just like mommy

i was on the phone this evening while getting dinner ready and maddie went into my office. she does this often since we spend most of the day in there and she has some of her favorite toys in the room. as soon as i saw her i ran back from my camera.

you can't really tell from the video how much it truly looked like she was working at the computer, but when i first went in she had her hands correctly on the keyboard and was 'typing' away. she was even looking up at the screen and then reaching her right hand out to move the mouse every now and then - just like mommy. by the time i took the video she had put the mouse up on the keyboard so the 'typing' wasn't as good.

while i thought it was super cute and got the camera so that i could share. i quickly closed the keyboard drawer up and took the chair away so that she wouldn't hurt anything (or think that it was okay to use mommy's computer).

the other part of this that occurred to me as i sat down to post tonight is that it is a little sad. this is how she sees mommy all day (except that i don't sit on my knees in the chair). it is difficult to keep balance in my life with work, and maddie, and matt, and everything else (not in that order at all), but i know that it is what i have to do so i do it. i love my job, but it does take me away from maddie in many ways. i am physically with her all day, but mentally i can only give her a limited amount of my attention. i think that people don't realize that part. in order to get in 40 hours - at least - a week, its not like maddie and i are just hanging out at home having a grand 'ole time. i am working, just like if i was in an office.

i am not as sad as this sounds (not that i haven't been from time to time), but looking at her imitate me like this tonight made me kind of sad and i felt the need to share. truthfully, it is impressive that she did it so well! and she didn't want to stop when i picked her up off the chair - she just kept reaching trying to get back down. well enough of that! love.

the joys of travel

on our last day in florida we headed back to orlando for our flight. since our flight wasn't until the evening we were able to meet our friend jenny for lunch. jenny was the first of our out-of-state friends to meet madelyn when she was just a few weeks old last summer.


after lunch with jenny we went back to the park that we had gone to earlier in the week to let maddie stretch her legs after the long ride and high chair contained lunch. then back in the car as we headed to the airport.


finally, we were headed home! it was a wonderful trip, but we were all tired and ready for the routine that comes from going back to your own home. our flight was at 7 so we knew that we needed "bear" if we had any chance of maddie falling asleep on the plane.


the flight was 2-1/2 hours and maddie squirmed and screamed the first hour and a half. its not that she was bad. she just didn't want to sit still and was really tired. it didn't help that it was really warm on the plane - her whole head was really sweaty - and that it was packed. luckily the guy next to us was pretty nice and across the aisle was a teenage boy traveling with his four younger siblings. he spent a lot of time saying "hi" back to maddie when she waved. we finally got her to sleep by showing her pictures on our phone while she held "bear" and sucked her thumb. keeping her asleep was the real trick. like i said, she was pretty sweaty and hot which only made me hotter and more uncomfortable. plus she is really tall which meant that her head was in the aisle, her legs were on matt's lap, and i couldn't move at all. i did finally find a way to rest my arm under her head on the armrest, but it wasn't comfortable. and every time someone came down the asile i had to lift her head out of the way and she would startle awake and cry but then drift back to sleep.


all and all, it could have been much worse, but it definitely was not an easy flight for us. we are not looking forward to our 6 hour flight to california in a few weeks. we are excited for the destination - its the getting there that is going to be the trick...

love.

fourth of july - splash, laugh, boom

we spent our fourth of july at grandma and big pop's. again the big kids (those of us over 24) played wii all day and the girls were kept busy when they weren't sleeping.

my friend lindsey (pictured with maddie) stopped by in the morning for a visit. we had tried to catch up with her in orlando but she was out of town. thankfully, she was headed down to fm for the 4th too so we just met up there!

after some lunch the girls hit the kiddie pool outside. maddie wore her third bathing suit of the week and still had two more that never made it into the water. she really liked the kiddie pool - especially the splashing! here she is getting started with annabell.

after dinner we decided to show the girls their first fourth of july "pops" - well grandma and daddy decided that maddie needed to see them. the best part was that matt's box was a total dud, but maddie still enjoyed them immensely. it was almost as if she was laughing at daddy for not being able to make them go "pop".

doesn't maddie look so patriotic in this picture? i didn't even notice the flag in the background until i was downloading the pictures off the camera when we got home. maddie couldn't quite make it until the real fireworks started, but thankfully she slept through the show that her uncles were setting off in the backyard. if the bugs weren't eating me alive i am sure that i would have enjoyed watching it. i do not miss the insects in florida at all!

even with the bugs, it was a pretty great day.

happy fourth from our gang! love.

beach baby

hurray! this is the day i was most excited for on this trip - madelyn's first trip to the beach! i spent a lot of my life at the beach and i couldn't wait to take maddie. she immediately enjoyed the sticks and coconut shell she found in her first few steps (she is holding the coconut shell in the picture). just like lakes park the day before, it took her a little bit to warm up to all that water. we took her out to sanibel island and went to the lighthouse beach (not sure it that is its actual name or not). i thought that it would be nicer to take her to out there (as opposed to fort myers beach) because it would be less crowded and there would be lots of shells for her to find. once she got used to the waves, she sat down at the water's edge, but you can see how a big wave takes her breath away a little.

madelyn also enjoyed playing in the wet sand. she hasn't been a huge fan of sandboxes so i wasn't sure how this was going to go and was relieved that she had gotten over her sand phobia. we played at the beach for about 2-1/2 hours before calling it a day so that we could get maddie home for her nap.

after getting maddie all situated matt and i headed back out to sanibel to stay in the hotel we honeymooned in almost 7 years ago. we had arranged to stay out there for a night as an early anniversary present to each other. luckily we had managed to drop madelyn's evening nursing earlier in the trip and only had the morning one to worry about. but grandma said that she did great in the morning once she realized that i wasn't there and she was going to have to have her milk from the refrigerator. matt and i had a great time reliving our honeymoon by biking all over the island and walking up and down the beach at low tide that night. unfortunately after getting up with maddie every day for a year i was not able to sleep past 7:30 even though i really, really wanted to...

love.

pump it up and lakes park

on tuesday we went to "pump it up" to meet up with two of my 'blogger' friends from high school and their kids and husbands. kellie and becky did a great job of documenting the day if you want to get their takes on our play date. abby and annabell joined us in the fun too. grandma z. climbed through everything with annabell and matt did the duties with madelyn. i think grandma is still recovering from the outing! with all the inflatable equipment it was surprising that maddie was most interested in the plastic cars. apparently they are the 'hot' item with all the kids and they have about four of them to share. maddie and annabell ended up pushing each other around until maddie tried to get in with her and slid all the way through to become roadkill. in the video she thinks she is pushing a little boy in the car until she can't keep up and has to 'walk' on her knees in order to keep hanging on.




after about an hour of this everyone involved was exhausted! so back to grandma's and big pop's for a nap - well the girls napped - the adults played wii fit. for anyone who has not yet experienced the joys of the wii fit (or the wii itself) we highly recommend it! the hula hooping kept us all rolling with laughter all week.

anyway, once the girls were up we were back on the road. this time we were headed to lakes park with big pop joining us. believe it or not, this was maddie's first time in a bathing suit! i never thought that a child of mine would make it all the way through their first year of life without wearing a bathing suit, but i guess i never thought i would live in wisconsin either. (grandma and big pop got her the suit for this visit.) maddie took a little bit to warm up to the water coming at her from every direction but then really had a great time walking all around and trying to take everything in. she and annabell both liked a water gun type of feature there (guess which child is from wisconsin...).


big pop had fun showing the girls all the water falls around the two play areas. madelyn didn't really get into the waterfall features. she was more comfortable with the water coming up from the ground or that turned on and off; the constant flow intimidated her a little. but give the kid a break, the only time she had seen more than a cup of water at a time was in the bathtub.


in true florida style, a storm started to move in so we had to wrap up our fun in the sun. love.

maddie and me disney pics

okay. so now that i am home, i could scan the picture of me on my first trip to disney (somewhere between the ages of 1-1/2 and 2).

we were trying to recreate this shot with maddie, but before we bought her minnie mouse.

and then after we got her merchandise, but outside the park.

you get the general idea. love.

meeting briana and group (chaos) pictures

madelyn met her little cousin briana during our trip. she did pretty well at being gentle with the baby except for the time i had briana on my lap and maddie ran up with her milk cup and knocked her on the head. it was just an accident, but i still felt bad!

so i had this brilliant idea to take the girls (all three) for birthday portraits at jcp. grandma had bought maddie and annabell matching dresses for the fourth of july so of course it became a red, white, and blue themed shoot. the day before we stopped at the grocery store to pick up simple cupcakes and birthday candles to use in the shoot (jcp requested that we bring a plastic sheet to put down underneath them when the cupcakes were in their hands). it was chaos! i mean chaos! the set up was totally different from the jcp up here. the camera must have been the first digital camera - ever - and had next to no mobility. plus the photographer had some very unrealistic expectations for two one-year-olds. she wanted them to both stand behind briana and rest one of their hands on her shoulders. okay - like that was going to happen. not to mention that it was like a hundred degrees in the studio/closet and very crowded with the photographer, the table the girls were on (yes, a table - as in off the ground), and at least three of us as wranglers at all time. however, when it was all said and done, we got a few good shots. the pictures got a lot better once annabell and maddie sat down with their cupcakes. now i just need to schedule time for maddie's one-year pictures...

love.