Off to the Gilbert House we go....

Now that Madisen is such a "big girl", we decided it was time to let her go check out AC Gilbert's Discovery Village (aka:the Gilbert house) The Gilbert house consists of 3 historic houses all together filled with fun and exciting interactive exhibits... they have a kids supermarket to go shopping in, a undersea cave of frozen shadows, an exhibit on China, a Brazilian Rainforest theater, and Madi's all-time favorite the BUBBLE room! There are TONS more but too many to list... :0)
This was the first trip we've taken where Madi could just explore everything on her own... although Mommy & Daddy were there to give her a lift from one exhibit to the next (and to play along with her) she loved being able to walk (sometimes run!) through all the new exciting exhibits. I'm thinking we may need to get a family membership since she loves it there SO much! Here are some pictures from our adventure:

Learning about China

Checking out the toddler room

Trying to figure out how the locks work

Maybe Dad can help

Peek-a-boo!

BUBBLES! Yay!

Daddy giving Madi a close-up of the bubbles

Madi & Mommy checking out the storybook room

Our Little Rock Star!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADI-CAKES!!
Wow!! Where did the last year go? They really weren't kidding when they told us to cherish every moment (even the endless screaming until 3am moments) we shared with Madi since it will all go by in a flash!
January 8th 2010 our little Madisen Ann turned ONE YEAR OLD!!
We celebrated, of course, by throwing her a HUGE Birthday Bash!

The theme? ROCK STAR!

Picture hot pink, black, white, & lots and lots of ZEBRA print! (Yes I had way too much fun planning and decorating for this!!) We invited tons of friends and family to come help us celebrate our little Madi...
We had animal print balloons and inflatable guitars & microphones everywhere to play with! Pizza and finger foods to munch on. And the Best CAKE EVER! (Made with love, by Grandma!)
Here are some pics from the big day:

Part of the group checking out the spectacular slide show of Madisen Brendan made.

Grandma making sure the birthday girl gets enough to eat!

Madi & Mommy opening up her birthday gifts.


Madisen loved having all her "kids" at our house all at once!


Even Auntie Ann got to join in on the fun! (Yay for Skype!)


Wow all this singing for ME??

YUM! This is SO GOOD!

MMMmmmmmm!!

The aftermath.... what to play with first?

We had SO much fun! The planning, the trips to the craft store with my party-planner partner Peggy (try saying that 3 times fast!), picking out the perfect outfit to go with Madi's super cute zebra tutu (from Grandma, of course!), blowing up a million balloons and party favors, hanging way too many decorations (I may have gone a bit overboard) and the hours ( well weeks!) Brendan spent perfecting the best slideshow of Madi ever! ... it was all worth it to see how happy Madi was on her special day!
I can't wait to start planning for next year!!! :0)

Christmas!

Merry Christmas!
Ok, so Christmas was a month ago, yes... But it's never to late to let you all know what a great time Madisen had her VERY FIRST CHRISTMAS!

December was an exciting month for our little family...

It was so great to be able to show Madi what the holidays are about... All the lights on the trees, the endless baking with Grandma & Aunt Jen (along with all her Cousins and Mommy too, of course!) learning how to unwrap presents (also learning to leave the presents under the tree and not touch them until Christmas) lots and lots of shopping, and spending tons of time with our family! Madisen loved every minute of it! We started off the season with some hard-core Black Friday shopping! After spending Thanksgiving at my brothers house ( and eating WAY too much yummy food! Madi LOVED the sweet potatoes!) Madi & I ( along with Aunt Ashley) hurried off to sleep so we could get ourselves up at 4am to go grab some good deals! I thought Madi would sleep through the whole thing but she woke right up and was wide awake quietly taking all the craziness in..She did great! I hadn't done the black Friday shopping in years.. it was definitely worth it though, we were able to take home some great gifts and didn't have to push too many people out of our way to get them along the way! :0)
Next it was time to get the perfect Christmas tree... We usually go out & cut our own tree down, but this year we thought we'd check out our very local tree farm (it's just down the street from us) Since we had Madisen with us we thought it may be easier to get a tree a little closer to home. We bundled Madi-cakes up and set off to pick out our Tree... Madi loved checking them all out... it didn't take long for us to find THE one. Taking it home was a bit of an adventure...the guys at the tree farm were nice enough to "tie" the tree to the roof of our SUV. Looking back though, yes, we should have been more concerned when they looked puzzled at each other, then turned to us and asked if we were going very far? But alas, we were just happy to have a tree and excited to get it home to start decorating so, off we went... 2 turns and 1 stop light later though, the tree was hanging off the side of our car ready to fall off at any time... I thought maybe if we opened the sunroof I could grab it and hold it while we drove the rest of the way home..surprisingly (haha) though I couldn't reach it & we ended up pulling over. Brendan was able to get it back up on the roof & we (I attempted then B took over) held onto it through the sunroof all the way home. Next came the lights and the ornaments ( including a special "First Christmas" one for Miss Madi-cakes) and then many many "no's" and "Hands off the tree" followed as Madisen learned that we look at the pretty tree... we don't take off all the pretty shiny things and chew on them.... eventually she got the idea and left it alone (for the most part).
After we brought the tree home we headed off to the mall to introduce Madisen to Santa Claus for the first time... She was not too sure of this man in red, but Daddy sat with her for a picture and that made it ok.... that is until daddy attempted to let Madi sit on Santa's lap... she was not shy about making it known she wasn't up for this and made a lunge for mommy... maybe next year she'll be up for it. :0) She did have fun though, checking out the pretty ornaments on Santa's Christmas tree. :0)
We spent Christmas Eve , as per our tradition, at my moms house. We had lots of fun with the whole family eating the yummy goodies we had spent days and days making, talking and laughing lots then ended the evening by opening gifts. This was Madi's first time getting to rip open packages, She caught on immediately and enjoyed ripping all that paper!! She was totally into it until she opened one particular gift... once she saw what was inside she wanted it and it alone... "Mom can open the rest for me... I'm going to go play with my brand new Baby Doll!" That was the hit of the night for her!
The next morning we all got up to find that Santa had made a stop at our house (wonder how he made it in without a chimney?) Madi had by this point mastered the art of opening gifts and was not shy about tearing into her packages. She was even glad to help Mommy & Daddy with theirs. We were also lucky to have Aya be able to spend the holidays with us as well, making it feel like the whole family was back together again! That afternoon/evening we hosted our families Christmas dinner, I made the ham while Brendan took charge of making the yummiest Prime Rib! Madi loved being able to try all the traditional holiday goodies!
We ended the year looking back at all the changes that have come to "Our Little Family"... so many things have happened & we have had SO much to be thankful for and to celebrate. Brendan and I have been so lucky to have this beautiful little girl in our lives and to be able to share so much with her. Each day just gets better and better ( and I swear she keeps getting cuter and cuter!! ) We are looking forward to another great year with lots more "firsts" to share with our Madi-cakes! Happy 2010 everyone!

Are you ready for THIS???!!

Last month.... as Madi was beginning to pull herself up onto things and walk along the furniture... I said to Brendan... I think she'll be walking at 10 months....
It seems as though Madi had heard her mommy & wanted to go ahead and prove her right (for once)! :0)
On November 8th, 2009 ( the day Madi turned 10 mths old!) Our little Madi-Cakes took her first steps!!! Yay Madi!!
Brendan, Madi & I were all playing on the floor in the living room & Madi decided it was a great time to start walking from her activity desk over to Daddy ( and to Mommy) Brendan and I, of course, broke out into cheers for our little lady! We're SO proud of her! She started out just taking about 5 steps at a time ( before either getting to one of us or before just sitting down) But it didn't take her long to get her balance just right to be able to make it all the way across the room! Now she walks EVERYWHERE!! It's so cute to watch her go! She still is pretty wobbly and tends to walk like frankenstein at times but she is determined to GO! GO! GO!! I fear running will be accomplished before we know it!
We were able to get some of her first steps on video!

HALLOWEEN!

This year on Halloween Brendan and I were among the very few and very lucky who were able to catch a glimpse of the elusive Pink Leopard.... luckily we were able to snap a picture or two of this magnificent animal...


We were happy to discover that this pink leopard was fairly tame and enjoyed having her picture taken! She even allowed us to take her to a few houses for some good ol' trick or treating. The only downside was when she discovered she wouldn't be allowed to eat the candy our neighbors were so nice to hand out to us. She was, however, allowed to examine the loot before it was taken out of sight, which seemed to please the Pink Leopard quite a bit! We had a fabulous evening & can't wait to see who we run into next year!

To the Pumpkin Patch we go!

We took our first Family trip to the pumpkin patch this October. Since Madi had just turned 9 mths old we thought a round of awesome pictures was in order! And where else would we go for that in October? The pumpkin patch was the perfect setting :0)
When we set off that day I had this vision in my head that since Madi could stand up on her own holding onto our furniture then why couldn't she do that next to a pumpkin instead? Seemed pretty seamless to me... I did, however, take for granted that Madi had NEVER seen &/or felt a pumpkin before and that this new "thing" might take her a minute to figure out.... so...I set her down next to a pumpkin and put her hand on the top of it ... she looked at me like I was crazy! "What the heck is THIS mom?" & "Why am I touching it?" She immediately took her hand away from it and sat down... to focus on yet another "new" thing... Gravel! It's amazing how fast those little rocks can make it into her mouth! She definitely had me on my toes that afternoon! It ended up taking her a few moments but she eventually was ok with being near the pumpkins and of course her Daddy got some excellent pictures of her to remember the day with....









..

It's finally fall around here... summer didn't seem to want to let go...it gave us one last week of 90ish degree weather before fall took over and brought the 60's & the good 'ol Oregon rain (the grass was grateful for this though!)

It's been kind of nice to be able to open up the windows and let the cool crisp autumn air in AND with the cooler weather here it means that I can finally pull out some of the warmer clothes Madi has that have been tucked away in her closet.... it's kind of like getting to go clothes shopping in her own room, lol.... of course Madi takes no notice of this.... but it makes her mommy happy... haha...

Last week Madi had her 9mth well-child doctor appointment. She now weighs 16lbs 8oz & is 26 1/4 in. I can hardly believe she is 9 mths old already!!!!
Madi spends her days crawling EVERYWHERE & pulling herself up on to the furniture (and on Mommy!) Because of this we decided it was time to move our coffee table away from the couch so it wouldn't be such a temptation for her to climb on (it's a bit of a head injury hazard!) this opened up the room a bit and gives Madi a LOT more crawling... rolling... playing space... She recently discovered the bamboo floor in the kitchen/dining room & tries to make a break for it every chance she can! She loves to sit in there and kick her feet on the wood floor (oh, not to mention try to pull the magnets off the refrigerator!!)

Madisen has definitely found her voice! ( Although Mommy wishes she would find her "indoor" voice sometime soon! ) All day long she says Da-Da, Da-Da, Bay-bee Bay-bee, Ba-ba Ba-ba....sometimes she even throws in a "yeah" or her "biju-biju" (no, not sure what that one means yet...). She at one point was saying Ma-Ma... all the time.... but once she figured out Da-Da, she stopped.... I keep trying to get her to go back to it...."Madi, I'll let you have your bottle if you say Ma-Ma"...or "Madi-cakes say Ma-Ma please change my pants!" .... but nothing seems to work... haha... ;0) She makes up for it with lots of hugs for mommy & the lovely open mouthed extra slobber kisses throughout the day.... so I guess I can't complain too much!

It's amazing it is October already! I'm so excited for Madi to wear her Halloween costume!! It's SOOOO cute!! Usually this time of year I would be pestering Brendan to get our Halloween decorations down from the attic so I can "spook-i-fy" our home... but with Madi giving me a daily workout I'm in no hurry.... maybe we'll sit this one out, let someone else handle scaring the neighbor kids this year...We'll go get 'em next year! ;0)