Just a couple of pictures...

Found an indoor play center in PA not far from us and decided to try it out on a bitterly cold day. They had two different play centers that you could climb around in throw balls around, etc. They also had this cool climbing wall which Maddie loved. She made it quite high but never rang the bell at the top. She says she'll do that next time...


One of her birthday presents was dress up jewelry including earrings. She loves them and has been prancing around all dressed up for the past week. She wore this little get up to our Homeowners Association Meeting one night this week. She was just too happy for me to make her take it off to go with us to a boring community meeting.




Attitude personified. We had another few inches of snow around here Saturday and of course Madeline enjoyed it. She put on her "holly jolly hat" as we were heading out to Chinese school today and "posed" for me as we were getting into the car. Of course that hat I bought for her when she was 2-3 yrs old. When we got there she didn't want to take it off. She said her head was cold and she wanted to wear it all through the class. Well, when I came to pick her up the hat was off...I forgot to ask how long she kept it on - heh.

I really haven't taken that many pictures this month...I'll try and rectify that situation come February...oh, that's tomorrow isn't it ;)

She's 5 and Fabulous!

Yes, my baby has turned 5 yrs old. She woke us up bright and early so very excited because she is 5 and wanted the fun to start.Madeline picked out her own outfit (dress of course - and summer dress at that).

She enjoyed a special birthday breakfast made by Daddy - heart shaped pancakes and "juicy" bacon (our girl doesn't like it crisp) there was some playing and movie watching until it was time to get ready to go to her very first every birthday party with friends!

We held it at her gymnastics place and she picked out her favorite leotard (the one with the hearts!)

I do have to say I was getting a little worried when at the start time only Rae and her boys where there (Hi Rae!) all of the others came in soon after that though and they had a blast.

The foam pit was a huge hit - here they are having a race across. I don't think I'd be able to do it heh


Walking on the balance beam, trampoline, bars, rope, rings, parachute play, you name it, they did it!

Now, here is where Mommy messed up *grin* The gym for a party, that was good, but I chose poorly when it came to the cake. Madeline didn't like it one bit. The only thing she liked was that Silvermist (a fairy) was on the cake. Oh well..

Come to think of it...she also asked for ear muffs for her birthday and we didn't get them for her either - heh. What I did do, was break down and I bought her some dolls of the Barbie variety. What caused me to turn away from my anti-barbie stance. Besides the fact that she had asked for them before, it happened one night when Madeline had gathered up toothbrushes and started playing with them like dolls. All the poor child wanted was some dolls to play with and due to my own barbie issues she was resorting to toothbrushes! So, we did not get her ear muffs, but she did get 3 diverse barbie dolls and various outfits to change them into.

All in all she said she had a good Birthday and that's all I could hope for in the first place.

La Petite Spa...yup, for kids

Madeline was invited to one of her friend's birthday parties this weekend at a Spa. Madeline had a blast, yes, my girly girl was loving all of the dress up, microphone singing on stage, and pampering that came her way. Oh, and the sparkles...so many sparkles in her hair, on her arms. She was in heaven.


The entire place was PINK. I mean, really, really pink all over the place.

Madeline had a choice of having her fingernails, toenails painted or having her hair done. She chose having her hair done. Some sort of fancy combination of partial french braid with a pony tail and curled hair at the back with a curling iron. Then all topped off with sparkles. Whew

Once everyone had on their dress up clothes and had their nails or hair done, the staff at the Spa provided a photoshoot for each of the girls and then did a group shot. There was a big sign to my left where it says "no photos during photo shoot" which I read after I snapped this one and got a dirty look. Of course (if you want to purchase any of these pictures that they take during the photo shoot, the spa is more than happy to oblige - heh).

The rest of the party involved pizza and taking turns on stage singing into the microphone.


I had multiple parents exclaim that Madeline is such a performer and is certainly not shy - She was up there every minute she was able to be...

The party was fun, although a tad odd. It was an hour long party and the birthday girl arrived 20 minutes into the party! For the first 15 minutes there was just Maddie, her friend R from school rocking the dress up costumes, then a couple more guests arrived but still no birthday girl. One guest got lost and they arrived with 10 minutes left in the party!

Next week is Madeline's 5th birthday - we're counting down the "sleeps". She is super excited and can't wait to be 5 - I on the other hand have, shall we say, mixed feelings about it as my baby is growing up.

Homework....the good and the bad

Madeline gets homework from her Pre-K class every week. I think I may have written about it before. It is not difficult work and is designed to reinforce what they learn during the week. I do understand the goals of homework (part being ensuring parents are working with their kids at home on things) but...

It is a lot of busy work.

None of it is challenging for her and I guess that is my beef with it. Especially last night's homework. Ok, I'll admit, once in a while it is more challenging when they ask the kids to write sentences using their "wall words" for the week, but more often than not it involves circling pictures, practicing cutting with the scissors and gluing pictures on paper. All of which she had mastered a good long time ago - same with the alphabet and numbers. I am happy to see that they are learning sight words aka wall words and she loves reading - if we need to do homework I just wish it was more customized to the child...

Here is The Good....Happily though - Madeline *loves* homework time. They call it "seat work". It is a treat for her when I pick her up from school and she asks what we're going to do when we get home and I say it's homework night. She literally says "yay!" I guess I should stop complaining and be happy for the time that she finds homework fun - may it last a good long time.

Here is The Bad...I have homework too...from the Children Chinese Folk Dance class - and I am procrastinating, I have until Sunday afternoon for it to be complete and darn it I may just use every minute I have to put it off. Why? Well, the homework involves sewing. Yes, yes, you may all now stop all that laughter I am certain is going on while you are picturing me sewing pink feathers onto Madeline's costume for their Chinese New Year dance performances. The costumes for their dance, The Swallow Dance, is all pink and we're working on the wings. Those of you that know me, are the ones that are still laughing...I'm not very domestic, shall we say. So wish me luck so her costume isn't a hideous mess. =)

Delurking Day 2010

Today is Delurking Day, a day where you are encouraged to “delurk” or say “hi,” especially if you don’t normally comment. Yes, it’s a blatant ploy to get comments and see who is reading our little corner of the internet. With each new posting we get between 40-70 hits here and would just like to see where you all are from.

Thanks to OHMommy at Classy Chaos for the reminder!

Christmas 2.0 ?

While we loved having snow on Christmas, the storm that hit us just happened to come the weekend that Ron's Mom was having her family Christmas party at her house. Yup, it was canceled due to the snow but it was brought back, better, stronger, faster... Hrm, no that would be the bionic Christmas. The light snow that came on Thursday-Friday was worrisome as we pondered celebrating Christmas in July but in the end it worked out just fine.

This weekend we went down the Eastern Shore to Talbot County to visit with Nana and Ron's side of the family. We had a good time seeing everyone - Madeline started out shy but quickly warmed up, happily giving everyone hugs when it was time to head home.

We got up bright and early, well sorta...Maddie picked out what she wanted to wear - her beautiful heart dress from Aunt Tina and she found matching stockings..."they have hearts on them Momma!" Here she is looking way too old than I'm ready for with her to look carrying her heart shaped pocketbook with her "lipstick" in it aka lip balm.

Ron also chose to dress for the occasion with his fancy schmancy red cowboy hat ;)

What is that!?!?! A photo of Mommy? Mommy and Madeline waiting for the horde to arrive. I mean that affectionately!

Which they did. Jon, Joe and Marshall weren't able to come but we had fun anyway =) Tons of presents were exchanged, home baked goodness shared and tons of stuffed animals (Thanks Uncle Clifton) overtook the living room.

After the fun was had and people drifted back to their homes, we stayed and helped clean up - Maddie prepared for the ride back home by mixing and matching her pj outfits... Pink ballet slippers with cupcake pants, watermelon shirt and polkadot fleece pullover. She was definitely comfy on the ride home.

Now we can officially say that Christmas is over.