her body)!

What talented little artists! 

*For more pictures, and a video of the girls at work, check out Melissa's blog.

Our Week in a Nut Shell

Monday: Snow Storm. Don't think I left the house all day! Ya, I'm a BIG baby when it comes to the COLD! Oh wait, we did leave the house ONCE- to go get the mail. Madilyn was glad to get out. Look at all our snow! This is definitely the most we've ever gotten! I really should have taken pictures in the morning during the whiteout! 

Tuesday: The sun came out. We ventured out to go sledding with friends. Madi enjoyed it for maybe 10 minutes.

Madi (in the middle) with all of her little buddies!

Wednesday:  Went out and ran errands. Realized that I was actually WARM all bundled up in my coat and scarf. Got home and checked the weekend forecast- GORGEOUS!!! Started to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Thursday: A little bit warmer (high of 52)! Got out for a nice long walk. Snow still on the ground but definitely melting.

Friday: Spencer's first official day of Spring Break! While I went to the doctor to hear baby's heartbeat (which was 138- seems pretty slow for a girl. Madi's was always up in the 160's), Spencer took Madi to the park.  It was only 55 degrees at that point (still a little chilly if you ask me). After naps we headed off to the Rio. Madi was in heaven as we stopped by Barnes and Noble to read books and play at the train table. Then we spent the next hour with the ducks/ geese and playing at the park.

After a Costco stop we topped the day off with a car wash (nothin beats a clean car)! The high this afternoon reached 69 degrees!! WOOT WOOT!

Saturday: The last of the snow has finally melted! The high for the day broke 70 degrees!! So we spent the morning at the park in t-shirts and flip flops! Gotta LOVE it!!! 

Here's Madi showing how she conquered her fear of heights. She climbed to the top of the play structure all by herself and went down this slide (and the twisty one) over and over again!

After a LONG afternoon nap, we met up with the Christenots at the temple and then out to dinner afterwards. What a fabulous day to end a great week! 

I know, I'm pretty obsessed when it comes to the weather. I swear my mood is weather based. The nicer it is, the more I get done and the happier I am! Maybe Spencer should be applying for jobs in places where the weather is warmer. Unfortunately, I think we'll be living with the seasons for several more years! I guess having a winter helps me appreciate the spring that much more!