silly monkey goose

it looked like today might be the best day this week to be outside so after i picked up madelyn at school we headed to the zoo. when i first suggested the zoo to madelyn this morning she wanted to skip school and go to the zoo right then and there. i also asked her about walking instead of riding in the stroller and she said that she would walk. she has gotten a little lazy about always riding in the double-stroller and eating snacks. i am trying to get her to walk more.

madelyn was in a great mood after school and this might have been one of our best trips to the zoo in a really long time! she walked the entire time and didn't whine even once about wanting to ride in the stroller. she was also much more interested in the animals than she was in her snacks for a change. we had the best time walking around and checking everything out. it was getting a little chilly by the time we were leaving (because the zoo was closing) but it had been really sunny and comfortable before that.


the animals are always a little more active in the cooler weather and today didn't disappoint. the elephants were practically taking laps in their area, the sea lion was jumping up out of the water up on the edge of their exhibit, and the tigers were even awake. madelyn talked almost the entire time! she was making so many comments and observations. i loved every minute! she also requested to hold my hand a lot. (she doesn't settle for just a couple of fingers any more either - she wants palm on palm with a grip.) and when she wasn't holding my hand she was holding on to the stroller to "walk with mason". it was a little like she was excited to have mason with her. she kept telling me that she was the big sister who was walking and mason is her little brother in the stroller.

they were starting to close up the exhibits and we were heading back to the car. madelyn was telling me about the noises animals make and when we talked about monkeys she told me that she was a monkey - a "silly monkey goose". this combines two of our names for her "the silliest monkey" and "silly goose". i wish i could remember all of the things she said today but i was too busy enjoying it. it was the most perfect afternoon i have had in a really long time! i only wish that matt had been there with us.

on another note, mason has been consistently sleeping 10 hours. he isn't much of a napper though. he won't sleep for more than an hour at a time, but has zero trouble going to sleep for the night. i think he only napped 2-1/2 hours today between three naps. maybe he just isn't a napper... at this age that could all change next week. at least the lack of naps doesn't make him fussy. love.

nothing much

we have been very busy. well, i have been very busy anyway. i have a lot going on at work too. mason continues to give me 10 hour nights and that makes me really happy - and more rested. we had one rough night when madelyn woke up at midnight and peed on her carpet while calling to us (she comes out of her room on her own everyday so i am not sure why she didn't just go to the bathroom), mason woke up at 5 to eat, and then madelyn woke up at 6:30 for the day. it doesn't sound too bad but i had only gone to bed at 11:30 and had a very long day ahead of me. i was fried by 4pm!

the only real news is that autumn has arrived and jackets are part of our everyday attire. mason is not a fan. he doesn't like the wind at all; the same way madelyn didn't. better get used to it, kid! i didn't want any one to have withdrawal so here are some pictures.

madelyn wanted mason to sit next to her and, of course, have me take pictures. she decided to hold his hand for the pictures. and, yes, he is about to cry in the one on the right. love.

mason's 3

months that is. although it does feel like i am nursing and burping a toddler some days. mason celebrated his birth by sleeping 10 hours again. he is currently wearing a size 3 diaper but should really be in a 4 (i am just trying to use up the rest of this case before moving him up). and he just started wearing some of his 9 month outfits this past week. i have noticed that he can see a decent distance now and can almost track his super speedy sister as she bounces all around him.

mason is super laid back and extremely patient. if i can't get to him when he is ready to eat he will just go back to his nap with hardly any fussing or he will just wait quietly until i can get to him. it seems like he 'talks' way more than madelyn did at this age (and madelyn was a chatter-box) and he definitely mimics what you do. he will smile, stick his tongue out, make motorboat sounds, say "ah-goo" the same number of times you do, and laugh.

we still haven't figured out a napping schedule for him. so far he wants to nap when he wants to nap and there doesn't seem to be any trend from one day to the next. i am trying to pay more attention to the time he falls asleep and the time when he wakes up to try and figure out what works best for him though. this morning he wanted to nap instead of eat and slept for at least 4 hours! he was just too tired to be bothered with nursing. madelyn was so like clockwork that it is weird to have a baby that keeps me guessing. at least his physical signs of tiredness are unmistakable so i can just look at him and know that he is ready for a nap - when ever that might be.

he is finally old enough for me to look back at posts of madelyn at this same age so that has been fun. so far he is keeping up - except with teeth. madelyn had her first at 13 weeks so she has him beat there. he is drooling like there is one coming but i now think that we have a while to wait yet. love.

florida vacation - part 4 - the rest

i think this will be my last post about florida. it is going to be a long one, but i just want to be done so here we go...

annabell thought she was pretty funny wearing my flip-flops as we were leaving the pool. i just thought that this shot of her was cute.

madelyn and i playing together. that was one of my favorite parts of our trip - playing with madelyn (and mason). it is so rare that i can just hang out with my kids because i seem to always have something else that i am doing at the same time. i loved being able to give her my complete attention.

my parents brought this shovel that was cleaned up and painted by my grandpa to the beach. seeing it here at sunset reminded us of him and i had to take some pictures.

my grandma z. and aunts su and claire came out to visit us on friday. it was so nice to see them and i wish that my kids didn't nap so long so that they could have visited too. at least grandma got to hold mason and hear him laugh. i think they both enjoyed their brief time together.

all of the big 'kids' played the new beatles guitar hero (thanks, brad). the picture shows matt and i jamming out on guitar and bass; josh and abby took turns on the drums while brad provided the vocals.

madelyn's blogger buddy, lorelai, and her family came out to visit us on friday evening. the girls had fun burying matt in the sand. when they were done with matt, lorelai had a turn getting buried.

madelyn got to fly a kite too. the best part was when lorelai's mom knocked one of the kites free and ran down the beach to catch it - poor kellie! at least is wasn't too windy.

after the beach we all hit the pool before dinner. and when i say "all", i mean all - even mason! i was a little nervous to have him in the pool since it had just been treated that morning and we never took madelyn in so young, but mason loved it. i should have known that he would with as much as he loves bath time. he was laughing, kicking, and putting his head back. i had originally just brought him in the shallow part of the pool for a few pictures but lorelai's dad (an old friend of mine) was giving me a hard time about not letting him spend some time in the pool so i brought him back in to 'swim' and i am so glad that i did! thanks for pressuring me, jon!

we had some time on saturday after leaving the beach so matt took madelyn out on grandma and big pop's jet ski. she must have liked it because she fell asleep on the way back! poor kid was just so worn out that the engine idling back in put her to sleep.

madelyn passed the time we had to wait at the airport during the delay by having a picnic with the dolls grandma gave her before we left. she is sharing one of her banana cookies in the picture. i have mentioned madelyn's affection for picnics several times and she was really happy to have some "picnic dolls" to share with on the floor.

when we were parking the car to unload and fly home madelyn pointed out that there were birds painted on the parking garage. when we confirmed that, yes, they were painted on she told us that me-ma (great-grandma) had painted them! i guess when she was looking at a bird book with grandma she mentioned that me-ma had painted one of the birds they were talking about. even though i know that madelyn soaks up everything like a sponge, it always surprises me when she remembers some small detail and applies it later.

and that concludes are florida vacation. we had a great time and madelyn is still asking to go back to "grandma's beach house". she talks about it every day and likes to see all the pictures and watch the videos from the trip. we are very blessed to get to spend that time together. love.

party time

this morning we got up and got out for ava's birthday. madelyn was so excited to see ava that she could barely sit down long enough to eat breakfast. she was also in a disney sort of mood and gathered up all the stuff toys because she wanted to take them in the car with her.

ava's party was at monkey joe's. i describe it as a cross between pump it up and chuck e. cheese for those of you not familiar with it. matt had taken madelyn once before but i had never been. because of the number of kids for the party, they opened an hour early for us. it took madelyn a little while to warm up to the inflatables. she wasn't alone; many of the kids were too interested in the arcade to play on the inflatables.

madelyn had a lot of fun sliding. and she slid really, really fast! i had to use the sport setting on my camera to have any chance at a picture.

it looks like i am going to have to make a copy of madelyn's birth certificate to carry with me considering she is about 39 inches - the height of some of the 5 year-olds around here. she still played on the inflatables for kids 3 and under, but it was breaking the rules...

i don't know if i should say that she learned how to play air hockey or that she tried to play air hockey. the kids had a hard time playing because they could reach/see the top of the table. it didn't stop them from trying though!

i thought that the birthday table set up was pretty impressive - especially ava's birthday throne at the head of the table.

madelyn and our neighbor jason digging in to cake and ice cream. i was proud of her for actually singing along with "happy birthday" instead of just singing it on her own at home. madelyn perked right up after this and was ready to go play!

the cake must have made her braver too because she took on several of the larger slides afterwards. here she is climbing the tall 'rock' wall to a big slide. i think it was a real work out for her.

happy birthday to ava! madelyn had a great time and was worn out by the time we left. she is already looking forward to going back to monkey joe's some day soon. mason went too, but he spent the whole time strapped to me in the moby wrap so that i would be ready to climb in if madelyn needed me. love.

how could i forget?

mason slept for 10 hours on wednesday night! he woke up at 7am and went back down at 8am for another 4-1/2 hours. i can't believe i left it off of my update yesterday because i was so excited. now he didn't do it last night, but at least i know that now he can. i think it is a growth spurt because he has been eating like crazy for the past week; he needed to sleep for a while to do his growing.

since mason is getting to be such a big boy i thought that we would try swinging at the park today. he absolutely loved it! it probably helped that i knew how to make him comfortable from all my trial and error with madelyn. unfortunately he didn't get to swing very long because it began to rain shortly after i turned of my camera.

daddy tried him in his bumbo chair before dinner too. i put him back in it after his post-dinner nap for some pictures. he was too interested in sucking his thumb to sit up very straight, but he can and does when not sucking on his thumb.

speaking of thumb sucking, he gives both thumbs equal time. i read that kids tend to use the opposite hand of their sucking thumb as their dominant hand. it looks like madelyn will be right-handed because she sucks her left thumb, but mason still has hope for being a lefty. that is of course if the thumb sucking rule hold true. love.

in the mean time

it is taking me way longer than i thought to post all the pictures from our florida trip, so here is what has been going on around here in the mean time and some other 'milestone' type events from our trip...

- mason sat up in the stroller for the first time when we went to the park this afternoon. i think it was only a big deal to me.

- i forgot to mention our disney shopping experience in my orlando post. the main thing i wanted to note was how unselfish madelyn is while shopping. we let her play with toys in stores but she has to put them back when we are ready to move on. she never begs for anything either. this became a problem when we were trying to get her to pick a souvenir - she kept putting everything that we all agreed to back on the shelf and walking away! when we finally got her to select a stuffed pluto toy she didn't want the larger one daddy picked out. she wanted the smallest size they offered. matt was so proud. we got an accessory for halloween too.

- mason wore his first chargers gear to church on sunday and looked very cute!

- madelyn has become obsessed with spotting a "m for madelyn"! she has been doing this for a little while now but she has taken it to a whole new level while we were on vacation and can spot it with surprising speed. she was delighted when she looked out the window on the airplane and saw "airtran.com" on the wing or as she saw "m for madelyn"!

- at some point last week we were riding in the car and i asked madelyn what she was doing. her response? "thinking about palm trees. hmmmm." she even brought her pointer finger to her chin in a thoughtful pose.

- i think that i mentioned this briefly in a post before heading on vacation, but madelyn has been asking to wear her blanket to carry her turtle "all snugly" like mommy carries mason. the picture shows her turtle all snuggled. i am not sure why she picked the stuffed turtle rattle. as best as i can tell it was a totally random choice but she will only wear the turtle. and the request comes most often when we are heading to the park. maybe because that is when i use my moby wrap most often. i have not been wearing my moby wrap any of the times she has requested to wear her turtle and she runs around frantically looking for her turtle before we head out the door. so maternal.

- mason now says "ma" and it sounds like he is saying "mom" when he cries to eat.

- madelyn heard her cousin, annabell, say "yes, sir" to her daddy (uncle brad) and immediately began, "yes, sir. yes, sir. three bags full." these days almost any phrase she hears sends her into a song containing the same phrase.

- madelyn has taken to sitting on my lap and examining my face pointing out all the imperfections. aren't i a lucky lady?

- madelyn likes to try and do anything mason is doing. she likes to lay down next to him so that she can look up at his toy too. or she will lay down on her tummy to look in his mirror. yesterday (or maybe it was this morning) mason was laying on his belly and holding his head up to look in the mirror. madelyn declared that "mason will be crawling soon!" as she jumped up and clapped excitedly. she just can not wait for mason to be able to play with her!

- mason has started clasping his hands together across his chest.

- i was planning on taking madelyn to the library on tuesday morning to return books and pick out some new ones. but when i suggested that we get dressed and go she told me that she just wanted to stay home. poor kid missed being home. after returning saturday night, we went to church sunday morning, she had school on monday morning, and just wanted to stay home by the time tuesday came around. she spent the morning quietly playing with most of her toys, had a nice long nap, and spent all day in her pjs. it definitely did her good to stay home.

- madelyn's imagination has really started to show itself. she is often telling me about pretend scenarios like "mason and i are going on an adventure in the jungle." it seems like "adventure" has become a popular expression for her; she often tells us that she is "going on an adventure, okay?"

- this is a picture requested by madelyn. i think her face gets blank when she holds mason because she is concentrating so hard on holding him.

- i usually answer "where is madelyn's house?" with our street address so when i answered "at home" when we were driving home from school on monday she got really upset. she said, "no mommy! no talk to me! madelyn's house is on xxxx." saying our street name. she likes hearing our actual address.

- repetition is the name of the game. madelyn asks me to sing songs over and over when she can't remember the words singing them on her own. or in the case of our street address, she will ask me over and over for as long as i will answer her. and she has proven time and time again that she is soaking it all in.

- she was very talkative last night when we went to a local restaurant as a fundraiser for her school (they give 10% of sales to the school once a month). here are the highlights:

• "my tummy doesn't feel well", "why, madelyn?", "there are too many snacks in my tummy. i need to eat my dinner." and after dinner "my tummy is all better because it is full of my food."
• "there is a monster under daddy's chair." in the car, but we discovered that it was a friendly monster.
• "there is the moon up there. it is really high. i need to get a ladder to get it."

- sunglasses have become a staple. the funny part? she mainly wears them out night - like when it is dark. love.

blogger buddies

on thrusday we met some of madelyn's blogger buddies at chick-fil-a; brothers reece and trae, and sisters lorelai and kinley. all the older kids were excited to sit down to lunch together before checking out the play area. we weren't sure that we were going to be able to make it so our appearance was a surprise.

i told madelyn that we were going to see lorelai and she was so excited when lorelai walked through the door. since lorelai wasn't expecting to see her it took a few minutes for her to realize that madelyn was "blog maddie" - her modern day pen pal. once they had figured out who they were then there were smiles all around! thankfully, matt got a picture of the two of them together. while it isn't the greatest picture of them, it is the only one we got between lorelai's mom and i from both of our times together (they came out to visit us at the beach on friday night).

and now for the story everyone has been waiting for - why did matt want to kill a 7 year old? i was visiting with the other moms while matt supervised the play area. at some point someone came out and told me that the screaming coming from inside the play room was madelyn. i figured that she had just gotten scared in the top because that has happened before. but once i got in the room i realized that matt was up in the 'tubes' too. he was forcing madelyn down the slide in front of him and she was hysterical! it took her a little bit to calm down. she was asking to go home and matt looked like he was going to pass out. at this point i was concerned about what had happened. someone later pointed out that it was funny to see me holding a crying madelyn and asking matt if he was okay.

here is the short version of the story. matt heard a boy (that he guessed was 7) telling madelyn to kiss him and his daddy instincts kicked in to get madelyn out of the play set - now! before you worry, we later found out that it was really innocent. apparently madelyn had stepped on this boy's arm and was kissing it all better; matt just overheard him discussing it with her. on the way back to the beach we were trying to explain to madelyn that while it was very nice of her to want to make him feel better after she hurt him, she should not be kissing people she doesn't know. we even gave her a short list of people that would be appropriate to kiss. she didn't really understand what the big deal was so we are going to have to talk about this topic again in the future.

even with this tense moment, it was really great to see our blogger buddies! aunt abby joined us with annabell, ford, and briana too. we were quite the group! love.

florida vacation - part 3 - back to the beach

wednesday morning we hit the beach for a schedule free day. this was the only day that big pop and grandma got us all to themselves. i always say that they get ripped off with our visits because they have to share us with everyone and usually lose us for a day or two to orlando. i think that madelyn really enjoyed having her grandparents to herself for the day too.

all madelyn had been talking about for weeks and weeks was going to the beach and playing with a bucket and shovel - and finally she was getting her chance! and grandma made sure that there were lots of beach toys for her to play with in the sand. she was so cute pulling out the little wagon. she never got to enjoy a sand castle because she knocked down anything that got built. at least i know that she enjoyed knocking them down.

the best part of the day was that both kids got a nice long nap. it was the first real nap madelyn had since friday. i think they both slept about 4 hours. once they were up we had some dinner before heading back to the beach. mason was awake this time and was looking around but the wind was a little too strong for him when it blew in his face.

madelyn's joy (and grandma's) was feeding the birds! they had tried all morning to get the seagulls to come up to the back deck as they threw bread up in the air. madelyn was disappointed at their lack of success, but grandma was very, very disappointed. they tried for at least a half hour without a single bird. madelyn was saying, "come here birds! pleeeease!" she looked so sad when she came in to report that the birds didn't come. it was a totally different story that evening.

and here is a video of madelyn feeding the birds and then doing her happy dance/jump.

one of my favorite parts of staying at the beach is seeing storms come in off the water. there is just something magical about a storm over the open water. the only thing missing from this storm was lightning, but the sun shining through the clouds made up for it! isn't it just beautiful? love.

florida vacation - part 2 - orlando and disney

we were treated to a fun filled day at disney's animal kingdom and magic kingdom thanks to our friend natalie's generous offer to let us in with her employee pass. none of us had ever been to the animal kingdom so we were kind of excited to check it out given madelyn's affection for the local zoo - i told her that it was "mickey's zoo". we planned on doing both parks in one day based on madelyn's recent flexibility with napping. (don't get me wrong, she needs her nap. this was just an opportunity that seems worth the risk of skipping it.) here are pictures and captions to share our disney day.

"miss matalie" (as madelyn says) with peter. this was peter's first trip to disney too. peter is almost exactly one month younger than mason. the first thing we did at animal kingdom was seeing nemo the musical. it was like a marathon singing version of the movie. i was really impressed with how much of the plot they squeezed into 40 minutes. madelyn loved it and it gave natalie and i time to nurse the babies.

we had heard a lot about the safari ride so had to check it out. madelyn liked seeing the baby giraffe and wanted to see the baby elephant too. she was doing a great job listening to our tour guide and the story for the ride was really well done. we have recently started to play "i spy" with her when we go for a walk and the whole time she kept saying, "i spy. i spy." followed by whatever animal we were told to be watching for by the guide. the other memorable part of the ride was when the bridge 'collapses'. it tipped towards madelyn's side and afterwards she kept saying "oh-no! we got stuck in the water!"

mason spent the entire day in his carrier and slept almost the whole time. this picture was of the only time he was awake. we had found a restaurant with air conditioning so that mason could nurse in comfort (for both of us). it was really convenient that we could take mason on all the rides we did that day (except the roller coaster) in his baby carrier.

we also lucked in to photo ops with the characters where we didn't have to wait more than 2 or 3 minutes. madelyn was so excited to see them all too! mickey hugged her so tight that this was the best picture. then with goofy madelyn wouldn't stop hugging his leg and basically had her face in his crotch. goofy had to pry her off a few times before she posed for this picture.

improvised naptime on the bus from animal kingdom to the magic kingdom. so sweet. matt was so good to carry her too. i think he called her "dead weight" because it was so hot and she was so heavy.

after leaving the parks for the day we learned that this was madelyn's favorite thing from our entire day - seeing ariel in the parade! if i had known i would have waited the 40 minutes for her to come back for pictures. oh well.

if madelyn had been wearing mouse ears, this would have been such a classic picture of cinderella's castle.

mason riding "small world" for the first time. you will just have to take my word for it because i couldn't lean back far enough to get any of the ride in the background.

i got the privilege of taking madelyn on her first roller coaster! we rode goofy's barnstormer. it was a more serious coaster than i was expecting, but madelyn loved it! she kept laughing while riding and cried when we got off because she wanted to go again. i can't wait to take her on more coasters in the future. it just occurred to me that i rode my first roller coaster at the magic kingdom too although my experience was not as enjoyable.

i was so proud and excited for madelyn to have her very first slurpie! we don't have slurpies up here (at least not anywhere nearby) and i love slurpies. madelyn told me that it was her "favorite" and had cherry coke like daddy. i opted for banana.

mason really enjoyed this toy of peter's and spent like an hour at a time happily playing under it. he would even grab the toys hanging down and you can see him concentrating on the one touching his belly. this was the first time that he has deliberately grabbed a toy. he also began scooting on his back on this trip. he would move off of his blanket and turn himself 90 degrees in the crib.

madelyn and natalie outside of the rainforest cafe in downtown disney.

mason 'wearing' his "first visit" button. natalie knew to get them for the kids and i was happy to have them. we got one for madelyn even though this was really her second visit.

before heading back to fm for the rest of our florida vacation, we stopped in to visit my friend lindsey. we tried to meet up with two other friends in orlando, but it didn't work out with our tight schedule. hopefully we will get to see them on our next trip.

we were all exhausted and looking forward to some down time at the beach. madelyn did so wonderful when you consider that she had now gone three days without a real nap. she was really hyper on the way back to fm and was a singing machine. i couldn't get it on video because it was so dark and difficult to hear her over the interstate noise (on the video anyway). she also had her only accident of the trip because we couldn't get to an exit fast enough. love.