red red robin

Mom and I took Maddie to Red Robin Monday night for dinner. She loved the balloons! She kept pointing to the ones that the other kids had and wanted them too.

another playdate with Georgia

Becky and Georgia came in town Sunday to visit her parents here in Wichita. So they came over Monday afternoon for a playdate. The girls played together pretty well. Madison is not used to sharing her toys and Georgia is in the "mine" stage. Other than a few instances, they did great though. Thanks for coming over girls!

sea horse

Another trip to the Crestview pool. This time we had a floaty for M. She liked it better in the baby pool than in the big pool.
Grandpa is being goofy too.

pancakes

Grandma bought this fancy pancake pan when they were on vacation a couple of months ago. So she made Madison pancakes this weekend. It took her a while to figure out that their were animals on the pancakes, but she loved them.

reading with grandma

frog pool

Friday afternoon we blew up Madison's frog pool (a present from the Brenemans, thanks!) and set it up in the backyard. She wasn't sure at first, but had a great time. Mom brought the watering can out with warm water. Madison decided she wanted to play with it and eventually drink out of it.

Elmo!

On Friday, Grandma decided she wanted to get Madison an upolstered chair. So we went to Toy'R'Us to see what they had. Once Maddie saw this one, there was no going back. She loves it! This is in one room and her rocker is in the other. She goes back and forth between them. Elmo also talkes to her if she presses his hand. She knows how to make him talk by herself.

Lounging.

And we are busy again. We have to walk around while we talk on the phone.

Pretty in pink

Had to get a picture of the dress, barette and shoes. Too cute.

kissing cousins

On Thursday, my second cousins and their kids were all in town staying with their mom, Margo. We've been to Margo's before to swim with a couple of the cousins (Allie and Vanessa). This time the rest were there. Emily and Sarah are the oldest in the first picture. The last picture is Chase, Allie sitting down and Anna. We went swimming with everyone and then went inside for lunch. The kids loved playing with Madison. We decided she was like a real life doll for them.
At lunch Chase's mom Jenny was explaining that I was Spencer's sister (they all remember Spencer from Thankgiving get togethers because he plays with them the best). Anyway, Chase looked at Madison and declared that she and Spencer make the same face. Its like eyes wide open and mouth in a "O". As soon as he said it, I realized he was totally right.

We found a house!

So we found a house last week. Randomly I flew down on my dad's company's plane last wednesday. I saw the house that day, Rick saw it that night. We put an offer on Thursday that was excepted. So now we are just negotiating inspections stuff. Hopefully we'll have everything resolved today or tomorrow. I'm going down this weekend and we are going to get back in the house. So I'll send pics when I get back. Yeah!

another update

Madsion is a very busy girl these days. She doesn't sit down, of course, and she seems to be growing by the minute. She now says dog, down & cat. She has been saying I love you (all one word), hat, outside, and go for a couple of weeks. She also says Jayhawk! Sorry Rick. My dad has been singing Rock Chalk to her for a couple of months now and she now give the statue of the Jayhawk in the yard kisses. She tries to hiss like the snake, but it comes out more like a blowing a raspberry.
Yesterday I asked her to give me a kiss and she shook her head no. Another first. We are working on asking her if we need to change her diaper. Sometimes she says yes, but sometimes she doesn't say no even though we need to. She now knows what we mean when we say its time for night night. And she usually shakes her head no for that one too. Its amazing how much more she understands and communicated with us even from a month ago.
Here is a picture from yesterday with her ponytail and new puzzle.

Botanica

We took Madison to Botanica today. Its the botanica gardens in Wichita, and my mom worked there for 12 years and then she was the interim director last fall while they found a new director.
Madison had a great time with the flowers, butterflies and fish.
Here is the fountain in the lobby that Maddie loved sticking her hand in.

Here are the koi fish at the pavilion. Madison loved feeding them her cheerios, when she wasn't busy eating the cheerios herself.

The next several are in the butterfly house. Its a really cool area. Its like a really big hoop house made of netting so the butterflies can fly around. They also have cocoons that hatch. There were a few that had just hatched and couldn't fly that well. We tried to set one Madison's arm but she kept trying to grab it and it flew off. She loved trying to get them though.




Grandma and Madison at the fountain.

helping G'ma in the garden

I went to get my haircut this morning. When I got back Madison was helping Grandma in the garden.

Happy Father's Day!

We had a great time with Dad this weekend. Madison gave him a card with a bear giving a hug, which she promptly took back to play with. Happy Father's Day!

Another trip to the Wichita Zoo

Rick came to Wichita this weekend so we went back to the Zoo. Here are pictures at the chimps, feeding the giraffes again and riding the cow at the petting zoo. This time Madison's favorites were the cougar, the squirrel monkeys, the gorillas, penquins, wolves and bears.

headband

So I'm slowly working on getting Madison to wear things in her hair. Sometimes we can get barettes in she will leave them, sometimes not. Here is here headband. She wore it for about 2 minutes. That is an improvement!

the hat

This is the hat that I used to play with when I was a little girl. It was my mom's. My mom painted a picture of me wearing it and its one of my favorite paintings.

Madison's new trick

So Madison saw me do this and then a couple of days later she started doing it. She puts the brush inside her stacking cups and then I ask her where it went and she lifts the cups. She is so proud of herself!

Filling Mom's shoes

Madison decided that she wanted to try to walk in Mom's shoes. The were a little too big though.

Interuption

Sorry, the zoo post was interupted last week by the tornado sirens going off. I decided that I need to get my daughter who was asleep upstairs and bring her to the basement. I've added more now...

the zoo!

Tuesday morning Mom and I took Madison to the Sedgwick County Zoo. We went to the chimps first and Madison wasn't sure what to think. But after she got used to everything, she loved it. The best part was she got feed the giraffes!
More on the zoo: She loved the penquins, gorillas, elephants, zebras, sheep, peacock...pretty much any animal she saw. The Sedgwick County Zoo is really nice. Lots of shade and lots of easy to see animals.