seeds

it's that time of year again. daddy and madelyn huddled over their seed starter boxes (i don't know what else to call them and am too lazy to see what they are actually called) to plant the first seeds for the garden.

madelyn wanted to plant more seeds today but there were no more places to plant them. she had to settle for just watering and waiting for it to warm up enough that she and daddy could move to the garden beds outside. love.

warm day

when the forecast said that we might reach 70 today, i decided that we were all wearing shorts! madelyn couldn't stop petting and rubbing my legs. i guess i should shave more often...

i asked madelyn to go get her shoes on so we could leave. she sat down and examined her toe nails (something she does almost daily to see if they are long enough for me to cut them again) and told me that she had a black think on her toe. i told her to come over and show me that i was probably just dirt that needed to be wiped off. but, no. it was a huge splinter! and since she had been inside all day on tuesday with us sickies, it had to at least have been in there since monday - if not longer!

thankfully, it just had a little bit of red started on her toe so i wasn't too worried about infection. and it came out very easily. i put a little neosporin and a band-aid on it and madelyn was ready to go. when i looked at her toe this afternoon you could hardly tell that anything had happened so i think that we are in the clear. i was just still shocked that we hadn't noticed sooner and wonder just how long it had been there. we definitely need to inspect her better at bath time.

mason enjoys checking out madelyn's toys uninterrupted while madelyn is at school. he just laughs and takes his time happily examining them from every angle. i don't interrupt him unless he tries to eat a book or something; which is very rare.

mason was racing around while i was getting our lunches ready. he is starting to truly understand the freedom crawling gives him. he takes off down the hall to the bedrooms and helps himself to anything he can see and reach. madelyn decided this afternoon that she needs to keep the bathroom door closed so that mason didn't try to play in there - i agreed.

i thought that some fresh air and sunshine would be good for mason and i, so we stopped at the park on our way home from picking up madelyn from school. madelyn has been waiting to go to the park and see her friends for a while but the timing has just not worked out. she was very happy to see kids, even ones she didn't know, playing at the park when we got there. mason had a great time swinging in the sunshine and sampled the stick and leaf selection on the ground. unfortunately, he found them to be pretty tasty.

at dinner madelyn added "and help mommy to feel better" to the end of daddy's prayer over our dinner. she is such a sweet girl. i could not have asked her to be any sweeter or more obedient this week while i haven't been feeling well. she actually earned back several toys for her good deeds. and i am happy to report that she has continued to take care of them. love.

happy sick day to me

yesterday i had to call in sick because mason and i both had fevers on monday night and i was in pretty rough shape on tuesday. i felt a little funny calling in sick because tuesday was also my birthday. but i was sincerely sick. thankfully, mason was faring much better than i was. he was just a little fussy and tired but none of the congestion i have.

poor madelyn had the worst deal because she was fine, it was a beautiful day, and she had to stay inside with us sickies. she was so good. she brought be tissues, helped with mason, took a nap with me when i asked her to, and kept a happy attitude all day. as a thank you, i let her color easter eggs. i was a little brave because i would get her set and then go lay down while the eggs colored. here she is happily coloring:


i am a little better today but still wearing out a box of tissues. at least my head has stopped floating and my ears have stopped ringing. mason is totally back to normal. i am so glad that he didn't have a long run with this illness.

thank you to everyone who called and wished me happy birthday. i am sorry that i didn't call most of you back. i was just too tired and couldn't talk any more. love.

dressing for daddy

another day, another fabulous outfit. matt thought i put her up to this outfit because he was taking her out to run errands today while mason and i stayed home, but this was all madelyn. what you can't really see is that she is wearing a bright blue shirt with pink and red hearts on it.

while shopping they were discussing their gardening plans for the summer. matt told me that madelyn's requests were bananas, french fries, and corn. tonight when we asked her she changed it to bananas, strawberries, and corn. at least we will be growing strawberries for her this year. love.

daddy's first music class

we had a service call scheduled for this morning and i had asked daddy if he could come home so that we could still go to music class. but then i had a brilliant idea! daddy could take madelyn to music class and i could stay home and work while mason napped. madelyn was SO excited that daddy was going to go to class with her! that is how i was able to get this super cute picture of them.

now for madelyn's outfit. she started with her favorite shirt - a grey turtleneck with a small rhinestone heart - and selected black leggings. but then she remembered that she needed pockets for the "catch a shooting star and put it in your pocket" song so we added the red, white, and blue patterned skirt with pockets. then daddy wouldn't let her wear her sandals because it was too cold, madelyn just added her ariel socks for warmth. and just to have that final touch she topped it off with her brown, velour, polka dot hoodie. i love these outfits! there is such a small window in life when you can dress with this kind of abandon and i want her to enjoy every minute of it.

another daddy point that i keep forgetting to mention (and not intentionally) is that madelyn often says, "daddy you are a genius!" just out of the blue she says this enthusiastically. what is even funnier is that we have no idea where she got this and she usually uses in at an appropriate time (or when it can be seen as perfectly sarcastic). she only says it for daddy too. it's good to be daddy.

madelyn doesn't nap most days but at least once a week she goes into her room and falls asleep in her tent. i'll here her playing and she will be wide-awake and then there will be silence. she tucks herself in under a giant pillow and goes to sleep. she usually lays down for these impromptu naps around 4 which can leave her a little fussy for dinner time if we have to wake her. she is a really deep sleeper like her daddy and doesn't like to be woken up - not that it is easy to wake her up anyway. love.

9-month check-up

i wasn't going to post tonight because mason has been getting up around 5am all week and i am exhausted! for some reason he slept until 7:30am yesterday, but madelyn stayed up all night and was up with daddy by 6am. it's times like these that i think they are trying to kill me. it didn't help that we have had appointments almost everyday this week.

anyway. today's appointment was to take mason for his 9-month check-up. all went well. i got to ask about his erratic sleeping lately. she said that i should try putting him to bed earlier so tonight we gave that a try. he hasn't been napping well lately and i am pretty sure that has a lot to do with his early morning rising because it is not hunger. at least he is happy when he is tired. he just looks malnourished or something because his eyes get rimmed in red.

and here are his 9-month stats:

height - 31 inches (98.88 percentile)

weight - 21 lbs. 4 oz. (64 percentile)

head circumference - 47-3/4 cm (97.13 percentile)
bmi equivalent - 14.19 percentile

basically, he is still long and skinny - with a big head. he has out grown shirts (12 and 18 months) just because i can't get them over his head. i did ask the doctor about his weight because we cut him off at the end of meals. he just eats so much and after an hour we are just done (and almost out of food options).

mason's pictures are from our jcp pictures last night. he was exhausted because of course he chose not to nap at all during the day.

before his appointment mason used his new crawling skill to meet our dogs for the first time. this video isn't the most exciting, but its not too long either.

madelyn had a really great day too. as a diversion from her interest in my iphone games, i dug out my old game boy and introduced her to tetris. she didn't quite get the point of the game but she loved it none the less!

her picture is from her layering efforts from the coat closet. her 'skirt' is a knit head band that she unfolded (i know that is an odd head band - i have never worn it). i just loved how lovely and happy she looked.

there is more but i just can't think of it right now. i am too tired. love.

it must be a gender thing...

i have always thought the idea that men always have to have the t.v. remote was just an urban legend. but it seems that it might be a need they are born with...

mason makes a bee-line for the remote control. and not any remote, but only the t.v. remote will do. he has chased it down off the coffee table a few times but when he saw it on the back of the couch tonight matt and i both wondered what he would do.

he bolted right over and tried to scale the side of the couch. matt was snapping the pictures and couldn't get a good one of him up on his knees and reaching, but i thought that this one was pretty good with him just looking up and evaluating the situation. he tried for a while to get it before daddy scooped him up for bath time.

while he was napping this afternoon madelyn played out back. it is nice that i can sit in my office working and madelyn can play out in the sandbox and on the porch swing with the dogs where i can hear everything. she looked so lovely laying down swinging in the shade - the picture really doesn't do her justice. we had spent all morning at the car dealership getting something installed on the car that they didn't have ready when we bought it. thankfully, there was a kids area with toys in the waiting 'lounge'. madelyn was really happy to finally play outside since it was a gorgeous day! too bad that i had to spend it inside. oh well. daddy had to spend it inside too.

i had forgotten to mention this story when i posted about mason crawling yesterday. mason crawled for the first time while madelyn was at school. when i picked her up i told her about his latest accomplishment. madelyn was really, really excited! she started saying that mason was big now and could eat her snacks, and dinner like us, and go in her tent. i told her that he still needed to wait a while before he could eat the same food as the rest of us. i had totally forgotten about the tent!

when mason first came home madelyn started asking for him to come into her tent and pretend sleep. i have been telling her that he is still too little to go into the tent with her but when he starts to crawl he could go into the tent with her. i also explained that she would have to wait until he was in a big bed before he might have any interest in playing 'pretend sleep'.

so of course the first thing madelyn wanted to do when we got home was to have mason come play in her tent. i took him into her room and left him sitting by the tent's entrance. i was in the kitchen and madelyn calls out, "he crawled! i saw him! mason crawled! he's in the tent! he's in my tent!" she was SO excited. she kept trying to tell him to try laying down on this pillow that was for him, but she is waiting patiently for that day to come. it was just so cute how excited he was for him to finally be able to crawl into her tent. love.

she looks just like me

we were out shopping this weekend and madelyn really took a liking to the mannequins at old navy. she said that one looked like her, one looked like mason, one looked like mommy, and one looked like daddy. there were several set up and madelyn checked them all out to pick which ones looks like each of us. none of them actually looked like any of us, but to madelyn they were our twins. she felt so strongly about the resemblance that she asked to have her picture taken with the one that looked like her. then she offered to take my picture with the one that looked like me. i kindly declined her offer.

i had forgotten about this until i found the picture on my phone this morning. love.

he's crawling!

almost three months to the day from the age madelyn was when she started crawling, mason crawled! and he is pretty fast too! he is starting to get the hang of all his new found freedom too. i am sure i won't be this happy about his crawling by the end of the week. (i am only kidding, because i know that i will still be super excited but i am sure that he is going to keep me on my toes. this video is from his second success today. love.

the grass is always greener

it was warm enough this afternoon to spend a little time outside and madelyn was in the mood to blow some bubbles. she was standing blowing bubbles (or sometimes just blowing) and mason would crack up every time. madelyn sat down with us but mason still thought that it was funny so i went in for my camera (don't worry - matt was outside too). this video isn't as cute, but i posted it anyway.

matt was raking up some dead grass and madelyn was telling me all about the brown grass going in the trash bag so that the green grass could come up. (we are planning on prepping the landscaping for spring next weekend.) matt told me later that madelyn had shared with him (with love i am sure), "look, dad, there is green grass over there!", while pointing at our neighbor's yard. yes, madelyn, yes, it is - thanks. love.

a day at the museum

on thursday we took nana (and daddy) to the children's museum. on our way to the museum we stopped to eat a very yummy breakfast at the original pancake house.

madelyn was really excited to show nana and daddy around the museum. we had been talking about the trip to the museum (and the trip to the zoo) the whole week leading up to nana's visit. madelyn and i would discuss what we wanted to make sure nana and daddy got to see when we took them. but when the day was finally here madelyn's excitement had waned. she did perk up once we started looking for parking to go in.


madelyn made her way straight to the train section while daddy and nana waited in line for our tickets (you can sort of get in without tickets, but you still need them). after checking out the grocery store, car shop, and post office, everyone took a turn riding in the 'ambulance' with madelyn (nana's turn is in the picture). madelyn kept working the radio saying, "we're on our way!" before pushing the siren buttons.

we also spent some time in the arts and crafts area making bookmarks for each of us. there was a new exhibit for health and fitness that was neat but we had to cut our fun a little short. mason had taken his morning nap in the stroller so i really wanted to try and get him home in time for his afternoon nap and we still needed to stop for some lunch.

when we got home mason ate quickly and then went down for his nap. the rest of us finished up lunch before everyone (except me - i needed to finish the book for book club that night since i was leading the discussion) headed out back to play in the sandbox and enjoy the wonderfully warm day! i had opened up all the windows so i could hear them having fun. i just love when i get to open up the windows and hear all the outside noises! love.

a monkey joes birthday

today we went to our friend dylan's birthday party. we met up at monkey joe's and then went to dylan's house for dinner and cake. madelyn and daddy had a lot of climbing and bouncing fun while mason and i watched. mason had enough and ended up falling asleep in the midst of all the yelling and chaos. it was so crowded that we had to wait about a half hour to get in because they were at capacity and we had to wait for people to leave. but it was worth the wait. daddy had so much fun that he split his pants - literally!

we decided to stop back by the house for mason to eat his dinner (and for daddy to get some whole pants) before going over to dylan's house for dinner and cake. the most exciting part about stopping at home is that madelyn asked to ride in the wagon and it occurred to me that mason could ride now too! he smiled the entire way down the street (even though he looks terrified in the picture). it was pretty cold (we woke up to snow on the ground after a week of temps in the 50/60 - got to love it when the weekend is gross) but mason really loves being outside and liked his new ride - with madelyn.

two last little notes about mason. he wakes up around 6am everyday, standing up and smiling in his crib. mason loves textures. he is always rubbing and feeling everything he can get his hands on and examines things more with his hands than his mouth (like most babies usually explore). madelyn never cared for the touch and feel books, but mason can't get enough of them! it so fun learning how different they are. love.

conservationist

madelyn has become quite the conservationist around here. she helps us turn off lights and if we turn on the overhead light and the lamp in a room she will turn off the lamp and tell us that we don't need the extra light.

she also has mastered turning on the water when washing her hands where it is only slightly more powerful of a flow than a drip. she will adjust it for a while before she is totally satisfied with the minimal flow. we have always had her turn the water off while scrubbing her hands, but this is a whole new level of conservation.

i don't think that she is something she has learned at school. i really think that she is just taking the things we tell her - "turn off the lights when you leave the room", etc. - and taking them to the extreme. i probably wouldn't have posted about it, but the hand washing cracks us up every time. love.

meet lucy

one of the benefits of madelyn's choices to not take care of her toys is that her imagination is almost the only thing she has to play with anymore. she has always had a pretty great imagination, but it has become more of a constant in our day lately. there is usually a puppy under her chair at meals, alligators to hide from, and snakes in the car. and for the first time on wednesday morning while we were heading to school, there was someone with a name.

first of all, lucy is a boy. lucy is almost a constant companion these days. he is a tiny, red snake (he started out as a green snake). madelyn carries him around in the palm of her hand; he is tiny so she carries him in a closed fist. the surprising thing is that she doesn't forget that she is carrying him around in her fist. she does most things one handed to protect lucy. she puts him down when she goes to the bathroom or washes her hands and then picks him up again when she is finished.

apparently lucy gets hungry and needs his own plate of food. thankfully he will also share with madelyn so there isn't a lot of waste. love.

nana visit

nana arrived yesterday and picked a great weather week to be here. since madelyn was in school on monday, today was our first day to get out and about. we did go down to the park after dinner. i forgot how nice it is to have sunshine after dinner to get out and play. it was also nice to see our neighbors that we haven't seen since the fall. its like everyone goes into hibernation and comes back out with the spring thaw. madelyn could not have been happier to see "all my friends" at the park.

today we took nana (and daddy because he took the day off) to the zoo to see our favorite animals. it was a nice day to be outside.

nana brought madelyn an ariel bag and she loaded it up with gear (a sweatshirt, sunglasses, and a camera) to take to the zoo. the amazing thing was that she carried it the entire time! even when we would ask to carry it for her she was very sure that she did not want to give it up.
as always, madelyn wanted her picture taken with the baby gorilla statue. i included it because she was sharing her water with the gorilla.
to our surprise the train had already started running again, so nana asked madelyn to join her on a ride around the zoo. the train whistle startled mason so badly that he shook the whole stroller when he jumped and then he burst into tears. poor little guy.

we ate lunch out before heading home where everyone napped except for madelyn and i (i had to work this afternoon). once mason woke up from his nap i took the kids outside to enjoy the beautiful weather. it was mason's first time being on the grass. he took to it better than madelyn did her first few times (she cried and tried to pick herself up off of it). madelyn gave her bike and scooter (a Christmas present) their first rides of the year.

slowly, nana and daddy woke up and joined us outside. there was some kind of emergency nearby so we got to see fire trucks, news trucks, ambulances, and helicopters.

and this last picture is my favorite one of the day from dinner tonight. we went to a new restaurant and they gave plastic "chopstick helpers" with the crayons and kid's menu. they won me over right there! madelyn loved that she could finally use chopsticks to pick things up.

tomorrow will be a quiet day again since madelyn will be off at school and mason will be napping. we have more fun planned for thursday when matt and i are both taking the whole day off. love.

i have a big sister

mean mommy

this is a post that i have been wanting to do for a while. i call it "mean mommy" but it is really "strict daddy and mommy" - think zero tolerance. matt and i have some fairly strict rules around the house. we follow 'love and logic' for our parenting inspiration and it has been wonderful for madelyn (hopefully, it will work well with mason too). the great thing is that we get no "that's not fair" whining.

probably the strictest house rule is that any toys not put away before bed will not be there in the morning. we tell her that if she doesn't take care of them then we will take them away. the amazing thing is that most nights madelyn says that she doesn't want her toys - and she really doesn't! the only toys she has shown any real interest in taking care of are her mr. potato head set and her flash cards (yes, the educational kind). not to say that she hasn't had time without these but it hasn't happened recently. she can earn them back by cleaning up, as a reward when she behaves in a way that helps me or if i just want to reward her good behavior.

whenever madelyn asks where a toy is (and it is very rare that she brings this up despite the fact that she has almost no toys left) we ask if she put it away (even if it is something that we haven't taken away - yet). then she says, "no, i didn't take care of it and you took it away". and that is usually the end of it. there is the odd occasion where the conversation begins with her saying, "you took away my toy," slightly angry, but i ask her "what happened?" and she changes her tune very quickly. she tells me sadly that she didn't take care of it. there have not been any fits about this - so far.

and this doesn't just apply to cleaning. if she chooses to kick, throw, or in any way not "take care" of something; it is gone. often there is no warning. i just walk over and remove it calmly without saying a word; she knows why.

we are trying to decide what we are going to do with all the removed toys. we are going to give some back as holiday and birthday presents (we aren't buying new toys when she can't take care of the things she has) and are thinking that anything she doesn't earn back in a month or two goes to goodwill or another charity. the other slight problem with this will be policing between her and mason if one cleans and one doesn't, but i think the rule will be the same and the other will have to choose to pick up the slack with cleaning to keep the toys. after all, life isn't fair. of course, we may try to find other ways to reward the extra effort.

another house rule is that you have to go to your room to "calm down" when you are choosing to throw a fit. and she has to walk there. she gets to choose whether her door stays open or close while she calms down. we haven't had to do this yet, but coming out of her room before being calm means that she chooses to have the door closed (and locked). when she comes back from calming down we greet her with excitement, hugs, and smiles. i usually tell her that i missed her and am glad that she is ready to be with us again.

we will leave any public place if she is having trouble listening (i think that we have only done this once).

let's see, what other rules...

she can paint her finger (and toe) nails when she stops sucking her thumb. she went three days without sucking her thumb before breaking down. now she says that she doesn't want to paint her nails.

she can chew gum when she can spit out her toothpaste while brushing her teeth.

spilled/dropped food is not replaced.

if she doesn't like dinner she doesn't have to eat it, but there won't be any other options until she tries everything to our satisfaction. she has chosen to eat no dinner a few times, but not recently. in fact, she has been really excited about trying new foods.

there is always some new phase that throws us a new curve ball to figure out. now she has been yelling "no" at mason when he looks at her in the car.

i know that matt and i aren't perfect parents (after all, who is?). we do seem to be having great success with 'love and logic' and i would highly recommend it. i almost never yell (like i said, i am not perfect), in fact, whispering is very effective and when i do yell i apologize to her. it is nice not to be too stressed about discipline. of course i get a little stressed about the effects of being so strict, but we aren't strict across the board. we are most focused on personal responsibility. we often tell her that she can't control what anyone else does, just what she does.

don't get me wrong, there is a lot of love in our house and madelyn gets lots and lots of affection. we actually don't have to discipline her very often at all. i think that is because of our consistency and clear rules. she knows that we love her even when she makes bad choices. love.

pulling on up

this morning when i went in to get mason he was just sitting in the middle of his crib looking at his room. he wasn't even making that much noise. this was a first and it is funny because i was just thinking yesterday that i was surprised he hadn't tried to sit up in his crib yet.

and then once he was fed and in the living room he maneuvered himself over the window so that he could pull up and look outside.

pulling up onto his knees is really as far as he has made it when it comes to pulling up (mainly because of his sister's willingness to help him back down). the picture is from the morning, but this afternoon he pulled himself up to standing and then only held on with one hand like in the picture. unfortunately, my camera was in the car and i couldn't get it fast enough to get a picture of him standing all the way up. and not only did he stand up but he moved from the toy to the ottoman! he really might walk before he crawls - at the rate he is going anyway.
mason keeps putting the basket over his head. he does this while laying down and sitting up. he does it on purpose but usually cries when i take it off of him - kind of like he is mad that i removed it.

love.

yoga and sitting

mason appears to be a yogi. he seems to be keeping himself from crawling by his dedication to his yoga poses. here is some footage of him working on his downward dog and sitting. this is pretty much how mason spends a lot of his time - at least today and yesterday. i keep thinking that he is going to crawl, but i am still waiting...

mason did get his upper right middle tooth today though. the funny thing is that he isn't a super "straight to mouth" sort of kid. madelyn put everything in her mouth, but mason seems to be much more selective. and he is finally to a point where he naps at 10am and 1 pm before going to bed at 7:30/8:00pm. the best part is that he doesn't cry, rock, or anything. we read two books and he goes down without a peep. it is so nice! love.

feeding mason

madelyn has been asking, almost daily since mason starting eating solids, to feed him. tonight i took her up on it.

i knew that she wouldn't make too much of a mess, but they did better than i even thought they would do. too bad she lost interest in it after about two minutes because she got some on her hand. we will definitely try this again soon. love.

bi-lingual

so madelyn is very interested in spanish these days. i have read to her from a spanish vocabulary book for a while and grandma gave her a spanish cheerios book last year that has become a recent favorite. the best part is to hear madelyn try to 'read' it. she sort of speaks a gibberish trying to remember what i had said. it cracks me up that she even tries.

this morning she was studying up on her vocabulary before we left for the zoo. she actually asked me to read her this book before she pretended to take a nap this afternoon.

i didn't get any pictures at the zoo today because madelyn wasn't in the mood, but we had a really great time. mason was very interested in everything today! he favorites were the giraffes and the lions. i think he was impressed with the height of the giraffes because he looked up with his mouth hanging open the whole time. and he never took his eyes off the lioness (is that really a correct term?) as she paced back and forth. he also went to sleep without a peep when i laid him back in his stroller - a major difference from how napping used to go (or not go) during public outings. it was colder than i thought it would be because it was so damp but it was still wonderful to walk around and get some fresh air!

i have one last note because i keep forgetting to mention it. it is such a little thing but i know that it is something i will want to remember. instead of crossing her pointer and middle fingers, madelyn crosses her ring finger and pinkie. she does it with both hands too. i had never seen that before and she does it pretty often for no apparent reason. so there you go. love.

yea for mason

mason started clapping yesterday in the car when he was laughing at his own reflection. it kind of surprised me because he makes a pretty loud 'clap' sound for such little hands. unfortunately, i didn't have the camera. then he did it again when i went to pick up mason, but i didn't have the camera again!

after a few tries today i was able to get him clapping in his highchair.

isn't he cute? he really claps well considering that he did it for the first time yesterday.

while i was making dinner he was rocking on all fours and sort of bunny hopping forward with his knees without moving his hands. i ran to get the camera because i thought that he might actually crawl. when i came around the corner he was just sitting himself up and started smiling and clapping like "yea me!" (i didn't get the camera on in time to share). it was really, really cute.

the picture is of him working on his golf grip for the first time while i was working yesterday. daddy was very impressed. love.

home depot saturday

we have food shopping plans for saturday morning, but then daddy remembered that it was home depot saturday! madelyn was super excited to put on her apron and go build something at home depot. i was folding an orange shirt this week while doing laundry and madelyn asked me if that was my home depot shirt. it was home depot orange with black lettering, but it was my intramural "official" shirt from college.

the picture shows her joy on our way. (she holds the magnadoodles but doesn't use them in the car - this week.) she had a slight fever and cough on friday, but seemed to be doing much better on saturday morning. friday she was pretty pitiful, but i think that she was milking it a little. we have been in this vicious cycle of not sleeping at night because she is tired and napping during the day. it will be easy to resolve once she is feeling normal again.

mason was pretty happy to be at home depot too. it was actually a fairly warm day (40) and it was really nice to be outside in the sunshine. he was smiling and bopping every time we were outside. we were going to go to the zoo, but it was family free day on the first nice weekend in months and we didn't want to brave the crowds. although home depot was really crowded! we had a hard time finding table space to build her rain gauge.

madelyn was probably the most involved throughout the project as she has been any other time. she followed along on the instructions and didn't get too distracted by the other kids. the 'table' is still a little too high for her to hammer comfortably so daddy put the project on

the floor so that she could reach above it and swing away. i must say that she is really good with a hammer! she also got to use a screwdriver for the first time at home depot. i was impressed with her skills there as well. she would do a full turn to the right and then just a quarter turn back to the left. it wasn't the most efficient technique but she made definite progress.

after all our errands madelyn fell asleep before church and woke up in her pathetic temperament again. since she had a fever within the past 24 hours we kept her with us instead of going into her class. she did a wonderful job being quiet. she colored and ate a snack (provided by the church - they feed us well on saturday nights). she did get a little whinny towards the end because we went to the bathroom and she realized that she was missing out on her class (she could see mason's class and pointed it out). she did do her whining as a whisper in my ear so i couldn't be too upset.

today was another pitiful day for madelyn. she was very congested and even had puffy, watery eyes. she didn't have a fever though so i think she is just on the tail end of it. i am hoping that she is chipper enough for school tomorrow. she learned about doctors and nurses at school recently and has been saying that she didn't feel well since i picked her up that afternoon. i just thought that she was still pretending until she actually had a fever on friday. poor kid. at least it wasn't anything too serious. i think the worst of it has been the disrupted sleeping schedule. here's hoping for a better tomorrow. love.

sitting up

mason still isn't crawling, but he did get himself into a seated position from laying on his belly this morning. i didn't see him actually do it. he was laying on his belly when i walked by and then when i looked at him from my breakfast he was sitting up. pretty neat trick.

later in the day i got to see him do it twice. he does it sort of accidentally when trying to get his second knee move towards crawling. he moves one knee forward in good crawling form but then he sort of twists himself around before trying to move the second knee and ends up kind of on his side before pushing up to sitting.

i had a feeling that he would get this one figured out before crawling. he definitely seemed proud of himself by the third time.

and these are just some pictures of a cute moment matt and mason were having this afternoon. love.

mason's favorite things

i thought that i would share a few of mason's favorite things - and of course they aren't toys...

first is an area rug. any area rug. he loves to pull it up and flap it down over and over. here he is enjoying himself in the basement. i like madelyn's comment at the end where she says that the rug belongs to our family (not just mason).

next is the sheer curtain in the living room. he has always loved watching the light come through them, but now he can scoot himself over to them and play his own private game of peek-a-boo.

and i have saved the most versatile for last - a basket. even filled with toys, mason is too heavy to use it to pull up - he tips it over every time. he has come up with is own form of entertainment. i didn't really take too much notice of it until i realized that he was setting a toy on top of the basket and then reaching up to find it again. apparently, this is quite funny. he does it over and over laughing almost every time. i didn't put this first in the video montage, but i should have. its kind of a long video but i just think that he is so cute and wanted to show all the ways he uses the basket to keep himself busy. love.

i think this kid's going to need braces

the picture is pretty blurry, but it was by far the best of the bunch. the two diagonal white lines are his two upper, left teeth. you can see that they are not running straight along the gum/jaw line and the gap between them is about the distance that the outer tooth is above the center tooth; as in it is not on the same plane in the mouth.

it really looks like braces are going to be in mason's future at this rate because these teeth are crazy. the picture does not do it justice. it looks like the center right tooth is going to come in next. you could see one point of it before the gums started to swell up again. we will see how straight, or not, that one comes in. at least his bottom two are straight at this point.

oh well, he still has a really cute smile. love.

busy sunday

sunday morning i got up and went to work in the church nursery, ran home to get the family ready for a birthday party, then back home for a quick nap and clean-up before friends and their two girls came over for dinner. while it was busy, it wasn't really all that stressful - thankfully.

the pictures here are from the birthday party. our friends said that they have unusual pets, but we had no idea what we were in for at all! first we had pizza and cake (which you can see madelyn really enjoyed!) and then they brought out their own personal 'zoo'.

they have four different snakes. it was so funny that none of the kids were afraid of the snake (even though three of them were so terrified of the cat that they had to put it in the basement). after the snakes there were fire-bellied frogs/toads, sugar gliders, tortoise, a giant lizard of some sort, a small pot-bellied pig, and a miniature opossum.

besides all the animals, they actually gave the kids a lesson on each one and let them feed a few of them. madelyn fed a live worm to the miniature opossum. i couldn't believe that she did it because matt and i would have never touched the worm. in fact, after the party matt said that he was trying as hard as he could to control his facial expressions every time they brought out a new animal. matt really hates the creepy-crawlies.

unfortunately, i didn't take any pictures of our dinner guests. their two girls get along so well with madelyn. they are hysterical together! you might remember the pictures of them having a 'dinner party' in our kitchen a while back. the girls were running up and down the stairs and all over the house. i think they played with every toy we own.

the best part is that the kids were exhausted. madelyn slept in until 7:45am and mason slept until 8:30am. why, why, why can't they do that on a saturday!! matt said that we should have them over, strategically, on a friday night next time. love.