The Hartsell Family: May 2013

Madelyn continues to blossom!

Favorite things to do:

She loves her babies (named pink baby and blue baby) more and more as the days go on and has started to want them in the car with her and in her big bed when we read books before bed. She loves going on a walk and pushing her baby in the stroller. She also likes baby to sit with her in the car and in her booster seat at the table. When we have to leave the baby in the car to go into school, she gently leans down to give it a kiss good-bye and insists she is buckled in her car seat. She doesn't like to sleep with her babies though so they stay on the owl pillow after she kisses them good night :) She also enjoys feeding them her food and wiping up their "poopies."
Madelyn loves music. She has started signing songs herself that we can recognize. She likes to sing "Rock a Baby" (Rock a Bye Baby) but sometimes likes to change the word baby to Preta, Leia, Daddy etc. If she sees Preta asleep on her rocking chair, she'll go "rock" him and sing "rock a bye Preta". She still loves the Hello Song from Music Together but now enjoys singing hello to everyone in her family--Leia, Preta, Daddy, Mommy, Connor, Juliana, Aunt Beth, Joey (aka uncle Joe). Her favorites from the Drum collection were Clap your Hands & The Snail and the Mouse. From the new Tambourine collection she is liking Ride-O & Good News which are two songs that talk about driving in the car or trains and make fun sounds like zoom zoom or choo-choo which she can sing. It just melts my heart to hear her singing along to the music in the car! She also insists that Daddy sing along too and will tell/show Daddy what to sing.
She likes helping out in the kitchen. Her favorite things to do are stir anything in a bowl and pour spices on or add cheese. She also likes to rip lettuce and spin it.
Madelyn loves water. Her favorite thing to do is wash her hands and sometimes baby's hands while standing on the step-stool at the kitchen sink. She is good at asking for the stool and says "stool please" and she constantly says "more soap please." Besides washing her hands, she also like to wash dishes and as she says "dump" water out from a cup or bowl. She can do this forever and doesn't like it when we make her stop usually because she is ALL WET!
She makes me laugh when she waves good-bye or signs for milk but does so without removing her thumb from her mouth.
She likes to play peek-a-boo and has gotten creative with it. She'll cover my face with my hair and then move it away and say "peak-a-boo" or she'll cover up a character in a book for example the starfish in Fidgety Fish and say "peak-a-boo."
She likes to pretend to "POP" bubbles by clapping her fingers together. She does this randomly even when we haven't had bubbles out in a long time!
She's been obsessed with her knee lately. Always pointing to it and insisting that her pants cover her knee or that she wants to kneel on her knees. She also likes baby to sit on her knee jut right in the car and clap baby's hands to the music.

We taught her how to spit into the sink while brushing her teeth and now she likes to do it all the time and not just in the sink! Hopefully this loses its fun before she turns into a boy! She likes searching for the mouthwash at random times and then yelling for Daddy saying "mouthwash." She likes it when he spits it into the sink!
She loves to have her tongue brushed but isn't a fan of getting her teeth brushed.
She likes to wash her hair off herself by tipping her head in the bath water so that her ear is covered. She does this on both sides but unfortnately it only rinses about 1/2 her head!
She is good at turning off the light when it's time for bed. Mommy can't do it. Only Madelyn although sometimes she has baby do it.

She is counting now but always seems to leave 4 out..1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 , 8, 9, 10. Whenever you ask her how many of something there are, she always says TWO!
She appears to be right-handed. She sucks only her right thumb and grabs markers, crayons etc with only her right-hand.
She loves tracing hands and feet. She always thinks it's so funny when we trace her feet since she says "it tickles!" She also likes to trace baby' hands.
She learned to put on her coat all by herself by placing it on the ground and then flipping it over her head.
She loves pockets! She calls them "pockies" and likes to put both her hands in them and then ask where mommy's or daddy's pocket is.
She has gotten into holding hands when walking and says "hand" when she wants to hold our hand.
She is now jumping with two feet off the ground and so proud of herself! She likes jumping into and out of the ball pit. She also likes to hop.
She is expressive when she eats and likes to say "ommm" with every bite!
She has started saying "my turn" although she is not a great sharer.
Madelyn has gotten into saying where everyone is. She loves to say Leia and Preta at "om" (home). When we ask her where she is, she'll say Madelyn in the car. When Leia was in the car with her, she corrected herself and said Preta at home.
She likes to say hi to people over and over. Hi Leia, Hi Leia, Hi Leia. Hi Mommy, Hi Daddy, over and over again! She also likes to tell us to kiss each other by saying " daddy mommy "maw" kiss. :)
She loves getting Leia to listen to her and has started doing hand signals to get her to sit. It's so cute when Leia listens and does in fact sit to hear Madelyn get SO excited and say "GOOD GIRL LEIA!"
She can be so cute when she answers no and makes her voice go up when she knows we are being silly. For example, we'll ask her if Madelyn has a tail and she'll smile and say no in a very silly way.
She loves Go Dog Go, 5 Silly Monkeys, Brush, Brush, Brush and all the Brown Bear, Brown Bear books. She also likes Llama Llama Nighty-Night, There's a Wocket in my Pocket, Mr. Brown can Moo, Hop on Pop and the Wheels on the Bus.

She likes to point out many things like birdies, bikes, runners etc when on walks or looking out her closet window.
She likes to go outside and turn the sun on with our temperature reader that looks like a remote control.
All she wants to do now is be outside. Either in the back yard playing on the swing set (although she does not like swinging so far this spring) or going on walks with Leia and her baby. She also has been bike riding with daddy a little bit but had been afraid to go until Connor rode over on his mommy's bike and she wanted to be like him so she tried it again :)
She can be such a lover. I was trying to convince Madelyn that we should hurry up and get home so that her baby doesn't get too cold! She then picked up her baby from her doll stroller and snuggled it in her coat to keep it warm---it's was adorable but then guess who had to carry the baby doll stroller home--me!

Teeth Total = 12 (8 fronts and 4 molars)

Sign language: She still signs these but often times it's while also saying the word. I think she thinks that if she signs and speaks, she'll get it faster: please, more, milk, thank you, eat, all done

Her words are increasing daily. You can tell that her words are evolving--she now says Malk instead of ma for milk. The biggest change is that she stopped saying da-da and started saying daddy (which broke his heart!) She is so cute when she says octopus, "good girl Leia," and helicopter. And she is doing a great job linking more and more words together. She is constantly narrating our moves. Daddy running. Daddy sneezed. Leia barking. She has been saying "more orange please" which is awesome because getting her to say please unassisted is rare. I recently heard her say Daddy walking and then rephrase to say Daddy on a walk. She used to say hat for a hood but changed to say hood now. She now almost always say YEP instead of yes or yeah which I think is adorable!

Now for some photos,