Pictures by the Princess

Maddie has been taking quite a few pics lately, all of these were snapped by the princess herself!  We have tried to push the toy camera on her, which occasionally gets some use, but not nearly as much as our own camera.  The toy substitutes never seem to grab the attention of a 2Y9M old as the real thing.... it's quite the ploy by the toymakers.  I have to imagine that every parent has ventured into a toy section of a store and thought they had the perfect idea:  "oh, I'll buy the toy (cell phone, tv remote, laptop, etc) version, and then my kid will never grab the ones in our house again"... yeah, right!  After five minutes with the paltry toy substitute, it quickly joins the pile of toys that will never see the light of day again.  Not to mention that parents quickly forget about their wasted purchase(s) and are duped in the toy section once again -- just dig in Maddie's toy box for a data point:  cell phones, laptop, remotes... you get the point.

Believe it or not, we have learned.  We taught Maddie how to operate our remote control -- before bed, we usually watch 20 minutes of tv and she drinks a cup of milk.  Once she's done with her glass, she will get up, pause the tv, brush her teeth, come back into the living room, press play on the remote, and then snuggle back up on the couch.  Time spent in total with remote - 20 seconds, she only presses the required buttons and puts it down... it doesn't peak her interest like it used to, the random pressing of buttons has come to an end.

Activity Time

We have been working with Maddie every night on her activity books... tracing, mazes, and coloring.  She's getting very good at finding her way through the mazes that are 1-inch wide.  After we work through a couple pages in each book, we move on to her princess sticker book -- incentives are key!

One day I was showing Maddie how to draw smiley faces:  draw a circle, two eyes, nose, and mouth.  She was kind of grasping the concept and getting pretty close to actually making one.... after multiple (close) attempts, I left her at the table with the marker and paper while I washed some dishes -- when I came back to the table, voila!  I guess she didn't want me looking over her shoulder!

Exersaucer time - Helmet Debut

Dylan has adjusted well to his helmet -- on for 23 hours a day -- and we take it off from 7-8PM every night.  Last night he played in his exersaucer (without helmet) for almost 30 minutes... no doubt it's much harder for him to maneuver with it on. 

Here's Maddie and Dylan enjoying a pretty tame play session together.

Hiding under the desk

Maddie and Chelsea got to see each other for a little bit this weekend -- they had fun as usual.  What's the first thing they do when they get together?  run straight upstairs and play dress up of course!  I usually make a trip up there every 5-10 minutes to see what kind of trouble they are getting into.  It wasn't before long that my daughter and niece quickly picked up on this subtle supervisory technique -- now I get to play hide-and-seek first... and then ask the questions.

Family Time

Yeah these are staged... but the weekends are all about quality time with the fam.  Every single day another story, for instance:

Madison waking up in the middle of the night -- putting her night light away -- shutting off her humidifier -- turning on her light -- and then passing out in the middle of her room on the floor... only to be discovered when we wake up to feed Dylan at 3AM.

Dylan starting to grab toys that are within his reach... and it's very easy to make the little guy laugh now too.

Dad forgetting to put his belt on before work.

Mom and Maddie spending quality time making treats... popsicles, cupcakes, cookies. 

And for the big game tonight, I plan on doing nothing.... sure it will be on in the background, but it will be nothing more than noise combined with the playroom that once was our living room.  Why should I pretend to care about a game that doesn't involve the Bills, or feel the need to critique the multi-million dollar commercials that everyone for some reason has to talk about at work tomorrow... I'll be happily singing kids songs in my living room while this over-hyped game goes down in the history books.

Story Time

We checked out story time at one of the local book stores this weekend, as it turns out, they have them every Saturday at 11AM.  Once we got there (and our family was situated), we left Maddie to fend for herself on one of the benches during the story telling -- this way she would have to learn to mingle outside of her current close knit group of friends... she did very well.  After story time was over, it was on to arts and crafts -- Maddie couldn't get enough.  We plan on making story time at the book store part of our weekly routine.

Enjoying her breakfast

Always has something interesting to say... she still knows where to look for pocket change (link).

Just minutes later - a random song... you have to listen carefully to hear the soft-spoken lyrics:

Pretend Rain

Maddie discovered her spring wardrobe on Saturday.  Yes, some transactions took place already for the next season -- apparently there were some deals that could not be overlooked -- gotta strike when the iron is hot.  Madison found her new rain boots and immediately put them on in the house... you will also notice that she complimented the outfit with a pink hand band as well.