building with daddy

on saturday we got up and dressed for a morning of errands. madelyn was most excited about "building something with daddy" at home depot. as soon as she was dressed she put on her apron. she actually wanted to put it on before she was dressed but i convinced her that she would be cold out without pants. i took this picture of her while she was being silly before we left - it is the only way i could get a picture without her crazy photo smile face. she wore her apron and sunglasses in every store we stopped by and got quite a few "so cute" comments. she was embarrassed and shy that strangers were talking to her, but it wasn't enough to make her take either item off.

this kids' workshop was a "special event" with a firetruck, k-9 unit, and some halloween fun. here are some pictures:

daddy had to put the project on the ground so that madelyn could hammer. it was just too high on top of the table. she does a surprisingly good job hammering! it was also really windy (and a little rainy) so daddy did most of the work so that we could check everything out before it started to rain too hard to be out with mason.

here is her finished fire house bank. it has three compartments - one for saving, one for spending, and one for sharing. she makes special note of the "grooves" on each side that the lid slides on and off in.

she would have sat in the fire truck all day! she was so happy in there that she just sat there smiling and we had to go up and get her so that someone else could have a turn. it was just too bad that they were out of the plastic fireman hats by the time we got there. she really wanted one after seeing other kids wearing them.

they had little carnival games with halloween themed prizes. the only one madelyn could really do was the bean bag toss.

at noon they dropped a huge assortment of candy and balloons in a pumpkin decorated tarp from a crane. we thought that it was going to be some pumpkins dropped to go "splat", but it was just a lot of candy. we probably wouldn't have gone over if we knew it was candy.

because madelyn was one of the younger kids she got to go with the first group (the older kids went second so no one got trampled). you can tell that madelyn didn't really get that she should go get the candy by the way she stood on the outside of the group of kids stuffing their bags with candy. when she did work her way up she took two popcorn balls and two mini tootsie rolls.

here are just a few more notes about madelyn:

- we have some white mushrooms coming up in the yard all of the sudden that are making matt crazy, but to madelyn they are wonderful "mushmellows". at least she has a firm understanding that these are not for eating. she just likes to pick the tops off and feel them.

- she is starting to get the hang of using the computer mouse. she doesn't have it quite mastered yet, but she knows what she is trying to do and how it coordinates with what is on the screen. and every now and then she even clicks on the right thing all by herself!

- madelyn has a real interest in our stopping, going, and speed while driving in the car. yesterday i realized that when she is saying stopping she is really saying "stop me". she means stopping, but just isn't saying it properly because she is mishearing it from us. she doesn't do it anymore because i corrected her - she now says "stopping".

- i don't know how common this is, but when i ask madelyn what a letter i am pointing to is she gives me the sound instead of the letter's name. not for all letters, but she does it for "s" and "c" almost all the time. love.