eye winker

this one is for papa and nana. madelyn was laying under the tree doing "eye winker..." with the cookie monster ornament and i had her do it again for the camera. love.

flitting fairy and bouncing boy

nothing too specific today other than some cute kids. yesterday madelyn had decided to play dress up in the morning and when i attached the wings she proceeded to flit around the house. i don't know where she learned to flit, but she told me that she was a fairy and 'flew' around the house - i really should have taken some video.

mason is really starting to get frustrated about not being about to move around on his own. he sits up pretty well and is really starting to scoot himself around. all the effort must be burning a ton of calories because he is eating us out of house and home! matt has been joking about getting a second job. mason has been eating 2-1/2 to 3 jars of stage 2 foods three times a day (a total of 9) on top of normal nursing. and i finally got around to making him some food and he eats about 12 tablespoons of that a meal. he also loves avocado even more than madelyn did. madelyn didn't really like it until she could eat it solid instead of mashed up.

while i was working this morning, mason was trying to launch himself out of his bouncer seat. he is just loving that he has a chance at moving around soon. we are waiting to see if he crawls by christmas like madelyn did. honestly, i think that he has a chance at it.

here is a little video of him bouncing around in his chair while looking for something to get into...

like i mentioned before, he loves sitting up and standing up in the exersaucer. he rarely just lays around any more. and when he is in his crib he often rolls over to sleep on his belly.

sleep has been a little tricky for some reason over the past few days. mason just doesn't want to sleep at night. we had two really rough nights where he would fall asleep right away while we were holding him but will totally loose it the second we laid him in the crib. it has been frustrating and exhausting to matt and me, but so far tonight has been better. it is no fun to be tired. love.

christmas miracle

madelyn has been really, really excited to go to the mall this weekend for a picture with santa. she has been unwavering in her decision about what she was going to ask him to bring her, "a candy cane as big as a giraffe". she has been telling daddy and me that she is going to sit on santa's lap and take a picture.

she did have a momentary melt down when we first got into the line about not wanting to be there but i took her with me to get a coffee and she changed her tune. once we had my coffee she was ready to get back to daddy and mason in the line for santa. she even kept mason entertained the whole time we waited. she kept zipping and unzipping the window in his shade to play peek-a-boo, which he loved! i think he was a good distraction for her too.

i wanted to capture her excitement just in case she froze up when it was finally her turn to sit on santa's lap. so here is my 'interview' with her on the way to the mall (well, to get bagels before the mall).



while madelyn and i went to get coffee, the lady in front of matt and mason said to her baby, "he is quite a bit older than you are," before asking matt how old mason was; she then told him that her daughter was 8 months old! she then turned back around and didn't interact with us any more.

when we were about third or fourth in line someone came back for us to sign a waiver about santa being streamed live on the internet. i wish that i had known that ahead of time! i quickly tried to call my parents and matt's parents with the address so that they could see our photo session. nana was the only one home and she really enjoyed being able to see it. madelyn held my hand and we went up to santa where she told him her name and then got up on his lap for her picture. after the picture she answered his questions and told him that she wanted a candy cane - he said, "anything else?" nope. just the candy cane. she even went back to give him a high-five. i wonder if a real beard makes a difference in the 'scary' factor?
so the miracle is that we had a painless experience where both kids looked at the camera and mostly smiled for a cute santa picture. i was ready for the worst and our kids gave us their best! love.

look at me!

not really much for stories today, but i did get some pictures of mason doing newer things to share.

sitting on his own. he normally sits up a little straighter and the result of him leaning forward was that it looks like his legs are super short, but at least you can see that he can sit all on his own. sitting is also quickly becoming his favorite thing to do. he will be sitting in a shopping cart in no time (madelyn is looking forward to his sitting next to her in the big sams cart.

he loves this teether that madelyn never cared for - i am glad that he is giving it some use.

and here is some video of our boy waiting for lunch today - he gets tired of waiting at the end. i was trying to get his new "gawk" noise that he makes non-stop when i don't have a camera in my hand.

not only is he drinking water at the end of meals, he can hold his own cup. you might not be able to tell, but he is smiling in the picture.

and i just thought that this was a cute one of him this afternoon. he is now starting to reach up for something higher than his head when on his belly. i have a feeling he will be pulling up before the end of the year.

not napping? madelyn usually gives into sleep where ever the mood strikes. here she is sleeping under one of the desks in our office while i was finishing up my work day. she is so silly. love.

that's what sisters are for...

madelyn is always helping mason figure things out. like how to get his shirt off...or how to chew on his toys...

he is so lucky to have such a good influence around. love.

snow day

today was the first official "snow day" of the season. madelyn's school was cancelled (as well as the public schools). i don't think matt was as excited about it as madelyn and i were. we had around 10 inches by the time he got up for work and it was still coming down. i think the news described is as "shoveling wet cement". it took him close to an hour to shovel our driveway enough to get his car out. we have been putting off buying a snow thrower/blower because we never thought that we would live here this long and matt says that it is good exercise. well that all changed today because matt went out and bought one! i never thought that i would see the day when matt would pay for something that he could do for free (and they are expensive), but he said that he just can't be late to work when his employees aren't and his 'office' isn't ever going to close because of snow.


madelyn and i had gone out to finish the driveway and clear the sidewalks after mason went down for his morning nap to help daddy. and i would say another inch or so fell while we were out there - about 1-1/2 hours. here is madelyn getting started with her "red shovel". she was so excited to get out and couldn't wait for mason to go to sleep so that we could.

since i didn't grow up around snow, i don't really know how to do any of the snow activities but i get to do them for the first time ever with madelyn. today we made snow angels and tried to figure out how to make a snowman. i couldn't figure out how to get it to 'roll' so i just stacked up some blocks of snow that formed during shoveling. madelyn knocked it down before i could get a picture, but it did look like a snowman. we are going to try and make a better one when daddy can help us (that way i can get some video and pictures too).

our next door neighbor, kendall, came over to play with madelyn. she took her sledding in the backyard but madelyn didn't like to be on her own, she wanted kendall to ride with her. it was so sweet of kendall to come over and teach us how to roll a snowman and make better snow angels. plus, she kept madelyn entertained while i shoveled. or as madelyn called it "digging". i would have taken pictures of them, but i always feel funny taking pictures of other kids. it is so sad that there is so much to worry about - poor madelyn is always alone in her pictures because i don't want to upset anyone by posting pictures of their kids or just pointing a camera at other kids seems to get people concerned.

for all the snow, it was actually 'warm' (above freezing) and not too windy this morning. i enjoyed being outside. i had to get the sidewalks cleared so that we wouldn't get a fine. i thought that madelyn's rosy cheeks were so cute! she gets red as easily as i do when hot/cold. doesn't she look like such a chunk in her snowsuit? its just the cheeks - she really is slimming out. neighbors say that she has changed dramatically over the past few weeks (and she outgrew all her shoes in a single week).

mason slept from 9am to 1pm today! it was such a nice break considering both kids were up most of the night - particularly mason. he is such a light sleeper. every little noise seems to wake him up. and it didn't help that madelyn woke up at midnight ready to start the day! she got up again at 1am too, waking up mason both times. i think that some of mason's problem was his teeth cutting and he got two doses of tylenol over the course of the evening.

his tooth is easy to see in person, but doesn't capture very well on camera because of all the shine from the drool. i tried to circle it in the picture. i couldn't decide if it was easier or harder to see with the circle - obviously i went with the circle.
matt and i are praying for a better night tonight and i let madelyn skip her nap today in the hope that she would sleep longer. we will see. at least matt won't have to worry about shoveling in the morning - he can test out his new snow thrower/blower (i don't ever know what to call it). love.

seeing (and feeling) the first tooth

last night i checked mason for teeth and the first one is through! and the second one isn't that far behind. i have sworn that i could feel a tooth for a while now, but now you can clearly see the lower left front tooth. mason has always been a biter so i am not too excited about his teeth coming in. i am hoping we can get past the biting as quickly as possible.

mason's new 'word'/sound is "gah-gah". i was trying to get it on video but he would stop every time! he was pretty noisy today too. oh well.

here is a simple video where mason is realizing that he has scooted himself close enough to the christmas tree to kick all the ornaments madelyn had moved to the lowest branches.


while mason was napping this morning, madelyn and i went through all her stuffed animals in preparation for christmas. i am so proud of madelyn because she wanted to "share with other kids" almost half of her stuffed animals. we had talked about the fact that there are lots of kids that don't have toys to play with and it would be nice to give them the ones that madelyn doesn't play with any more. she was giving away so many that i was afraid that she didn't understand, but she totally understood! when the pile got so big that it touched where friend was laying she jumped up to get him saying that she wanted to "keep" him. there were a few that i didn't want her to have the option to get rid of, but the rest are hers and i let her make the decision. in true madelyn fashion there was little i could do to change her mind either. we were going to start in on the playroom, and she was excited to do it, but i am going to put that off until after christmas.

madelyn was in a pretty silly mood and let me take some pictures of her 'silly' face today.

we are supposed to get about a foot of snow tonight so i am thinking that we will make a snowman (or attempt to since i have never made one before) tomorrow. i am expecting madelyn to have school cancelled. although now that i think about it, there are supposed to be blizzard conditions... maybe we won't be making a snowman just yet. love.