thank you, post office!

this is a short one. we went out to run a few errands today that we didn't get to run yesterday. our first stop was the post office. the lady helping us noticed that madelyn was talking about the mickey mouse packaging available and offered her a sheet of disney stickers. madelyn said "thank you. wow! stickers."

i told her that she couldn't take the stickers off the sheet until we got home - and she didn't. not that i was surprised, madelyn is incredibly obedient. still - the allure of stickers is not usually something she can resist.

she fell asleep on the way home from our last stop so she went straight to bed instead of getting to play with her stickers. shortly after waking up she remembered her new stickers and asked for the "mickey mouse stickers". she immediately used them to cover her face (she had removed some from her face and moved them to her shirt before i could get the camera) - this is typical. (she is saying "mickey mouse" instead of "cheese" in the first picture.)

and then she took the two nemo stickers and put them on the palms of her hands. for some reason this struck me as very funny. she was clapping her nemo stickers together. she was willing to show them to me but only as long as she could see them too. this was the best picture i could get of her palms.

she ended up with a mickey mouse sticker on her forehead for like three hours before she remembered that it was there and took it off.

just another day

matt had to take the camera to work with him today and of course today presented a lot of photo opportunities. at least i had my phone to try and capture some of them.

it started this morning when madelyn requested gloves and snow boots for going out side - and no clothes. she was actually posing and smiling for me next to the front door, but there isn't a flash on my phone so you can't really see her face very well. this really was the best of the pictures i took. she wore her winter 'outfit' for quite a while. she did take the gloves off twice, but asked to have them put back on right away.

after a morning video conference, we headed off to music class. madelyn was so excited to be there. she really likes her friend dylan's mom, tina. madelyn throws herself into tina's lap pretty forcefully (she does the same to me and kind of bounces off of my belly - and, yes, it hurts me). it would be annoying except that she does it with so much love and joy that you can't be mad. dylan is nice enough to share his mommy's lap because madelyn takes up a lot of it. she even likes to lay down on tina and be rocked like a little baby. it is pretty funny because tina is pretty petite and madelyn looks huge in her arms/lap. i am just glad that madelyn loves our neighbor so much!

as soon as we could get ourselves together and to the car, we headed off to return some books that were due back to the library today. i had to get back for work so we didn't spend a long time picking out new books. on our way out madelyn noticed a statue that she has never given any attention to before. she realized that they were little kids and wanted to sit on the bench and look at their book with them. what was funnier is that she had me sit on the opposite bench and asked that i take her picture!

our trip to the library also reminded me of some other things i have been meaning to post about.

- madelyn is excellent at waiting to look for traffic before stepping out into the street! any time we are about to step off a sidewalk or curb she tells me to "wait for the cars". once she confirms that there are "no cars" she will step into the street. even if i tell her it is okay she will stop and tell me that she is "waiting". she insists that we come to a complete stop to look before stepping into the street. it is very cute - and responsible. the funniest instance of this was when we were going to get the mail and she wouldn't let me leave the end of our driveway until the neighbor five doors down had finished pulling out of their driveway and drove past us. simply because when she looked up and down the street she saw a car moving. we just stood holding hands at the end of the driveway and waited - the neighbor had a nice laugh has they drove by and waved at us.

- she always points out flags when she sees them. it was pretty windy when we left the library and we were talking about the flags waving and madelyn replied by waving at the flags and saying "hi" - so literal.

i don't know how to explain it here but madelyn's communication abilities have taken a dramatic step up over the past few days. our conversations have gotten much more sophisticated. that is the only word i can think of to explain it.

tonight she asked to go to bed an hour earlier than normal and that was after taking a 3 hour nap. either she is growing again or isn't feeling very well. we will see how she wakes up tomorrow morning. love.

31 weeks, 1 day

after many requests, here is an updated belly shot from this morning. if you look really, really closely, you can see my little outie bellybutton that i have had since early in the pregnancy. looking at the picture it looks like i am carrying pretty high, but this one is actually much lower than madelyn.

he is such a mover! where madelyn was a kicker and jabber, this boy is a stretcher and pusher. lately it seems like he is just dragging his knee or elbow up and down the inside of my rib cage like someone would drag their finger along a keyboard - ouch! he is definitely running out of room and is making sure that i know it.

it is also becoming increasingly uncomfortable to sit and work at the computer during the day - baby just doesn't have enough room when i bend over the keyboard. with maddie i would lay on the couch and work in the last month, but madelyn doesn't like when i do that now. so instead i just take more breaks and do more work at night.

the good news is that i have been able to sleep through the night for pretty much the first time this entire pregnancy! i am not dragging quite as much when madelyn comes to get me at 6am. i am hoping that this won't be short lived (i think it has been three nights now) because i need all the energy i can to make it through the day and a good night's sleep makes a big difference. love.

zoo buddies

i worked all day yesterday so that madelyn and i could go to the zoo with some friends this morning. we actually met up with 5 other families and had a very nice morning. some of the other moms had the great idea to take pictures of some of the kids sitting together. i couldn't believe how well everyone sat still! it was a little difficult to get them all to look the same way and smile, but they were pretty cute. (the only good one i got with them all looking at me came out blurry.)

today was the first day at 80 degrees since last september and we were very excited to be outside! the zoo was busy, but not so bad that it couldn't be enjoyed. madelyn loved having her friends with her! she also liked having all their moms there too. she kept taking their hands (the moms') and telling them to come and see the animals. she just loves to share everything - food, experiences, information, etc.

there is a map in the ape house that madelyn just loves. i think she likes it more than the primates. today she was counting the number of monkey markers on the map.

she fell asleep on the way home - as expected, but did not sleep an extra hour like she normally does after a trip to the zoo (not that i am complaining because she still slept for 2 hours). she woke up just before one of my meetings this afternoon, but she quietly watched a few cartoons while i took care of some work. then she ate her lunch. i had packed lunch in her veggietales lunch box for the zoo, but we left without eating it because it was getting late. she doesn't normally eat lunch on days we go to the zoo, so it wasn't a big deal. she really liked getting to eat out of a lunch box. i will definitely have to pack her up a lunch again - just for fun.

after spending the rest of the afternoon sitting at the dining room table 'reading' brochures about gardening plants and telling me about the seeds that she and daddy are growing (there will be another post about that later), we decided to take her friend ava up on a swimming invitation. ava had the coolest pool! there was a slide in the middle of it and madelyn had a wonderful time playing with ava - i think ava enjoyed having madelyn to play with too. here is one of her first trips down the slide and the only time she didn't sit on her way down. i should have gotten more video but was too busy chatting with ava's family.

and just in case madelyn's day wasn't full enough already, she got to eat her first dinner sitting outside (since being in a highchair). daddy grilled some turkey burgers and madelyn thought it was so exciting to be able to eat outside. and since we were outside we let her have an ice cream cone 'treat'. the thought was that we could go messy because we could just let the dogs up on the deck to lick everything up after she was done and she could head straight to the bathtub. while waiting for the burgers to cook madelyn was singing an original "mickey mouse dance" song and jamming by herself. once i took the video madelyn realized that this was a good show. she then demanded that mommy and daddy come and watch - over and over. enjoy her show!

on last note - yesterday, madelyn discovered that my belly button is an outtie now. she thought that it was so funny and kept trying to pinch it - which tickled me. she was then "kissing brother" over and over (aka kissing my belly).

as you can see she had a really full day! hopefully, this means that she will sleep later than 6am for once! love.

shorts and tank tops!

i am so excited to report that madelyn has worn her first shorts of the year! (me too!) it was decent on thurday afternoon (the short sleeves and skirt), warmer on friday (blue outfit), and saturday was warm enough for a tank top! i was so happy to open up the house and enjoy the warm sunshine outside for a little while. unfortunately, today was back to cold and wet. oh well, at least there are starting to be more and more signs of spring...

one such sign of spring is the weekly testing of the tornado sirens. every friday morning at 9:30am the sirens run for various lengths of time and since it is located at the end of our block, very loud. i was worried that madelyn would be scared by them, but she just tells me that she heard a noise. she does like for me to be near her when it goes off, but at least she doesn't cry.

another sign of spring is the return of the door to door solicitors. our neighborhood gets an obscenely high number of solicitors. it makes me hate, hate, hate that we have a glass panel in our front door. people who come to the door can see us sitting on the couch in the evening. matt has suggested that we start relaxing downstairs to avoid having to answer the door., but i hate having to 'hide' in our own house. hopefully, there won't be as many this year, but i think that there will be more since businesses are slower.

i had put off packing up madelyn's summer wardrobe from last year in the hope that some might be able to fit this year. as you can see both her shirts and shorts are not really long enough, but for around the house they will work for a few weeks anyway. saturday morning i was trying all her shorts on her and she would tell me if it was "too big", "too small", or "it fits". she kept it going as we headed out to a local church's rummage sale. when i would hold something up to her she would tell me whether it would fit or not - the vendors thought that it was pretty funny.

later in the afternoon, matt started working on his much anticipated vegetable garden. he only had time to pull of the sod and build the frame for one of the two 6x12 feet boxes. (i will add pictures when he has them completed.) madelyn woke up from her nap and went looking for daddy. i told her that he was outside. as soon as she saw him shoveling she called out "maddie help shovel!" i managed to slow her down long enough to get socks and shoes on.

we went out through the garage and as soon as we got to the driveway to head around to the side of the house, she called out "my shovel!" and ran back to grab her red snow shovel. and then she got to work with daddy. even looking at this picture tonight she gets so excited that she is using a shovel and daddy is using a shovel. she just loves helping him!

here are a few more recent notes:

- when eating her cracker snacks (bunnies, fish, or others) she identifies which ones are "broken" or "whole". she will also push her bowl across the table to share some with mommy - she is so sweet to share her snacks.

- madelyn now asks to feel "brother in mommy's belly". and she really is patient waiting for him to move. when she feel him she tells me and puts my hand on my belly too.

- wearing fleece on the slides at the park generates a lot of static electricity. not only does her hair stand on end, but the shocks can be really loud (and painful). she now tells us that she "heard it" or calls out "shock" whenever she hears the zap mommy or daddy gets when we touch the equipment again. (yes, you can hear it. it is really loud and it can really hurt! at least it hurts daddy and me, not madelyn as far as i can tell.)

- baby boy has outgrown the room i have to offer him and i don't think he is happy about his cramped quarters. i am 30 weeks plus now and i am not sure that i am going to make it another 10 weeks. i can't believe how much more difficult this pregnancy is on my body. i think that i just need to make more of an effort to take a break and put my feet up for a while during madelyn's naps. i was spoiled while pregnant with madelyn because i was comfortable for the most part and didn't have any swelling (i wore my wedding ring the entire time - and could take it off). i truly believe that my life will be easier once my maternity leave starts - don't think i am crazy (those of you with two or more kids) - the mental break from work makes a really big difference in my days!

- madelyn remembers things without any triggers more and more often. when we are riding in the car she will remember something and start talking about it. i am usually a few steps behind trying to figure out what she is talking about. it is particularly difficult when she is talking about an obscure toy that we haven't seen in a long time.

more later. love.

lotsa fun day

after seeing pictures of her friend lorelai in a ball pit and some old pictures of herself in a ball pit, madelyn has been asking to be "in the balls", so today we headed back to the lotsa fun room because i knew that she would be able to get into a ball pit there. as soon as she saw it she ran over and jumped in! she was so excited to be there. and she really loved 'hiding' in the pit. i would help bury her in the balls and she would just giggle and hold very still to 'hide'.

we played for about an hour and a half and then we went to pick up daddy for a lunch date. he had called while we were there because he had some room in his schedule to eat with us and we haven't been able to do that in a really long time. we had a wonderful lunch at a restaurant we had never been to before. it wasn't really a child friendly place. we sat at a bar table and madelyn did really well sitting at the table. some older ladies even commented about how well she did sitting at the table (we were there for over an hour). and the waitress asked if she could have a treat for doing such a good job; she brought out a little hot fudge sundae for maddie. madelyn was so hyped up on the sugar by the time that we got home that i was worried she wouldn't take a nap (she had dozed in the car for 20-30 minutes on the way to get daddy for lunch). it took two tries, but the day caught up with her and she napped for 2-1/2 hours.

here is my video capture of her saying "happy easter" yesterday. as you can see she wasn't dressed. she spent the day in just a diaper - i wore a fleece all day. she wouldn't sit down for the video until i told her to say "happy easter, lorelai" that is...

i also remembered my other video mission - her climbing the rock wall at the park. she gets up that wall so fast! she doesn't even really need me to spot her any more - not that i would risk stepping away yet. i keep my hand on her back the whole way. mainly because she climbs so fast i worry that she will slip. the wall is at least 7 feet high. maybe i can get some video this weekend when matt can go with us. love.

happy easter!

we had a lovely easter and hope that you all did too. as promised, we took a few pictures of our family this morning. since we don't have a tripod it is always a game of where can we set the camera and not cut off the top of our heads. this morning it was the mantel. madelyn even looked at the camera because of the timer blinking - these days that is a major accomplishment and i might use that trick in the future. i also managed to get a picture of her with each of us looking at the camera. she even smiled for her picture with daddy! we are so rarely all showered and dressed nicely that we have to plan to take pictures when we are.

on the way home from church madelyn had the random request to play soccer ball. we have never played soccer before, but we did buy a kick ball recently. after we got madelyn to eat some lunch (and she ate a lot), she finally got to play "soccer". as much as i wanted to get some video because she was so cute running around kicking and carrying the ball, it was one of those times when i just had to play too. matt and i were kicking the ball back and forth and madelyn would run after it. she was just in heaven playing outside with both of her parents! it was so much fun to see her running up to the front door and not even hesitating on the step up. she has changed so much since we were playing outside last fall and it really struck me today how much.

after her nap she work up and watched "golf" with daddy. (i was lucky enough to be napping today.) she was really into it too. she talked about the balls and clubs and was cheering for everyone who "got it" and "missed it". and then when we watched the end (after a trip to the park and more soccer) she kept saying that "mommy win" and "daddy win". she is just so sweet.

here are a few other notes:

- madelyn is already in bed or i would get video of her saying "happy easter". she says it surprisingly clearly. if i remember, i will get it tomorrow.

- she will come up and put her hand on my belly and hold very still to try and feel "brother" move. she will also put my hand on my belly and hold it there to feel. the first time she felt a big kick her eyes got huge and she slowly withdrew her hand and backed away. it took a little while before she would try feeling him again.

- madelyn wore her real cross necklace to church this morning and thought that was pretty special. it was the first time she has gotten to wear it.

easter fun

this has already been quite an easter weekend for madelyn. she got some easter goodies early from her grandparents on friday. she enjoyed getting their special surprises. she has actually associated the doorbell ringing with a "box" being delivered for her. although these days everything is "maddie's". her box from grandma and big pop had snacks and some bunny jewelry which she immediately had to open and put on.

and then her fuzzy bunny card from papa and nana came with some glittery, foam stickers in the shape of eggs, bunnies, and chicks. madelyn immediately stuck an entire sheet's worth on her forehead while daddy changed her diaper. unfortunately, she took them off before i could get a picture. she does have them all over her sweatshirt in this picture before we headed out to pick up some quick dinner. she just loves her stickers!

last night she was crying to go to the zoo with daddy (we had been talking about what we were going to do on saturday at dinner). and since i told her that she would have to wait until the morning, it was the first thing on her mind today. she didn't even want to get dressed. she was ready to just get in the car in her pajamas and head to the zoo. after a little discussion, i managed to get her to finish breakfast and get dressed before leaving the house. she called out "yea, zoo" most of the way there but really got excited when we turned onto the road where the zoo is located.

there were several easter events we were considering for today, but decided that the zoo would be best because if she wasn't into the easter activities she would still enjoy the zoo. thankfully we go there pretty early and it wasn't that crowded. madelyn could not care less about the easter bunnies or craft activities. i was really surprised that she didn't care at all about the easter bunnies (costumed characters) because she couldn't stop talking about the bunny at the mall a few weeks ago. oh well. we enjoyed seeing all the animals (it had been a while since daddy had gone with us) and walking around in the sunshine - although it was still pretty cold out.

i was able to convince her to get her face painted. she even told the lady what colors she wanted her whiskers and nose to be when she asked. later in the day she finally got to look in a mirror to see her bunny face paint and she was really excited about the "whiskers".

we wrapped up our tour of the zoo with a trip on the merry-go-round. we were planning on riding the train, but madelyn couldn't pass up the merry-go-round today. i don't know that she loved it (because she looked pretty scared), but afterwards she kept telling me about riding "up and down" so maybe she did like it.

the last thing we were going to try and do before leaving the zoo was watch a "bubbleoligist" show. we decided not to wait the half hour when we first got there, but were now going to have to wait a half hour for the second show. while we were waiting matt looked outside and saw some large bubbles. once we realized that the guy was making bubbles outside right now, we decided that would work for madelyn and then we wouldn't have to wait for the real show.

she really loved it. i don't think that you can really see it in the pictures, but she is sitting on matt's shoulders reaching out to pop the large bubbles floating by her head. every time a really large bubble would get within her reach she seemed to be looking somewhere else and would miss it. it was a great way to end our morning before heading home for her nap.

after her nap we finally got around to dying our easter eggs. i had boiled the eggs earlier in the week, but we just haven't had the time to get them dyed. we put an old shirt of matt's on her as a smock and away we went to experiment with our egg dying kit i bought at the dollar store. madelyn did a wonderful job - not that the video is very exciting. after we were done she asked to eat the eggs. i think because i had told her that the egg dying was a "treat" for her.



i am hoping and planning to get some family pictures tomorrow since we don't do that nearly enough. happy easter to you! love.

p.s. i had my 28 week check-up last week and passed my diabetes test. baby's heart rate is great and his growth is right on schedule. really uneventful. the next appointment is in 4 weeks and then we go down to every 2 weeks. madelyn asked the doctor to hear the baby's heartbeat. she was really excited about that part because she had been pretending to listen to the baby with her doctor kit during the morning.

kiddie rooms

in an effort to not have to repaint madelyn's room (matt worked really hard on those stripes), we have been carrying around the paint swatches trying to find twin sized bedding that would match. it has taken a few months but we finally found something that would work. matt still wants to repaint the two solid pink walls but i have convinced him that it wasn't a big deal to wait. here are some pictures of her new set up - which she loves.

and in continuing the theme of 'stripes', matt has finished painting baby boy's room. we finished arranging the furniture today but still have some work to do before we are all ready. here is a picture to give a sense of the finished product...

i think that we are finally done with our major indoor projects. next on matt's agenda - back yard landscaping. love.

play-doh is fun!

madelyn enjoys playing with play-doh, but she has found a whole new level enjoyment from her new play-doh octopus! she asks for it every day; usually more than once. yesterday she played with it for one hour by herself. yes, one hour! then she did another 30 - 45 minutes after her nap and even woke up asking for the orange play-doh (she had used pink in the morning and wanted to switch things up).

i can see her from my computer, so it gives me a lot of time to work while she is awake without having to worry about what she is up to (not that i really have to worry with her).

in the video she is not as talkative as she normally is when talking about her play-doh octopus.

sunday night we went to "family fun fest" at our church and madelyn got to show daddy how to work with play-doh. they had fun making eggs, bunnies, and crosses together. there were also two bounce houses set up (the whole thing was indoors - it is wisconsin after all). we took madelyn there first before the lines got long but she would not go in either of them - even though she was very, very excited to see them. she did ask to "bounce" when we were getting ready to head out. of course the lines were now very long. but she insisted that she wanted to bounce so i convinced dad that we should wait. we waited, and waited, and waited. madelyn waited in line and cried about wanting to bounce. when it was finally her turn matt lifted her up in and i quickly ran around to the side so that she could see me. and what did i see, her screaming and trying to back herself out. matt carried her away screaming. we put her down to put her shoes back on and she took off running back to the entrance of the bounce house screaming to "bounce". i had to explain to her that she had missed her turn and now we were going to go home. as we were starting to walk away she went running back crying to "bounce" again and tripped on the corner anchor weight bloodying her lip. the poor girl cried "bounce" with a big fat lip all the way to the car while i carried her. i had to convince her that i would take her somewhere else to bounce very soon. (also from 'fun fest' she got a smiley face tattoo on her arm - shown in the first picture. this was really exciting to her. it took her a little bit to understand that this 'sticker' didn't come off.)

since i am in catch up mode, last week we went to celebrate madelyn's friend prathu's 2nd birthday. madelyn had fun playing with prathu's new art table (it folds up to be an easel and magnet board seen in the picture) and slide. what was really funny to me is that some of the kids were playing "ring around the rosie" (one of madelyn's favorite requests of matt and i at home) and she wouldn't fall down. when we play at home she falls down before we get to that verse because she can't wait any longer to fall down and lay on the floor.

she has been pretending to be a baby a lot recently. i have posted before about getting into the baby swing, but here she is snuggled up with friend in her toy playpen. she isn't supposed to do this, but she looked so cute that i had to get a picture before making her get out.

today, i was complementing madelyn on what a good job she was doing climbing up the stairs (she has been asking to be carried recently). her response - "oh, thanks".

i have been so proud of her lately because she is forming really complete thoughts and sentences. like, "i want milk drink, please, mommy." it is so fun to hear her thoughts on things and have conversations with her about things that happen during the day. i think that matt really enjoys it too.

its not all sunshine and moonbeams though. she has been in another not wanting to change her shirt phase. i am pretty sure it has to do with her teeth cutting though. she complains about them "hurting" a lot and even cries out during meals in pain. another recent problem is that she is waking up early still and will only accept "mommy". if daddy tries to get up with her so that i can sleep she bangs on the door and cries for me before barging in and running to me. today, however, when daddy came to pick her up and carry her out (kicking and screaming) she ran to him, asked to be picked up and gave him two kisses and a hug! we were talking about it tonight how surprised we were at this sudden change in demeanor.

we have started looking at pre-school options for this summer and fall (regular school year start). it has been difficult for me for a lot of reasons, but matt and i agree that it will be really good for madelyn to go two days a week. now we just have to figure out which school will work best for our family. more to come on this later. love.

video day

i got a few videos to share today. madelyn isn't really cooperative about me using the camera these days because she just wants to watch herself on it.

i was able to catch her "measurin'" in "brother's room" this afternoon. that is how she helps daddy while he is painting. she doesn't really say or do much past the very beginning, but here it is:

and here is a sampling of what 75% of my pictures and videos are these days:

she spent a lot of time "drumming" today. she really enjoyed testing out the sounds the different sized metal bowls made when she hit them with a wooden spoon. i normally would not have had taken video (because it was so noisy), but she was singing softly to herself while playing her 'drums'. of course she stopped once i got the camera, but she sings for like half a second at one point of the video.

lastly, i got a little bit of her singing "happy birthday" tonight after dinner. on my birthday she actually sang the "to mommy" verse too. and actually, i just heard her sing that version to daddy right now as they are getting ready for bed and i am posting. she used to just say "happy day" and now she actually says "birthday" (sort of "birffday").

so after all the diaper drama last night, we were so excited when madelyn peed her her potty twice today! not that i count it as 'potty-training', but at least i know that she isn't afraid to go in it. love.