Stay There!

The other morning, Maddie and I were walking down the stairs. I realized I forgot something upstairs and so I left her standing on the landing part of our stairs by the window. I didn't want her to fall or attempt to continue going down herself, so I told her to stay there. The rest of the day and week she has been saying, "Stay there!" and pointing with her hand. I had to catch it on video because it was cracking us up. She was at my mom's the next day and my mom sat down on the kitchen floor with her. Maddie looked at Nana, paused, said "stay there" and proceeded to get up and get 2 balls to play with. My mom got a good laugh out of that one.


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Happy Easter

Here are some of the pictures we had taken for Easter. We got the CD with the files, so I decided to put my favorites in a slideshow. Have a Happy Easter!

What a week!

Last week Maddie was sick. You would never know it though. She had a fever of 102 for 3 days but was the happiest little girl. I decided to be proactive and take her to the doctor to make sure she didn't have an ear infection or strep. While at the pediatrician's office, her heart rate was high. So the very nice (and very new/young) doctor sent us to a cardiologist that day. Maddie had an EKG, an echocardiogram, and was sent home with a Holter monitor for 24 hours. They put it in a cute little Disney princess backpack and she wore that thing the whole time and never once tried to take it off. It was the cutest thing! Not to make light of a serious thing like her heart, but she's fine and they're attributing the high rate to her fever. We'll take her back around her 2nd birthday to be sure everything is okay. We just cracked up at the backpack and she called it her princess the whole time. Here are some pictures and a video.





Despite the fever and the heart monitor, Maddie was dancing and playing! She loves to wear one of Chris's snowboarding hats and she's wearing it in the pictures above and this video.

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New Camera!!!

I am in love with our new camera! Chris's parents gave us a new camera for Christmas and we just couldn't seem to get consistently good pictures. It was a super nice camera with tons of features, but basically it wasn't dummy-proof enough for us. So we exchanged it for a Canon dSLR, upon the recommendation of Mia. And if you've seen Nora's blog (see link above), Mia takes AWESOME pictures! It is so nice and easy and besides a couple pictures with red-eye, we haven't had any bad shots yet. Here are some so far. We've had a busy week and will hopefully take more pictures this weekend and post them soon.

Colors

We've been trying to teach Maddie colors recently and everything is RED!!! It's the first color I taught her and so every time you ask her, "what color is this?" she answers....RED!!! One day she learned green and blue but not with any association to things that are actually green and blue. So in this video, you see her go through the colors in order every time until she gets it right. She was also looking at my lips for a clue since I would start to say the color for her. I know she'll eventually get it, so for right now I'm enjoying how much fun it is for her to say RED!


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18 Months!

I have no real theme to this post other than to say that I can't believe our baby is a year and a half! Maddie turned 18 months the end of January and is becoming quite a big girl. We've been busy having lots of fun doing toddler stuff. She goes to gymnastics class (see first picture); she is talking more every day; she loves to put on our shoes and carry one of my purses; she climbs up onto the chair and her booster by herself and generally just loves life. My dad calls her "Happy Girl." And that she is....and we couldn't be happier that she's our happy girl. Here are just a few recent pictures.

Bouncy!!!

Last Friday, Chris was off and we took Maddie to a new moonbounce place in Ashburn. She was definitely more interested in playing with the basketballs than playing on the moonbounce, but we had a good time. She did enjoy the slides and Chris even took her on the BIG slide for BIG kids. I emphasize BIG, because there is a designated section for toddlers only to keep the little ones safe. But apparently our toddler is ready for the BIG slide! Chris went down with her once and she loved it. They went up again and what I tought he said was, "get ready with the camera!" But what he really said was "get ready to catch her!" So there I was, poised and ready, when all of a sudden here comes our LITTLE girl (and I emphasize LITTLE) down this big slide all by herself!! I nearly dropped the camera, but apparently got a shot off just in time (see last picture). She was fine and wanted to go again. Not wanting Maddie to become the newest patient at our clinic, I was not keen on that idea. Looks like she may be a thrill seeker like her Daddy....God help me!

Checking out the BIG slide

Going down the LITTLE slide..weeee!
Going down the BIG slide....yes that's her in a heap at the bottom!

Counting

I captured Madeline on video counting today. She usually repeats the numbers when we count or needs our help, but today she just started counting very fast herself. I barely got the camera in time. She can't seem to remember 8 or 9 though, she's too excited about saying, "TEN"!!!!


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SNOW!!!

We finally got some decent snow yesterday and it was beautiful. I finished early at work, picked up Maddie and went home to play in the snow for the first time. She LOVED it! We even got to go sledding with the neighbors. I LOVED it (haven't been sledding in years) and of course Maddie enjoyed herself too. She had a little trouble manuevering in her big snowsuit, but she managed.

Getting all ready.....

A New Year, A New Do

So they say in marriage you should pick your battles, right? Well I got a good lesson in this recently. We were noticing that Maddie's hair was getting a little out of control and uneven and I mentioned that maybe we should take her for her first haircut. Chris INSISTED that this was a crazy idea and that WE should be the ones to give her her first haircut. I was sure that we would butcher it, but he finally convinced me. And quite frankly I was touched that he cared so much and that he really wanted to do it. So I let him do the honors and with a little touching up by me, we didn't do such a bad job. To fully appreciate it, here are the before and after shots. He may have won the battle, but I will win the war and take her to a professional for her next haircut! Maybe :)

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER

The funky, flipped out look! It got a little wild while she was dancing!