Photo Update of September

It has been a while since we have updated the blog...sorry for that. We have been busy updating our latest happenings on Facebook. If you are looking for more updates, pictures, and video we would encourage you to join Facebook and "befriend" us. We have pictures and updates on there on a near daily basis. However, here are LOTS of photos from last week. I was on vacation, we had a wedding to go to, Justin and his fiance Sam were here from New York, and we went to the coast. Add all that with the fact that the three of us fought illnesses of all sorts for a week (or more), we were quite busy. Enjoy!
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We spent last Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at the coast. Wednesday was an awful day for weather...colder and rainy...so we were a little more low key than we had planned. We decided to visit a dairy farm....

Mommy and Maddie posing.

This is at the Tillamook factory...

Maddie enjoying the petting zoo....

Megan, um, not so much....

We wanted to go on a hike, but the weather thwarted that. This is the Octopus tree near Cape Meares.

Taking a little break on our little hike...

This is an out-of-commission lighthouse that was kind of cool...

Tuesday was a beautiful day at the beach...too bad it was our shortest day there.

Maddie and I after a dip in the ocean....

Grammy was not afraid of the water either....

As you all know, Maddie LOVES the water. Hello Hawaii in less than 2 months!

Three generations....

Eating wild blackberries at Ecola State Park...

Sightseeing at Ecola State Park....Maddie already wanted to go swimming at this point...

Aunt Sam and Uncle Justin...

Too bad Maddie is not looking at the camera in this pic...

Did I mention it was a beautiful day?

We don't really have any pictures from Thursday, even though it was an even better day. This was partially due to the fact that I woke up really, really sick on Thursday. I was aching all over and puking all day. Yuk! I hear that everyone played in the sand and water some more and relaxed by reading and playing games. I slept all day and missed out on most the festivities.

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On Labor Day weekend Megan's cousin James got married at his parents' property in Springdale (outside Troutdale). It was a large wedding! Maddie stayed home with our neighbors and she did a great job with them. The day after the wedding there was a lunch out there and we got to take Maddie to that.

This is Maddie with her cousin Emma playing an old pick-up.

And here she is with Ethan, Emma's little brother...

We were excited to see O'Pa and O'Ma at the wedding....

Almost as excited as seeing them out on the dance floor!!!

James and his Megan - They are way too cute of a couple!

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Of course, it is football season and we have had our ups and downs so far. Maddie did not go to the first home game as she stayed with Papa Randy, Robyn, and Jackson and she did great. We are debating taking her to next week's home game. We want to show her off, but also worry about keeping her entertained for 4+ hours.

I have saved the worst for last..... Maddie had a rough start to the month with a couple separate headers that caused some boo-boos on her head. The first was when she tried to get out of the stroller herself and fell head first onto the asphalt! Ouch! The second was when she faked Megan out and went head first off the play bridge on the playground at the park. Please do not turn us into child services....we promise we were trying to prevent these from happening! But, the pictures speak for themselves....

She is all better now, though. Thankfully she is a quick healer!

Updates

I know this is Maddie's website, but let me indulge in a quick personal brag. Last weekend I participated in the Portland to Coast race, which is a 127 mile relay walk. I was very nervous going into it, not knowing what to expect, and not really knowing anybody on my team. Of course I ended up having a fabulous time. And, our team did really well. It took us just over 28 hours to complete the race. I did a 5.75 mile leg and a 4.09 mile leg, averaging just over 11 minutes per mile. Maddie stayed back in Portland, spending one day with my dad and Robyn, and the other day with Tony. It was super tough to be away from her for so long, but it was good to do something for myself, and I have a huge sense of strength and accomplishment. Thanks to all who supported me!

Our team name was "Big Daddy and the Streetwalkers" We had 11 women and one man on our team. My nickname was "Mama Fox."
Here is my team (minus the person who is walking)

This is the start of my first leg. It rained on my leg, and off an on throughout the night. We got about an hour sleep in the van. By the time we got to the coast we were exhausted, but adrenaline works wonders!

Ok, now back to Maddie. I would say the main update is the explosion of her verbal skills. She is now repeating everything you say. She can even put two words together like "bye bye dada" or "go ducks!" Her new words are: walk, Elmo, oval, but (button), Maddie, burp, scuze (excuse me), wuv u (love you), Tyou (thank you), wat (water), and o'pa. She also now signs poop and diaper change. Notice the fascination with bodily functions already!! She knows where her "pee pee" is and has asked to sit on the toilet, so we bought her a potty chair.

She is so proud to sit on her Elmo potty!

Enjoying the last days of summer!

Doesn't Daddy look pretty in Maddie's bikini?

Daddy will have extra time for lounging around in his swim attire this week as he is on VACATION from both WORK and SCHOOL!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have some family activities planned as Justin and Sam are coming to town, but we will also take some much needed down time.

Got Milk?

This is what happens when Maddie drinks from Daddy's milk glass....

She starts out all nice, letting Daddy helpThen a little milk dribbles down her chin...no problem yet....

Then she grabs the glass, wants to do it herself, and.....

They are both covered in milk! More laundry for Mommy to wash!

Pics

Here is a photo montage of our last two weeks.

Maddie's new tent bed! This is our solution to her having learned to climb out of her crib!!

Hiking Mt. Talbert

Swimming on the Columbia River

It was an impromptu swimming trip so we didn't have a towel. Daddy gave up his undershirt for the cause.

We didn't have a swimsuit either. Maddie didn't care though! She loved throwing rocks into the river.

Our third wedding anniversary! We celebrated with a picnic in a local park and Daddy took a long lunch break.

It was an upscale picnic...with linens and everything!

Clackamas aquatic park.




Maddie had no fear of the water slide. She looked like such a big girl doing it all by herself!

(FYI...It was a steep learning curve to learn to hold our new camera the right way when shooting video....so you will have to turn your head to the side to enjoy.)

Happy 17 month birthday!!

Wow, we can't believe Maddie is 17 months already. It has been a while since we gave some updates on what she is up to. She was sick again last week. Uggh. At least it was just a cold, but she was so kind and shared it with both of us. She has also had some major changes to her daily schedule. For almost a month she was down to just one nap a day, without changing her bedtime of around 7PM and waking up at 6 AM sharp. Then she started getting really cranky in the afternoons, throwing lots of temper tantrums, and so finally we started giving her a second nap again. Now she takes two naps, but she pushed her bed time back until around 8 or 8:30 PM and she sleeps in until 7:30 or 8 AM! This has been great so she can spend more time with Tony in the evenings, and we can get a little more shut eye. However, it limits the amount of activities we can do during the day since she is still needing two naps. Oh the trade offs!


As far as development, Maddie is communicating a whole lot more. She is so fun to talk to. She babbles constantly and makes her needs known through speaking and sign language. She says "what's that?" and points to everything so we can label it for her. She has a book of Baby's First 100 words that she reads several times a day and has quite a long attention span. We name all the body parts, the foods, the animals etc. New words include: shoes, water, and ouch. Her newest sign is "owie". She is fixated on Tony's injured leg and asks me many times a day about Dada's owie. She is also really fun to talk on the phone with now as she will actually talk.



Physically she is growing a lot and I can't wait to get her official measurements at her 18 month check up which is scheduled in September. She is also really working on her jumping and climbing skills. She knows how to throw her arms up in the air for "touch down" and she will flex when you ask to see her muscles. She is wearing a size 6 shoe and 24 month clothing!!! She has 4 of her molars but none of her eye teeth yet. Her hair is super light due to the time in the sun, and it is very curly in back. Her eyes have changed to a beautiful hazel/brown/green. She loves to giggle and she is not shy about asking to see your belly and give it a kiss.


Maddie is very curious and precocious. She knows what she wants, and she is always watching to learn new things, even some things that we don't necessarily want to teach her yet! She gets her little hands into anything we leave out, and she has learned to grab things off of the counter. She is obsessed with shoes and she carries them around and demands that I wear a certain pair. She likes to say "uh oh" even when things aren't an accident (like throwing food off of her high chair tray). She is also very interested in how the straps on her carseat, high chair etc work. She wants to sit (unstrapped) and play with the straps for long periods of time. This is not so much fun for me because she has to be supervised closely if she is not strapped in. For instance, we went to the park last week and she sat in the swing, unstrapped, and played with the straps for over a half an hour, and screamed bloody murder if I suggested we try a different activity.

Maddie has also developed her social skills. She says hi and bye and waves enthusiastically to everyone she sees in public. She begs for attention from people who aren't looking at her, and then when people do look at her she gets coy and pretends to be shy. She is not shy at all, and she loves playing with other kids on the playground. Sometimes she watches for a while before she joins in, but she loves other kids.

Basically, Maddie is tons of fun to be around, she is super social, and she makes everyone around her smile!


Here are a couple of new pics! Enjoy!!

Tony, Tony, Tony has done it again

Happy Birthday Tony!!!

We had a wonderful BBQ with over 30 people here on Saturday to celebrate Tony! The weather was gorgeous and we grilled up burgers and dogs for everyone. The kids played and the adults chatted. It was an awesome, relaxing day!


After he blew out the candles, he turned them around to say "23" instead of "32".

U of O tie for casual Fridays.

So, as awesome as Saturday was, Sunday was that terrible. Tony was working on his honey-do list and he went up to look at our broken attic fan. He was looking up and following the wires and not necessarily looking where he was walking. He slipped and stepped in a spot that was not reinforced. His entire right leg went through the insulation and plaster, and through the ceiling in the hallway. Maddie and I heard the crash and saw all the debris fall (along with his shoe) into the house. I went running up to the attic and he was bleeding all down his leg. Luckily he was able to hobble down the stairs. He was in a lot of pain and had a large gash on his knee, so I rushed him to the emergency room. After 3 sets of xrays to rule out a possible fracture, we are happy to report that he has no broken bones. He did, however, need 4 stitches to close up the leg wound. It was super scary, but we are lucky that it was not worse.

This was after they cleaned everything up. It doesn't look so bad in this pic, but the wound is deep!


After we got home, Tony is elevating his leg. The doctor told him to stay off of it as much as possible, but he decided to go to work today anyway!

While we were gone, my mom and our neighbors cleaned up the pile of stuff that came through the ceiling. (I wish we had a picture!) Then they taped over the hole with a Corona beer box. Umm, a little White Trash, but it'll do until we can get it fixed. I told Tony that if he wanted to get out of doing his chores, he could have found a better way than this! I guess you lose a little coordination when you reach the ripe old age of 32!

Maybe next year's birthday weekend won't be quite so eventful! Thanks to everyone for all the birthday wishes, cards, calls, texts, emails, gifts, FB messages and to everyone who came and celebrated with us!