Horse Bite

A couple of people have asked me to elaborate on the "horse bite" comment. We were at a petting zoo in Indiana and basically one of the mini horses decided to chomp on MJ's little hand! He must have decided baby fingers were delicious. We pulled her hand out of his mouth stat but it was quite dramatic. As most of you who know me know I had my sleeve pulled on by a monkey when I was seven years old, and these things don't leave you. Part of me still feels like there are monkeys somewhere out to get me.
Petting Zoo Innocence:

And the baby goats were so gentle!

Kentuckiana Trip

I just wanted to write a quick post about our trip to Kentucky/Indiana. We had a great time, and Madison partied like a champ the whole trip. She never swayed from her happy, sunny self despite being: bitten on the hand by a horse(!), suffering some sort of midwestern-air type of allergy, and staying up waaaay past her bedtime a few nights in a row. :) She loved seeing her Nana and PawPaw and would randomly walk up and hug Nana at unexpected times, making it extra cute. Madison loves making her stuffed animals and toys hug and kiss, but the real thing is the best kind! She also loved meeting Great Gran, Great Aunt Lisa, Great Aunt Anita, and all the other relatives east of the Rockies!

Three generations

Fashion show

Purdue peeps

Wedding day

Gotta run!

Places to go, people to meet................!

The Elf at Play

So I guess I didn't have any takers for my "Easter moments" blog..... That was my attempt at user participation on here. Don't be shy people!
And to make up for the no-pics entry last time, I will now happily post some pics! These are just random pictures from clearing out my memory card in preparation for our big trip to Kentuckiana! We leave tomorrow! Hope the plane ride is smooooooth sailing :)

First 5k - out at the Res w/ Mommy. It was coooooooold! The Elf has a red nose! Eating ice cream at the end

First Rockies game - Club seats!
We got to meet Dinger at halftime, but the Elf was not into it

Daddy's birthday present - a figurine from the hospital gift shop where I was born - amazing!

The little gardener

Kitties and Crocs!

Pushing her way onto the slide at a playgroup

Uh-oh spaghettio!

And last but not least, here is Madison modeling a dress I just finished making for her (plus blocks & pillow). I was so proud! Yay for sewing machines!

The Little Things

I wanted to write something besides my usual gratuitous posts of the cuteness, so here is a post with some other schtuff..... I named this post "The Little Things" because I based this on my observations of all the little things lately- which, when you add them all up, they actually seem kind of big!

One day Madison starting piling up blocks. She has always been the Little Organizer, so now with the blocks integrated into her Plan to Reorganize Our House, she'll pile them up, look at them thoughtfully, then try to carry the stack somewhere else in the room, set them down, and survey the result.

Another new discovery is dumping things from one cup into another. She's been doing this for a while now with toys (mostly dumping them OUT), but I noticed that now in the tub, she'll dump water from one cup into another over & over again. She's fascinated by the water.

I guess one of the little girls in day care taught Madison "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" and much to our surprise, I started singing it one day and she started doing the hand motions. It's more like an interpretive dance, with swaying and waving and even feet! I tried to capture it on video but so far I only have it on my cell!

Hmm what else... Running! She is not quite running yet (thank GOD!) but she loves to *try* to run, and will do a little squeal and put her arms up in the air like she's taking off, but it's kind of like in Scooby Doo, where her arms & legs are going but she pretty much stay in the same place. But when it's near naptime or bedtime, the pretend-running increases exponentially- and we've really got to keep an eye on her or she'll run right into a wall!

Talking, words, letters, and books are getting a lot more interesting. I think Madison notices that letters and pictures are associated now. And then this morning at breakfast, she looked at her "Dora the Explorer" yogurt cup and said "Boots!" (as in, Boots the Monkey for you non-Dora people :) I laughed and she said it a few more times, and I noticed that really it sounded like "Boobs" Hehee- But I knew what she meant!

Good times.......

Other than having fun making these little observations, I have been enjoying dividing my time between playgroups and part-time working. It's a pretty cool setup, and despite the hurdles of figuring out my schedule week-to-week, I feel like I really get the best of both worlds. I wrote a little "guest" post for one of my friends on this topic, under http://www.christyallbee.com/ - it's under "K-funk guest blogger" if you're interested.

And - I already broke with my idea of writing about holiday memories in here! So, for Easter, I thought about, but didn't write about, my fave Easter experience ever. It was the Easter when I was about 10. We lived in Colorado Springs and my grandparents came to visit. The "Easter Bunny" came by (altho by then I knew he wasn't real, based on finding chewed-up carrot in our bathroom garbage can a few yrs before) and he had hidden our Easter baskets throughout the house. I remember finding my brothers' Easter baskets before mine, and thinking I was in on a huge secret by not showing them and letting them find them on their own. (Of course, thinking back, they were 14 & 15 at the time, and probably could have cared less about their Easter baskets!) But in any case, I thought I was pretty cool for finding them first. And once I found mine, it had a little stuffed bunny in it that I carried around for the rest of the day in my "baby carrier" (a tummy-carrier built for my Cabbage Patch kid). I guess that was the beginning of my baby carrier days. Who knew??!

If you have a fave Easter moment, please take a sec to write about it in my Comments!

Until next time.......
Kfunk

Easter with Daddy and "Grand Rabbit"

Ha - couldn't resist posting this! Madison liked meeting "Grand Rabbit" but was happy that Daddy was close by....

And some egg hunt pix.. It was an "age 1-3" type thing. Total chaos! And something only a parent could love :)

Balloons & Bubbles

These are for the grandparents!
And by the way, happy Easter! I am uploading a few Easter pictures right now. Hope everyone had a "hoppy" one. :) Hugs from Madison!

I love her impatient little expressions. Like, C'mon Mom, hurry up! But it's hard to try to blow bubbles & navigate the camera at the same time! I just realized these were on the same day.. I must've been video-happy!

Video Killed the Radio Star

A couple people have mentioned that they like videos on here, and this is one I liked from a couple weeks ago. For some reason it seems hard to grab the camera, turn it on, switch it to video, & press the button during those opportune moments where Madison is giggling & happy & doing something cute all while, of course, THINKING to videotape it in the first place!

Anyhoo, this one was taken while Madison was "dancing." That is, right up until I got the camera out. And so the video consists of me trying to get her to dance again. Which basically means flexing her knees up and down, with an occasional kick thrown in for effect. And the bonus is that you get to hear me singing "Kookaburra." But anyway, I also like this video is because you can see Madison's E.T.-style walk.

In other news, Madison had an allergic reaction to something a couple weeks ago and broke out all over in hives. The doctor thought it might have been due to the antibiotics she was on for an ear infection (amoxicillin), and quickly gave her benedryl and took her off the antibiotics. The hives cleared up within a day but I was pretty freaked out by the experience. It was like, one minute she was fine, the next minute bright red and spotty. I'd never seen anything like it. You should have heard me on the phone to the doctors, I was a nervous wreck. But the good news is that she's fine and we're going to an allergist this week to determine if she has an food allergies or anything else that could have caused it.

And, last but not least, Madison got baptised on Sunday, which happened to be Palm Sunday. My mom came in town for it and Madison wore my grandfather's 100+ year old gown! It was a nice ceremony and she seemed to really know it was about her! Can't wait for Easter!

My aunt, cousin, and friends from Virginia/Colorado were there too. It was great to see everyone!