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.