To remind you that I have another kid, too.

Some things about Maddy at 2 1/2 that I want to remember forever:

She has an amazing memory. I mean, it's unreal. Girlfriend could be an honorary elephant.

When she walks on the tile or laminate floors in our house, she slaps her feet down with each step so it's as loud as possible.

She is very polite. I do occasionally have to remind her, but she's usually good about it.

She had an AWFUL first week of swimming lessons, but now loves to swim, and claims to be either a whale or a mermaid when she's swimming.

When something's cold, she'll often say "It's really, really, kinda cold!" and then she'll shiver.

She loves to be the one to "get Charly" when Charly wakes up. She'll go open the door really slowly and say "Chaaaaaaawy!" and then they both start laughing and my heart explodes.

She loves to dance and has lately been requesting that we turn on music to dance to rather than a movie/show to watch (YES).

We bought a big box of the colored goldfish crackers, and whenever I give her some, she picks out all the red ones first and then asks for more.

She calls everything "special special," e.g. "Can I have some special special drink?" or "Look! It's my special special potty prize!"

She doesn't like to be told no, and will often ask the same question over and over (and over and over) looking for a different response.

She loves to open up my computer and take pictures of herself. Here's one of her latest:

I sure love her.

You guys gotta see this

Yes, that is a cookie.

Yes, it is bigger than my baby's face.

Yes, it has s'mores inside it.

Yes, it's delicious.


Here's the recipe.

10 months

35 Things: May

I know this is a couple days late...but you see, I was in Washington, D.C. when May became June, and I was much more occupied with things like watching money get printed and touring the Capitol and walking around humongonormous Smithsonian museums and such. Maybe I'll post some pictures in a day or ten two. But you wouldn't want to miss my May update on my 35 things, right? Of course right.

In addition to my monthly things (which, let's face it, I'm kind of rocking), I did:

7. Deep clean the dishwasher. Our dish "washer" was sometimes not really living up to its name, and Pinterest told me giving it a good deep cleaning might help. So far, so good! It was a bit of a chore, but it's done.

8. Redecorate the guest bathroom. Huzzah! New paint, new mirror, new light fixture, new cabinet, new towels. I was going to replace the hated pedastal sink, and then decided it wasn't bad enough to justify the expense (although still pretty bad). I still might change out the faucet on the sink, but only if it really starts to bug me. Also, there should be pictures here but I've been using Photobucket for my blog pictures and they just updated their editing software and its worthless. So I need to find a new blog pictures solution...

23. Make baby food. Charly is now the proud eater of some apple+blueberry concoction and some broccoli+sweet potato concoction. Actually, that's not true, because I made these right before we went out of town, so she actually hasn't even had a chance to eat them yet.

30. Read 32 books. I read:

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness. Book 2 of the Chaos Walking series (Book 1 was The Knife of Never Letting Go, which I read in April). Really liked it! 4 stars.

Insurgent by Veronica Roth. Another book 2, this one sequel to Divergent. Also really liked it. 4 stars.

Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness. Book 3 of Chaos Walking. 4 stars.

Hm. I think 4 stars is my default rating.

34. Donate to DI. I loooooved doing this. I have pack rat tendencies, so I feel extra super accomplished when I overcome those tendencies and get rid of a whole bunch of stuff I don't need and will never use. S'wonderful.

Woo hoo for progress!

some things...or something.

A couple random thoughts. This will only take a minute of your time.

(1) All this end of the school year talk has got me realizing that it's been 7 YEARS since I graduated high school! My word! Check me and my siblings out:

(2) Our kids-free vacation starts tonight! I'm certainly not physically prepared (aka I haven't started packing), and whether or not I'm mentally prepared is still up for debate. Ready for a getaway with my sweetheart? Absolutely yes. Ready to not see my girlies? Possibly/hopefully/eventually yes.

(3) My little bro entered the MTC on Wednesday, to learn how to be a missionary while speaking Cantonese. Yep, that tiny little boy in that picture up there is now tall enough that I had to stand on my tiptoes to hug him goodbye. He's going to be an awesome missionary in Hong Kong!

(4) Maddy reading "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" goes like this:

A B C D E F G...

Chicken chicken boom!

Cliiiiiiimb up the tree!

No more words jumping on the bed!


It's awesome.

(5) I actually don't really have a (5), I'm just stalling. I'm dreading all the packing. Stalling ends...NOW.

Or 5 minutes from now. #samediff

Mysterious ticking noise

If you don't know what that title is referring to, my heart hurts a little bit for you. Watch this and be enlightened.

Greatness.

Our Charly has her own mysterious ticking noise that she's been perfecting for months. I'm thinking she probably won't be able to do it anymore once she gets some top teeth, so I figured I needed to get a video of her doing it. I've been trying for weeks to get a decent video, but she usually gets all excited about having the camera focused on her that she can't perform, so it hasn't been easy. But I finally got this halfway decent recording during breakfast the other day. Don't mind the yogurt drool.

I'll miss those little clicks.

9 months

These monthly photo shoots are getting harder and harder as this little one gets more mobile. It was impossible to get her to stay on her back long enough to get a picture, so we had to try something else. This picture is obviously not perfect, but I love that it shows off her chubby legs and long hair.