August Part 2

A few more summer adventures.   We took a trip up to Arlington with our friends, Melissa and Molly, to visit the Outback Kangaroo Farm.   All sorts to more exotic animals from Kangaroos and Wallabies, Lemurs, Alpacas, Llamas, Emus, and an Ostrich.   Super fun and the girls loved it.  

Ice cream at the local dairy not far from our house.   Its known to have great ice cream, so as a family we made our first trek there.  Maddy got her own dish of chocolate ice cream which quickly melted in the 80* heat.    She had a few bites and said she was done and ran off playing.  I threw it away.  Moments later emotions flared when she discovered it was gone.  She  ran to the garbage can to look for it.   I ruined her day and her ice cream.  Probably a good thing, later read the dairy has been written up for pest control and other sanitary issues.   I don't think we'll be going back anytime soon.

First trip to the zoo with both girls, by myself.  Big deal and we made it.  Maddy suckered me into going by asking to go on the carousel over and over and over.  I gave in and we went to the zoo.  Sorry no pics of both the girls, its hard enough getting a picture of one child.

Maddy's first game of Hide & Go Seek.  Sh figured out what the neighbor kids were doing and joined in.  I happen to be outside and watched it all happen.   She was too cute and didn't quite get the whole game, but was definitely into the hiding part.  Hence, the fuzzy picture as she was on the move.   She loves trying to figure out how to play with the big kids.

Makena being Makena.  Loves to stand on her head.   And is just tall enough to start grabbing stuff off the table.  This is the phase/age when things really start to get lively for me.  

Melting Mom's heart with each step.

Wait, there is room for more...here let me shove my way in.

Sisters.  Lets hope they always have this many giggles with each other.

August Part 1

I am trying to play a bit of catch up on this blog.   I realized I'm a about a month behind and have thought of so many things to blog about.   I use this blog as more of a journal of the ongoings with the girls. I am not a scrap-booker and definitely not good at creating albums, this is their scrapbook.  Just online.   I recently printed out about a year and a half worth of posts into book format with Blog2Print.   It was a rather easy process and turned out great.  I'll be printing the rest of the blog in another book, and then can breathe a sigh of relief knowing I have a 'scrapbook' of sorts for the girls.    Back to the events of Summer

Lots of time at the neighbors feeding goats, picking raspberries and blackberries, and checking out the gorgeous flowers.   Makena learned to eat blackberries in the neighbors garden.  This is huge as she is just now getting onto table foods and still terribly fussy about it all.  She is walking better and more stable everyday and getting quite fast!   Huge smiles and laughs the faster she goes.    And yes, she still loves that pacifier.  And honestly, so do we.  It keeps her happy, thus were happy.    Happiness all around. 

Its pretty wonderful having a beautiful garden to enjoy behind our house.  All the enjoyment, none of the upkeep.

  Time with Memere means laughs all around.

Crazy moments with a 3 year old.  Fleece slippers, no clothes, 

pull-up, and a Easter Basket on her head.   I had to capture this.  

My little screamers in the car.  Makena recently found out how to really shout it out.  

Makes car rides really "fun" now.   Maddy has always been loud. 

Wonder where she got that trait?

Everyone should wake up this happy.

Maddy's 3rd Birthday - Part 2

Thank You Sandi, for capturing some fantastic moments on Madelyn's Birthday.   The pictures turned out wonderful.   Here is just a few that I can't resist sharing.   It was a great day, wasn't it?!

 

 

Photo Credit:  Sandi Heinrich

Cousins

Michael's Aunt Nancy and Uncle Ray came into town this week. They are taking quite the driving trip around the US, and happen to be up in our corner of the map. So to add to the party, his cousin, Rebecca and her family flew in from North Carolina for a visit. It made for quite fun week.

Rebecca and her husband Devin, have 3 boys - Mason, Aaron, and Ryan. (Forgive me if I don't have those names spelled correctly) Maddy and Makena were in heaven with the 3 boys to play with. I am not sure how the boys felt about my squealing little wild child....but I know I saw Aaron throwing a few smiles at Makena. The week was busy with trips to Seattle for thetouristy stuff, a day long trip to Mt. Rainier, family BBQs, and much more. It was fun to watch all of them together and we all thoroughly enjoyed their time here.

"Did you hear that?"

Oh my gosh, do they get any cuter than this?

They came, they saw, they hiked. Next stop, REI.

Makena giving some love to Meme.

Lily finding out that ice cream is a good thing!

Rebecca and Aaron on playing on Uncle David's PET vehicle,

part of a large project his gives time too.

We are sad to see them go. They are working on us to come out next summer for their annual beach trip to the North Carolina coast. Whereabouts? I'm not sure. I'm still stuck on the part where I get on a plane with 2 kids, ages 2 and 4...strap myself in for a 5-6 hour ride, preferably non-stop. I have a full year to get up the courage. I'll need it.

Preschool

Ms. Madelyn started preschool this week. The preschool we enrolled in has a summer camp, which is brilliant from this mom's perspective. Mostly because she definitely needs some kind of camp to run off some off that non-stop energy. She was excited for the first day and nervous. We went back and forth from shrieks of laughter about starting preschool to "No, no, no, no, no, no....I don't wanna go to preschool!!"

We had many conversations about it and at the moment of truth..she was all smiles and left mom in her dust as she got a glimmer of what awaited her on the other side of the door. Well that and her friend Scarlett was there...which made it even that much better!

Maddy and Scarlett. All smiles.

They took no time in finding the bracelet beading project and immediately getting started.

And her face when mom came back to pick her up, as promised.

Three Years Old

My baby was born 3 years ago on July 8th. It was a quite the event, with a surprise complication in that Ms. Maddy didn't seem to want to breathe. Alarms were pushed, NICU specialists came running..and she was whisked away. I was in shock and trying to recover. All was happy in the end, she just needed a little help to get started.

3 years later my baby is getting a bit bigger...just a wee bit.... and just a wee bit livelier. And louder. Most of all, she knows how to work it. See that Popsicle...that's proof right there.

But she's grown into this adorable thing. I can barely believe it and think back upon it all..but only for a second, because any quiet time is usually quickly interrupted with some urgent dramatic need.

We had a fantastic birthday celebration at a local park. Strawberry Shortcake theme with homemade decorated cupcakes, which is almost a miracle...as decorating cakes of any sort isn't my forte. Sandi Heinrich came down to photography our event, so more pics to come of these big day.

There is a good chance my hubby will seek revenge upon me for posting this picture. But it just couldn't be helped. This pic says it all. It shows exactly, to the intricate detail, how we felt as parents after the big birthday party event. EXHAUSTED. We opened presents after Maddy's Nap, and ..you can just tell we are trying to hold on by a thread to get to the beloved bedtime. Big day. Lots of work. But so worth it.

Happy Birthday Madelyn~


The latest things from Maddy:

"I wanna be a dog" (When ask why she stepped in dog doo and smeared it all over the grass)

"I love Mom, I love Dad, I love Makena, I love Wyatt, I love me."

"Mom, your my hero (where do they get this stuff?)"

"I do it all by myself (usually in quite the whining voice)"

"Mom, I've got some work to do."

4th of July

Despite a dismal 4th of July with typical Seattle weather, we had a great day. I love 4th of July, not for the fireworks but more for our neighborhood party and the do nothing type of day. We have a great neighbor behind us who puts on huge fireworks shows and BBQs each year. Its fantastic to walk out our backdoor, have some good eats, let the kids play and as evening arrives watch some fireworks

We invited our friends Melissa and Molly in the afternoon to join our neighborhood party. Maddy was beyond excited to have Molly over and the screaming started pretty much as soon as Molly walked through the door. Those two can 'whoop' it up, as Michael says. We had them outside in very quickly, and they had endless fun running all over the yard. The were covered in grass on a kind of dreary day and didn't seem to feel the weather at all. To be three and so in the moment! They were two little peas in a pod.

Molly being silly. Love the stylish look with those goggles!

Michael and Maddy started off the day with a trip to the local fire station for a pancake breakfast. I hear the place was more than crowded, but Maddy did get to play around the firetrucks. And isn't that the whole point? Who cares about pancakes...its really about the firetrucks!

Makena is walking more and more each day. She is just thrilled with this new found skill and looks back for cheers from Mom & Dad. Something about watching your little one learning to walk that brings me huge smiles of joy. Its just so cute.

More steps, huge smiles

Maddy playing dress-up in Dad's clothes

Random Summer Pics

Just a few random summer pics. No blog inspiration tonight. Soon maybe...

Big Sister and Little Sister. Happy Sister and Scared Sister. More to come, i'm sure.

Fancy face painting during after a trip to the local Farmers Market.

Can you tell how pleased she is?

Starting to walk....ever so cautious...every day a few more steps

This is what happens when you don't take your afternoon nap.

Love the snack trap still in full grasp.

Ahhh, the sunglasses. Is there any better toy?