Maddy gets upset sometimes too

Yes, Maddy does have her sad and mad moments. I think that because they are so rare that I find them so cute. I had to tape her tantrum yesterday. She was really mad at me. A little sad too especially when she fell over .. but mostly just mad. This is how she lets me have it...

Disney Family Movie Night: The Rescuers

We had Disney family movie night early this week because we won't get a chance to do it this weekend. We watched the Rescuers.

I made yummy black bean soup. Doug only likes it over rice so I decided that we would all have it that way which was pretty good although I think I prefer it by itself.

Abi really liked it which was great. It was her first time having it and I wasn't sure she would.

Later we had Devils Bayou ice cream drumsticks.

I have wanted to make a crayon roll for a long time now and finally did it this week. The only problem was that I decided to just make it up myself and so I winged the whole thing. I think it's pretty cute and it works but there are definitely things I would do differently.

Dress up

I was working on the computer the other day with Maddy playing beside me. Abi was off playing and soon came in to show me her creations.

She had been raiding our closet.. first in Doug's clothes...

and then in Doug's shirt and my pajama pants and red shoes. It was pretty cool the different things she did to make the clothes stay on. ... and so funny.

This week in preschool

This week in school we learned about safety. That was safety in the home, 911, stranger safety, fire safety, street safety, etc.

One of the things we did was make an emergency phone number sheet that is hung where Abi can see it. We color coded each number so she could remember them. We practiced with her toy phone.

She did a bunch of worksheets that I downloaded from safety council. This one was funny because she had to circle the things that were poisonous. One picture was an apple.

When she hesitated I prompted her, asking if the apple was safe.

She said, "Well, that depends. If a mean old witch gives it to you it could be a poison apple!"

So, she put an x through it and circled it.

She colored stop signs and other traffic signals. Our word of the week was Safe.

We saw the results of our experiment. Yes, the carnation did begin to turn blue.

Tuesday we veered away from safety for National Arthur Day.

We love Arthur.

Abi chose which character she wanted to be and we printed off a headband from PBS.

She wanted to be DW of course.

After decorating it she wore it all day... even in stores.

We read a plethora of Arthur books...

and enjoyed an Arthur video from the library while we ate Arthur Mac n cheese (which was pretty gross by the way)

We enjoyed the weather by going for long walks every day. These photos were from Wednesday getting ready to walk over to the hospital for Maddy's appt...

In cooking class she learned to pour but I will not post pictures because I didn't take any. The majority of the lesson was in the bathtub with this cool pouring thing that makes the water different colors when you pour with it.

Abi-isms

I wanted to write this down before I forget it. When my mom was here a few weeks ago, one night we played Disney Scene It.
Tonight we were having an early Disney movie night watching the Rescuers. She had never seen it before but pointed out at one point that she had seen "this part before."
I told her it was when we played the game.
She said, "Mo-om, this wasn't my scrap of a movie. My scrap of a movie was the Lion King."
Two things:
First, I can't believe she remembers which clip she had on her turn that long ago. It shouldn't surprise me but I don't remember the ones I had that night.
Second, I love that she calls them "scraps of a movie" instead of "clips". She started that when we were playing the game and I have just never corrected her because I think it's so cute.

A first

Our kids have never been below the 90% since they were a couple of months old.
Abi has always been 95% for height and recently 90% for weight. Maddy was the same every time so far until yesterday.
She is still in the 90's for height but is 75% for weight. How strange for us.
She is such a little sweetheart. We walked over to the hospital yesterday morning for her appointment. She was so happy, as usual. Then we go in the room with the nurse and the waterworks start, she buries her head in my shoulder. The nurse said how common it is at this age to have a huge attachment to mother and start having 'stranger dangers'. I know she's that way because when my mom came out she didn't even try to hold her at first but Maddy cried when she just talked to her! Of course a couple hours later and Grandma was one of her favorite people... but just so all of you that haven't met her yet know what to expect. She will most likely cry and not want to be near you AT FIRST but then she'll warm up and LOVE YOU! She really is the happiest baby ever so don't let her stranger crying fool ya.
After she finally stopped crying they took her temp (rectally! Why do they do that here? Abi never had it done that way!) and that got her started again. Then she calmed down and the Dr. came in and the fear started again. Then she warmed up and then the nurse came in for the shots.. poor kid just couldn't catch a break. She slept all the way home though which was good.
She is doing great today and doesn't seem to be suffering too much from the shots.
Funny story: the doctor was dressed a little fancier than normal and while she was examining Maddy, Abi walked around me right up to her and looked up at her. I wondered what she was going to ask or tell her. Abi says to her, "You look very nice today."
I thought that was hilarious. What a sweetie.

Ask Me Anything: Karen part 2

Karen asked, " if you could visit a foreign country where would you go? "

Oh, so many places. I cannot just pick one. So, here goes. A list of the countries I would love to visit...

1) England- I would love, love, love to go to England and just roam around going to Austenesque places and tea parties.

2) Scotland- I mean, the accent, the countryside, the history, Doug's ancestry.. all great reasons to want to go there.

3) Norway and Sweden- two of the places my ancestors are from. I was once mistaken for a Swedish immigrant by a woman that had just moved to the States from Sweden. I thought that was kind of cool.

4) Germany- again we have ancestry there and I used to speak German pretty well.

5) France- I would so love to visit Paris and go to the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. It would be quite surreal to sit at an outside diner enjoying pastries while gazing at the Eiffel tower in the background and admiring people's scarves.

6)Greece- the history! the beauty of Santorini...

7)China- I would love to see the Great Wall and to track tigers in the jungle.

8) Egypt- Oh to see the Great Pyramids!

9) Italy- ROME!

10) Austria and Switzerland- the BEAUTY!! The mountains!

11) India- the Taj Mahal!

12) Israel- Jerusalem. Need I say more?

13)Nepal- how cool would it be to see Mt. Everest?

14) Tanzania- I want to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and then go on safari

15) Australia and New Zealand- I want to go to the Outback so bad... and visit Australia zoo. I would love to see the places they filmed The Lord of the Rings in New Zealand.

16) Peru- Macchu Picchu. I would love to see that.

17) Canada of course because it doesn't matter how many times I've been there I want to go again. I want to go to PEI again as well as Nova Scotia. I would love to go to Churchill to see the Polar Bears up close, and I would LOVE to go to the Canadian Rockies again. I have never been anywhere as beautiful as Banff. I also love Victoria and would jump at the chance to go whale watching there again.

So, wow. I guess I want to travel all over. I seriously could be happy living out of a suitcase and traveling the world. I love it. I am sure I'll never go to all of those places but I can dream. If I had to pick just one I think it would be England or France.

Ok, Karen, here is another question for you:

What has been your favorite and least favorite thing about going back to college?

Up next: LeShel

If you'd like to add to the questions you still can! Just leave a comment with a question about anything you'd like to know about me.

Sewing

Yesterday we had to run some errands but when we got home I finally settled down to a sewing project that has been waiting for me for a long time now. Abi had ripped a hole in of her jeans so I decided to make this shirt I had a pattern for and put some matching ruffles on the bottom of the jeans. Here's the finished product this morning.

Disney Family Movie Night: The Great Mouse Detective

We took this shortly before movie night. Maddy was having trouble going to sleep that night so she was down with us for part of it.

I made Cheesy potato soup and homemade bread bowls for the first time. Mine leaked. They were good though and Abi loved the soup.

We also played Mouse Trap- Abi's idea. I guess my festiveness is rubbing off on her.

The rest of the weeks moments

For those of you who watch Lost, I had to put on this picture of Maddy doing what I am calling the "Benjamin Linus" face. I don't know if anyone else will see it but it reminds me of him for some reason.

Maddy fell asleep on the floor like this during school for the first time.

cute little jumper

happiest kid ever

and she is so curious!

Thursday we had a picnic at the park. It was Maddy's first time playing on a blanket on the grass.

Abi was having so much fun!

School: All About Me week two

This week's letter was E.

Monday we did the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree.

As you can see in the above picture, Abi came to school as Supergirl that morning. We learned about noses and smell. I thought this was funny...I put a ball on the floor and asked Abi to roll it with her nose. She didn't just keep hitting it across the floor with her nose like I thought she would do. She put her nose on it and slithered across the floor pushing it.

Tuesday we talked about taste and teeth... first we had a little taste test with sugar and salt. She had to use all her senses (listen to it, look at it, smell it, etc.) to see if she could tell the difference. Of course she said right off which one was salt but I kept going and made her still taste it.

She did a little cutting out and pasting to this tooth the things that are healthy for teeth.

Along time ago I got a bunch of Clifford booklets from Scholastic that had to do with teeth so I broke those out and she loved doing the activities.

Wednesday we talked about families, family identity, and family pride. She started out by drawing a picture of a family and making up a story about it.

From Homeschool share I got this little wheel. We filled it up with things that make her important to our family and then connected it to the other circle with a brad so she could spin it to see the reasons through the window.

She also did a little color by number...

I asked her to design our family flag...

Wednesday is also cooking lesson day. This week it was practicing spreading. First we made this little craft. She colored two of the pieces to look like jam and peanut butter and then sliced one. We connected them with rings.

Then I taught her how to spread and she followed the instruction sheet to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich all by herself.

Then she ate it for lunch.

Thursday we talked about friends. She drew a picture of one of her best friends (her cousin Courtney) and mailed it to her.

She worked more on her Abi book..

Did a little dot painting.

Just for fun we used my mothers day carnation for a science experiment. We put food coloring in the water to see if the flower would turn blue as it drank it. Findings to come tomorrow.

Abi drew this picture forMaddy. There is the sun, the black part is a storm, and the rest is a tornado.

Friday was the all about Abi day. First she made this Hooray for me headband.

Did some elephant sorting

Did a picture find in the Friend magazine

and drew pictures of her favorite things.... some of them caught me by surprise. I thought her favorite book would be a Fancy Nancy one or Pinkalicious but that day it was the Little People farm book! You can enlarge to see all the favorites better. I especially liked her cat, Dora, and her painter that even had the little thing painters hold with the circles of paint on it!

She made this house with herself in the door...

we finished Abigails story and put it together.

I think her favorite activity was making this elephant. We painted her hand with a mixture of black and gray paint and then when the handprint dried we drew on the elephant features and she colored the rest.

The bulletin board was so full after such a busy week!

For Friday's field trip she got to pick anyplace she wanted to go. She wanted to go to the Learning Express toy store and play. It is the best toy store here and she just loves it! Doug was home early and so we were able to leave Maddy at home and also visit the library for some real good mommy/daughter time.

She was very happy to get this treat at the toy store!