and finally we had cake...

madelyn had an early and tearful start to her day today. she got up around 6am and was crying when she came into our room (matt was already at work) to get me. what did she want? for me to put her tool belt on her. i guess that is why she was crying, because she couldn't get it on herself. then when i went to get a picture of her all cute in her left over pig tails, her new pink elmo jammies, and her tool belt she started crying again. she was saying "no, mommy! i don't want it. no pictures!" of course i took one picture anyway.

i am exhausted, so here are some pictures from today with captions to cover today's post. enjoy!

madelyn enjoyed "cooking" with real baking supplies that were just her size. later in the day she added her apron to the whole experience.

unfortunately, madelyn found the tools that we removed from the tool belt before giving it to her because, as matt put it, "she could put that hammer through a wall." i did let her play with them for a little while so that i could get these pictures of her being little ms. fix-it.

by 9:30am it was already getting really hot (a heat advisory went into effect at noon today) and madelyn was ready to hit the pool. she is carrying her new bug box in the picture.

she had fun for a little while in her pool, but it was getting way to hot for me sitting outside in the sun. she splashed around for a while and then we had to go in and get ready for music class.

at about 8:30pm we finally got around to giving madelyn her birthday cake. i think that she was most excited about the candles though. she insisted on helping me put the candles in the cake herself before sitting at the table for us to sing. we were so late past bedtime because she and i went to 'swim' some more in the backyard after her swimming class and didn't come in until after 7. and daddy went to a work function after swim class and didn't get home again until after 8, which is when madelyn and i were just finishing up our dinner.

happy (belated) birthday, madelyn! you finally got to eat your cake. love.

madelyn's 2

madelyn turned 2 today! and as of 9:35pm she is not going to have to share her birthday with her brother (my big concern with the due date being so close to her birthday) - not that i am not ready for him to come out already.

we have been so busy around here this month and will have house guests next month so we have opted not to have a birthday party for madelyn this year. i, of course, have "mommy guilt" and decided to take madelyn to the zoo this morning. it was going to be a pretty hot day (for here - not other parts of the country) so we got there shortly after it opened. after about a half hour i realized that i really had no business pushing her up the hills in that heat; not that it put me into labor or anything.

madelyn took care of protecting her knees from the sun. she actually wore three of these stickers on her legs for most of the day. they were stickers that she got from one of our visits to the doctor's office and found in the car on the way to the zoo. for some reason she insisted on riding around in her stroller almost the whole time we were there, which is very unusual for her. she also had no interest in the fish building - a first. but i practically had to drag her away from the hippos after like 20 minutes. at least she always finds something of interest when we go.

again with the "mommy guilt," i wanted today's trip to the zoo to be a little special so i let her get a pressed penny souvenir. she thought that was the coolest thing ever. if i had more quarters i would have let her get two, and she chose to have a giraffe for her single selection.

unfortunately, she didn't get a decent nap again. she has just been falling asleep in the car early in the day and then can't go down for her actual nap. hopefully we will have better luck tomorrow because she really does need her nap.

since it was madelyn's day i just went with whatever she wanted instead of what was normal. she had a bowl of canned corn for breakfast (her request) with a slice of sharp cheddar cheese and two bananas with string cheese for lunch. i think that she had two cups of yogurt with daddy this morning before i got up too. dinner was a medley of taco ingredients. we never got to the birthday cake because it got too late past bedtime after we finished with the presents. we will just have to sing and eat it tomorrow night.

she was going to have swimming lessons today, but they got cancelled due to a power outage at the pool (i guess it messed up the chemical system). when i was getting her ready for swimming she told me that she wanted to "go to the doctor's first". this is because last week she had to go with me to the doctor's before class - i thought that it was funny that she remembered and asked to go. since madelyn was so excited about swimming, and already in her swimming suit, we invited her friends michael and dylan down to swim in her pool instead (they have swimming lessons at the same time too). she was so excited to have the boys down to enjoy some splashing fun with her.

after sliding and splashing with the boys we went in to have some dinner. i didn't think that she was going to make it through dinner. she was definitely bobbing her head with her eyes closed while eating slowly. as soon as daddy started using his tools to hang up her height chart in the playroom she perked right up! right now it is just a painted board, but once i get all the numbers written on it it will be a height chart. matt just wanted to make sure that we got her measured on her actual birthday. she did so great at standing straight up against the wall! her 2nd birthday measurement came in at 37 inches! if what they say about doubling is true, she is going to be 6'2" someday.

once we finished with the measuring madelyn became ecstatic about the mention of presents. every time the doorbell would ring she would come running and ask, "what is it, mommy?". if i asked what she thought it was, she would shout "toys!" i haven't let her open anything over the past week, but today i did let her open her presents from uncle josh and aunt adrienne when it arrived.

now, back to the presents... madelyn go so many presents! and not from mommy and daddy either. we got her a little tent and a tunnel (one of those cloth things that kids crawl through). there weren't pictures that i could really post because she wasn't dressed. i should have thought about that and put some clothes on her before presents, but i didn't. i am sure that there will be many pictures of her and her gifts throughout the rest of the week. (on a side note, she had been asking me not to take her picture today. there were lots of pictures that i wanted to get and couldn't.) she really loved the tool belt from her blogger friend, lorelai. i really wish i could post how cute she was with it, but i have a feeling that you will see a lot of it in the future.

she also got several dress-up outfits including a thumbelina costume (which you might remember is our nickname for our little thumb sucker). she is going to have fun dressing up in these some day. i can't even list everything out. all i can say is that she is very spoiled (and loved)! thank you to everyone who made our little girl feel so special on her birthday.

(madelyn got a special birthday greeting from her blogger buddy, lorelai, today too for anyone who wants to see it.) love.

birthday "boon"

today i had playgroup at our house with a belated maddie birthday cake. it wasn't really a birthday party, but it sort of ended up being one anyway. we had around 15 kids (and moms too) in all come over to splash with us outside. the weather cooperated too because it wasn't too hot out for those of us who had to supervise and couldn't benefit from splashing around in the cool (as in cold) kiddie pool or sprinkler.

we had a kiddie pool, sprinkler, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, and sponges to play with outside and the sponges were a huge hit! they were fun in the pool, to use as stamps on the driveway, and even served as erasers for the sidewalk chalk. not bad considering it was $1 for six of them!

here are some more pictures from our gathering today:

and my pride and joy (besides madelyn) was the cake. i made it from scratch (icing too) and it was the first time that i had ever attempted that. why? because i am a glutton for punishment. i was up until midnight last night making it and then iced it today. thankfully it turned out pretty well. isn't it pretty? i wasn't going to have everyone sing (since it wasn't really a birthday party), but they insisted. madelyn couldn't have cared less about the singing or the cake. she just stuffed her face with the fruit in front of her - especially the strawberries. i don't think she even had any of the cake. at least the other kids liked it and they all enjoyed blowing out the lone candle.

one of the neighbors brought maddie a birthday balloon. now madelyn, like most kids, always notice the balloons at the grocery store or really anywhere we are out and about. and since she loves to ask "what's that?" she gets to hear "balloon" a lot. i thought that i heard her say "boon" when pointing at a balloon this weekend, but just let it go since she has been saying a lot of words lately and not repeating them again (for example, i was telling her "happy" while pointing at a smilely face and she said "happy" clear as a bell but not since). but today there was no denying that she was trying to say "balloon". here is video of her playing with said "boon" and if you listen closely you can hear her say it when she points. (i am sorry that you can't see her face since her excited face was so so cute!) love.

it was meant to be...

we needed to do some sort of celebration on madelyn's actual birthday, so we were thinking that we would buy a pretty cupcake somewhere so that matt and i wouldn't have a lot of cake to eat (we just finished off the last cake). as we were perusing our options in the bakery - butterfly cake, 4th of july mini-cupcakes, etc. - we found it! the madelyn cake! i don't know if you can see the sign next to the cake, but it reads "5" Madelyn Yellow Cake". obviously we had found the cake for our celebration - it was meant to be! not to mention that it was cute with polka dots...

no video this time, but here is madelyn with birthday cake #2. she definitely knew what was coming this time.

hopefully madelyn doesn't start to think that cake is now a weekly event. love.

madelyn lane is one

at 6:15am one year ago today, after 31 hours of back labor (only 10 with an epidural) madelyn lane joined our family. this past year has been so exciting for us just getting to know her. when they were talking about the time she was born i thought that they were talking about her weight and was so confused because the ultrasound was measuring her at near 10 lbs.! but i was a little disoriented from not sleeping for more than two days. we feel so blessed to have madelyn. it has been such a joy to watch her discover the world around her and to see matt become a father. i am really excited for this next year when her personality starts to come out more and she develops more ways to express herself.

i was cleaning out our guest room closet a few months ago (i was feeling the need to purge) and came across this picture of me on my first birthday (i will post one of me with my cake when i make maddie's "real" first birthday cake in a few weeks). do you see a resemblance?

of course maddie got some presents this morning. she got a new red wagon from her daddy and i, some dresses, books, and a neat bug (that she loves) from our friends in california liz and john, and a bouncy rocking horse from big pop and grandma. here is some video of her discovering the rocking horse this morning (its long - 3 minutes - she took a while getting to it because she was so excited. when she is really excited about something she gets shy about it and hesitates to touch it - it makes me laugh to see her do that.).

she is really getting the hang of this opening presents thing. she now understands "out" and "in" so i can ask her "what's in there?" and she pulls away the paper to see and then we ask her to "take it out" and she pulls it out. she just started to really get this last week. it has been nice because she now helps me put away her toys.

after the gifts and some breakfast (blueberry pancakes, grapes, and mango), we took her for a ride in her new wagon around the block. she is wearing a dress that daddy got her for her birthday. he started to tell me that it had something to do with a coupon he had when buying the wagon, but i stopped him because i want to believe that he is just a big softy and wanted to get his daughter a dress.

happy birthday, madelyn. love.

happy first birthday - take one

yes, "take one". madelyn is going to have four (four) birthday celebrations for her first birthday. the first was yesterday with matt's parents, the second will be a family celebration next week on her actual birthday, the third will be in florida with my family, and the fourth will be her traditional birthday party with friends and neighbors at home.

since nana is here visiting i decided that it would be nice to go ahead and make a simple cake so that she could celebrate madelyn's first birthday in person. unfortunately, papa could not make the trip so i set up the Web cam so that he could see too.

the video is long (3 minutes) and there is a lot of talking and questions, but madelyn really got into the cake eating - actually a little too much! enjoy watching maddie enjoy her first cake ever. love.