She Makes Me Laugh

Madelyn has been developing her sense of humor, and with it her desire to make people laugh.  What she has been doing most recently is telling knock knock jokes.  I am really not sure where she discovered them, but she thinks that she is hilarious. 

She says "knock knock" and then we say "who's there" and then she laughs and either says "knock knock" again, or she decides that someone is at the door.  Most frequently if someone is there, it is Grandpa.  And she thinks it is the funniest thing ever.  She laughs, and we laugh, and then she laughs even harder.  A few nights ago in the car she was laughing so hard at her knock knock jokes she started snorting.  She clearly thinks she is telling a joke, although I think she may have missed the main general purpose of a knock knock joke...

She has also been pretending to talk on the phone a lot, whether with an actual cell phone, or a play phone, or most recently anything she can find.  She recently took her shoe off of her foot, held it up to her ear, and said "Hello!"  followed by "Bye!"  Maybe you had to be there, but we thought it was pretty hilarious.

Easter!

Evidently I should have indicated that an Easter post would make it's appearance eventually, not soon...

Although Easter weekend was not very warm we did have a good time with the neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday and spending time at church and with family on Sunday.

Here's a video of Madelyn hunting for Easter eggs in the rain...she had a really good time, but she took the hunting very seriously.

We spent Sunday at my parent's house with family in the afternoon after church and we got a couple of pictures of Madelyn in her Easter outfit.

We had a very hard time convincing Madelyn that she should wear her Easter hat at all, but we did manage to keep it on her head long enough to quickly get this picture.

Family photo :)

Madelyn walked around taking pictures of the day with an old camera

So much fun to be had!

An Afternoon At The Park

Last week Justin's mom and sister were able to stay for a few days after Madelyn's birthday party and Justin's mom got this video at the park.

Madelyn is a big fan of the swings and we clearly think that she should be adventurous on the baby swing...what makes this more interesting is the other mom in the background talking to the child in the other swing.

An Easter post will make an appearance soon :)

Early October...

Happy Birthday Madelyn! (Part 2)

On Saturday, we celebrated Madelyn's birthday with a party with some friends and family.  We were really excited that Justin's mom, sister, and brother were all able to make the long trek to Minnesota to spend some time with us and to be a part of the birthday festivities.

Madelyn was much more excited about her birthday this year than she was last year.  I'm not convinced she really knew what was going on, but she liked the decorations and the cake, and having so many people that she loves all together at the same time.  She asked all week who she was going to see at her party and was thrilled when all of those people really came :)

Our theme was a little difficult to pinpoint, but after a suggestion from a friend that with Madelyn's love of tea parties that it would be a good theme for her party we loosely went with that as a theme.  We had multiple varieties of iced and hot tea and also a teapot shaped cake that I ordered from a local bakery called the Sweet Retreat (they mostly do cupcakes and were actually on "Cupcake Wars").

The Tea Spread -  the blue teapot in the middle is the cake

The Teapot Cake :)

Formal tea parties probably don't include pizza or iced tea, but since Madelyn is only 2 I figured we were ok to bend the rules a little bit and have as many as her favorite things as we could.

She also did well with opening presents and was very interested in everything she opened.  She did have a little bit of a hard time sharing after the present opening, but all in all she did a great job!

Diva?

Possibly letting Madelyn have cake and chocolate ice cream on her own without a full body smock/bib was not a great decision, but she had a good time.

so busy eating cake and ice cream that there wasn't time to talk to anyone...she was focused!

We have seen Madelyn change so much in the last year.  She is getting more and more verbal every day, adding new words to her vocabulary.  She has opinions about everything now, from the clothes she wears to the color of her plate or bowl.  She looks forward to seeing her friends at church.  She wants to know about EVERYTHING and it is amazing.  It has been a crazy and amazing adventure and we are really looking forward to seeing what the next year will bring.

Happy Birthday Madelyn! (Part 1)

Madelyn turned 2 on Friday.  Happy Birthday Madelyn!  We love you so much!

As we did last year, Justin and I both took the day off of work so we could enjoy a family day just the three of us as a way to spend her birthday.  Last year we went to the Minnesota Zoo and Madelyn had such a good time that when we talked about what to do this year the forecast was ok (although we never did make it into the 60's and sunny like the weatherman said we would) so we decided to do it again.

Woo-hoo...Monkeys!

Last year when we went the shows hadn't started and there was  a lot of construction, but we really enjoyed the Northern Trail (with all the outdoor animals) and the Tropics Trail (where we could see most of the monkeys) so we figured there would be plenty to do. We were surprised to find that the shows were going (including the dolphins!) and that most of the exhibits near the entrance were now open.  So, we actually made it to a lot less of the zoo because we went to the dolphin show and the bird show and the penguin feeding.  Madelyn was completely enthralled with the dolphins, but she didn't end up being that interested in the birds or the penguins.  However, she really enjoyed seeing the animals, especially the monkeys.

Ooooh! Dolphin Show :)

We did have one small hiccup in the day.  After the dolphin show we made our way to Discovery Bay to see the tide pool and the big fish and sharks.  Madelyn was more hesitant about the tide pool this year than she was last year so to help her feel more comfortable Justin showed her how it was safe and fun to put his hands in while I stood across the pool and took pictures.  Madelyn decided to be brave and put her hands in, but she overestimated how far she could put her hands in and ended up going head first into the pool (all while I was snapping pictures).   So, we had to change all of her clothes and dry her off, but she didn't seem too traumatized by the experience.

Not so sure about this Daddy...

Maybe I'll put my hands in, this seems safe enough

Oh no!  Mommy, why are you taking pictures of this...