Creative Little Girl!

The other day Madison and I were having our usual morning conversation about what she wanted to wear. When Madison wakes up one of the first things she does is run to put on one of her dresses. It's hard to resist the squeals of excitement as she yells, "I am so excited, this is my princess dress, I look so beautiful....!" I was going to let her wear a dress that day, but since there was cold rain, she needed to wear pants with it. All winter she has resisted pants, (resist might be a mild word depending on the day). Well, this particular morning as I was helping her get dressed she showed me the tag on her dress and said, "Look mom, there is a sign on my dress that says NO PANTS!" So... in case any of you didn't know, that little tag in your dress isn't about what size you are, it's a declaration to spare us from spoiling are pretty dresses with pants. Thanks Madison for making me laugh. Despite her creativity, she still had to wear pants. Luckily she put them on with a smile as we laughed at her funny comment. Oh, and why wear just one of the "neck-a-nesses" from the jewelery box when they all look so pretty:)

Singing With Spirit!

Madison loves to sing. I thought she did a great job at Ba Ba Black sheep! I especially love how she says the word "dame". Often she does her own interpretation of the words and comes out with some funny phrases. "Jingle Bells" was "Tingle Bells" and lately, when she sings the Cinderella song... Cinderella Cinderella night and day it's Cinderella, (you may night know the song unless you have seen the movie recently), anyhow, Madison sings "Cinderella, Cinderella, maccadia Cinderella." Night and day... maccadia, pretty close;) It's just funny because she loves to sing that phrase over and over all day long!

Jake always recalls the story where he was confused until the age of twenty at the word "Shallmeno". It took him a long time to realize that the phrase was "shall men know" in the wonderful song, As I Have Loved You.

Indoor Puppet Theatre

I've been doing some fun sewing projects lately and here is one of them! I've always wanted to make and indoor puppet theatre for the girls and I was able to do this one all with stuff I had around the house. Two old bedsheets and two tension curtain rods that we haven't needed in this house (our closets have doors:). Madison has had lots of fun playing with it and we have had some great family home evening lessons using out little puppet theatre. It's also been fun to take the bottom off of the puppet theatre and Madison has a little castle entrance into her bedroom.

Dale Chihuly and the Botanical Gardens

The first Wednesday of every month the Columbus Botanical Gardens are free! One of my favorite artists is Dale Chihuly and it was so fun to see his beautiful glass sculptures on display at the gardens. It was so nice to get away from the cold winter skies and feel like we were in a tropical place. Madison and Emerie loved playing with the plastic replicas of Chihuly's sculptures.

Dress Up Fun!

Madison loves playing with her friends and she absolutely loves dressing up like a princess! What cute girls.

Winter Fun!

Yes it is starting to be spring but I have a lot of catch up to do on our blog. We've had a lot of fun finding fun things to do indoors this last winter. In these pictures the laundry basket transformed into a train and mommy was the engine. And yes...Madison is not dressed for the weather. It's been a long winter and we are all excited for warmer weather!

10 months old!

Emerie is ten months old! Wow, so grown up. She loves to crawl and get into everything. She especially loves to see what Madison is doing, which often results in tears for Emmie and time out for Madison.

I have lots of updates and pictures to come. We were out of town for a little while and have been away from the blog:)

Little Kittys

One day after naptime Madison wanted to play dress up. She wanted to be a kitty but didn't want to wear the hat, until she saw Emerie wearing it. So... in this sequence you see Emmie with the hat, both girls happy and smiling, Madison taking off Emerie's hat (thank goodness it was on with velcro, and then Madison wearing the hat with a sad face (she got in trouble for yanking it off Emerie's head). Not too long after that little kitty Madison wet in her warm black kitty outfit. She didn't quite make it to the litter box;)

Little Actress

Madison's favorite thing to do lately is act out Cinderella. A few weeks ago I was doing the dishes and when I looked over at Madison she was kneeling down at her rocking chair with her head in her hands. I turned off the water and I could hear little sobs. It was a strange cry (a very fake cry) and when I asked her what was wrong she said she didn't have a dress to go to the ball. It took me a minute and then I remembered the scene from Cinderella where she is crying on the bench before the fairy Godmother comes. Wow, I knew Madison liked Cinderella but we don't even own the movie! It's her favorite movie to watch when she goes to her friends house and she acted out the scene so well! I then pretended to be the Fairy Godmother and with the wave of my magic wand Madison was ready to go to the ball.

Often she makes me the handsome prince if Jake isn't home and we turn on music and "dance at the ball". She loves to be lifted off the ground and twirl in the air. The other day Madison turned to Emerie and said,"Emmie, you are the Stepmother!" So very fitting I know, sweet little Emerie as the Stepmother. I think she would have made a great Gus, Gus, with her cute round little cheeks and belly. I am sure when she gets older she can decide her own part in the play:)

Question?

We are having a weird blog issue that I can't figure out how to fix. When we view our blog on our computer, the side bar with all the post listings, blog links etc. is all the way at the bottom of our blog. We don't know what caused the change or if it looks that way when other people visit our blog. The blog looks normal when Jake has viewed it at the hospital. Does anyone know how to fix our sidebar problem? Is the sidebar on the bottom when you view our blog? I have looked up a few things on blogger help and can't seem to figure out a good answer. Let me know if you have any ideas?

Funny Sisters

Madison loves to push Emerie around in this fun exersaucer and Emerie has grown to love it too. The first video is a while back when Emerie wasn't quite so sure about it. In the second video she screams with excitement and shakes her hands in the air. It's really funny to watch. Madison also makes sure to clean up all of Emerie's dropped puffs by eating them off the floor:) What cute sisters. It's nice to see them play together!

Just a side note, if anyone is looking for a great toy that grows with your kids we have absolutely loved this one!!! When Emerie is too big for the little seat you can take it off and it's just an activity table. Madison still loves this toy!

You know you've been a little stressed when...

You know you've been a little stressed out... when you wake up in the morning and find the ice cream in the refrigerator. Jake noticed my mistake and wrote a funny note on it that said, "Jenny, it looks like you showed that ice cream who's boss after it tempted you last night!" That's right, stressed enough the night before to dive into the ice cream:) Don't worry, I'm ok. It must be all the potty training we've been doing with Madison and I think that day I was worried about a potential flood in the basement.

As for the potty training Madison's doing alright?! She has had a few accidents but I could have avoided them. Accidents seem to happen when I know she should be taking another trip to the potty, she says she doesn't have to go, then I get distracted until I hear the sound of pee splashing on the floor (thank goodness for wood floors)!
Madison is a smart little girl and, at first, would somehow go pee three times in 10 minutes to maximize the treats she would get. Luckily that phase is over:) She is however a little too helpful when it comes to emptying the potty. As soon as she goes she stands up, throws off the blue cushion seat and picks up the white bowl part with the pee in it. With excitement, she shows it to me and the Disney Princess's (her sticker chart on the wall) then try's to dump it in the toilet. In the meantime I hurry to steady the white container before pee ends up on the wall or the floor, and grab the blue toilet seat from Emerie as she is chewing on it (yuck). Somehow whenever I have to take Emerie with us in the bathroom I sit her on the rug and she ends up with the seat after Madison throws it. Luckily she's not always with me on our rush to the bathroom.
We are still learning how to train:) Madison usually needs to "go potty" several times after she goes to bed, and she yelled three times during church today that she needed to go. It's hard to know when to take her seriously. She knows how to use it as a great way to get out of things she doesn't want to do, even time out:) What a fun time!

As for the flood in the basement. I went to put a box away in our crawl space (a weird half basement thing that I hadn't ever seen till living out here) and I heard what sounded like a little river. I looked under the tarp and saw lots of water running by a big white pipe. After not being able to get a hold of Jake I called a plumber to come out for a free estimate. Luckily nothing was wrong with the plumbing and it seemed that water was running up or down the radon remover pipe (another interesting thing I hadn't seen till living out here). The water is now gone, no flood:) We still need to investigate how the water got there but it never caused any problems other then scaring me.

Madison's Artistic Side

Madison seems to really be "in the zone" when she is painting. The first time I let her use watercolors she decided to paint herself when she was done with the paper. It's fun to watch and even more fun to clean up!

Madison also loves to sing. She seems to remember all the songs she hears, to some extent. Here is a video of her singing a song all her own at the piano. Earlier she sang a great rendition of the primary song "Reverently Quietly..." in a not so reverently or quietly manner. The other day in the car she was singing "The Riddle" by Five for Fighting, word for word. If you don't know the song it's on our blog playlist. Jake and I were laughing so hard because she was so serious when she sang it.