Just some photos

Ash and I are trying to get an audiobook recorded by the end of the month right now, which doesn't leave a lot of time in the evenings. I still have managed to get some cute pictures during the day though.

Soren and Carol have always played with Legos. Maddy's interest in them kind of comes and goes. The last two weeks though, she has been all about Ninjago. So we pulled out Ash's legos this week and started playing. 

The puppets, of course, figured prominently in what we were building.

She's so cute up close... and the puppets are too. 

Maddy plays hard and she sleeps hard. 

This is a little different. Maddy came to work with me on Saturday while I finished something up. She was fascinated by the mailbox outside my office and decided that I needed mail to come to on Monday. Here is what she put together for me. 

It really was fun to come to work today to mail in my mail box! This is the best kind of mail!!

Knitting

Maddy has a to-do list of things that she needs to do before she can go out to play in the morning. This was mostly instituted so that she would not be running over to Carolyn's house at 7:30 in the morning, but also so she could learn a bit of work ethic and getting things done.

It is not an extensive list. She needs to get up and have breakfast before she can go out. She has to brush her teeth and her hair. She also has to do one job and a little bit of reading practice. She is almost always out of the house by 8:00, but we have added one more thing now. She has to do 15 minutes of knitting time.

It's important for a girl to have skills and this is one more in Maddy's arsenal.

Girls night

 Maddy's friend, Sarah came over yesterday evening so here are some pictures of their girls night out. They had great fun with the hose.

 

Then took a break for tacos!

 

And back to the hose. This is a picture of our sprinkler set up which really consisted of setting the hose sprayer so that it sprayed continually and then wrapping the hose around the back porch so that it sprayed out. It was just as fun as a real sprinkler!

 

It is always fun to have Sarah over. She is 10, but she plays really well with Maddy. They girls ended the evening in Maddy's room playing with puppets. Given the right amount of time, I bet those girls could build a puppet city! Maybe next time.



Sunday

Today was the last day of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. There was a party this afternoon for the cast and their families after the last show. We were supposed to bring tablewear, drinks, and a dish to pass. I didn't know about the dish to pass till last night though.

So today, Maddy and I did some cooking. We made rolls and caramel corn. Mom and dad came over to bring a missing ingredient for the caramel corn and then chilled with us while we cooked. Maddy was so happy to see Poppy... and eat caramel corn.

The cast party was fun. Maddy got a chance to go up on the set. 

 Then we came home and worked on Maddy's scripture that she will be sharing at church next Sunday. You can't practice without an audience though.

The puppets were mostly attentive. Shiny got a little out of control, but I rubbed his ears and he settled down. What a day.

Books

Today we had a book sale in mom and dad's yard. Maddy was hilarious. She was scurrying around the yard so excited and kept scanning the tables and picking out armloads of books. Most of them were just books with interesting covers, but she kept telling me she was being big and so excited. Then she would duck under a table and flip through the books.

From there, she moved on to playing library and would take a pile of books to mom to have them scanned, then back to her "house."

I'm glad she is enjoying reading.

Puppet park

Maddy built a puppet fair the other day for the puppets. She called it "Maddy's Park." There were all sorts of rides to play on. In the umbrella ride, the puppets sat in the middle while Maddy spun the umbrella. Some of the puppets got a little sick. Off to the right, you can see the puppet hospital. The perfect place for sick puppets... and ones who break their leg when they fall off the spinning umbrella ride. Poor, Fudge.

Here is a little pool for puppets to sit in when they get tired.

And this is where puppets can go when they feel angry. They can kick the beads.

The puppet park was a great place to play. The puppets enjoyed it thoroughly.

Tonight's bonus material comes courtesy of Maddy's Girl Scout project. She has been learning about being courageous and strong. The sword reminds her to have the courage to be kind even when she doesn't want to be. She points it at someone that makes her feel frustrated and thinks of 3 kind things about them.

She kills her bad feelings with kindness!

Maddy goes to the theater

Tonight was the opening night for Ash's show. So Maddy and I dressed up and made a card for Ash. Why yes, that is a bouquet of swedish fish inside. What else would we get for Ash?

There was a little time before the show so we stopped by the park for a walk. 

Maddy was very excited when we got there!

She enjoyed every minute of it and tried to wave at Ash and her friend Carly, who just wouldn't wave back at her.

So we met them back stage. Here is her friend, Carly from Ms. K's preschool class. she was part of the kids choir.

Everyone did a great job and good times were had by all.

Something is missing...

It is so crazy hard to sneak a tooth out from under a pillow, I tell you what!!

Maddy sparkles

Yesterday for the fourth of July, we did yoga in the park with some friends. Well, Mom and I did yoga in the park with some friends and Maddy just played on the swings... for like an hour. Maddy got some hard core swinging in. She really loves to swing.

The teachers had brought sparklers as a salute afterwards and Maddy did enjoy that bit.

Bonus video for the night is the video Ash put together of the kids watching fireworks...

https://www.facebook.com/ash.ahrens/videos/10155006802032468/

Ok, so it's just a link, but if you click it you will see the video. And it is really cute!!

Happy Independence Day!

This has been a lovely evening/night in which all the cousins enjoyed a wonderful concert at Krape Park while blowing bubbles...

Then a great fireworks display...

And finally, some well deserved sleep.

Happy Independence Day, everybody.

A trip downtown

Maddy has a list of things that she needs to do every morning before she goes out. There are the basics - have breakfast, brush hair, put on clothes. She also has to review her word flashcards and do a job. Now on Saturdays, that list changes a little bit. She doesn't have to review her flashcards, but she has to do two jobs. The jobs are basic chores, things like unload the dishwasher and fold laundry.

Well, today, Maddy found out that I was serious when I said she couldn't go out till her jobs were done. Today, Soren and Carl came by for the morning walk and Maddy wasn't even dressed, let alone having eaten breakfast or started her jobs. So, she didn't get to go out.

Words cannot begin to describe the sadness.

So I made a deal with her. If she finished her jobs, I told her we could take a walk downtown. Maddy loves to walk around downtown. She loves to look at the stores and occasionally buy something from a vending machine.

It still took an hour to get the jobs done (folding her clothes and putting them away and sorting her dirty clothes into piles) and there was a lot of tears, but she finally finished and was pretty happy with herself by the time she was done.

So she counted our her money, separated some into savings and away we went. She decided that it would be OK for Soren and Carl to come with us too. We made a merry party.

It actually was pretty fun. Maddy and Carl rode on ahead. Soren rode next to me and kept up a steady stream of conversation. We went to a consignment store downtown, because there is always stuff to look at there. Then, we went over to Sweets and Treats.

The Sweets and Treats cafe was a huge hit and Maddy and Carl both came home with two little bags of candy. Did you know they make candy legos? Well, apparently they do and you can actually build with them!

The ride home was a little less merry and a little more crabby, but all in all it was a fun day.

Maddy is already asking if we can do it again next Saturday.

Maddy types

So tonight we decided to do some work on one of Maddy's Girl Scout patches. She had to find 3 quotes and write them down and post them around the house. Well we found the quotes and she started to write them, but they were pretty long so instead, Maddy learned how to type.

Not super well. She was doing the one finger method while I spelled out the words for her, but she got 3 signs made up. Her favorite part was holding down the shift key to make capital letters. Then she picked the font and we saved it for me to print off at work today.

She was pretty delighted with herself. Then the puppets did some typing in wingdings font, which was also hilariously funny.

Side note: Puppets can't spell.