Madeline is 15 months

Today our little girl is 15 months old. Always hard to believe, time just goes so fast.

My little Maddie-Loo,

You are such an incredible joy to be around. You are always smiling, always happy. I feel so incredibly fortunate to be your mommy. You are such a beautiful little girl and you bring so much joy to our lives every day.

You are always moving, mostly climbing. You climb on anything you can, you are afraid of nothing. You are into everything. I do mean EVERYTHING. Things go missing around our house daily. You are strong both physically and mentally. You are very well coordinated, especially for your age. You love to figure out how things work and you remember everything. You are a very bright little girl. You are extremely strong willed and you don't like anyone telling you, "NO". You're testing limits daily to see how much you can get away with, and with that smile of yours, you get away with more than you should.

You love Willy Wonka, Dulce, KitKat, and even Finn the fish. You love all animals and just like your mommy, you can spot a dog or cat a mile away and make a bee-line for it right away. You can say "KitKat" (sounds like Kaaa-kaaaaaattttt), so you call all dogs and cats alike, "Kaaa-kaaaaaattttt!!!" You need to work on your petting skills, currently more like hitting. Once you get that down, the animals will stop running from you.

You love your brother and get so excited to see him in the morning. The two of you together is about the cutest thing I've ever seen. You two race the alligator pull toy and the hippo pull toy every morning. Alligator almost always wins (Hudson pulls him), but you don't mind. You have so much fun pulling hippo. You also love Hudson to push you in the stroller, the wagon, lightning McQueen, etc...and just love having him around.

You love music and anytime you hear it you start dancing. I love the way you dance.

You love shoes. All shoes. You can even say "shoe" (sounds like "shhhheeeeee"). You bring people their shoes all day long. You want your shoes on most of the time and bring them to us, saying, "Shhhhheeeeeeee, me! Me! Meeeee!" until someone helps you put them on.

You love your stuffed animals. LOVE them. You sleep with three of them and usually fall asleep with one of them on top of you.

You love berries. Mostly raspberries, blackberries and blueberries. Strawberries aren't your favorite, but you would eat 100 raspberries if we'd let you. Generally you are a very good eater, but you don't like avocados or mangoes. You love sweets, I'm afraid you've inherited my sweet tooth.You also love to play in the refrigerator and will eat anything within your reach.

You are growing up and changing so fast and I wish we could slow time down just a little. I love that we can still snuggle together before bed every night, and I know that's not going to last forever. It's almost always my favorite part of the day.

Maddie-Loo, we all love you and your sweet smile so, so much. You are such an amazing little girl.

XOXOX
Mommy

Papa and Gramma

Hudson and Maddie had a few nice visits with Papa and Gramma over the last few weeks while they were here for the arrival of baby Dahlia. It's always sad to see them go, but we're sure glad they came! Somehow I only managed to get a few pics. Must do better next time.

Cousins

Yesterday Scott's sister, Alicia, and her husband, Evan, welcomed their second daughter, Dahlia Blue, into the world. We visited them in the hospital today, and baby Dahlia is a beauty! Tiny, precious and beautiful. Next we stopped by to visit big sister, Scarlett, and snapped a few pics of the cousins playing together this afternoon. It's so wonderful to be so close and to be able to share these moments together with our families.

Love.

Trains

This weekend, we were happy to have a visit from Papa and Gramma, and though it was a short visit, it was great to see them, as always. Today they kindly offered to stay with Maddie (aka: the "tornado", "little pumpkin", "tootsie pop",  and little Miss "Me! Me!") so that Scott and I could take the HUD out for a little something fun with just the two of us. Lets be honest, it's tough (really tough) doing anything (and I mean anything) with Maddie at this age, so although we miss her when she's not with us, it's really nice to be able to give Hudson some time with us where it's just all about him. So, naturally, we ventured out to find some TRAINS! Here are a few of my favorites from today:

 

Hudson and Madeline are playing together more and more, it's awesome!

 

Maddie is still the happiest baby on the block. Unless of course she's been tackled by her brother.

 

Hudson is still really, really into baseball. And books. Baseball and books.

 

Maddie is still into EVERYTHING. Here she has removed everything from the bathroom and then she took all of the kleenex out of the box, one by one until it was empty. All of this in a matter of maybe 30 seconds.Then she was on to her next "project". She's very busy. Very, very busy. All I do is follow her around putting things back, picking things up, repairing things, sweeping things, wiping things...I stay very busy, too. Which is why I basically collapse at 9PM.

 

A new favorite past time, Maddie gets in the stroller and Hudson pushes her all around the house. He's not the most graceful stroller-pusher that ever was, but they both love it!

 

We spent a little time "shopping" today. When I say a little, I mean maybe 5 minutes actually shopping followed by an hour entertaining the kids. 

 

More "shopping". 

Maddie LOVES stuffed animals. She sleeps with three in her bed and is very attached to each of them. Anytime she sees one anywhere she beelines for it. Then she kisses it, talks to it, hugs and smiles at it. See above.

 

A brief stop at Starbucks for a little snack and playing with feet.

 

Here is M during her "nap". Standard nap procedure for little miss M.

I think every parent (especially those of us with multiple young children, who choose to stay home with said young children) have moments where they think, why did I have children??

I mean, all you have to do is log in to facebook to have one of these moments.

Within minutes you're viewing someone's photos who at the present moment is "checked in" at the Four Seasons Punta Mita, sipping an ice cold Margarita on the beach, no kids in sight and not a care in the world. I find myself daydreaming of how I wish I was the one in Punta Mita sipping margaritas on the beach...and then suddenly- I snap out of it, look around and ...

...Hudson's very carefully and completely intentionally writing on the couch with a ballpoint pen and Madeline has just put all of her socks into her diaper genie and 10 minutes later Hudson's tackled Maddie for the 10th time that morning and there's crying and screaming and someone's tired and someone's hungry and someone's having a tantrum/fit/cry-fest and I think to myself....WHY DID I HAVE KIDS?

And then...you have one of these moments and you know exactly why you did.

H is for HANDFUL, M is for Me! Me!

Just in case anyone thought I might be exaggerating when I said Madeline was a HANDFUL, here is some pretty incriminating evidence.

She has now earned the nickname "ME! ME!" because when she wants something/is stuck/is upset/is hungry/is tired/is angry/is crabby (you get the picture) she starts yelling, "Me! Me! MEEEEEEEEE!"

She is going to be a wild child. I am officially scared and seriously dreading age 2.

More from the beach

I LOVE that we can take spontaneous 30 minute trips to the beach in the middle of a Thursday afternoon.