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/

Playdates, Getaways, and Tantrums

"Smile Madelyn"

Its been awhile since we've done a post, so I thought I'd post some pics from the last couple weeks. It's late and I'm tired, so this probably won't be the best post I've ever written. Dad does a better job at this than I....but we've been busy lately, the blog is falling behind.

Madelyn is 20 months and changing into more of a 2 year old everyday. The tantrums have officially begun. She is obsessed with putting on her own shoes and can do it most of the time. If we try to help, that will cause a big head shake with "Nooooooo" and possible tears. So if time allows, we wait , try to help, and hope that those shoes get on the right feet the first time. It's one of the small things in our days that is showing her new independence. She is also very insistent on choosing socks and coats, and of course, they never match. It drives me (mom) crazy.

This girl loves her dolly's. They now come with us in the car

Maddy & Will sharing his chair

Brooks and Maddy - more chair sharing

We took a weekend getaway to Leavenworth, a touristy town nearby. It was great to get out of the house for the weekend. I have to admit that Madelyn is not the greatest car-rider in the world and we definitely have a 2 hour time limit. But, she loved being in a new place and had a lot of fun playing in the park and exploring the town with us. We had one huge tantrum trying to get her in her stroller, as its a newer stroller and we haven't used it much. But later on in the day she was asking to get in it and playing with it! Dad was amazed at the quick turn-around in attitude about the stroller.

Dad & Maddy found the bookstore in town and look who got something.

Fruitstand with Farm Animals. How could you resist?

Stroller

Madelyn has had so much fun with her dolls lately that Mom bought her a dolly-stroller today.  She got huge grins an knew just what to do with it.  This is what you get when you ask a 20 month old to smile and the picture below is just her being happy.  

Meme&Pepe can now put Maddy to bed, for the first time last night somebody other than Karin or I put Maddy to sleep.  Thanks guys!  

She spends most of her time buckling her doll into and out of the stroller.  Speaking of buckles, Maddy can climb into her booster seat and buckle herself in when she wants food, crazy kid.  We gave up the high chair a few months ago since she liked sitting in the normal sized chairs so much.  She can feed herself well now and likes to use a fork and spoon.

Words and Hats

Hats have been a struggle since Madelyn was old enough to take off her head whatever we tried to put on it.  Much to our surprise she will ask for a hat before leaving the house now.  Everything is a phase with kids.

Not the most verbal at times but new words keep showing up so I've tried to write down everything that she can say: "Hi, Mum, Dah, Kitty, Dogee, Bowl, Ball, Cereaaal(Cereal), Mor, Apple, Pear, Quack-Quack, No-No-No, Brooks, Co-Co(cookie), Cheeeeeese, Sip(sippy-cup), Sit, S%$#, Poop, Uh-Oh, G0-Go-Go, Roooowlleeeeeeeow(kitty sound), Birrr(Bird), Fish, Eeeeeeaaaaahhhhh(goat sound), Hahahaha(panting like a dog), Hat, Mummumdahdah(used to say, meaning Mom & Dad), Show(Fifi and the Flowertots, groan...), Tras(Trash - taking out the garbage), Bubbo(says whenever she farts - meaning bubbles - came from the bubbles in the tub she blows with her farts, one of the finer joys in life I might add)"

Words that we would like to hear soon, Please, Help, Meme&Pepe, Potty and maybe some sort of word or sign for thanks.

Still eager to help around the house, she still likes to take out the garbage everyday, maybe I should start an allowance.  I tie up the garbage bag, open up the baby gate and she'll drag the bag all the way out the the garage with a big grin on her face.  She will also drag her step stool into the laundry room and help load clothes into the washer.  Unloading the dishwasher works about 1/2 of the time for us.  It does not sound like much but it's the little things that help sometimes.

Sesame Street

Luckily for us the vocabulary on Sesame Steet is clean and the s$#! word has been dropped from her vocabulary for now.  Maddy seems to say 2-3 new words a week.  It's neat to watch her say a word for the first time.  She gets all happy and lobs a new word out, doing her best to pronounce it.  She finally decided to say "Pear" today,  although it sounded more like "Peeeeahr", but that's close enough for now.  We ventured down to the Seattle Children's Museum on Saturday, she spent most of her time going down every slide and that she could find and shopping in the small pretend mini-mart. 

Walking up the back steps after feeding the neighbor's goats.

Playing with Brooks again.

New Words....good ones and bad ones

It was only a matter of time, our daughter has added the word "shit" to her vocabulary.  I was next to her the other day and watched her fall and hit her head, so my reaction was to say, "shit".  She popped up decided not to cry and said, "shit" right back to me.  Mom did not help things later that day when she broke an egg unloaded groceries, said "shit" only to have Maddy say it right back to her.  Needless to say this is hysterical to us and it's all we can do to not bust out into major fits of laughter whenever she mutters this word.  This morning she must have rattled it off about a dozen times before decided to move onto cleaner vocabulary.  Lucky for us, Apple is another favorite word that she likes to use just as much.

She loves to play outside and will stand next to the front window and point when the neighborhood kids are riding their bikes.  It's OK if they are 5 years older than her, she just fascinated by what they can do.  Get the shoes put on a coat and off she runs.  If we go outside and no kids are around she'll insist that we go over to the Glover's house next door and ask for them to come outside.  

Running around in Meme&Pepe's yard

Snacks for Zoe

Baby #2!!!

Move over Maddy, it's almost time to share your blog with little sister.  We had another ultrasound today and were lucky enough to get a 3-d shot as well.  It's still crazy to think that we'll have two little girls by the end of May.  Time to get the spare bedroom picked up and painted.

Maddy & Friends

We finally had our Peps Holiday get together last weekend. It was rescheduled due to the crazy snow over the Christmas and took us awhile to find a date for everyone. It was amazing to see how big everybody has grown. It's rare to see this many kids outside of a daycare in one place :) It was definitely loud but a lot of fun!



We don't have many banned toys in our house but the Fisher-Price corn-popper is one of them. It make a horrible racket. Maddy loves it and grabbed this one and ran all over the house with Brooks and the other boys in tow. This went on for about five minutes until she crashed into the table.

A Ride in the wagon bring smiles for Ella

Grayden running around the kitchen island - all laughs!

Molly chasing after him!

And AJ trying to figure out if he's going to join in

GoGoGo!!!!!

No mistaking it, this word, "GoGoGo!!!", has become Maddy's favorite.  It's popular on the weekends when I'm around.  She'll yell "GoGoGo" and round up her boots and coat and it's off to the Aquarium or a children's museum for some fun.  Her other favorite word is "Mummumdahdah", it's either a city in India or her word for the both of us.  Normally used when she wants both of us to head upstairs at night for bath, books and bed.

The water table at the museum is always a big wet hit.

Look closely and you'll find Brooks in this picture :)

All of this gogogo, make for one tired Dad.