"happy easter day!"

yes, that is how madelyn wished me a happy mother's day this morning - "happy easter day". easter must have made quite an impression because she has wished me happy easter a few times now. she was able to say "happy mother's day" a few times, but mainly it was "happy easter day".

when i told her that it was time to get dressed this morning she replied "yea church! God loves, God loves!". she must have decided that we were headed to church because i was already dressed - i didn't say that we were going to church. it made me so happy for her new association with "church" - "God loves"!

after church we went to get breakfast, but it turned into lunch after we waited over an hour and a half! madelyn was starting to melt down, but then recovered after a book of stickers, some crayons and paper, and running around with some other kids. the other kids were hopping on one leg and madelyn was trying to imitate them. i love the original pancake house! it is always worth the wait.

matt finally woke madelyn up from her nap at 5:00pm (more than 4 hours of napping). plus, i think that he was excited to give me my mother's day gift - a netbook! i have been shopping them around a little because i thought that it would be better for me than our desktop computer. (a netbook is a low cost, super-small laptop style computer that is primarily for email and internet use.) i am using it to blog tonight and could not be happier with it! i was going to use my birthday money to get one, but matt totally surprised me! it will be nice not to have to run downstairs every time i need to look something up real quick.

i also got lots of surprise hugs and smiles from madelyn today. i am a lucky mommy (and wife). love.

o christmas tree

madelyn added "bite" to her vocabulary this morning - as in "could i have a bite of your cereal, mom?". since madelyn was in the mood for sharing this morning, i decided that we should discuss her sharing in the church nursery so that she isn't the room "bully" any more. she told me that "yes" she would "share" at church today. and she repeated to say "share" as she played with her toys before we had to leave.

and there were lots of new things once we got to church too. it started as soon as we pulled into the parking lot. instead of crying when we pulled into the parking lot, madelyn called out "church" excitedly! and she repeated "church" a few more times as we parked. she did cry for a little bit when we got to her room and were taking off her coat. by the time we got off her outer layers she was happy and ready to go. but we got a surprise, madelyn was moving up to the toddler room today! the nursery folks bring her over to the toddler room halfway through the service so that she can get used to it and be ready when we drop her off there next week. everyone expressed that she was ready to be with the rest of the toddlers. at least some of them are her size - or almost that tall.

after church we went to run a few errands before the snow started since maddie and i would be indoors for a few days. between this afternoon and tomorrow morning we are expected to get anywhere from 6-8 inches of snow. and tomorrow it is forecasted to be really windy and really cold so we won't get to play in it until later in the week.

so since we were inside for the day by noon, matt went down to the basement for our christmas tree. (we have used a fake tree for years - we miss the smell but it is very convenient.) madelyn didn't quite know what to think about the tree parts. but once it was together and lit up she was pretty amazed and checked it out from every angle. we didn't get the reaction we were expecting. when she saw the exterior lights she was really excited and "wow" was said over and over, louder and louder. it might not have been her immediate reaction, but once she woke up from her nap and saw it all decorated then she was excited! i missed her reaction, but here she is giving a tour of the christmas tree's ornaments. bear is along because she just woke up.



she also went from a few flurries before she went down to a few inches of snow when she woke up. she was pretty excited about that too, but thankfully she didn't ask to go outside. madelyn has the start of a little bit of a cold. one of those where the congestion isn't really bad, but things are draining into her lungs. i am praying that it will be short-lived since i am heading out of town for a business trip next week and she will be spending the days with one of the neighbors and her son.

matt called me into the bathroom for bath time because madelyn had put on some new 'shoes'. this was the most modest of her poses to show me her 'shoes' and the only one that could possibly be posted. she would put them on her feet and then stick her legs straight up in the air, sliding backwards into the bath water.

i also managed to overhear her asking to have her hair "rinse". i asked matt if i had heard correctly and he said that she was saying "rinse" while trying to hand him the bucket we use to rinse her hair. and one rinse was not enough. he had repeated requests until bath time was finally over.

one last note for the day, in addition to saying "color" (to request to color and to demand that you color) and "i color" (while coloring) madelyn says "sitting" to let you know that she is indeed sitting. sometimes she uses it as a request for us to get her stool so that she can sit while coloring.

i am sure that there will be more snow posts for you all to look forward to this week. love.

madelyn's dedication

today was madelyn's baby dedication at church. (okay - there were other kids there too...) matt and i had to go to a class about a week ago and shoot a video introduction of our family and why we were doing the dedication. we were lucky to have nana (GG) visiting us this weekend. (and you are lucky she was visiting too!) thanks to nana we have a video of today's service to share with you! and this lovely family picture prior to church starting. madelyn did pretty well during the service, especially because she had gotten up earlier than normal and was being really cranky before we left the house. she spent most of our time on the stage waving to the guitar player behind us. then once the praying started that was when she decided that she couldn't wait any longer to get down and touch the speaker in front of us (towards the end of the video). luckily, i was able to shift her position in a way that kept her from leaping out of my hold. (note: we are the first family to the left of the speaker (your left).

i also scanned a copy of the program insert that has madelyn's information on it so that i could post it here. i didn't think that they would put the full body shot in the program, i thought that they would crop it down to a head shot. oh well. it is nice to know that they worked with whatever we had to give them.

lots more has been going on here with nana visiting, but i had to get this up quickly for maddie's grandparents who couldn't be here today for the dedication and really wanted to be! there are more maddie updates to come soon! love.

once upon a time...

once upon a time there was a girl with a fantastic memory. everyone used to rely on her to recall any detail, even from years in the past. then one day this girl had a baby and now she can't remember what she was just doing...

that is how my fairytale life is going these days. i can't remember anything! and my lists are just getting out of control. i carry around a pen and notepad so that i can jot down anything that i have to remember, but when i look at my note i can't always remember why i wrote it down!

the point of this story is to apologize for not having anything interesting to post today. i know that i had thought of a point earlier today, but it escapes me now as i sit down to write.

anyway, i had some cute pictures of maddie from today with her daddy that i wanted to post.

on a related note (sort of), they are doing a series at our church called "catch the wave" for a fundraising project to help pay down the debt on the building, etc. as a part of the first message from this series, they had people write names of people they hoped would be reached for God because of the church's funds not going to interest payments on the back wall of the sanctuary. today was the final message and while people were turning in their pledge cards they ran a powerpoint list of the 1200+ names that were written on the back wall. they were mainly first names or initials, but there were some that got me all teared up (i have become such an emotional mess since having maddie - and i was pretty emotional to begin with...) here are a few of the ones that got me reaching for the tissues: "future child", "daddy", "me", "mom", "my sister", etc. can you just imagine some child going back and writing "daddy" on the wall? it just broke my heart. i will be praying for "daddy" tonight. love.