My Little Big Girl!

My goodness how time flies!

  So I was reading through some of the blogs that I follow and decided that I needed to steal this idea (thanks Sarah for the wonderful post on Avery). With a new baby on the way very shortly I figured that I needed to dedicate a page to things that Maddi has been doing. I know that I won't have much time once the baby is born, so I want to do a little focus on Maddi. This might be a little long, but this is mostly for me and family that read this blog. Our little stinker has been up to a lot lately and she has such a bright wonderful personality. Maddi Jo is now 29 months old and shortly after getting her baby sister she will be 2 1/2 (February 5th). She has gotten to be very independent. She doesn't really want me to help her wash in the bathtub. She lets me put the soap on the washcloth and then she does the rest. She has to brush her own hair, and brush her teeth. Maddi feeds herself 90% of the time and generally uses silverware. She loves to be so independent that when she can't do something she gets really frustrated and generally starts throwing a fit. I have to tell her to calm down and try it again.

She was just learning to sit up

   Maddi is quite the talker and most of the time I would say that I can understand her (except when she starts jabbering). She has also started repeating everything people say, so I really have to watch out. However it has been nice to because that is how she learned to say "Tank you bery much" (thank you very much) and "S'cuse me" (excuse me). I've got her Uncle Cole trained to what words I don't want her repeating and he has been really good about making it "Maddi appropriate". She has a hard time saying the sound /l/. So we have some fun times with those kinds of words. My favorite is when she says lunch it comes out "hunch".

   Maddi  loves to point out emotions. Every night we like to read a few stories before I put her down and she loves to tell me which books have happy people or animals or sad ones. She doesn't like it when the Mother duck cries so every time we get to that page she has to cover it up. She really knows happy and sad, but recently she has started knowing what scared looks like or when she feels scared. 

Just shy of 1 year old

   Maddi Jo also loves to point out the color of everything. She started doing this when she first turned 2, but now she really has them all down. I used to think that purple was her favorite color, but now it seems to be green. She has a green (it is mostly white, with some green and pink hearts on it) shirt that she wears just about every day. I can only talk her into letting me wash it every third or fourth day. First thing in the morning she comes into my room and asks if she can wear her "green shirt". She usually has it in her hands waiting for me to put it on her.

   Maddi also has to identify everything as a Mommy, Daddy, or Maddi. I am unsure what will happen when we had a baby sister to the mix, but for now it works. She also lines all her animals, snowmen, or whatever she has and labels them according to size (Daddy's are always the biggest and Maddi's are the smallest).  



Daddy's graduation May 2009



   Maddi is such a good eater. She loves eating oatmeal or cream of wheat for breakfast which makes my dad quite proud. One morning she devoured a bowl of oatmeal, two scrambled eggs, half a piece of toast, and a cup of orange juice. She loves anything pasta. She would probably eat mac 'n cheese every day if I let her. She also loves hot dogs and I usually have to limit her to 2 per meal. Thankfully her love of food also includes fruit and veggies. Her favorite fruit is probably grapes and her favorite veggie is broccoli.

    Maddi loves to be wild and crazy. Her favorite thing to do is probably swinging or hanging upside down (as long as she isn't flying upside down). She aslo loves to go on rides. She calls them "rides to the store". I think this is probably because Mitch has been swinging her and giving her rides since she could sit up. Although she was wild on her own before that climbing out of her crib when she was 8 months old, and walking/running since she was 10 months old. She loves to laugh and usually has a wonderful time. She loves to dance and sometimes she will just run in circles laughing. 

    One last thing. Maddi got a doll house and some dolls for Christmas she has started playing with them quite often (several times a day) and loves to take good care of the babies it came with. She usually has them all at the table for "hunch". She also talks with them and seems to have quite the wild imagination.

   Maddi has been such a joy in our lives and has grown so fast I don't know what happened to my little baby.  She takes such good care of her babies that I know she is going to make a wonderful big sister.

This one was taken this summer and I just love her sweet little face!