Snow, birthday and pigtails....

Our little girl is now 2 years old. I don't know where the time has flown from when we met her until today. She is a charmer and a stinker, she has enough hair to put into pigtails, she can sing several songs herself and read along in a book with you, she loves to "cook for Elmo" in her kitchen, she will test you to see if you REALLY meant not to touch something or do something by doing it 3 more times immediately after you tell her not to, she likes to sit on the potty, not neccessarily use it, but sit on it, and has seen her first snowfall in Delaware.

Maddie all bundled up for the miniscule amount of snow we received, yet, it was snow and she enjoyed being outside playing in it! I just love her cute hat, don't you?

We celebrated her birthday the weekend before her actual birthday. It consisted of Mommy, Daddy and Maddie - just the 3 of us, and we opened presents which contained more Little Peoples - specifically the camping and boating, played in the snow, and had a cake that Mommy made (it wasn't pretty but still tasted good!). We also learned that Maddie LOVES icing. Not really into the cake itself, but she can down some icing!

I have struggled with what to do with Maddie's hair for a while. I don't want to give her bangs, even though I know she would look adorable with them. I don't want to have to go through what my sister is going through with trying to grow them out with my niece, so I thought I would just go through it now. The hard part is that her hair is, as one would guess, always in her eyes. She takes barettes out of her hair, but I went to pick her up for school and her teacher had her hair in pretty ponytails like this! Now, mind you, I can't get them as straight as the teacher can yet, but I'm working on my technique!


Maddie checking out her Birthday cake with candles. She liked the candles, and the fact that we sang a song just for her with her name in it! The blowing out of the candles was a little odd for her at this point but she's definately understanding that it was HER birthday. She also celebrated (along with 2 others for a total of 3 parties in school during one week) her birthday at school with cupcakes (a word she now knows well and loves).

Winter wanderings...

It's not even half way through January and we've had a pretty full month so far! It's only going to get even "better" (?) as our calendar is pretty much filled through March! It is amazing how fast time goes and how quickly you can get over scheduled *grin* So what is coming up in the next few weeks? Let's see, we're going on a wonderful family vacation for 2 weeks, we're going to celebrate Maddie's 2nd birthday, I'm doing a short trip for work, we're going to host a Chinese New Year party for family, I'm hosting Ladies Night in February and that is just a sampling!

We were able to take down the Christmas decorations which is a good thing and was able to set up a mini play area in the family room for Maddie, the big play area is still in the 3 season room, although I still have to do some work out there to make it more usable. We'll figure out how to fit that in at some point! I did get to go up to Lancaster over the New Year weekend and visit with Amy and Miss Lily! Miss Lily is adorable and her Momma was beaming with pride. It was wonderful to see Amy and her little one, can't wait for Lily to be mobile enough to play with Maddie!

So..what you really want, more Maddie! She's chatting up a storm, repeating odd words from the middle of conversations that she hears. She definately knows what she does and doesn't want to do. She asks to sing certain songs (Where is Thumbkin is current favorite), she still loves to read books, color and draw, as well as pretend to talk on the telephone to Nana, Mom mom, Pop pop and recently started having pretend conversations with Aunt Kristy. Maddie has this mini boom box type thing that is the size of a thick deck of cards that my sister gave her that has 4 Sesame street songs, you put one in, press the button and it plays. Maddie is loving that right now and she is getting the words to the songs down! She is definately communicating more, she understands when she should or shouldn't be doing something you can often find her testing her limits. She loves to "help" with everything. Taking the laundry out to the couch to fold, carrying bags or groceries in from the car, wiping up her space when we're done with a meal.

What she is, is amazing....of course, we're biased, but that doesn't mean it isn't true!!! Ok...here are the photos, enjoy!

Maddie having a blast at Lee's 3rd Birthday party at the YMCA. She was scared of the big tubes at first, crying and screaming until she saw all the fun the other kids were having!

Undecorating the Christmas tree turned into a candycane bonanza for Maddie. Every pocket, including two back pockets that you can't see had candycanes in them.


You can see Lily blooming through the eyes of Momma Amy and Daddy Doug in all of her glory at her own blog.

Maddie thoroughly enjoying her new play kitchen. Each day she makes either breakfast, lunch or dinner for her two Elmo dolls that she has. She takes them out of their cubby hole, puts them sitting next to each other on a chair, recently in her rocking chair, and then proceeds to "cook" in the oven and feeds them when it's ready. Maddie uses her spoons to stir, and taste the pretend meal, use her oven mit to take the pans out of the oven and says "hot". She's soooo soooo observant, it's amazing!

Bye bye Microsoft, Hello Firefox

Hope everyone is having a good New Year! We've been quite busy and will continue to be well into March! I'll post some photos soon, but I just wanted to follow up on the last post I made. After much frustration, I've called it quits and now suggest that everyone who wishes to see this blog in the format it is supposed to be in to ditch Microsoft Internet Explorer and use the FREE web browser by Mozilla...Firefox

I don't know what microsoft is doing, it's not the size of the pictures, it's not the number of pictures, it's not the text...I'm really at a loss for what is causing the issue. But instead of worrying about it and trying to fiddle with it, as I have many more things to work on, I'm just providing each of you with some incentive to switch away from microsoft =)

New year, new template, new issues...

Ugh! I wanted to put up a nice new template for our blog, something not too boring, but something not too frilly or girly...I found this great skin of black bamboo, but it is not displaying correctly!!! I'm going to have to fiddle with it. If anyone wants to help me with this endeavor, please do! Just view the source and make suggestions as I got frustrated with it last night and then just went to bed!
Today I need to finish getting ready and then off to visit Amy and Lily! Woo!

A new year...a new post...

A new post, with cute kid pictures from 2006 to share... I really should look into flickr... as I have a ton I'd like to post, but I'm just picking and choosing something representative.


One picture from her Christmas portrait. I actually like a different one better, but this is the one that is scanned and ready to post!

A picture of Maddie at the Zoo peering at the animals, in this case, a river otter.

An obligatory cute kid in the bath picture...I actually think it is a requirement for all parents to have this. So, we're good now!

Maddie playing with trucks at Uncle Kevin and Aunt Tina's house.

Maddie playing with her cousin Jack who was visiting from Florida, she'll get to see him and meet her cousin Joshua in January!

Yes, it is true, she does not smile ALL of the time, this is a classic crying face taken this past summer. She IS still cute though *grin*

I'm looking forward to new pictures, new memories for 2007! Hope you'll enjoy the ride with us!