Madison is 3

Where in the world has the time gone?!? When I think back, it seems like yesterday I was pulling into the hospital to be induced. I seems like I've blinked and here we are three years later. I can't imagine our family without her in it. She is adorable, funny, smart, bossy, easy, shy, busy, loving, caring, chatty and she has our hearts.
We are not having her birthday until Saturday (the 19th) so we wanted her to feel special on her real birthday. She had picked out a bike that she wanted awhile back. She picked out the Barbie bike. This is her when she first saw it. She is all smiles.


of course she had to give it a try. She's still not great at pedaling, that's why we got her a bike...so she could learn. We think it will be easier than her tricycle.


she also got a barbie to sit in the barbie bike that is attached to her bike


After she opened her presents we went to the donut store. The girl gets her love of donuts from her Momma. The donut lady just loves Madison. Anytime we go in there she just smiles and tries to talk to Madison. If you know Madison, you know she doesn't say a word back. I think the lady thinks her outfits are cute. She's either in heels, pajamas with crazy hair, decked out in accessories and the list goes on. I make it sound like we go alot. We really don't. I would go everyday if I wouldn't gain 1000 pounds. Anyways, the lady gave her a blue donut for free since it was her birthday. She kept calling it her blueberry donut.

I'm guessing she's showing me her blue tongue in the second picture!

Since we aren't having her party for a few days we wanted her to have something special on her birthday. I let her pick out what she wanted and she picked cookies. She's having cake balls and cupcakes for her party. Cake balls are her FAVORITE. Since these were for just her, I let her decorate them the way she wanted to decorate them.



Most of the icing ended up here...in her mouth. She got distracted after a few cookies and was only interested in eating the icing. I finished them for her.


It's only 10:00 am and she's had donuts and icing! But just wait...we continue to add unhealthy things!

Trent goes to workout camp every morning from 8-11. When he got home he thought we should take her to McDonalds to eat and play. She loves to play at the McDonalds by our house.



After lunch we told her she had to take and nap and then we'd go swimming. She slept for 3 hours. I ended up going in and waking her up because we were running out of time to go swimming.


Everyone is ready to go!


I love how he's looking at her like, "what in the world are you doing?"

sweet siblings!





This was our first time to go to the pool this year. This is where Madison and I lived last summer. I hope to do the same again this summer.




I took her awhile to warm up. She was nervous. By the end she was just fine and even asked to go under with me. We only did it once and she was good with that. :)


Cooper had a GREAT time!


LOVE this picture


Barbie is going for a swim




On our way home...

to eat ANOTHER cookie!

I have been trying to think about what all I can write about her and what she is doing at 3 years old. It's hard with her. I wish I did better at keeping up with small things she does. It's the conversations that we have that I am so amazed with her.
In the past year:
-Her vocabulary is amazing. She knows words that I didn't know she'd ever heard much less know how to use them correctly in sentences
-She has long conversations with you and you forget you're talking to a 2 year old.
-She remembers everything and I mean EVERYTHING. She remembers everything she sees and everything she hears. She'll bring up things that happened a year ago without anyone mentioning them.
-Her memory amazes me.
-She recognizes all of her letters and numbers to 10
-She can count to 29 on her own and then you have to say 30 and she can keep going until 40. When you say 40 she can keep going and this continues to 100. We've never tried past that.
-She can write her name. She does better if you write it first and she can copy it.
-She can write Cooper's name
-She has memorized several books and can "read" them pretty much word for word back to you
-She's VERY particular. If she does something once, she has to do it the exact same way every time
-She's pretty anal about things
-She likes to clean
-She won't let you forget anything (Trent pinched her leg once with her car seat. He accidentally snapped her leg in it. EVERY TIME he puts her in the car seat she says "Daddy, don't pinch my leg." He's put her in a 1000 times and not pinched her but she only remembers the one time he did)
-She LOVES her brother. Her main goal in life is to make him laugh. He loves for her to fall so she runs around falling all over the house.
-She's such a caring, loving sister to Cooper. She watches out for him and is his second mother. :) I love that. I hope they continue to love each other as they grow up.

Cooper is 9 months!

I had to tape the paper to the top of the chair because he immediately grabbed it and started eating it. He spent most of his time turning around backwards in the chair and throwing the monkey on the ground. It sure it getting a lot harder to get a picture of him. His hair looks red in all of these pictures. It must be the lighting because he doesn't have any red at all. He's blond all the way. I remember Madison's looking red in pictures when she was little. Who knows...

This month he seems to have grown up A LOT!

He is 19lbs 12oz - 32%
30 1/2 in - 97%
46cm (head) - 70%
Still long and skinny!

In the past month he:
-added lots of new foods- avocados, rice, beans (black & re-fried), tortillas, eggs (but we were told not to give them to him until he was 2, that's changed since Madison), chunks of bananas, mac-n-cheese and strawberries. He LOVES strawberries. They are his FAVORITE.

-He's started crawling. He has the funkiest crawl ever, even more so than Madison's. He keeps one leg bent (like it would be if you were sitting Indian style) and the other leg switches between normal crawl and lifting up to use his foot. Who knows why my kids don't crawl normal. Oh well.

-Loves to pull up on things

-Has 6 teeth. He has 4 on top and 2 on bottom. Trent thinks he's getting a molar in. I hope so because that might explain his fussiness lately. He's not a fussy baby at all but has been recently. I was positive he had another ear infection but when he went in for his check up his ears were good.

- Speaking of ears...he went to the ENT. He's going to have tubes put in on the 18th of this month. He's had about 6 ear infections since January. This is the longest he's been without one. It's been about a month.

-He's mastered picking up small pieces of food. He used to just grab it all with his fist and shovel it in but he can now pinch it :)

-got in a pool for the first time. He did not like it. I think it was because it was so cold. Zack and Melanie had bought an above ground pool and had just filled it up that afternoon. It hadn't had time to warm up in the sun. He was not a fan.

-He absolutely LOVES Madison. Her main goal in life is to make him laugh. He seems to laugh the most when she hits herself or if she runs around and falls down. So she spends most of her days doing just that. I love that she wants to make him laugh.

-he said mama once. I think it was an accident because I can't get him to say it again. He'll say
maba now. He doesn't say that often. Still says dada and has also started with the b sounds.

-screams/yells in excitement ALOT. I'm not a huge fan of this. It's loud.

-clicks his tongue alot. We'll hear him over the monitor in the morning just clicking away. It makes us giggle. If you click back he laughs.

-his sleeping hasn't been so great. I think when he was having awful ear problems/allergy problems he got used to being up at night and is still waking up. Sometimes he'll cry himself back to sleep but most of the time we get him and he drinks a bottle and goes back to sleep. It's been better the past few nights so I'm hoping he's getting back in the habit of sleeping through the night. It's hard to go back.

GOING PRIVATE

I've decided (after getting a random message from someone I don't know) to set my blog to private. If you read the blog and want to continue reading please email me or leave me a comment with your email so I can invite you!

AHS Graduation

Kara and Randy graduated from Abilene High this weekend (10 years after my own high school graduation).

My sweet girl on the way to Abilene, Saturday morning.


having a snack while we waited on graduation to start - It was SO HOT!! It was like they didn't turn the air on until they opened the doors. It was miserable.


Kara getting her diploma


Randy getting his diploma

We didn't get to stay and take pictures at graduation. I had forgotten to put the formula in the diaper bag so all I had was a bottle of water. Cooper was SO tired, SO hot and SO hungry. Needless to say, he was NOT happy. By the time it was over he was outright crying. So we left and everyone came over to Dad's to take a few pictures.


My baby sister and baby brother -the graduates







Madison had so much fun playing with Stetson (Laurie's nephew...I guess technically my step cousin:) )



Cooper was so glad when we took his clothes off and let him play on the floor. He loved playing with his new toy.


She loves to color and write these days


Randy and Carson



His Daddy thought it was funny to put a toothpick in his mouth



my sweet girl!

We had a good visit and a fast visit. It's still hard to believe Kara and Randy are out of high school. Randy leaves for Tech the end of August. Kara was actually already finished with school in December. She's already been at Cisco for a semester. She's going to stay in Abilene until she finishes her basics. I'm so proud of both of them.

Kara and Randy

I CAN NOT believe my baby brother and baby sister are graduating from high school this year! I still see them as the 8 year old little kids that they were when I graduated and left home. I'm so proud of both of you!

My sweet boy

is growing up WAY TOO FAST!!!

Kailyn let us borrow her walker. This was our first time to test it out!

My little gardner...

Madison brought a watermelon seed home from daycare awhile back. I set it in the window and would randomly water it. One day it just started growing so we went to Lowe's and got a planter for it. Madison and Trent planted the watermelon seed in the planter (along with some basil and cilantro) and set it in the backyard. Hopefully we'll have us some watermelon soon.


Madison with her watermelon seed still in the cup


making sure Trent is doing everything just right


Cooper had to crawl over and get a little dirt for himself


One PROUD little girl!


makin sure it has enough water

They have now planted two strawberry plants too! Her swing set is covered in fruit. I'll have to get a picture of it. Madison goes out every night after dinner and waters everything.