Sunday, December 12, 2010

Santa

We went today to get the obligatory pictures with Santa (or 'ssssss-da-da' as she calls him!)

After waiting in line for way too long, she wasn't really in the mood to be with anyone other than mommy or daddy and wasn't too excited by Santa. Oh well, maybe we'll have better luck next year!


Madeline's New Room

I've been hard at work using my creative energy to design Madeline's new room. I finally finished on Fri and she is spending her first night in her new room tonight. Here is the grand unveiling!



The border that will be above her crib


It took much longer than I anticipated, but watching her get so excited about it was a lot of fun and made it all worth while. This is her last night as she ran back and forth describing the scenes in full detail:

Thursday, December 9, 2010

O Christmas Tree

Madeline got to pick out her Christmas tree the other weekend and had a great time examining all the trees to find the perfect one:

Looks like this one has a big trunk, good for lots of presents!

Is the lizard included with the price of the tree?

I think this is one of my new favorite pictures of her. I love the sparkle in her eyes!


She was a bit confused as to why we had this tree sitting in the middle of the house for a number of days. She had quite the fun when the time came to start decorating, though! Brian and I tried to get ornaments on the tree faster than she could take them off! She enjoyed pulling all the shiny ornaments out of the bin and saying, "ohhhhh!"






Time for the crowning of the tree with the snowman!

"Hi Snowman!"

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Madeline's special ornament

When Grandma came to visit a few weeks ago, she brought Madeline an ornament with an accompanying book that causes the ornament to sing and talk. It was the highlight of our evening playtime.

This girl just can't help but dance when she hears music!!


I love how she just stares at it until it does something! :)

Monday, November 29, 2010

A Desert Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving in Tucson with Grandma and Grandpa James. We had great weather, great company and lots of good food. We were able to catch up with some old friends and Madeline got to spend lots of time enjoying her grandparents' company.

Fun at the park:





Madeline was quite the ham and was cracking everyone up!


Madeline spent Sunday morning with Grandma and Grandpa so that mommy and daddy could go for a hike with Uncle Greg and Liz. It was so great to see the desert landscape again!



Madeline discovered the light switches and there was one at the perfect height for her to reach!


On Thanksgiving morning, Madeline got to help Grandma and Grandpa pick out their Christmas tree.



She says, "We brought home this many trees!"


Happy Desert Thanksgiving!


"Mmmm. time to eat!"


Madeline thinks leftover pumpkin pie is the best!


Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for such a fun visit. We'll see you again very soon!

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Just a few pictures from Grandma's visit

Grandma was here for a long weekend, but mommy was sleeping on the job and hardly took any pictures! Here are just a few to document the visit.

Grandpa sent down some freebie balloon things that Madeline loved running around the house with--they were especially good for tormenting poor Cooper who really wanted to play with them!


Showing grandma all the toys


Aspiring musician


Madeline's sad to say goodbye to Grandma


Grandma bought Madeline a little table and chair set that arrived in the mail today. She was so excited to sit at the table like a big girl.

She is signing 'more' in this picture because she is quite excited!

This smile says it all!

Thanks to Grandma for a fun visit! Madeline is really looking forward to the upcoming holidays so she can spend lots of time with all of her grandparents!

Saturday, November 6, 2010

A hodgepodge post

What a whirlwind these past few weeks have been!! Here are a few pictures to show you what we've been up to!

Packing was in full swing and this little munchkin loved, loved, loved playing among the boxes and running through rooms with no furniture:



With all the boxes as large empty canvases, we also had the discovery of crayons. We have an aspiring artist on our hands!

As excited as we were to be making the move, I got a bit nostalgic when it actually came time to leave. Our old house holds lots of great memories, and I was especially sad to leave Madeline's nursery. For posterity's sake here are some photos. I know she won't remember this room, so at least she can look back on the photos one day!



She seemed to adjust well to the move and her new room. She woke up as quite the happy camper on her first day in her new house!

And, the first day in the new house was also Halloween! She was supposed to be a panda for Halloween:

(cute little panda bum!)

(Side note on this costume: We bought this on clearance while I was pregnant thinking it would be a fun costume for her 1st Halloween as it was for 0-6mo. Her whole body fit into the tummy last Halloween, but it fit amazingly well this year)

So, as I was saying, she was supposed to be a panda, but Halloween in Houston brought temperatures in the high 80's. Since we were heading out to Zoo Boo, I thought she might be a bit hot, so we improvised and she was a ballerina thanks to cousin Sarah's hand-me-down dance outfits!

There was a pumpkin patch at Zoo Boo and each kiddo got to choose one mini pumpkin to take home with them. Madeline really wanted two!

When she finally made her decision on which pumpkin she wanted, she was so proud and carried that pumpkin all over the zoo!


There were trick-or-treating stations set up at the zoo, so Madeline got to experience trick-or-treating for the first time. She was a bit apprehensive at first and didn't want anyone touching her bag!


She was pretty interested in seeing what ended up in the bag, however.

It didn't take her too long to get the hang of things:

and pretty soon she was accepting candy from strangers :)

All-in-all it was a pretty fun Halloween!

On Monday, she started at her new daycare:
All ready to go!

"Check out my new bag. I hope mom remembered to pack all my stuff!"

She has done pretty well with the transition and I think she will do great there.

Finally, (and probably the best part in her opinion), she got to go for her inaugural swim! The pool is too cold, but we heated up the hot tub for her tonight and she loved splashing around.

She is certainly a little fish. I think we are really going to love having the pool and now we can't wait for summer...wait, did I really just say that?

We're actually really enjoying fall right now and are taking full advantage of the nice weather to be outside A LOT, which Madeline loves! We can wait awhile until we have summer again. The pool will still be there in a few months :)

And, that pretty much sums up our last few weeks!