Thrills!

This afternoon Justin, Madelyn, and I met up with some friends at Nickelodeon Universe at MOA today.  Although I did take Madelyn on a couple of rides there without Justin a few weeks ago, this was his first chance to go on some rides with her.  And, I had seriously overestimated the number of points we were going to need to go on rides when we went before, so we had plenty left on our ticket.  However, unlike going during a day on a weekday, the place was CRAZY today and the lines were long.  The girls did a great job waiting in line for their turn on the rides and had a great time.

Here are a couple snapshots from the day:

Birthday Celebration!

This past weekend Madelyn and I, along with my mom, sister, aunt, cousin, and Aubrey went up to Fosston, MN to celebrate with my Grandma for her 83rd birthday.  It was really great to be with family and have relaxed weekend spending time with Grandma, playing games, watching movies, and enjoying SNOW!

We haven't seen much snow this winter (it has been the complete opposite of last winter) and Madelyn has had very little opportunity to play in it which has been a bummer for her, although excellent for my commute to work.  There actually was snow for this weekend in Fosston, so we went out and enjoyed it.

She's already taking my keys

I got home from work tonight and after Madelyn told me hello and gave me a hug she took my keys and told me "Bye!"  I asked her where she was going and she told me "Papa" which is what she calls my dad.  I told her that she couldn't take my car to go see Grandpa, but that I would call him and see if he could talk to her.  She seemed satisfied with that and willingly gave me my car keys back.  I didn't think it would start so soon :)

Adrenaline Junkie Part 2

An update:  I met my mom, aunt, and cousin at the Mall of America on Thursday for lunch and then we took Madelyn to Nickelodeon Universe and it seemed like it would be fun to take Madelyn on a few rides.  The people at the rides gave me funny looks and one mother said "don't you think she is a little young?"  I just said that I thought she'd be fine, after all someone had to go with her and we are talking about little kid rides.  She was a BIG fan!

Adrenaline Junkie

Madelyn is an adrenaline junkie.  I have no doubt.  For instance, her reaction to a bumpy plane landing was to say "weee!" and then follow that with "more."  She had a similar reaction to a steep plane bank to get a good view of Niagara Falls on Christmas Eve courtesy of our pilot (which was pretty great!).

Her new favorite game to play is hide and seek with daddy.  She hides (predictably wherever she is standing by hiding her face) while daddy goes away and then he comes looking for her.  When he says "there she is" she gets scared and screams, and then giggles and says "more?!"

 I don't know where this will lead in the future.  I am pretty sure that she is going to LOVE roller coasters though!

Merry (Belated) Christmas :)

The last two weeks of December were a whirlwind of family and Christmas activities, which is my excuse for not posting anything new...I don't have one for the last week though.  My camera battery and charger went missing right before Christmas and so until the very end of the week we were in NY when my dad had a battery shipped to my sister's apartment for me, I couldn't take any pictures.  However, Justin has some on his phone that I will try and get posted at some later date.

We had a really good time seeing family this Christmas.  On Christmas Eve we flew to Buffalo and made it to Bemus Point just in time to have Christmas Eve dinner with Justin's family.  Last Christmas on Sunday we couldn't get ourselves together enough to get to church on time, but since this is the one time of the year when Justin's mom gets to show off Madelyn we went for the end of the church service.  In keeping with that tradition (who knew it was going to become one) we attempted to do that again this year when it became apparent that once again we were not going to get our act together in time to make it for the start of church.  We arrived at church an hour after the service started just in time for the scripture reading prior to the sermon...who knows what next year will bring.

Although there were a lot of highlights from our time with Justin's family, one of the biggest highlights was going to the fire hall and sitting in the fire trucks.  Madelyn's Poppop is a volunteer fireman and so he gave her the exclusive behind the scenes tour.  She thought that it was pretty great to pretend to drive the big trucks and was a huge fan of having the lights on.

On Wednesday we made the 6+ hour drive across New York from Bemus Point to Troy to spend the second half of the week with my sister, her husband, and my parents.  Wednesday while we were driving was the only time we saw snow around Christmas.  We took Madelyn ice skating for the first time, and although she couldn't actually skate she thought that having Aunt Becci take her around was a lot of fun.  She also discovered that her Aunt Becci is a lot more fun than Mommy...and so it begins :)

Madelyn traveled really well.  However, on our Christmas Eve flight there was a 4 year old in the seat in front of us who kept looking over the seat and talking to Madelyn, hanging her doll over the seat, and generally keeping herself entertained by watching what we were doing.  Madelyn was trying to take a nap, but under those circumstances it was relatively easy to understand why she wasn't successful.  The flight was less than two hours though, and Madelyn didn't get cranky, so while it made the flight seem longer to Justin and I it wasn't that big of a deal.  On our drive back to the Buffalo airport we talked about how much easier it would be to have Madelyn take a nap on the flight back, she was tired and saying she wanted to nap, and we figured a New Year's Eve flight would be pretty quiet.  After we got on the plane who should arrive in the same seat right in front of us...you guessed it, the same 4 year old.  There was no napping.

We made it home with significantly more luggage than we started with (and although Madelyn was mostly to blame I did get the ice cream maker attachment for my KitchenAid which took up a lot of suitcase room too) and spent a quiet New Year's Eve in.  After all, there was no sleeping on the flight :)

I'll try and get more pictures posted soon, but here are some I got before the battery was lost and then  once the new camera battery arrived.

The World of Pooh

I have fond memories of my childhood with the stories from the book "The World of Pooh" and I have been looking forward to when Madelyn is old enough to enjoy it with me.

I didn't expect her to latch onto it so early, but about a week ago she brought us the book at bedtime and said "Pooh!"  To humor her I started reading the first story, figuring that a book with few pictures and many words was only going to last a minute or two.  To my surprise she wanted to hear the whole story.  She was restless, and she wanted to hold a different book, but when given the option to stop reading she wanted me to keep going.

So, for the last week it has become a bedtime pattern.  I read a Pooh story while she is restless and moving around and looking at other things and then usually we read one or two of her other books.  I don't think she is really following the story completely, but she likes to hear them and it is a nice change from "Goodnight Moon."

Tonight however Madelyn wanted to lay on the bed between Justin and I and she was very quiet while we were reading.  When I finished the story we looked at her and she had fallen asleep.  I don't think she has fallen asleep while we were reading stories for at least a year.  Sometimes you just melt...

And so the Pooh stories will live on for at least one more generation :)