She's TWO!!!!

Wow, Madison is 2 years old! Madison's birthday was on Sunday the 29th. Two years have flown by so fast. I look at her everyday and say to myself, "where is my baby?" She has grown so much over the past few months. She is already wearing 2T clothes and her vocabulary is exploding everyday. She doesn't always complete words but she repeats anything and everything you say. I love it! Charles and her play pretty well together but she is mean when she doesn't get what she wants. We are working on that. All in all she is a happy little girl who LOVES LOVES LOVES flowers. She picks them from grandma's backyard everyday. And when we are out and about if she see's any flowers she wants to pick them. Maybe she will follow in grandma's foot steps and be a florist.
I made her a cake on her birthday but the kids were a nightmare after dinner so we decided to have cake on Monday night. She blew out the candles as we were singing.
I guess she couldn't wait.

Bye Bye Bottle

Madison has officially been off the bottle for over a week now. HOORAH!!!! I have been dreading taking away the bottle since Madison absolutely LOVED it. And I kept telling myself that I will do it when we move into our house. But since we are still not in our house and her birthday is a few days away I decided why not try it. I bought some new sippy cups from Jamba Juice (my absolute FAVORITE cups) and she drank some milk out of it the first time I gave it to her. So I decided to put her to bed with one of the new cups instead of a bottle. She fussed at first when she saw it and was not happy that is was NOT her bottle. But I squirted some into her mouth so that she knew it was milk and then laid her in her crib and put it next to her. She screamed a bit, I walked out and let her fuss. It only took a few minutes and then she was fine. She didn't drink ALL the milk as usual but she went to sleep with minimal fuss. And in the morning she fussed again but I just sat her on my lap and held the cup in my hand in front of her until she finally took it. Of course she hasn't been drinking as much milk as she was with a bottle, but she hasn't asked for the bottle either. Yeah!!! Mission Accomplished!!! Now I need to work on potty training and transitioning from the crib to a bed. We'll wait until we get into our new house for those.

Birthdays

This month is a busy one for us for Birthdays. The beginning of the month we have our brother-in-law Daniel's birthday. Then we have two nephews at the end of the month along with a cousin, and both my parents birthdays are toward the end of the month as well.

This year for my parents us kids decided to buy them each a bike. They talk about wanting to exercise more and Dad's doctor has told him that a bike would be good for his knees. They had no idea what we were planning. Justin brought the bikes over and put them on the porch. We did dinner as usual and then Janelle was talking with Dad about her not having money to buy him a gift. And he said something about wanted something he can physically unwrap. I wasn't planning on having him unwrap anything I was just going to give them clues that led them to the porch. So I quickly made a puzzle with the clue and then put some pieces for the puzzle in two boxes and wrapped them so they each would have something to unwrap. They were both SHOCKED to find the odd things I had put in their box to weigh it down. They put their puzzle together and then followed the clue to the porch. They were both SHOCKED!!! I think Dad was a little more excited then Mom was about the bikes. I know that Dad wanted one. The next day Dad adjusted his seat and even took his bike for a spin. It was fun to see him riding a bike and the kids got a kick out of it. Hopefully one day they will make a habit of riding their bikes together. How fun would that be!








Our Nephew Nathan had his party at a park and it was very nice. Very mellow and low key. The kids as always had a great time being with their cousins and playing.
And I was able to get some really cute photos.

Pumpkin Carving

It's becoming a tradition to do our pumpkin carving for FHE, however we are noticing that if Halloween is at the end of the week then our Jack-o-lanterns don't last that long. So we moved FHE to Wednesday night. The kids had a very FUN, but totally messy time carving pumpkins. They even tried eating the seeds right out of the pumpkin. As I pulled all the pumpkin seeds and goup out Mad kept putting it all back in and when I wouldn't let her put it in the pumpkin she decided to throw it on the floor. Stinker!

Halloween FUN

This year we had too many Halloween activities, but the kids had a great time. The Friday before Halloween we went with the Gibson family to their school Fall Carnival. It was fun to play the games and Charles LOVES being with Andrew & Nathan. Then the Wednesday before Halloween my mom took Charles to her work Halloween party. The next day we went to my mother-in-laws annual Halloween work party. (Which is where Charles hurt his head.) That party is always fun. The company does a really good job at having crafts and games for the kids to do and of course they ALWAYS have YUMMY Pizza!!! Friday night we went to our ward Trunk or Treat. All night long we got asked if the cut on Charles head was real. Then on Halloween we went to the Burke's Trunk or Treat and went Trick or Treating for REAL. (Charles kept talking about going Trick or Treating for real.) Then we came home and put the kids to bed. I was done with Halloween before it even came. But the kids had a great time. Charles looked SO CUTE in his pirate costume and Madison LOVED her scarecrow costume. She actually chose it herself. I was getting out the costume box and it was a costume Charles wore a couple years back and as soon as she saw the Hat she put it on and loved it. I couldn't complain since she looked so cute and there were no expenses involved! Maybe we'll do a family theme next year.