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!

Lovin' Summer

July Updates

Guest post from Tony....

We have been extremely busy around here these past couple of weeks. After a whirlwind couple of weeks spent in Roseburg and Sunriver (the girls) we decided to stick a little closer to home for the most part. However, we have been busy between work, homework (I am now past the half-way point), Jazzercise, library time, berry picking, play dates, and trips to The Dalles. Here is a snapshot of the first two weeks of July.


Megan and Maddie took Grammy to The Dalles on the 4th of July to visit O'Ma and O'Pa while I stayed home to finish a paper for my MBA program. They all had a blast and made sure to come back with lots of cherries from the orchard.

This is Maddie exchanging 'knuckles' with O'Pa!

Maddie wants to make sure everyone wears sunscreen this summer.

"See, O'Ma, this is how you put the sunscreen on."

Maddie has not liked learning the word "no"!!!

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Each July we go to Lost Lake as a family. We started this tradition two years ago as a way to remember Peanut, our first baby. Peanut was due on July 3, so the 4th of July holiday is always bittersweet for us. We try not to go to Lost Lake on the 4th of July weekend to avoid heavy crowds. We went this past Saturday and the weather was gorgeous. We had a great time, except for the spectacular header Maddie took off of one of the boardwalks. She tripped over the edge, fell about 18 inches, landed on her head, did a cartwheel and then a flip. She cried for all of about 2 seconds while Megan and I sprinted toward her. Megan made sure to check on Maddie's mental faculties by asking her to make all of her animal sounds (she is up to cow, monkey, snake, and dog) and she passed with flying colors. There is a picture of her wound at the end.

Here is a picture from 2007....my, how some things change!



Here is the family last year....Maddie was so small!

Here we are this year. What a cute family, eh?

Anyone know how to get a 16-month old to pose?

This is a picture at Peanut's spot. This is Maddie kissing Peanut.

This is Maddie throwing rocks in the lake. If you look closely you can see the rock next to the flower in the middle of her swim top.

"Whoa! Did you see how far that went?!"

Maddie is sooooooo a water baby!



Here is Maddie's wound from "The Fall".

On Sunday, Aunt Kris flew into town on her way up to Seattle for work. She came over to our house for breakfast and then we went up to Washington to have dinner with Grandpa Randy, Robyn, and Jackson later in the day. It was so nice to see her and have her fit it into her schedule. We can't wait to see Kris and Nick again later this summer!

Kris, Maddie, and Megan chilling on the couch.

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We have lots of busy weekends coming up! This weekend we are hosting "the girls" for a summer BBQ. It remains to be seen if I will be joining the party or not...but there is BBQ pork, so there is a good chance. My mom is also coming up on Saturday to visit Maddie and we are excited to have Mimi come and visit.

The weekend after that Megan is taking advantage of last year's anniversary present and having a spa day. She will be pampered all day while Grammy and I watch Maddie. The weekend after that we are having a BBQ at our house for someone's 32nd birthday. Some old geezer I guess.

Other than that we continually stay busy and look forward to seeing our friends and family. Much love to all!

Tony, Megan, and Madelyn

Sunriver

I love Sunriver! This year was Maddie and my 2nd annual Moms' trip (4 moms and all our kids). The weather was perfect--cool in the evening and hot during the day. We swam, rode bikes, walked and played outside. We were having so much fun that we even stayed a day longer than planned. Maddie and I both came home with suntans. Hers is a little farmer tan since her swimsuit has arms.

What a group! The kids did great together this year, hardly any squabbling, and the moms got time to read and relax among the chaos.

This is Alex. He didn't want to sit for the group photo. Alex was the lone boy this year. He used to be the baby until Maddie showed up. Last year he was kind of rough with Maddie and I had to watch them closely. This year he was super gentle and watched after her really sweetly.

My mom came over to join us for the weekend. She loved being "grandma" to all the kids!

My dad was randomly in Sunriver for a tennis tournament the same weekend, so we got to have a belated Father's day breakfast at the lodge with him, Robyn and Jackson. We didn't go for the brunch buffet, but sometime I want to splurge and do the it. There was a cool make-it-yourself juice bar with tons of fresh fruits and veggies!

Maddie got to ride sitting up (without a car seat) for the first time in a bike trailer. She loved it! She said "wee" when I went fast and "uh oh" when I went over bumps. Then she fell asleep!

Maddie did really well with the travel and with being away from home with so many other people. She did wake up during the nights but I think it was partly because I was sleeping in the same room with her, and partly because she is still working on cutting her molars. The bottom ones are almost poked all the way through (you can see all four of the prongs) but the top ones still have a ways to go. There was also an "incident" at the pool.....ask me about it someday after some time has passed............

Strawberry Pickin'

We went strawberry picking last week with our friends Cynthia and Drake. The kids started off by entertaining themselves in the wagon while we picked. This is a funny picture because they swapped drink cups. Maddie hasn't really had juice before she she thought it was a great trade....Drake was stuck with water which I don't think he thought was a fair deal. But he did like trying out the straw! At first I had to help Maddie pick the berry and eat it....
Then she figured it out all by herself. (Of course she found it much easier to pick berries out of my bucket rather than off the plants!)

Messy faces!

Maddie helping push the wagon

The "fruits" of our labors!

Fun day!! Next up is raspberry picking.........