As of Late

As of late Madelyn will sometime insist on reading books herself as opposed to sitting on my lap and being read to. She just wants me to stand by her and replenish her book supply when she is finished with her current stack of books.

I do my house work in increments of minutes. Yesterday I was trying to sweep and wash the kitchen floor and it took me about three times as long as it would have if I didn't have a little helper who had one hand on the broom while I swept. Per Madelyn's instructions, we would sweep for a few seconds and then sweep the dirt into the dust pan and empty it into the trash...literally every few seconds. After sweeping Madelyn was done cleaning. No washing the floor for her. We then played kitchen and I would sneak away to try to finish washing the floor whenever she wasn't looking, but she would soon catch me and pull me back into the make believe world of plastic food and little plastic utensils.

A few days ago I put Madelyn at the table with some saltine crackers. I went upstairs for a few minutes to check something on the computer. when I was finished, I came down to crackers crunched all over the table and floor. The below picture doesn't do it justice. But the little angel helped clean up the mess. I don't mind her messes. She doesn't make that many (the below mess is a rare occurrence), and I love it when she will help me clean up when I ask her to.

We got to go to the aquarium with our cousins. Kylan (in the picture below) is a couple months older than Madelyn. I love these pictures of them together. I want her to be close with her cousins, so I love when we get to do things with them.

And last, but definitely not least are these pictures of daddy and Madelyn. Last Saturday morning Madelyn woke up earlier than usual. I went in to check on her and see if I could get her to go back to sleep. I was rocking her when we both heard her daddy come out of our bedroom. I heard him sit down at the top of the stairs and knew that he was waiting to see if Madelyn would go back to sleep or if he would get to hold her. Madelyn was looking at me as if to say, "So can I go get daddy or what?" I set her down and she went straight to her daddy who was waiting at the top of the stairs. I was happy that the camera was just a few feet away so I could grab this picture. These two love each other a lot.

Holidays

My husband is downstairs making a snow cone with the snow cone maker that he got for Christmas. I knew he would love it. I just thought it would be a couple of months until he used it. I should have known better. Madelyn is sleeping and I am obviously blogging.

We spent Christmas Eve with my family. We had breakfast at Carrie's house and then went sledding. You may notice that we don't have any pictures of Madelyn on a sled. She didn't really like the steep hill and opted for the playground instead.

After Sledding we went over to my parents house where we got Christmas dinner in the oven, made gingerbread houses and played games. Can't believe i didn't get my camera out. I was just so busy doing things.

After we ate dinner we exchanged gifts. I love exchanging gifts. Its the best part. The kids are great to watch. I had to laugh when Maci explained to Grandma that she already had the gift that Grandma had given to her. Good thing Grandma had a back up gift that Maci was very excited about. Madelyn got some little stuffed animal puppets. I am pretty excited to have a puppet show with her.

We drove home on Christmas Eve and spent Christmas morning at our house.

I can't get any of our Christmas video to upload right now so I'll just tell you, Madelyn got a kitchen for Christmas. We had a blanket over it and when we pulled it off she ran up to it and said, "wow". She loved it and we have had fun watching her eat her pretend food. Madelyn also got a hole bunch of books which she was very excited about.

After we had our Christmas cinnamon rolls we got ready and drove up to Spencer's family cabin in Logan. We got some cute home videos of all the little kids opening their presents. Grandma and Grandpa Stephenson did a good job of spoiling their three grandchildren. Madelyn's favorite toy was a baby doll set complete with a high chair, stroller, crib and baby food. She couldn't wait for us to get it out of the package.

It's official though, the holidays are over. I will wake up to Spencer kissing me goodbye when he leaves for work in the morning. Sad, this week has been so much fun just paling around as a little family. We did a lot of shopping this past week. We looked at cars that we may or may not buy, furniture that we wish we could buy and then the furniture that we probably will buy. We fixed the breaks on our car, hung out in our pajamas, played on the floor with Madelyn a lot, went snow shoeing and watched some movies. It really was a wonderful week together. Neither Spence or I want it to be over.

We have had a great holiday season and hope you had the same. We wish you a happy New Year too.