18 Month Happenings

Madeline has officially reached the "year-and-a-half" mark. Hard to believe. Time sure flies....
I look at photos of her as an infant and feel like is was not just 18 months ago, but years ago!

A few of the things Madeline loves to do:

• "Dance". Although that means running in circles as fast as she can until she's dizzy and falls down.
• Color. She's got paper, coloring books and crayons and really likes to scribble. She has discovered that crayons also work on mirrors and walls-fortunately crayons are washable and no damage is done.
• Going for rides in the elevator. She loves to press the buttons.
• Playing with her baby by wrapping her in her blankie and hugging her like a real baby, patting her and putting her in the stroller.
• Playing with her puzzles. She is a genius with her shapes and colors. She knows what goes where and so often puts her puzzle together or shapes in her sorter so quickly it's like, "okay this is too easy".
• Loves the piano. Her music class at MacPhail is going to teach her so much about different sounds and instruments, but also how to have patience and to share (I hope!)
• Always loves her books, the more the better. We recently took her to the Wild Rumpus in Linden Hills-so many books, childrens music and cats and chickens running about the store!
• She loves to watch her cartoons in the morning. Among her favorites are Curious George, Special Agent Oso and Sid the Science Kid.
• Likes going to the mall to run around and bump into other little people her size.

As I said, those are just a few of the things she enjoys. She's a joy, she's fun and she's beautiful. Need I say more? But don't get me wrong, she knows how to work her mom and dad...she's got our number for sure. SPOILED.

During one of our afternoon strolls outdoors we went to the Lund's Grocery store...Madeline always seems to find the Beemster Cheese cow and just loves to touch it and kiss it....I wonder if she believes that it is real? I happen to have my camera with and so I had to take a few shots. The shoppers around us had to stop and watch her giggle and touch the cow. They enjoyed it and thought it was very sweet!

Happenings....

We've been busy lately; a trip to Edinborough Park, which Madeline loved....but what child wouldn't. An "Adventure Peak"- The "Peak" is a 44-by-44-by-37 foot high climbing, low crawling, slip sliding Northwoods adventure and a Great Hall, which is a 60-by-90 foot multipurpose space for kids to play with balls and all kinds of other things. For anyone without children this would be stressful, in my opinion! SO MANY KIDS ON THE LOOSE!
We had our first Musical Explorations class at MacPhail in Minneapolis. Roughly 10 kids within the age of 14-24 months running in circles playing the piano, the bongo drums, playing with the scarves, the parachutes, and the director plays piano and guitar and sings the cutest little songs. Madeline had one minor meltdown when she couldn't bang on the piano, but the teacher buttered her up and allowed her to play. Many of the mother's in the class asked if Madeline has done any modeling because.....drum roll please....."Her eyes are so gorgeous! So big and so blue!" I love it. Makes me happy.

I attached two of the proofs from her Valentine's day shoot. If you have a chance to view the others, if they're still online, go to www.3peasphotography.com, click enter-site, then client log-in. The password is MMVD. What a fun day that was. And it's evident by the smile in her face!

Talk to you later!