family fun day

Josh's employer had their annual Family Fun day today and we had a blast. M loved conquering the inflatable obstacle course. It was a workout just to keep up with her! There was also a bounce house, a rock climbing wall, some pinatas for bashing and enough carnie food to compete with the State Fair. Thanks, Hill-Rom Cary!

nap tent

The weather has been so beautiful that M and I (well, mostly me) put up our tent in the backyard today. After we played in and around it this morning, she decided that she was going to take her nap there.

That plan lasted for about two minutes.

So I joined her in there and together we "rested" while staring at the clouds and imagining what animals could be taking shape in them.

couldn't put it down

as interpreted by M

Stonehenge

our first family vacation

For our first family vacation, we went on an adventure with Gma & Gpa L and Peyton: we sailed the high seas of the eastern Carribbean with Mickey and friends on the Disney Magic and then spent a day at the Magic Kingdom in Orlando. It was a wonderful time together and we even managed to fit in some relaxing in between all the activities. Thanks for inviting us along Gma & Gpa!

Just a sampling of the characters we saw:

(We're standing with Goofy in front of a model of our ship)


(M thought this Buzz needed new batteries --
in reality, it was just a statue)


(Her new best friends, Tigger and Pooh)


(Meeting Fish Girl -- aka Ariel, the Little Mermaid --
was a thrill for M)

Fun times onboard and ashore:

(Feeling the wind in our hair as the ship leaves Port Canaveral)


(M posing with the elephant made by our room steward out of a few hand towels)


(first time in the "ocean" at St. Maarten -- M loved it!)




(Checking out the sea life around St. Thomas via a semi-submarine)


(Feeding time at Coral World Ocean Park in St. Thomas)


(First roller coaster ride -- Josh & Madeline are in the 2nd to last car, Gpa & Peyton are in the last car)

quotable quotes

When asked about what she likes to do after nap time...
"I like to jump in my bed. It's one of my favorites."

When I lay down regulations on what needs to be picked up before the next activity begins...
"Mom, get out of my room!"
(yes, the is a timeout associated with this kind of attitude... and yes, this sort of back-talk is poetic justice for me)

When Josh enters her room on Saturday mornings to get her out of bed...
"Yay! Daddy's not at work!"

And the one that melts my heart...
"Mom, I love you too much!"

to read or not to read...

Madeline's current fave activity is to "read" to herself. She'll take a book off her shelf, settle in on her couch and flip through the pages. When she finishes "reading", she sets the book on a pile and starts the process over again. It's so fun to see her enjoying books! I'm also quite impressed at how high she can stack those books! When I pulled out the camera to catch her in action, she decided she needed to take a picture of me, too. Her camera (she laid claim to our decrepit digital camera a few months ago) was in the midst of a battery recharge so she used her imaginary camera instead. That's some pretty good problem solving, I think.

Pretending to take my picture with her imaginary camera

robots

M has been really interested in robots lately (most likely attributed to Elmo & Co pretending to be Help-o-bots in a Sesame Street episode). The Museum of Life and Science was invaded this weekend by all things geek and tech for their special "Heroes, Villains and Special Effects" event. I thought this would be a good opportunity for M to see some robots in action (we had been informed that R2D2 would be there, afterall).

Of course, seeing the "robot" move and spin and flash its lights was a little overwhelming for her. Way to go, Mommy -- way to traumatize your child!

Thankfully, we met up with Abby, Adrian & Linus at the museum and enough fun was had that the robot episode was quickly forgotten. A super yummy brunch at Foster's Market followed by some chocolate cake, ended our excursion on a happy note. (When asked which cake she would like, M's response was "brown". Mmm...brown.)

talking kitty for a "walk"

Madeline loved it. Pickles... not so much.

klutz: 2, toes: 0

I take after my mom in many ways and for that I am very happy. However, in addition to inheriting many of her positive traits, I also inherited her clumsiness. For 31 years, I had been fortunate enough to not break any bones as a result of my lack of coordination. Then Madeline was born.

Last year, I got caught up in a baby gate while trying to step over/hurdle it and broke my pinky toe.

This past Sunday morning, in the process of catapulting out of bed from deep sleep to complete awake (a screaming child will elicit such reactions from us mothering types), I managed to run right into the edge of our door.The incident resulted in a cut on my face (boy, those sure do bleed a lot!), a black eye, broken glasses, and a broken toe.

The urgent care Doc kindly advised that I install a night light in our room so that I could spot such obstacles and {hopefully} avoid them. I decided not to detail him with my gloried history of running into things.

Here's hoping that I will not be recounting a broken bone for each year of Madeline's age.

wind in your sails

Josh hasn't seen all the exhibits at the Museum of Life and Science yet so M introduced one of her hot weather favorites to him.

Experimenting with wind and water was a fun way to beat the heat!

lunch date

M and I met up with Rebecca & Zack today for our monthly-ish lunch date. Jennifer and Jordan joined us, too. It was so heartwarming to see Zack as a daddy.

picnic lunch

We needed to get out of the house today and get some Vitamin D, so we headed to the playground at the Brier Creek Community Center. We were the only ones there, save the city worker who was power washing the adjacent picnic shelter.


After nibbling on our munchies, we braved the almost too hot slides and climbed over, around and through every nook and cranny we could find. We capped off our playtime with a romp in the mud after the soccer field sprinklers that run right along the playground's edge went off unexpectedly.

happy birthday, katie!

Katie's party was the last one in our playgroup's Summer o' Celebration. We had a blast splishing and splashing in their backyard-turned-toddler-waterpark.

The playgroup kids digging into some yummy cupcakes.

Linus + Madeline

pennies

In the last couple of months, M has developing a special fondness for pennies. (Hooray for cheap treats and bribes!) She loves transferring them back and forth between her piggy bank and her play wallet; sometimes I even find them in her pockets at the end of the day.

A box full of treats from Grandma and Grandpa B arrived today and inside the package was an envelope full of pennies. M was ecstatic when she saw it! She was insistent that all those pennies needed to immediately be put into her piggy. Thanks Grandma & Grandpa!

dino explorer

In hopes of running off some of M's no-nap energy, we checked out the new Dinosaur Trail at the Museum of Life and Science this afternoon.


Madeline had the most fun searching for fossils in the dig area. We found a couple of shark teeth and three shells that she deemed significant enough to keep.

happy birthday, cadence!

Today was another playgroup birthday party -- this time it was Cadence's turn to celebrate. We hung out at a neighborhood park/pool and had a grand time.

Madeline and Linus being sweet on each other.

Everyone got to play with Cadence's new sand & water table

Cadence and her grandma made a piñata for the party and all the kids took turns attacking it with a mini bat. Despite being two years old and having the attention spans of gnats, they were surprisingly patient while waiting their respective turns. When the piñata was finally emptied of its contents, the kids went crazy collecting treasures for their goody bags. What fun!

Wyatt swings at the piñata (with a little help from Kelly)
while Madeline waits with baited breath.

backyard entertainment

In an effort to spend some quality time in our backyard despite this heat wave (and wear off some of that amazing toddler energy), I brought home an "interactive" water sprinkler. It's way more fancy than the back-and-forth one we had when I was growing up! It's definitely a hit with M...



In addition to the new water feature in our yard, today we were treated to an uncommon show via our next door neighbors. A crew was removing all the pine trees from their property. M was fascinated with all the sounds, machines and general commotion.

tuning in

M's been running around the house today with her monkey headphones... putting them around her neck, dragging them behind her down the hall, and wearing them like a crown. After about 20 minutes of this kind of inventive play, she remembered their original use and asked to see "Mommy's music" (aka the iPod). She patiently let me adjust the headphones so they would actually rest on her ears and then sat still (!) for about 5 min (!!) watching an episode of "Super Why".

vocab lesson

redband = band-aid

street = stream, as in "gently down the..."

farsh-tee = thirsty

grow-mups = adults

that? = most common request, usually pertains to a unknown sound, often is extended into a muliple syllable phrase, e.g. thah-ahhh-ahht?

bonus pronunciation: the letter "v" is always pronounced as a "b" -- this entertains us grow-mups thoroughly

from the mouths of babes

While Josh was removing Madeline from the chair in front of the computer and extricating her from the office, she protested by saying, "Wait a minute! I have emails!"

swinging with grandpa

It's no run-of-the-mill swing....

harnessing up

clipped in

the wind up

whooosh

bliss

what happens...

... when Mommy leaves the oatmeal bowl unsupervised.

Oh my.

outtake from passport photo session

Not quite the pose that Homeland Security is looking for...

slowly but surely

M's lower canines are finally poking their way through her gums. Still awaiting the arrival of the upper ones. At this rate, she'll get her 2 yr molars when she's in kindergarten!

rocked out

maddie's monologue

Last night, we had some spectacular flashes of lightning and crashes of thunder roll through. This was the first storm that has woken up M in the middle of the night and it took 45 minutes of the three R's -- reassuring, rocking and reading -- to get her settled down again. The rain and thunder started up again today at lunchtime so we talked about the night's events again. I love her version of the story...



**The seemingly random references to trees, garage and ladder are due to the emergency gutter clean-out I performed on our garage during the lunchtime storm. **

more july celebrations

Last night, in honor of their shared birthday, we had a cookout for Josh and our nephew Cameron. In addition to Gma L, Natalie, Cameron and Peyton, we were also thrilled to have Zack, Jennifer (+ imminently due Baby Jordan) and Curtis spend their afternoon with us. The eldest birthday boy/grill master chose the menu (grilled pork chops, four cheese chicken sausages, pork+pepper+pineapple kabobs, extra cheesy mac & cheese, and corn on the cob) while Gma sweetened our night by bringing two kinds of ice cream cake (one for each birthday boy).


It was a happy day, indeed.

30

Here's to Josh...

... Madeline's favorite teacher ...

... her trusted confidante ...

... and her fearless protector.

Happy birthday, Daddy!

first haircut

After his working day ended, Josh met us at Snip-Its for M's first haircut. She's watched him get his hair trimmed at the barber's and she has been talking about getting hers done ever since. We started purposefully talking up the whole experience earlier in the week in preparation for today's big event: explaining that she would wear a "blanket" that was like a giant bib to keep her clothes clean, talking about how "special" scissors are used to cut hair (in hopes that she won't try this on her own with the kitchen shears at home), and discussing that cutting off the ends of her hair will get rid of the tangles at the bottom and will help her hair be smooth and shiny. She handled the whole thing like an old pro!

Sitting patiently while the tangles are combed out

The first cut!

More snipping

The end result