Happy Birthday, Abby!

Last week, we headed down to my Aunt's house for my cousin's birthday. Abby turned 4 years old.




She had a really fun birthday party with lots of her friends, food and games. But, probably the biggest hit was the moonbounce.


Abby jumping with her new princess bear.


Will jumping high!


Even Madeline had a blast. She ran, jumped, did somersaults and fell down a lot. But, it just made her laugh and smile so big!!

Lookin a little rough by the end of the day. But, can you tell she had a blast?

She did have to take a break to be a super model for just a second.

Will is Abby's little brother. I think him and Madeline look very much alike. Soon there will be another cousin to play with. My aunt is due to have a baby girl a week after me. But, I have a feeling she will have her's before me. Just a feeling. And really, I am pretty bad at feelings. So, it means nothing. Like I said, just a feeling.

Madeline also enjoyed playing on their slide. She talks about "s-s-s-slides" a lot lately. And yes, she even stutters it when she says it. Not sure where that came from.

She played in the sand table with Will.

And even mowed the grass a little. It's so fun to have a backyard full of wonderful toys.

Happy Birthday, Abby! Thanks for inviting us to your party. We had a blast!!!

It's A...

So, we went to the doctor today for our 20 week appointment. First of all, how did I get halfway through this pregnancy already? I guess the weeks go by much quicker with a toddler running around. Our new little baby looked perfectly healthy. They checked the heart, spine, kidneys, legs, arms, brain, head, pretty much everything.

Fortunately, he cooperated enough to show us his stuff. That's right, it's a BOY!!! I know Andrew and I would have been happy with either a boy or girl. But, we were both secretly hoping for a boy. I kept seeing all the cute little boy clothes everywhere and wanted to buy them. And now I can make little ties for him to wear. Oh... the cuteness.

Well, we are so happy to have a healthy little baby. I knew he was doing well with all the moving that has been going on in there. I didn't feel Madeline move until after this 19/20 week sonogram. But, this little guy has been moving and kicking for over a month now. Andrew can feel him moving too. (So weird to be calling him a "him" now. He's just been an "it" or a "they" fo so long.) It is so fun. This is the best part of being pregnant! I'm sorry the pictures are so bad. Our scanner is still broken. So, I just took pictures of the pictures. I will try to go back and replace them when I get them scanned in sometime.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day (a day late) to the best daddy in the whole world!

I knew that Andrew would be a great father. But, he is far more than I ever expected! I mean, look at him. He was a natural from the first time he held Madeline.


He is such a loving, sweet, encouraging, fun, exciting dad. Madeline is a very blessed little girl. And I am blessed just by watching him with her. I fall more in love with him everyday as I watch him love on his sweet little princess. So, Happy Father's Day, Andrew!! Thanks for being so wonderful.


And Happy Father's Day to all the other wonderful fathers out there, especially mine and Andrew's.


We spent the weekend with my family at Fairystone State Park. I didn't really take any good pictures. For some reason, I don't take a lot of pictures when I am with my mom. I feel like she is taking them, so I don't need too. But, then I end up with no pictures. I need to learn my lesson. Anyways, I don't have any pictures to post of our wonderful time with my mom's side of the family. But, we had a great time celebrating Father's Day with everyone.

Sand and Water Table

Madeline got a new sand and water table from her Granny and Pawpaw (my parents). We got it last night and she had fun without any water or sand in it. But, after she went to bed, we put the sand and water in it.

She played in it this morning for about an hour and a half. She loved it! It was rainy outside and a little chilly. But, we still got to play outside on our balcony!


She prefers to play in the water side. Anytime she got sand on her hands or toys, she had to clean them in the water. So, there is a lot of sand in the water now. But, I plan on getting her some more toys to play in the sand with, so she will get used to it a little more.


I just left her in her jammies since she was getting wet and dirty anyways.

Anytime she spilled some water or sand on the floor, she would say, "uh oh". She even helped to sweep up the sand when we were done playing.

So, thanks Granny (also known as Gigi) and Pawpaw for our new toy. It is so fun!

(Granny, I'll post a video of her playing in it very soon.)

Park

This past year, I worked on a leadership team for MOPS (Mother's Of PreSchoolers). This morning, our team leader had a picnic to thank us. So, we headed to a nearby park and hung out with our friends for the morning. Madeline really loves to find sticks and rocks. (And notice the brown flop flops!)

I forgot to get the camera out until the very end. So, I don't have that many pictures. But, here are some of Madeline's friends. They were making some kind of stick stew in the water fountain. Yum! (Or as Madeline would say, "Num!")


This is Theia, affectionately known as, "Feia". Whenever I say we are going to hang out with friends or go to church, Madeline always says, "Feia?!" But really, once they are together, they don't really pay attention to each other. I still think it's cute that Madeline has a friend that she talks about.

Olivia wanted me to take her picture :)

I love the look I'm getting in this picture. I helped Madeline climb up this ladder and then told her to hold on tight while I took her picture. She doesn't look too happy about it, perhaps a little embarrassed even :)

New York, New York!

Andrew and I got married on 6.5.04. (It was an easy anniverary date to remember :) Which means that we have been married for 5 years! So, we dropped Madeline off at Andrew's parents house (sniff sniff) and we drove 4 1/2 hours up to New York City! We had a blast. We got to NYC on Friday evening. It was very rainy. But, we headed out with an umbrella and went to Times Square to look around a little bit. We considered standing in the loooonnnggg TCKTS line to get cheap broadway show tickets. But, we didn't see anything that we really liked. So, we just walked around and ate dinner at a pizza shop across from our hotel.


On Saturday, we first headed to Central Park. We did a lot of walking and really only made it up about half way through the park.







We also did a lot of people watching.









It was fun to just meander through the park.

After we found our way out of the park, we hopped on the Subway and headed south to Ground Zero. Andrew found the Bull outside of JP Morgan. And so did everyone else. So, we ended up with a picture of Andrew, the bull and this wonderful family whom we don't know. Close enough.

We headed over to Wall Street. Andrew was disappointed we didn't make it to the NY Stock Exchange in time on Friday to see the trading. Perhaps another time.

Then we walked on over to Battery Park. We saw the Statue of Liberty and then sat for a little while because our feet were a tired.

We headed back up to Times Square. Ate dinner at Hard Rock Cafe. And then got ready for Wicked. This was the view out of our hotel window. We were about a 2 minute walk from the theater.

Wicked was a great musical. It was really fun and the music was great! I would highly recommend it.

On Saturday morning, we got ready in time to get our free breakfast and then got ready to go home. We got our car out of parking and the window broke. Something cracked and it basically just fell down into the car door.

I was very impressed with Andrew's handy man skills. He took the door apart and pulled the window back up. Amazingly enough, it stayed up the entire way home. That could have been a very windy ride home. We got an estimate to get it fixed. It was going to be about $600. So, we just ordered the part online and we are going to put it in next time we go down to visit my parents. That should save us about $550. In the mean time. It is being held up by a little duct tape. It should be an exciting week with all of the thunderstorms we are supposed to get.:) Hopefully the tape does it's job.

Anyways, we had a wonderful anniversary. It was good for us to get away, just the two of us. But, we were very excited to see Madeline when we got back home.

Flop Flops

Madeline got her first pair of Flip flops. She has a pink pair and a brown pair. We tried them on today and she wasn't too sure about them. She kept saying, "uh oh". I don't think she liked the part between her toes.

But, she got used to them. And now she calls them, "flop flops", just like mommies.


She can even drive her car with them on.


And I just threw this picture in because it gave me visions of my teenage child running up a huge texting bill. Oh the things we have to look forward to :)

18 Months Old

Madeline is a year and a half! And she just gets more fun by the day. This morning she wanted ALL of her bows in her hair.

Pretty, huh?

Then she wanted to work on some bows in the bathroom mirror.

She loves herself :) mmmmmwah!

We play on a playground near our house. She is getting good at climbing up the ladder by herself.

She LOVES her Little People. She lines them up on the window sills, in the barn, on the ark, in the bathtub. She plays with them all day long. She fills up the cars with gas at the garage. She lets the baby drive the cars. She brings them to dinner with her sometimes so they can eat too. She has a lot of fun with them. She is a little confused about Noah though. She calls him "ho ho" (for Santa) no matter how many times we correct her.


Madeline also loves letters right now. So, I bought her a magnetic letter set from Leap Frog that sings the name and sound of each letter. She is having so much fun with it. She is learning a lot of letters and will point them out in books, at stores, on signs or anywhere that she sees them. So, far she pretty consistently knows O, M, A, E, D, V, S and H. O seems to be her favorite. She finds it everywhere. And she is also confused about the letter T. She thinks it is called, "hot" because we practiced reading that word in the bathtub and now I guess she just connects the T with that word. I'm sure she will get things straightened out though :)

She is really sweet about praying. She will often remind us to pray before we eat if we forget. She will fold her hands and wait until we say "Amen" then she opens her arms really wide for "Amen". Sometimes she likes to pray several times throughout a meal. So, we tell her to say, "Thank you, Amen". It is really sweet.

Something else she is really into is flossing. She will usually ask to "foss" while she is taking a bath. I think she really likes the mint flavor. :)

She is just growing and changing so much. She is starting to put 3 words together. This morning I said, "you're so funny". And she said, "I'm so funny." She knows all her colors. (Well not like a Crayola box of 48, but maybe a box of 8). She kicks her balls. She runs so cute likes she is just bouncing off the ground. She is brave. She likes to do belly flops into her ball pit and jump off the diving board at the pool. She loves raw onions and olives. She scarfed down about 3 helpings of baked beans today. But, she doesn't love PB and J. hmmm? She is sweet and precious and of course tries to see how close to the line she can get before getting disciplined. But, we love her so much. She is certainly our little princess.