So 18 months have come and gone. The days are flying by, Maddy is growing bigger and bigger by the second. Eth always says that she looks bigger every day when he comes home from work. As far as new developments go...

We had a photo shoot for this years ornament pic, here's a couple that were hilarious, but not ornament worthy!!


Maddy has gotten sick acouple times, and had a really runny nose. I was getting so grossed out pulling boogers out of her hair, or pulling her hair off of her face, I got her hair cut. The place was great, the played a video for Maddy, gave her a balloon, candy, and a certificate. She did pretty well, she just kept trying to see what the lady cutting her hair was doing. What's funny is they take a pic for you, as seen below, but they take it with an original polaroid camera, that's why it looks like a pic from they 70's, because that is film from the 70's! HA HA!!

As seen in my previous post we enjoyed Thanksgiving. Sadly, we didn't have any left overs, so Eth had to indulge in another Turkey leg the next day and graciously shared it with Maddy. As you can see she enjoyed it and kept coming back for more!!!

Also, Maddy has become obsessed with Dora... Thanks Eth!!! She wakes up saying Dora, backpack, and Map. So we had to bribe her with Dora to clip her nails!

It has been cold, to say the least, so Maddy has enjoyed the snow while I shoveled and on the days its been too cold, we went to the mall to enjoy the "toys" there. She was in awe of the snow. She just would say, wow, snow, and stomp!!!




We are so excited for Christmas, Maddy's got some pretty sweet toys we are really excited to give her. Plus, my parents are coming to town!! We can't wait.

Merry Christmas Every One!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful gut busting Thanksgiving with Eth's family. It was delicious and fun. Maddy had lots of fun helping us "cook." And while she didn't eat much of the Thanksgiving dinner, we ate while she napped, she really enjoyed grandpa spoiling her with icecream!!!

Rae Gun Ramblings

Rae Gun Ramblings

Has the cutest little christmas skirts for girls!!! Check it out, she even doing a give away!!! SWEET!!!

Rae Gun Ramblings: Advent Giveaway Extravaganza Day 3: Guest Giveaway Noggins

So Rachel posted on her blog about this give away, so now I need to post it. There are some totally cute hats... check it out!

Rae Gun Ramblings: Advent Giveaway Extravaganza Day 3: Guest Giveaway Noggins

More Videos

So here are a few more videos... gotta keep grandma happy!!!

So Maddy loves her shape sorter, she loves her shapes. She points them out everywhere and asks me to draw them for her all the time. Crazy kid!!!

So not only can Maddy do shapes, count to 10, and say the alphabet... she can also make the sounds of the letters in the alphabet. I have other videos of her doing it perfectly, but as you watch this video you'll see why Eth wanted me to post this one. Maybe Maddy should be teaching me!!!

I love this one, this is from carving pumpkins! She was really excited at first, but when she touched the gooey innards she wasn't to into it anymore! Another Ethan trait, she doesn't like dirty hands. She say yucky and then scrub, scrub; meaning wash my hands!!!

Lastly Maddy loves music and singing. She dances, conducts, and is starting to "sing" or chime in on songs. Here she is with Ethan, doing one of her favorites.

Randomness

So time has flown by and Maddy is now a year and a half. Can you believe it!? Man how time flies. She is just so wonderful, we love it! Here is some of what has been going on in the last couple months...

Well Maddy made her first "purchase." She kept climbing on her chairs on the deck, which are not sturdy and tip easy and was freaking me out. So using the money from her piggy jar, she got a chair. She can climb on it all day long!

Maddy is also now getting into stuffed animals. She carries around her cat everywhere and needs it to sleep. While at Target we found, what I thought a big teddy bear. Of course later that week when we went to Sams we found something just a little bigger.

For a while Maddy was saying Pee Pee and Poop and would say potty... so thinking my child is a genious, got her a potty and potty books. For three days she used the potty, then she was done. She still sits on the potty and we read, but she does it for fun, not for functionality!

Besides having a week of cold, rainy weather it has been beautiful here! Today was in the 60's, in November!!!! So we've been enjoying the weather by going to the park. She loves running around, goes down the slide on her own, and is even doing the stairs on her own using the handrails! Here are some of my fav pics... The first one is her yelling "Quack Quack" at the ducks. Everyone was watching and laughing.

Here she is up in a tree. Not only does Maddy look like Ethan, she has inherited some of his quirks...

Last time we were at the park she picked up a stick and started swinging it like a lightsaber and saying schoowa (lightsaber noise). Ethan was so proud! She is definately her fathers daughter!!!

Visitors

So way back in September; Dave, Dianna, and Lucy came for a visit. It was great!!! Maddy LOVED Lucy. She stills says her name and shows me pics of her. We did some great Iowan activities... farmers market, Amana Colonies, Pork Tenderloins, Iowa Popcorn, and Nauvoo. Sadly we didn't have time to go into the Temple, but we did do some of the touristy stuff. By the end we were all tired. It was great. Thanks Dianna, Dave, and Little Lucy for making it all the way out here!!! These are some of the best pics from Nauvoo.

Oh and for funzies... Here's a rockin' rock band session we had. Maddy enjoyed the drums... every time she sees them she gets excited and says tap, tap.

Halloween

In the build up to Halloween we carved pumpkins. At first Maddy was into it... but once she saw the sticky guts she was done!! You can see the look on her face, ha ha. There's also a video, I'm working on getting that one posted.

Fortunately Eth's parents came and distracted Maddy so we could finish. My pumpkin is the monster, Eth's is the Mummy. Turned out pretty good!!!

A few days later we had the ward trunk or treat. The games were a little to hard for Maddy, so she got a lolli and her face painted. She LOVES lollipops now. She can even say lollipop and sucker. She met up with her friend Alexa, she was a very scary lady bug!!! I love the first pic...classic

On Halloween Maddy was the cutest giraffe ever! She did fairly well trick or treating. She held her bucket and walked most of the time. But really the liked just looking up at the sky and shouting "Moon! Stars!"

She pulled a nice haul, which we ended up giving away since we had a TON of trick or treaters this year. We did however keep all the lollipops!

Hello, just a quick video update. Here are some things we've been up to... reading, playing pony rides, etc. I'll update again soon with pics and stories. Hope this holds you over till then.

So as mentioned in my previous blog, I took my own vaca with Maddy to Colorado. She really liked the plane ride and did well. She laughed at take-off and landing, looked out the window, and tried really hard to buckle her seat belt on her own.

The first few days I spent with Melissa. And boy did we pack in the activities. On the first day we went to the Colorado Springs Zoo, which was awesome and now my favorite zoo. When you walk in you can feed giraffes, and they are right there, you can even pet them! It was great. Maddy got a souvenir shirt. I thought it was funny.We then went to a friends house for a BBQ and Maddy played with two little girls, Delanie and Savannah. By then end of the day she was soooo tired. Yes those are bags under her eyes.

The next day we walked to the park where we played and went to this huge fountain. It was so cool. We didn't know that Maddy was going to get so wet, so by the end she went white trash and was playing in just a diaper. We then walked back through downtown where we stopped for lunch and Maddy kept trying to crawl on my lap because she was sleepy. She did perk up at the toy shop where she had a hard time picking a stuffed animal, she eventually went with the cat. She was exhausted by the time we got back to my sister's place. We had to keep giving her flowers (which she is obsessed with) to destroy to keep her happy, thus the aftermath in this pic.

After visiting Melissa, I headed down to Arvada to visit Kendra, Catherine, and Chelsea. It was so fun see how everyone was doing and reminiscing of our crazy college days. Ah, youth. We were so excited and chatty that Kendra's little boy Alex had to tell us several times to quiet down. Yeah, he's 4. Ha ha. Maddy loved playing with Alex and Lydia. It was just great!

Maddy has been growing up fast these last few months. She can say so many words, communicate her needs, she's climbing, having tantrums, and she can even say her own name and identify herself. Crazy, I know! Here she is just cracking up at Ethan spinning her ducky in the tub. Sorry for the nudity, I usually am more careful in my filming!

Saturday was a beautiful day and I convinced Ethan that we should go to the Iowa State Fair. It was tiring, but worth it. Maddy loved seeing and naming all the animals. We were in awe of how huge all the animals were. Here is the worlds largest bull, 3,404 lbs. Other pics include the butter sculptures and the 4th place 998 lbs pumpkin. I am a little bummed at the lack of good pics. It was a really crowded day!

Probably my favorite part of the fair was the butterfly house. There was over 5,ooo butterflies. So cool. You just stand there and they just land on you. Here's one on my head and some other cute pics.

Maddy definitely was exhausted by the end of the fair! She got pretty grumpy and practically passed out on the shuttle on the way back to the car.

It was really crazy, but really fun! Now that we've been once we feel like we have a better handle of what's going on, next year we will go crazy... chocolate covered bacon on a stick... you never know... We love the Iowa State Fair!!!

So last week was really rainy and Maddy definitely had a case of cabin fever, so we went to the mall to the children's discovery museum. She had fun playing with the pulleys, the ginormous blocks, etc. But her favorite thing was the 3 way mirror. She giggled, squealed, and just loved it.

Maddy has become such a big girl here she is with her first pig tails. Can you believe it!? She's not our little baby anymore!