My Madeleine 2/11

Madeleine is my sweet and imaginative 3 year old girly-girl. I remember when she was a newborn baby and I was terrified something was wrong with her. You see, this baby did NOT cry. She was pretty much constantly content, unfazed by any of the stresses of her new environment. She even slept 8-10 hours at night (once I got over the waking her every 3 hours to eat rule). With trepidation, I told my Doctor that I was worried something was wrong. He assured me that she perfectly normal, and it was probably just her personality.

She remains to this day my even-tempered girl. What she lacks in drama, she makes up for in stubbornness, however. Once she has her mind set, she will not bend or break. Often, I think I have bent her will, but she embodies the phrase "it is better to ask forgiveness than permission".

We have a strict rule in our family that unless we are staying the night somewhere else, the kids' bedtime lovies stay home. Madeleine always sleeps with her precious stuffed cow appropriately named, Moo Cow. A few Sundays ago, I was getting the three kids ready all by myself and Paul was already at the church. My other two were filling the family drama quota while I tried to rush to get to our meeting on time. I still have no idea how it happened, but during the service I glanced at Madeleine, and there was Moo Cow sitting reverently beside her.

She prefers to be called Madeleine instead of Maddie. She says it "embarrasses her" when I call her Maddie. Three years old, and I already embarrass her. I can't wait until 13.

She aspires to be a Grandma when she grows up. Today she told me she wants a grandbaby named "Baby Alive" and a grandbaby named "Lugarella" (Not sure if that is the proper spelling). I love this girl, she makes me laugh several times every day.

Lydia 2/11

For the next few entries, I want to bring you up to speed on each of our three little ahem "angels".

First up, our Lydia Judith:

These pictures were taken right after she ate ice cream, sorry for the mess :p

Lydia is a giant personality wrapped up in a compact package.

She has one volume-LOUD. It doesn't matter if she is happy, sad, or furious she pumps up the volume. We haven't quite figured out how to get her to use her inside voice yet. Really, I am not sure I want to, except for church.

Asher and Madeleine would do anything to extract emotion from her. They love it when she is laughing and playing- Lydia squealing in pure joy makes any game more fun. Unfortunately, Lydia screaming in anger also seems to have the same effect on their games.

She seems to be happiest doing whatever the big kids are doing. She loves playing dress up with Madeleine (as you can see in the pictures), she also tries her best to stay in the game with Asher playing Lego's. She has refused to have anything to do with sippy-cups for several months now. She climbs into bed with Madeleine or Asher every night while we are finishing up with the night time routine, hoping against hope we will overlook her and let her stay with them. Every night we scoop her back up and we put her in her own crib with 4 of her favorite loveys (she has a posse.) If we forget any of them, she'll scream "BABY!" "BEAR!" "BLANKY" "HARVEY!!!" until they are reunited.

Lydia has brought so much life into our home I cannot remember what life was like without her. By this third child, I have finally learned to extract the joy from every stage. I am not in a hurry for her to grow up, or change. I just wish time would slow down a bit.

Journal

I have gotten distracted by Facebook and I haven't even read any blogs for several months. Today, I began reading through old entries of mine, and I couldn't believe everything I had recorded. I then followed my friend's links and realized how much I truly miss blogging. I think this blog has been a terrific way to preserve our family memories and I want to get back into it.

Pig tails

Lydia got her first set of pigtails this morning! Madeleine thought it was awesome that someone else was getting tortured besides her. Lydia is growing up so fast! She will be eleven months old in a few days.

She is the most determined little thing! A friend of ours gave us a giant bowl full of blackberries. Lydia thought they were the most delicious thing ever. She even figured out how to open the refrigerator to get to them.

Water Follies (Cheapo Style)

For those of you not from the Tri-Cities, every year at the end of July there is a weekend of boat racing and air shows called Water Follies. Now forking over a bunch of money to watch boats race all day doesn't make sense to us, but you can see the planes from outside the event area, so for the past three years I've taken the kids (and whoever I can drag with me) down to the Columbia River levee to watch the air show.

This year I could only wrangle Asher and Madeleine, which actually meant we could stay there longer. I brought a back pack full of water and a picnic lunch. We climbed down the levee to dangle our feet in the cool water, kicked back and watched the show.

This year they moved the boat track so we actually got to see them up close.
Mostly we (I) went for the air show (which really just consists of a couple planes flying around, but I love it and the kids tolerate it. This year there was a Russian World War II plane that the kids liked because it put out smoke.

Then there was a jet trainer that caught us off guard because its first approach brought it right over the levee from behind us. We had no idea it was coming until it went screaming over our head. It also flew the lowest of any of the planes, right through the smoke hovering over the river.

They also liked the C-17. It was a hulking cargo plane that flow low and slow, so slow it seemed like it must have been suspended by cables. It allowed us to get great pictures.
I got a pretty good video of it flying by, pulling its landing gear up.


Then we went home for a couple hours until the later air show. This time we had to bring Lydia with us, because Vanessa was at a birthday lunch for her mom. But the afternoon air show was a Navy F-18, by far the fastest (and noisiest) plane. It was so fast it was tough to get pictures of and the video was all super shaky as I would try to track it from one side to the other at 600 mph. I got this video which captured my favorite part of the experience: the sound it makes as it rips by.

Well I had great time and I think the kids did too. This was a picture of Asher and Madeleine during our first stint.

Mischief

I think it was Madeleine's idea, but Lydia is participating with gusto.

It's that time of year again...

My kids may need 3 baths a day, but they are having a fabulous time playing in the yard. This afternoon, Asher used the hose to turn the sandbox into a mud pit. I wasn't pleased, but it was very satisfying to use that same hose to spray off the mud before I would let them come inside the house.



Lydia wishes she could join in the fun. I am guessing by this time next year, I'll have three muddy kids on my hands.