Sledding & Snow- Trip to Seattle

We were in Seattle for 2 weeks before Christmas. I'm sure many of you heard, who don't live in the area, the CRAZY amounts they got! Yep, we were there for most of it, and left just before the last big storm blew in!!! Thank goodness for my mom's nice car that did amazing in the snow and ice! Maddie had an absolute blast playing out in the snow, eating it, making snow angels, and of course, sledding! They would be out way after it was dark!!!

We didn't bring any snow clothes. Seattle doesn't normally get much snow, usually only 2 days or so out of the year and I didn't think we'd actually be there for those days it would get snow... boy was I wrong!!! Thank goodness Christian had some old bibs and gloves and hat that Maddie couuld borrow. I ended up buying her some snow boots because her 'ugg' boots just weren't keeping her feet warm enough. She got plenty of use out of them!!!

Maddie was DONE! She lost her glove, she was freezing, and it was well past nap time. I love Jackson's face, so sweet and content, while Maddie bawls her eyes out!!! :)

Chloe & Kate- Trip To Seattle

Here are a few pictures we got of Chloe & her cousin Kate. We all still get a kick out of telling people that Chloe is actually 3 days older than Kate... but you wouldn't be able to tell by the drastic difference in size!!! The first thing my sister, Brooklynn and I did when we saw each other was strip the girls down to compare thighs! Too funny!!!

My sister took all these pictures, and it was hilarious! I guess the flash was too bright for Chloe, or she just wasn't used to the 'snap, snap, snap' all in a row, but she started making these really weird faces and squinting before my sister would even take the picture because she new it was coming!! We were laughing SO HARD!

We even had them taste their first food together. For Kate, you couldn't get it in fast enough!!! She wanted MORE, MORE, MORE! Chloe... not so much. She didn't mind it at first, but pushed half of it out with her tongue with every bite. But eventually just got tired of eating and cried!

Santa Pictures

We took the girls to get pictures with Santa while we were in Seattle visiting. Maddie was so excited to see Santa, and is still talking about it (although you can't really tell by her face, she looks pretty serious! (Sorry, this is a picture of a picture. I don't have my new scanner hooked up yet)

We also took a picture with the grand kids, per the grandparents request! :) This kids were more straight-faced, than smiling; but at least they are all looking at the camera! I love the one of the grand kids that the Kate and Chloe are holding hands. It was actually pretty cute while they were trying to situate the wiggly 2-year olds (ok, really just Maddie who kept jumping up and down she was so excited), Kate and Chloe were looking at and talking to each other, which is when they grabbed each others hands! I am TOTALLY behind on blog posts! Life has been crazy and hectic and hopefully will slow down soon so I can catch back up. It's all just overwhelming me now!!

Chloe's 3 Month & Maddie's 2.5 Year Pictures

I went and had the girls' pictures taken back in November by Michele Reyes, who a couple of my cousins had take their baby's pictures. Check out her website.

Maddie was awful! She was so naughty while we were there. Normally she asks to hold Chloe all day long, but not at pictures... she wanted nothing to do with her. So, we got just 1 pose of them together.... barely! Chloe was very good, but not her normal smiley self. I think there was too much going on for her, Maddie was a little too distracting! But even with all that, I think the pictures turned GREAT! Chloe has grown so much just since I’ve had these pictures taken! She was just 3-months old here.

Michele really captured so many of Maddie's facial expressions. So even though I look at the pictures and comment on how naughty Maddie was in each one, I love them! They show so much of her personality!!

Chloe is cute, as usual, just not as smiley as I mentioned, which I was a little bummed about because it usually doesn't take much to get Chloe to smile. She loves attention from anyone. She'll give her big silly smile to anyone, anytime! So if you live in Utah, check out her website or her blog! She does a fantastic job!!!

Maddie's Bedroom

We put Maddie's room together a few weeks ago, and even put things on the walls... It's pretty much the only room in the house that is pretty much complete (other than 1 pretty bare wall that I'm not sure what to do with yet. I found this shelf I love that I might hang there, but it'll stay the way it is for now). I took some pictures a while ago and have been meaning to post them, but along with everything else in my life, I put it off! So here they are now....

This is the bare wall above...

Also, I didn't take a picture of it, but you can kind of see a wall on the right side of the second picture (at the foot of her bed), that is her closet. She has a pretty good size closet with nice shelving. We were going to give her the bigger bedroom with the large walk in closet, but decided to use it for the office instead, for many reasons, one of them being the coloring of the room. I do love it, it's like a 'Tiffany-Blue', with dark molding around it, but just didn't match Maddie's stuff. Mike and I went back and forth on this one... but as you can see, I won this argument! :)

Maddie-isms

My little baby is already two and a half!! Where did the time go??? I used to be so good about writing down all the little things Maddie did, and recording each and EVERY milestone, big or small! She has done and said the funniest things lately, I WISH I was writing them down as they happen, but I haven't. So, I will try to remember the ones I can... I know I will forget probably the best ones!Maddie is so beyond INDEPENDENT! She insists on doing most things by herself, and can actually do so much more than we think she can. She surprises us everyday! A few of the latest things are saying PRAYERS all by herself. She takes long pauses so I would jump in and help her, but I very quickly learned that was not necessary, her little mind was just thinking, and she can and will finish the prayer all by herself (except for the times she gets distracted and will start talking about whatever is on her mind, forgetting about the prayer... mid-prayer-- she is so her mother's daughter sometimes!) Another one is COUNTING IN SPANISH. She will use her fingers and can actually count in Spanish! She started this in the car the other day, counting on her fingers saying each number and she stopped at one of her fingers, pointing to it and asking me, "Mom, what's this one? What's this finger?" Thank you, Dora & Diego, for teaching me daughter to count in Spanish! haha! The last one I can remember, for now anyway, is SINGING: I AM A CHILD OF GOD, all by herself! I usually sing with her, she picks a song and we sing it. But another time in the car, just Maddie and I, she started to sing it so I joined in with her. She stopped and told me, "Mom, you don't sing. It's not your work, it's my work". Silly girl... and very BOSSY these days! Some of her other favorite songs to sing this week are: I am like a star, Twinkle Twinkle, Wheels on the Bus, 5 little monkeys swinging in a tree (thank you Brooklynn, one of her favorites!), ABC's, I love to see the temple... hmm, I know there's more, but my mind is drawing a blank!

Maddie started telling me her FEELINGS. She is very aware of how she feels. One day she was laying on the ground, just messing around when she turned to me and said, "Mom, my feel shy". It was hard for me not to smile and laugh, but ask her questions like a concerned mom would do. I couldn't believe she was actually telling me very straight forward how she felt, but also, anyone who knows Maddie, or who has even been around her for less than 5 minutes knows she is anything but shy! This is one of our biggest fears with Maddie when it comes to strangers. She would go to anyone, especially if they had candy or a puppy!

Maddie LOVES CHLOE, and she will tell just about everyone! She is be sure to let anyone she sees, know who Chloe is and that she is 'her baby sister'! She always lets me know when Chloe is crying, and is the best at CHEERING her up! She will go in and keep Chloe ENTERTAINED if I'm right in the middle of something. She will go in and talk to her, sing to her, whatever it takes to make Chloe HAPPY! Yesterday, I heard her talking to Chloe in the sweetest, softest voice (we don't hear this voice often) telling her, "It's ok Chloe, don't cry. Why are you crying Chloe? Don't be such a baby." Sounds harsh... but really, she was saying it so sweet! I had to stay outside the door to keep Maddie from seeing me laugh. When Maddie's tired, she will sometimes get extra whiny and cry over practically nothing, so lots of times Mike or I will tell her (Maddie) to stop crying and not act like such a baby. I guess she passed that message onto her baby sister! Along with telling us her feelings, Maddie has started to let me know when she's mad at me. She will tell me (sometimes very randomly), "Mommy, my mad at you". I always ask her why she's mad at me and she doesn't ever have an answer, but will usually just tell me again, "My mad at you, mom". Ok Maddie! She is the SILLIEST little girl ever! All in the same day Maddie makes me want to PULL MY HAIR OUT, LAUGH so hard my stomach hurts, CRY (happy and sad cries), HUG AND KISS her sweet little face, YELL at the big mess she made, the things she's getting into, for waking up Chloe... (I hate that I'm a 'yeller' but I am), but usually by the end of the day, I could just CUDDLE with her all night long!

Chloe's Giggles

A week or two ago (I know, I'm totally behind), Chloe giggled for the first time. I was just sitting there talking to her and I got this full-on giggle! It was the cutest thing EVER!! She has the sweetest giggle. She did her 2nd ever giggle for my uncle Tim while we were over at his house. He was making his crazy weird sounds to her, which will make anyone laugh! Over the next few days she was giggling for Maddie and I, and even my cousin, Jameson (Jamo, as Maddie would correct me!) I think it got to Mike that Chloe still hadn't giggled for him. He had heard her do it a few times now, but she had never actually giggled at/to him! So last week he was determined and sat there doing whatever it would take to make it happen (it doesn't take much anymore) and he did have her giggling uncontrollably! Sometimes she gets laughing so hard she will start to choke on her own saliva! Her giggles usually end with the hiccups! I have yet to get it on camera, but I will work on that!

Twilight

Yep, I did it! I went and saw the movie! Last Saturday, Mike and his dad watched the 4 kids for us and I went with Mike's mom and sisters, and most of the Lewis girls to see Twilight! I didn't really know what to expect, and wasn't dying to see it since I knew nothing about it, but wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to go out with the girls... WITHOUT KIDS!

Most of you will think I'm totally crazy, I haven't read a SINGLE book... yet!! I really liked the movie, and now I WANT to read the books! But since I leave for Seattle soon, and have TONS to do before I leave (to include getting EVERYTHING ready for Christmas, since we won't return home until just before Christmas) I don't have time to get addicted to the books quite yet. So, my wonderful husband got on Amazon.com and is ordering me the book on CD so I can listen to it on my drive up to Seattle. Yes, call me crazy, I am driving by myself, with both girls up to Seattle... and I'm SO EXCITED! I haven't seen my family since we moved the first of October and I miss them like CRAZY! Especially my mom! I'm used to seeing her at least a few times a week so this has been quite the adjustment for me, and for Maddie too... who may be having bigger grandma withdrawals then I am!!! Anyway, maybe I'll post about it if I can make it through the cd's on my drive. I guess it will all depend on how the girls do on the drive!

Grandma's Mail

Maddie was SO excited to get the mail with me the other day, only to find a package with her name on it (and Chloe's too) and better yet, from GRANDMA (& grandpa too!!)

She could hardly wait to walk in the door to open it! She plopped right down on the floor and was so excited to pull everything out.

When she pulled the sleeper out and I told her that was for Chloe... she just threw that off to the side. But the funny part was that later that day I caught her trying to put the sleeper on. She had taken all her clothes on and was getting frustrated that her feet wouldn't fit in! Too bad I didn't get a picture of that...

In the package was this little unicorn that you put in water and it can grow for up to 10 days! Maddie has to go check it after she wakes up each day and after each nap, plus randomly throughout the day. I have caught her a few times climbing on top of the counter to 'play' with the unicorn and water. (This is a big pet peeve of mine, people climbing or sitting on counters... got it from my mom!)

Thank you grandma for thinking of us! Maddie gets so excited to get little packages or mail from her Grandma!!

PS. Have Christian look at these pictures to get an example of how to make his 'turkeys' we sent him! (Just in case if the 'model' we sent broke along the way!)

Panguitch Craft Fair

Last weekend we (me, Mike, and the girls), went down to Circleville again. Saturday was the annual Panguitch Craft Fair that I was pretty excited about going to, but ended up being a bit overwhelmed once I got there because there was SO MUCH way cute stuff I wanted to buy, that I ended up not buying anything! Well... except for a WAY cute purse that I kept eyeing, and was a SUPER good deal that I couldn't pass it up!! Actually, Heather paid for part of it as my Christmas present... and I LOVE IT! Maddie got to ride the horse again, this time all by herself (with Uncle Alan leading it, of course!)

She was not very happy when DAD decided to jump on with her! But eventually she calmed down and was OK with having him ride with her. Geez dad.......She was also SO excited to climb up in Uncle Alan's truck and talk on the 'CB', or as I call it... the radio, or walkie talkie! :) We had a hard time getting her out of there, she didn't want to leave! Who would have thought the inside of a semi could be so much fun?!