Scottish Festival

Do you know where your Scottsman is? Here's ours-

That's family heritage for you- hahaha!

We went out to the Scottish Festival at Tule Springs the Sunday before last and spread a blanket out under a tree and relaxed, watching people and listening to music. The weather was perfect, we were lucky because Saturday was super windy and Sunday was supposed to be too. It was neat hearing the bagpipes play, I thought they'd be annoying, but it was surprisingly nice. We were really surprised to see how young the bagpipers were. Most looked like they were in high school or early college. I figured it'd be a bunch of old men in skirts, but it was a bunch of young men in skirts. Some women walking around had the Scottish look confused with the sexy schoolgirl look. I shouldn't tease- I'd sure like to be able to pull off sexy schoolgirl :).

They had a stage where cloggers were dancing to Lord of the Dance type music and Madeline just loved it. She was running around in circles and jumping all over to the music. When it was over she kept yelling "Again! Again!" at the stage, being her usual bossy little self. I think she's going to be our little dancer, she loves music so much.

It was hard to tell with all of the booths and people everywhere, but that park seemed like it would be a really neat place to toodle around for an afternoon. It had some old buildings with plaques I didn't get to read and the trees were all big and beautiful. It looked like there were trails to explore, too. I think we're going to have to go back to check it out better.

Maison had a good time too, after I stopped bouncing him around in the stroller and let him out to visit.

Baby Girl

Madeline has grown up so much in her measly two years. She keeps changing and changing and with Maison here she just seems like such a big girl. Last Sunday Madeline & I went to Jen's son's 3rd birthday party. She was so much younger than the other kids, not age-wise necessarily because her son is only 3 & and her daughter is just 5, but more maturity and coordination wise. She's still on the baby side of toddler, and I love that. She still has her binki and her bottle, I still carry her to bed and she still sleeps in a crib. She is still my baby girl.

Nighttime Feedings

Tonight I was sitting in the very dim light of Maison's room, he was dead asleep, sitting up (well, slumped over) in my lap with his heavy chin in my hand while I was trying to get him to burp (he is still a very stubborn burper). In his dead asleep-ness he kept smiling, big happy smiles. I love those baby dream smiles. It made me all warm & fuzzy & choked up, and I wished I could just hold & cuddle him forever. I use my camera and camcorder constantly, but it's these awesome moments that end up going by completely unrecorded. It's these moments that make me want to keep a journal. I just wish I had more words to express the feelings so I can remember them clearly.

Daddy?

Oh my goodness. We were at Target today and Madeline kept calling all of the guys she saw "Daddy". For the most part she was asking it as a question to me and I'd say that no, it's not our daddy, it's just a man like Daddy is a man, but our Daddy is at home. But, then we were standing in the clothes department and it was just us and a guy with his little kid and she started yelling at him- "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!". I was just ignoring her, but after the 3rd time he looked at me all crazy and I just smiled and shook my head. He said that he didn't think he had any other kids (whatever!). I actually got a little bit embarrassed, which I don't usually do because most people know kids are goofy, but he didn't seem to get it, and I just made it worse by saying that she calls all guys Daddy- like she doesn't know who her dad is or something! What I meant was that she thinks all guys are called Daddy (and she thinks that anything big next to the same thing small is a mommy- today she was eating a mommy graham cracker and a baby graham cracker). Crazy girl.

She sure does love her actual Daddy though....

And here's an oldie-

Revamped

Have obviously revamped my page, which is why there have been no posts lately. I can't believe how much time this stuff takes- especially if you have no idea what you're doing, like me! I can't seem to get the green in the sidebar right, but it's going to have to do because I am DONE.

I have to post my previous header pic though, because I love it so much:

This is Maison at 3 months. He is just so cute, I don't want to stop looking at him!

Loudness

She is just so loud, all of the time.

I say this to Thor every day.

4 Month Maison

Wow, 4 months already. Time flies with two kids. It just didn't seem to go this fast with Madeline.

I had to get his shots done. I put off his 2 month appointment, so he had to get them all this time. Poor little guy, he cried really hard. But I think it actually pained me more. It's a weird feeling to want to hurt the nurse.

He weighs 13 pounds and I can't remember his length (bad mommy). Doc said 25th percentile all the way around, so he's smaller than we thought. He seems so big, I guess because he was born so small.

The teethies are starting to come in. Lots of drool, finger chewing and chomping when nursing, which is just lovely for me (probably TMI for some people, sorry). He has started to grab and hold his toys and loves to chew on his blankets. I thought his blanket was just getting caught in his fingers, but after the 20th time I finally realized he was doing it on purpose.

We all love his cheesy smiles. He is a super easy smiler. Even if he's starving to DEATH (as babies get about 2 seconds after they realize they're hungry) he'll usually smile if you talk to him. He'll even smile as he's falling asleep if I smile down at him. Such a sweet face. We are definitely addicted to seeing his smiles and spend nearly his every waking minute coaxing them out.

He has also started to laugh and giggle. Those usually come by tickling, he's very ticklish, or by jiggling, which usually leads to a smile-puke. Such a wonderful sound (the giggle, not the puke), we just can't help it even if it does make him throw up. Sorry Maison!

I don't think he has sat still, except to sleep, since he was born. I can barely get his fingernails clipped because his hands are always moving (hence the ever present face scratches- not my fault!). He's never been easy to hold, always wanting to stand up in our laps or fling himself back if he's being held on our shoulder.

I'm loving his sleep schedule. Decent naps, plus 8-11 hours at night straight through. Can't beat that!

Mommy, Daddy & Sister love you baby boy. You don't get much page time here yet, but you'll be running around like your maniac sister, giving me lots to write about, before we know it.

Picture This

#1: Madeline running and skipping around the backyard bent over at the waist trying to catch bubbles with her mouth like a dog.

#2: Same girl in the bathtub with her head tilted way back, face all scrunched up in anticipation of the water she hates poured on her head, with her finger up her nose.

I think I'm going to have to change the name of my blog to "Mostly Madeline and a Little about the Rest of the Family". Hmmm...

Yogurt Face

Oh my.

I'm sure there's a spa somewhere that charges a bundle for a yogurt facial, but around here they're free. She was so proud of herself, I couldn't even be upset at her, even though she had just had her bath. I'm the crazy one giving her yogurt and not supervising!

Oh, and that's her "SMILE!" face.

Play Day

Oh my goodness, I cannot believe Madeline's energy level lately. She is going a million miles a minute and I'm her only playmate. Poor girl, all she has is her tired old mommy. Maison, when are you going to take over??

Most days I spend my time trying to do whatever it is I need to get done while half playing with Madeline in an effort to get her to play by herself. I end up with a 2 year old "helping" with dishes, "helping" with laundry, "helping" rearrange furniture, "helping" hem pants (uhmmm, yeah, one leg ended up sewn closed). You get my point. I still don't get anything done. Today, I decided to try a different approach and just play with her all day long and jam at her naptime to do my thing. I knew it'd make her happier, I wanted to see if it made me happier.

So, we went for a walk, ran around the backyard, blew bubbles, flew the kite, rode the tricycle and played on the slide. We built a fort in the living room that was too small for mommy and spun in circles to music until we fell over. We raced each other around the house, played in the backyard again and rebuilt our fort for daddy. Whew.

Here's a fort fit for a two year old-

So, did it make me happier? Did my day go smoother than usual? I'd have to say my day just went differently. Madeline loved all the things we did and I wasn't stressed by her interuptions. But I have a hard time not being productive (even though you certainly can't tell I've been productive once Hurricane Madeline blows through). I don't think I got any less done than usual. I will definitely be giving her my undivided attention more often.

Maison rolled over today!

Well, at least we think he might have. He was on his back on the couch and then he was on his front (thank goodness his feet were toward the back of the couch, head to the edge!). He may have just rolled from one cushion onto the other due to a slight slant, but we will see in the next couple of days if he can do it on the floor (where he'll be spending lots more time now that he might be rolling).

Today he's 3 months and 3 weeks old. I think he's too little to be rolling, but I can't remember when Madeline did it.

Ever since I took the naked butt picture of Madeline running from me after her bath, she asks to have her picture taken while she runs up the hallway. I don't remember how she communicated her want to me the last couple times, but today she said "pit-chure?" as we walked out of the bathroom. She had never said that word before so I didn't realize what she was saying- I thought she was asking if she could go out & see Thor in the living room (don't ask, sometimes my translation is a total guess). She ran (naked) to where I keep the camera, so I handed her her little toy that was sitting there and she said "No. Pit-cher?" and reached for my camera and pointed to the hallway. Then I finally understood.

I love it when she does something new, even though it seems like it happens almost every day. I am amazed at how her speech is developing. I love it when she tells stories of things that she has seen, or things that have happened. Usually it's just a string on one word sentences, like "Out-ide. Daddy. Balloon. High. ByeBye Balloon." (Thor was letting helium balloons float away in the backyard).

Here are her pit-chers. She thinks it's lots funnier to run straight toward the camera than to run away from it.

Visit to the Zoo

We went to the Southern Nevada Zoological-Botanical Park today. If you don't know where this fancy sounding place is, it's the sad little zoo on Rancho. It was the perfect little 45 min pre-nap outing. We got to see some neat animals. They have monkeys (which Madeline thought were "scaaarry") and lions and ostriches and a lot of different birds (one actually says "Hello", so I'm guessing it wasn't rescued from the wild). The exotic Pigeon bird was my favorite. Lots of chickens and their cute little chickies just roam around under your feet waiting for you to drop food. We even saw a real live cock fight. Very exciting.

Madeline toodled around in the stroller for most of the time. We tried to let her walk around with the chickens, but they freaked her out. She did want to hold the chickies though. When we left she said Bye Bye to the Turdles. She likes Turdles.

As long as you're not a hard-core animal activist, I'd say it's worth a visit and it seems they could use the revenue.

Here we are sitting on a Turdle.

Hey look, it's grandpa!

And Maison cheesin' in the chest pack (had to hold the camera upside down to get him).

Little Kite Runner

I bought two little $1 kites from Walmart a few days ago as a surprise treat for when we needed something to do. I forgot that Madeline has some strange kind of toy/cookie radar and detected them in the bag. Vegas is always windy. Except for the 3 days after I bought those kites. There has been absolutely NO wind at all. We even tried to go outside and run with them and there wasn't even enough of a breeze for that.

Today there was wind- yay! Madeline saw the branches of the trees moving and kept saying "Wind. Wind. Kite?" I wasn't even sure if she understood what we had been waiting for until then.

We didn't actually get the kite all the way up, but she didn't care. She ran around the backyard with it like crazy until we made her stop.

Too much fresh air...

It's too bad the nicest weather equals allergy season. Since our hike (well, walk) yesterday, I've felt like poop. Runny nose and all congested. We spent a lazy Sunday in the house. Even Madeline had a fairly calm (if you can call it that) day in her jammies recouperating from her missed naps the 2 days before.

Here's a sight I don't ever want to forget-

As soon as she started to walk, she started to run away from me everytime I needed to do anything with her- diaper change, hair combed, pants on, whatever. We're finally starting to get over that, but running out of the bathroom after her bath, bucknaked, still remains strong. She thinks it's hilarious and loves the cold (crazy girl).

I really need to video tape it, the picture just doesn't capture the scream-laughing and feet slapping.

And so my baldies aren't forgotten today-

I love you!!

The Great Outdoors

I've been trying to get Madeline outside as much as I can while the weather is so nice. We mostly play in the backyard where she runs around like a little yap dog, or go to the small park down the street where she loves to go down the slides and play on the swings. About once a week my mom helps me take the kids somewhere new and fun, or if not anything else we walk around the neighborhood to get some exercise. I know Madeline won't remember these outings, but I love seeing her little brain collect all of the new experiences. And it sure beats watching TV.

Last week my mom & I took the kids to Red Rock and did a little hike to a small waterfall. We thought we were on the children's trail, but it turned out we weren't and the trail was quite rocky. Madeline had a blast and Maison, well, he just chilled in the chest pack.

This morning, Thor, the kids, my parents and I went out to the lake and walked the old railroad trail the mile to the first set of tunnels. It was a beautiful morning, actually starting to get hot. The view from the trail is very serene, just the mountains and the lake, and there weren't many people out so it was nice and quiet.

The trail was too soft for the stroller, so Madeline walked a lot of the way there, but when she was tired she would only let her g-ma carry her. Madeline saw her first lizard, I told her it was kinda like a little cat, and she didn't want to leave it.

She loved to run all goofy with her g-pa and he kept picking wildflowers for her (probably illegal, we know!). It was really cute. I carried Maison in the chest pack while he chewed on the front of it (yes, he did have a hat on). The return trip was a little rough, at least for Thor who ended up carrying an exhausted 2 year old the whole way back.