Maddy gets a haircut and loves fire.

Maddy has never liked long hair. She is too busy. Long hair gets in her eyes when bouncing and having to brush it is a misery. It's much better to have short hair that you don't have to brush in the morning or put up in barettes or give any thought to at all.

This pretty much sums up why Maddy cut her own hair a couple of years ago. Now we don't let her hair get any longer than shoulder length before it gets a trim. This time, she wanted a little more than a trim so Maddy is ready for summer with a cute new haircut!

She has such a pretty face. I think she looks delightfully Maddy!!

Tonight we went over to Nan's house. We tried to ride bikes for a while, but it was still a little chilly outside and of course we forgot to bring coats with us. As much fun as bike riding was, we decided to retire to mom's house and build a fire. Who knew how much fun that would be. Maddy got the fun of destroying boxes.

Maddy was even cute hulking out tonight. Good times were had by all.

A lazy evening?

It has been a busy day. Maddy finished up her school work early today so that she could have more time in the evening to play and, boy, did she play.

She played outside while Ash cooked dinner. Then she we went over to mom's and she played on the swings, and played basketball against the garage. Afterwards she collected sticks for the best thing to do at mom's... make a fire! Maddy spent the next 20 minutes destroying boxes and burning sticks like anything.

By the time we got home, she was ready for a snack. Here's Maddy enjoying Pokemon and a little personal pizza before bed.

This little girl was out in 5 minutes after laying down tonight. Best kind of day.

Easter

Happy Easter!!

Today's has been nice. It was drizzling for most of the day, but that did not stop the kids from having an Easter egg hunt in Scott and Carolyn's backyard. This was the first year that we did it with them and I had no idea how many eggs they normally hid. There had to be about 100 eggs in that backyard! It was great fun. There were even a couple kids from church that came over and helped Sven and Leif with the hunt.

Good times were had by all and now Maddy has enough candy to last her till Christmas!

Saturday quickie

OK, so this was not what I had planned on sharing today, but it is too cute not to. This is exactly what taking Maddy's picture is like.

 Let me know if this moves when you see it on the computer like it is doing on my phone.

Maddy's castle

Maddy has a new game when she goes to Nan's house. She goes shopping. And by shopping, I mean, she takes everything out of the cupboards and loads it into an old shopping cart. Then she takes everything into the living room where she stacks it up.

Today, she decided she was going to build a castle out of her groceries. It is actually a pretty neat structure. Part of it got knocked over while we were getting read to take the picture, but it's still pretty good.

The hard part is putting everything back when it's all done. I don't think mom is going to be able to find anything in her cupboards for a long time.

Cellphone pictures

I never know what kinds of pictures are going to show up on my phone when I am at work. Here are some of my recent favorites.

Maddy at mom's after a bath.

Maddy's new haircut

Maddy goes bowling... at home.

More volcanos

I just realized today that we have about 16 volcano books at home and they are all due at the library soon. So we are spending a lot of time reading about volcanoes right now. This morning we got in a couple pages before I had to go to work and Ash took some pictures.

This is Maddy in the morning, bouncing and listening and learning.

Glowbear

You know how kids sometimes fall in love with the most ridiculous toys that you would never in a million years think that they would care about? Let me introduce you to Glowbear.

Glowbear is a little 5" tall plastic bear that glows. He is neat and portable. He runs on AAA batteries and can be carried from room to room when it's dark. He also has a built in timer, so after about an hour he will turn himself off, which is plenty of time for a little girl to fall asleep.

Maddy got him for her birthday in January and was charmed on sight. She loved that he glowed. She loved that she could turn him on and off easily and carry him around with her at night when she had to use the bathroom. And she just loved him.

Glowbear is now an active part of the family. Ash makes him grumble and walk and give her a kiss before bed. Then Glowbear sits on her pillow while she sleeps. Ash and I can always tell if she has woken up during the night because we will walk by and see her sleeping and Glowbear glowing away on her pillow. And when she has a bad dream and comes to sleep in our room, Glowbear comes too and I wake up to a gentle glowing light that wasn't there before.

We love him because Maddy loves him and he's worth all the batteries he goes through!

Maddy goes to Michigan

This weekend Maddy finally got a road trip. Maddy loves road trips... Well, Maddy loves the idea of road trips. After about 4-5 hours in the car, she is a little over the road trips, but they always start out with enthusiasm and, boy, was Maddy enthusiastic about going to Michigan. She has been talking about it for the last two weeks. There was nothing happier than a little girl pushing her suitcase out to the car on Friday.

 

She was crazy excited!! No, really, she was crazy!

The enthusiasm for traveling lasted about 4 hours. The last few hours, not so much. She was thrilled to get there though and had a great weekend!!

Maddy got to explore the woods at grandma and grandpa's and throw rocks in the creek which is one of her favorite things to do.

She also got to eat ALL the ice cream she could ever want and who doesn't like that. In fact, Maddy got to eat everything she wanted. Apparently Maddy does have limits though. After a delicious lunch with peanuts, rolls, lemonade, mac and cheese, AND fries at Texas Roadhouse, Maddy was a little overfull.

She's still cute, even when she is full.

After a short break, she headed over to the Hands-On Museum in Ann Arbor and had a great time with everything there.

This is why Maddy should never be an EMT. Unless EMT stands for Emergency Monkey Team.

The museum was a lot of fun and Maddy got a few souvenirs to take home with her. One of them was this crazy little foam animal that she had to put together her self by following directions in a book. I was amazed at how well she did and how focused she stayed on it.

Even this morning when I woke up, I was surprised not to hear her running around the house. I was actually a little concerned because she is never that quiet unless she is sleeping or doing something mischievous. I figured I better investigate. There was Maddy though, sitting quietly on the floor working on her animal. The set included a flower, a pig, and a scene to build. Here's the flower she did on the first day.

After a little more woods and exploring this morning, it was time to come home. We found a Sonic to stop at on the way home and Maddy's comment as we pulled in was, "All my wishes have come true!" Apparently this was the best weekend ever!

She also got a bike while she was in Michigan, so she is the girl with all the cake! Plus we got home early enough that Ash could put it together. He says he has officially earned his dad card since he built a kids bike with princesses on it.

Maddy finished her animals while she was waiting. You can see the pig and the flower together here.

We even had time to get a lot of bike riding in today. Maddy just took off on it. After all that time with balance bike, Maddy took to her two-wheeler pretty quickly and by the time we came inside this evening, she was riding like a pro.

I'm sure we'll get some video this week of bike riding.

All in all, it was a great trip!! We had a wonderful time and like Maddy said, all her wishes came true!

Maddy's Laws of Inertia

Ash and I always joke about how hard it is to get a picture of Maddy because: A Maddy in motion will remain in motion and Maddy at rest doesn't happen. If you want to get a good picture of Maddy you have to take about 50 pictures and if you are lucky then maybe one of them will be good.

Well, today I wanted to get a picture of Maddy wearing her new dress and bolero that I made for her. I had to take a million pictures.

Gotta love her.