Most wonderful day...of the year.

I know I've got some catching up to do...but I'm too excited to not blog about this!!!
I just won a Silhouette machine! Entering a bazillion giveaways for it finally paid off :)

It's like a Cricut, only 1000 times better! No expensive cartridges to buy, you just hook it up to your computer and you can use any font or image you already have (they do have an online store where you can get other fonts/images).
Anybody up for a craft night???

3 months??? LONG POST!

Has it really been 3 months since I've posted on here??? YIKES! I've got some serious catch up to do.
In August we went to DC for Zach's brother's wedding. We had a good time...here are a few highlight pics. I'll try to get a whole post dedicated to that trip up sooner than later.

She was very excited to be on an airplane!

 Riding the carousel at the Washington Mall

Zach is in over-drive trying to get his final project for this semester finished. It is due in two weeks so I won't be seeing him much until after the first week of December.

I realized yesterday as Zach and I were at dinner that I have something going on every weekend until mid January! I can't believe how busy this time of year is. I've been working hard on getting Christmas presents made. So far I am super pleased with how they are turning out (except for one...I can't decide whether to re-do it or just scrap the whole thing and come up with a different idea).

I got a new calling a few weeks ago. I am now the primary chorister and I'm super excited! I've got 4 weeks to teach the kids two Christmas songs and then a week of fun and then it's time for program songs. I think it will be a great program next year. I'm excited for the songs I'll be teaching the kids. (If you'd like to hear part of one of the songs click here and about half way down the page there is a little music note that says "listen" above it. Click on it to download a portion of the song.)

So between prepping for singing time, Christmas gifts and practicing my flute (I've been asked to play a song at December's enrichment and I'm accompanying the choir on a few numbers for the Christmas program) and all my usual mom duties I'm pretty busy. 

Madie is growing up so much I can't hardly believe it. She loves all things princess, Mickey Mouse, doing things "all by myself", playing with her cousins, Christmas trees, Santa, wrapping presents, and helping mommy bake. I realized that I must do a lot of baking with chocolate chips because the other day I was baking and she wanted to help, so she pulled a chair up to the counter, got up and said "I want a chocolate chip". 

We were at Target the day after Halloween and the employees were setting up the Christmas trees. We went to look at them and Madie looked around for a few seconds and then looked at me and asked "Where's Santa?" I thought that was so cute. Christmas is going to be fun this year! 

Speaking of Halloween, Madie was the cutest Snow White ever! Several of the people handing out candy at the trunk-or-treat commented on how cute she was and it showed when you looked inside her candy bucket!

 Her first trick-or-treat stop...Grandma & Grandpa's room.

The other day she came out of her bedroom wearing her panties, a hat, flip flops, sunglasses and a purse and told me she was ready to go to the beach! It made me laugh. I wish I had taken a picture of it! She's never even been to a beach, but she does enjoy going to the park to build sandcastles. 

I had a good birthday. Kristi watched Madie for a while so that my mom and I could go shopping for some new shirts (most of mine have holes where they rub against my jeans), then we had some yummy greek food for lunch, I got a little nap in while Madie watched a movie and Zach surprised me by coming home from class early to take me out to dinner. We went to Olive Garden and it was delicious! Thank you to all my wonderful family for the birthday wishes and the great gifts. I must admit, I enjoy being spoiled on my birthday!

Sorry for the totally randomness of my post, I realize it was kind of all over the place. I'll try to add more updates before another 3 months passes. :)

Jumping in (not so) muddy puddles

Madie loves this little cartoon called "Peppa Pig" and on it they quite frequently jump in muddy puddles. When it started raining a few weeks ago, Madie wanted to jump in the puddles.

She even made Zach & I get in on the fun, and fun it was. We all had a blast!

After it had been raining for a few minutes the rain got really cold so Madie wanted to dry off. Well that didn't last long and so she went back into the water sans clothes.

And decided that it would be a good idea to lay down in the puddles!

And a little video of her jumping in the rain.

Museum Trips

Thanks to the culture pass and to the School of Bio-Engineering (Zach's work) we got to go to the science center and the museum of natural history...for FREE!

Pictures from the Science Center

Watching a combustion demonstration

This wall was so neat. It had computerized "rocks" that fell down this screen and you could use your shadow to catch them.

Madie pulling herself up...with some help of course.

Spinning around and around.

Pictures from the Museum of Natural History

Madie looking at a dinosaur outside of the museum.

This is the first thing you see when you walk in the door.

There was a huge wall with dinosaurs and plants and a little stream. Some of the dinosaurs even moved their heads or roared.

Every 45 minutes or so they have a "flash flood". The lights flash, there are sounds of thunder and a bunch of water pours down the stream. Madie didn't care for the lights and thunder but enjoyed the gushing water.

This looked so much cooler in person. For some reason the flash makes the painting look super fake.

Madie panning for gold outside the museum.

Monkey

After watching this video Madie came up to me and said "not aahh aahh, a cow".

Tour of the fire station

We got invited by some of our friends to go tour the fire station with them in May. Madie LOVED it!!! In some areas of her life she is quite girly (shoes, painted nails, make up, princesses) but she is also partial to some "boy" things, such as tools, trucks and dinosaurs. The whole time she kept asking to see the truck and was excited when it was time for that part of the tour.

She was not shy! She got right up in front with kids she didn't know so that she could see all of the equipment that the firemen were showing us.

She even got to go inside the fire truck, but apparently we don't have any pictures of that. And the best part of the trip? Right toward the end they got a call and had to race into the truck and drive away with lights and sirens on!

Summer Randomness

In an effort to get caught up on posting...here are a bunch of random pictures from over the summer.

Madie likes to pretend she is riding a horse...or an elephant, whatever.

Madie, Jenny & Katie enjoying a tea party.

Helping Grandma make cupcakes after the tea party was over.

Helping shuck the corn. Madie kept saying that the corn was hiding.

Doing some quality control :)

One of her favorite phrases lately is "Madie's turn." Here she is having a turn wiping off the table. This was her idea not mine, in fact I couldn't get her to give me back the wash cloth so I had to go get a different one!

Apparently she needed wiped down also.

Zach was laying in her tunnel and she crawled through it just so she could crawl over him.

Taking her baby doll for a ride on the little blue car.

Playing dress up in Auntie Lori's shoes...

...and wearing her shirt as a dress.

I just love the look on her face in this picture.

Pulling Lori in the wagon.