Sunshine Girl

The weather today was so perfect, we just had to spend time outside! Maddie loves to play on the lawn in our front yard, especially with Lucy. Even when it's cold and raining, Maddie begs to to outside. Silly girl. Tonight my mom came and babysat Maddie so that Keith and I could go on a date (yipee!) and they went to the park nearby for almost two hours! I'm sure our girl was in heaven and didn't want to come home!

This is our neighbor Lee--both her and her husband Jim are such sweet people and they love Maddie so much. Maddie always wants to give them big hugs.

Maddie decided to take Lee on a little walk. :-)

I had taken my shoes off to walk barefoot on the grass, so Maddie wanted her shoes off too!


All that running around and playing takes a lot out of a girl. Whew! :-) Happy Weekend everybody!!

Creative Outlet

I always love having an outlet for my creative energy. My mom is throwing a bridal shower for our dear friend Cody, so she asked me to design and make the invitations. An excuse to dig into my paper stash and use my new big scalloped circle punch? Count me in! Cody is quite the gourmet foodie and wanted to have a kitchen shower, so we're asking each guest to bring a favorite recipe (hence the matching recipe card included with the invite), along with a fun kitchen gadget or gourmet food items. It should be tons of fun!

This is the invitation set...invite card, recipe card and paper wrap to hold it all together.

This is how it looks when you pull it out of the envelope. The type in the circle is the wedding date and bride & groom's names. The recipe card is tucked in the back.

The invitation.

Thanks for taking a peek! :-)

Potty training

Maddie just turned 17 months old, so even though we aren't really "potty training" yet, we did get her a potty to practice on. Keith and I have a feeling (or at least a big HOPE) that she'll be easy to train because she's already able to point to her diapers when she has messy ones. On two different occasions she's been able to pee-pee and poo in the potty, but usually by the time she does her signal and we rush into the bathroom, it's too late. I guess her signaling in those cases is more of a "by the way, in case you are interested and would like to do something about it, my diapers are in need of some attention."

In case all you grown-ups have forgotten, just getting onto the potty can be quite a physical feat! First you squat down and crabwalk BACKWARDS towards the potty.

Then, while doing the splits, you lift your rear high into the air and shuffle your feet backwards once again.

After much maneuvering, you finally make it into a sitting position! Whew! That alone is a workout, let alone the actual pottying part.

On another note, we were calling Keith today (he's been in San Francisco all week for a conference) and Maddie decided to use her sharing skills and teach Lucy how to talk on the phone! So hilarious. Lucy's such a patient dog! I'm so glad I had my camera ready!! :-)

Looking more like home

So, now that it's April and we've been back in our house since January, we decided it was about time to actually decorate and get some pictures on the walls! Yes, we're slow. We've been motivated by having friends over for dinner the last two weekends, which makes us want to get the house looking presentable! We still have to finish hanging some cabinet doors in the kitchen (so no pics of that room yet), but other than that things are really coming together.

This week Madeline learned how to climb up on the couch all by herself...TROUBLE!! I had put on XM radio on the TV for her to listen to and then went into the kitchen. Suddenly I hear rap music coming from the living room...that's odd. I went in to check and found Maddie chillin' on the couch, one arm on the armrest and the remote in her hand, like it was the most natural thing in the world. :-)

living room

shot from living room into dining room

view when you walk in the front door

I'll post more pics of the house later! :-)

Lions and Tigers and Bears!

Today we went on a grand adventure...Maddie's first trip to the zoo! Keith played hookie in the afternoon so that we could all experience it together. We've been wanting to go for a long time, but it always seemed that the weather or our schedules didn't cooperate. Unfortunately, today was Spring Break for Washington, so the number of people and especially the parking lot was CRAZY!! Remind me never to go during a holiday again. :-)

Maddie absolutely loved everything and she was very equal-opportunity with the love...real animals, wood carvings, stone statues...it's all good.

It's so fun to watch her walk everywhere herself now and be independent...which, of course, means lots of detours. Teddy bears are one of her favorite things, so this "teddy" got lots of hugs!

The polar bears are so grand looking. Too bad we couldn't convince him to play in the water while we were there!

One of Maddie's favorite animal exhibits was the goats...go figure! She must be a farm girl at heart.
Oh, that Daddy of mine is so hilarious!

Packy, the baby of the group. All the grown ups were inside feeding and he was outside all by his lonesome. :-(



Don't huge animals look so peaceful when they're sleeping?

Getting a good view of that black "teddy".

Soooo many fish to look at! Oh, and she made sure to give the fishies a kiss on the glass too.


Ahem! Uh, I'm not really sure what's going on with these three turtles...shall we call it "wrestling" perhaps?

A ride in Daddy's arms after a long, exciting day. We'll come see you again, zoo!