7/19/14 Big Bath for Allison

Guess who no longer uses a baby bath tub!  Allison loved her first time sitting up in the big tub and so did Madelyn! They grow up too fast!

7/16-7/19/14 Wisconsin Dells Vacation

We took the plunge and went on a vacation with the girls and their cousins. It was a great time. Madelyn loved having her cousins as playmates.  When my sister had asked if we wanted to go on vacation with them, I was a little nervous about taking Allison and requested that it not be more than 3 hours away.  It was a good thing because Allison cried a lot of the way up there and back but was happy for the most part when we weren't in the car. 

We stayed in a 2 bedroom unit at Mt. Olympus in the Wisconsin Dells.  The place was huge and had both water parks and amusement rides, so we never left the resort except for one dinner out at Moosejaw.  Madelyn loved the water but wasn't a big fan of the slides although she did go down some.  She loves to watch the video of her going down the yellow slide (see below). She liked the lazy rivers the best. Brian hadn't ever been down water slides like these and managed to get a few slides in at night but didn't like the mat slides he tried out.  He did love the tidalwave pool and swimming with it. I wish I could have done more slides but I managed to get in a few with Madelyn and some with Beth.

The amusement parks were what the kids enjoyed the most.  So we spent quite a bit of time at both the indoor and outdoor parks.  A few roller coasters were open at night for hotel guests, so Beth, Joe and I managed to sneak out for a couple hours after the kids were all in bed to enjoy 3 coasters.  Our favorite was called Hades 360 which is a wooden roller coaster that also goes upside down!  There is one HUGE drop, that takes you straight underground in the pitch black, then loops you upside down.  It was a very different roller coaster and it was nice getting out to get a few fun rides in without kids. Brian stayed with the kids since he's not a fan of roller coasters.

The only bad thing about the resort was that nothing opened until 10 am which was a long wait for the kids who woke up at 6 am!  At least they had each other to keep them entertained and a pretty pitiful park to play at.

Madelyn on the slide

Allison and Uncle Joe

Beth, Connor, Brian and Madelyn on the swings!

Katie and Madelyn

Madelyn chilling on the train driven by Connor!

Juliana was great about letting us ride with her!

Connor and Madelyn flying!

Allison trying her first food, Avocado

Not that interested

Family dinner!

Matching braids - Madelyn and Juliana

Juliana trying to feed Allison her bottle

Allison ready for a nap!

Allison trying banana

Fun while Madelyn and Connor napped.

All of us on the Crazy Trolley Ride - that goes up and around but not upside down.

Brian and Madelyn on the Go-karts

Juliana and Beth passing Brian and Madelyn who got stuck in a slow car!

Loving our moose antlers at MooseJaw

Allison loving sucking on glass

Allison sporting her antlers - kind of.

Allison wants beer!

Everyone with their antlers!

The girls and their antlers

Madelyn and Brian on the lazy river

Allison so sad in the car.

I am not sure how she slept with all the crying next to her.

Home and Happy :)

Madelyn 3 years old

It's crazy to think that three years has gone by.  We've had so much fun with Madelyn.  It's also been so much fun seeing Madelyn interact with her sister.

The things she says:

• "There's a BEAR!" over and over. We are told to get on the bed, the couch or in the closet to get away from the bear. She is so cute but will also tell us "It's a pretend bear" when she thinks we are really scared.
• "Good night everybody!" she says with a smile.  We've been saying good night to five people or things lately as she crawls in bed.  Sometimes she says good night to some interesting things.  When we count down she likes to touch our fingers--her three to our three. The weirdest thing she says goodnight to is B-gohney-ya & we have no clue who it is or what it means but she is consistent and has been saying this for at least 6 months.
• She also says "Have a good day" so sweetly and gives me a kiss when I drop her off for school and she also says it when I am shutting the door to her bedroom after I tuck her in.  
• "Daddy you frustrate me" when Brian couldn't push her in the car because he was busy.
• Madelyn has a good sense of smell and more than once she has asked"what that's smell?" It smells like a cookie" when Brian went to give her a kiss. She knew right away that she had correctly smelled the cookie on his breath! What a stinker!
• On the way home from Red Robin, Brian asked her to try to stay awake since we were almost home and she needed to go down for nap. With thumb in mouth, she shook her head no, and fell asleep!
• She only says "NOla" not Granola bar.
• When she says things that are clearly not correct like calling a fire truck a garbage struck. She'll say "It's kind of like that." 
• She started talking funny by saying stuff that sounds like a foreign language. She thinks it funny when she talks on and on and we look at her and say huh? 
• Sticky sticky bubblegum. She continues to sing ALL the TIME! She is getting good at singing her music together songs.
• She isn't so good with saying her "S's" and says mock instead of smock and mile instead of smile. :)
• Sometimes she'll tell us we have to vacuum because there is hair everywhere! :) Which is surprising since she still doesn't like the vacuum.
• When I told Madelyn I couldn't read to her right then she said, "yes, you can mom. There's words on the page right there!" There were but I was still busy!
• She calls avocado "avo-cay-doh" and Grandma and Grandpa  "gramma and baa-caa."
• She is constantly calling Allison chubby cheeks.
• She thought everyone's middle name was Jane. The funniest one was when she sternly yelled "Brian Jane Hartsell" 
• "Mom, Allison wants milk. Get out your milkies" :)
• She asks us if we need privacy and tells us she needs privacy sometimes when she goes potty.
• She kept asking her friend Eliza if she liked fairies since Eliza was watching Tinkerbell on the kindle.  Eliza kept saying no so Madelyn just kept asking her over and over again because it didn't make sense to her! She can be persistent.
• We are pretty sure she's learned things sayings from school.
• "Finish your milk first, mommy!" -- we never require her to finish her food/drink
• "May I be excused?" -- we never require her to ask
• "Someone smells stinky!"
• She confuses single and plural nouns calling sunglasses "sunglass" and saying "mines" instead of mine.

 The things she does:

• She is so cute with Allison wanting to teach her how to do the hand motions at music together.
• She doesn't like to clean up and will tell us we don't have to clean up! 
• She loves collecting sticks and brings them home from many walks.
• She locks the doors to rooms she goes in but is usually pretty good about opening them up when we ask. 
• She drives her in car and says she's at a stop light and that the light is red and waits.
• Got crazy in May. Running around with lots of energy and making up her own language and thinking it's hilarious!  Brian and I weren't sure what happened to our laid back girl!
• She loves to swing and do underdogs.
• She is great at folding up blankets. She can even use her neck to get them pretty near perfect! 
• She is now playing by herself and loves playing in the kitchen and with her babies. She still favors her bald head baby dolls. She likes to swaddle them just like Allison.
• She loves taking care of Allison--wiping her face, holding her in her lap, waking her up (but is great about only doing so when we say she can!)
• She loves swimming and loves going under water!
• She picks lots of clover flowers and brings them home for us. I guess there are nice things about having weeds around--flowers she can pick.
• She loves watching Juliana's dance recitals especially "Shake, Shake Senora".
• She is into dress up clothes especially ones that as she says "spin" or "dance!"
• She loves to be outdoors and go on walks--sometimes she rides her tricycle or her scooter and other times she likes to ride beside Allison in the double stroller. 
• She is good at writing what looks like letters instead of scribbles.  
• She loves flip flops and always wants us to all wear our flip flops together. She also likes to wear mismatched flip flops and sometimes, we find that she is wearing two right shoes!
• She loves waking up Allison and cuddling with her in her crib. It's so cute to see them interact together.

She continues to be a great sleeper and she was potty trained in less than a week!

 

Showing off her mask while sucking her thumb.