Great-Grammie's Hat

All Photos in this post by Sandi Heinrich Photography

Madelyn's Great Grandmother loved to knit and maybe she will too someday. She knitted a lot of hats in her day and donated most them to charity. She knitted this hat last summer and gave it to Maddy when we were out visiting her in July. Madelyn is in a hat phase now and will wear most anything we give her This is the same child that was convinced the hats we were trying to put on her head last winter (When it was 29 degrees outside) were brain suckers and were going to attach themselves to her head and suck brains out. At least that is what her reaction to them sounded like.

She reminds me of the Fat Albert character who always had his hat pulled over his face. Bonus points if you can name the character.

In addition the "Mine" stage (Everything is mine and if you think it's yours well by golly your mistaken, it's all mine!) we are in the "Idoit" stage. No not idiot, "I do it" but when she says it it comes out somewhat mangled. It can apply to shoes, taking off her diaper, putting on hats and clothes.

New words keep tumbling out on a daily basis, such as Cow, Bert(used for both Bert & Ernie). She's not terribly vocal yet but does talk at times. She's become a much better climber, walking up stairs by herself with the aid of the railing or tearing all over the playground jungle gym going down slides on her own.

Sandi Pictures!!

Sandi delivered some outstanding pictures yet again, Thanks! 

This smile on Madelyn's face is 100% pure joy, we see this every day but it was not until we looked at this picture that we really apperciated how big our not so little girl is getting.   If I had to pick one picture that summed her up at this point in time, this would be it.

Heading down the slide

Sandi has more pictures on her blog from the photo shoot and a wonderful write-up.  We can't wait to see her again.  Thanks again for the memories.

http://www.sandiheinrich.com/

Water Table

That's one happy looking kid in this picture.  Hands down the best $70 we have spent this last year was our pass the the Everett Children's museum.  Madelyn loves this place, it's not as crowded as the Seattle museum and every bit as fun, I've been up there more times than I can count this past 6 months.  Thankfully today she finally asked to wear a smock at the water table, if I had a bathing suit with me I would have changed her into it and tossed her on in.

Kaitlyn and Dave joined us for our visit the museum today, here she is cracking a smile on the slide.
I love the expressions on Madelyn's face, she absolutely loves to watch kids who are older than her, she's amazed at how fast they can move or simply jump around.  

No I did not put this hat on backwards, she decided to turn it around for whatever reason.

Easter

The Easter Bunny made a stop, forgot the eggs but left a nice basket of goodies for Madelyn to check out. It was fun to see how excited she got upon discovering her basket. She immediately dove in to check it out and was thrilled with her two Sesame Street dolls, Cookie Monster and Ernie. She calls Ernie "Bert", so we'll have to work on that later. She carried them around all day and kept showing them off. It was too cute. The Easter Bunny was also very clever to bring her a dinosaur themed cup and plate, which was also a big hit.




We had a nice Easter just staying around home and watching the little one make a mess of everything. Michael surprised me by making a Quiche for breakfast and then he even went out to get donuts!! :) So Quiche and Donuts it was for Easter Breakfast. Not too bad. I had hoped to do a small egg hunt for Madelyn in the yard, but it was just too wet and yucky outside to make that happen. Next year.


We are into the dumping phase with Madelyn. She finds big thrills in dumping out all the containers from her toy bins. She sometimes will then sit down, in the middle and start to play with all her treasures. But more likely, she will try to escape of the mess she just made, trip, fall and then we have tears. I have tried to explain she really brought this on herself by making such a mess. However, I am pretty sure that is all lost in translation.

Great Grammie

With a heavy heart we received word that Madelyn's Great-Grandmother passed away suddenly this morning.  This was our last picture of her and Madelyn taken last summer when she was trying to steal her purse.  She was they entire reason I created Maddy's blog since she lived so far away.  I also shot about an hour of video each month and sent her a DVD as well.

Grammie meant allot to me and it's sad to know she won't meet Madelyn's sister.  I'll never have another bowl of her bread pudding or play another game of cards with her.  If only once I am grateful that these two Potter women got a chance to have met.  Someday when she's older we'll have to take her back to Massachusetts to show her the farm where Grammie grew up and literally show her the family roots.

Where the heck is Spring?

Spring is just getting started in Seattle, it's been a rather wet and cold March but we have been making the most of it.  Madelyn loves to go outside and play with the other kids in the neighborhood.  She has fun running around with Scarlet (she's the same age as Madelyn), but her true love is any kid older than her.  She just watches them in amazement as they dart all over the neighborhood playing tag or shooting baskets.  A trip outside without feeding goats would be a waste in her mind.  So after she's had enough of the kids, she'll just take off for the goat pen next door, if we let her go she would probably make it over there all on her own, she's very determined at times.

A few new words this week are "a ball" and "bye - with a hand wave" and her favorites now are "kick" and "mine".  Meme was coloring with her the other day and remarked that Madelyn took all the crayons and stamps and said, "mine" several times.  We had to laugh at that because Karin and I get that a few times a day from her.  It's remarkable that we've gone from a child who a year ago was just starting to stand up on her own to a toddler who runs all over the place and has a sense of ownership about her things.  Oh and everything is hers by the way.  

Phoenix

Friends egging her on to climb the kitty post

Happy girl, it's always nice when other kids get to teach yours new and fun stuff to do around the house :)

We had some more pictures taken by Sandi, our favorite photographer, on Saturday so we should be able to post them in a few weeks.  She's great with kids and it's nice to get some photo's that are not the typical Baby's R Us shots.  If only she took Santa pictures.....

http://www.sandiheinrich.com/