Lil Teeth

Lil Miss is finally getting all her lil teeth. She's the last in her playgroup of kiddos her age to be getting the rest in! The latest are her little top canines, which you can see the points coming thru. This pic is one of those giggle moments, in which she thought it was hilarious to try to squirm around while I was taking her pic, but I thought it ended up being a good one of her teeth. Mom 1, Madison 0! Ha!

She doesn't have her 2-year molars in yet and pretty much just finished getting her 1-year molars, so I have a feeling it will be a while before we see the likes of those.
And as long as I am on the stats, we had Madison's 2-year checkup a couple weeks ago. She is still a tiny peanut, but seems to be ahead of the curve on everything else. She was almost 23 lbs and about 2' 10", which put her in the 8th% for weight and 55th% for height. She is talking up a storm these days and was asking the doctor things like, "Are you going to check my tummy, Dr. Halperin?" which was kind of funny. We started potty training after we got back from Christmas and she's finally wearing "big girl" underpants and using the potty, well most of the time. She was using it 100% of the time last week, but now I think she was just showing off cause my mom was here. She weaned from breastfeeding at 23 months (yay, before she turned two!) and now the next thing to tackle will be her "poppy" (pacifier). She managed to have it in at her doctor's appointment so of course the doctor brought it up. She gave us a goal of age 2 1/2 to say bye-bye. We'll see how that goes!
Everything else with Madison is going supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! She has been on a Mary Poppins kick the past couple of months or so, and so everything in our lives centers around Jane, Michael, Bert, Mary Poppins, and going in a tunnel and getting a dirty nose. I have a feeling you parents out there can understand what I'm talking about. I won't go into any more detail than that.

Birthday Girl

Madison turned two last Thursday, and we had a party with all her best buddies on Saturday to celebrate. She was a little shy when the kids first started arriving, but after a while she warmed up and got her groove on. I think her favorite part was the pink Frosty cake. I think she would've been happy sitting and eating frosting for the rest of the day!

Christmas Catch-up

I just realized that I never posted any Christmas pictures on here! Here are a few for your viewing pleasure. We also just watched our video from Christmas and my birthday, and I was reminded of a special little birthday serenade I received on Christmas Eve of "Rock-a-bye Baby" morphed into "Happy Birthday," sung by a little Christmas elf sitting on my lap. It was the best birthday present ever!!!

MJ-isms

Some funny things about Madison that make me laugh ~ ~

• Whenever she sees a football game or basketball game on TV, she says: "marching baaaaand!" and dances around the room


• Likes my singing. Nuff said.


• Sleeps late (definitely my child!)


• Tells me I have a little nose


• I smell like strawberry shortcake


• I’m like a mary poppins mommy

She’ll find something little and seemingly insignificant and become fascinated with it. For instance, the Mary Poppins dvd cover from the library has a picture from “the making of” with Julie Andrews and her nose covered in soot, talking to the director or someone. So for the past 2 weeks, we’ve had to sing about the “dirty nose” and Mary Poppins talking to “the man...” The dvd cover now even comes with us to breakfast, in the car, and to daycare!

Favorite expressions:

"Look!"
"What’s that?"
"Why???"
"I don’t like … "
"I do it myself!!!"

MJ's Top Movies of the Decade

Todd & I were discussing my 'Top 10 Movies' post the other day, when MJ kept saying, "I have some! I have some!" when we realized she meant that SHE had some favorite movies TOO! C'mon, what were we thinking, not posting her movie list on here too? So with a little brainstorm of the movies she's seen in her short life thus far, we came up with this list. And if any of you know toddlers, they feel pretty strongly about their faves....
Without further adieu:

1. Frosty the Snowman
2. Rudulph
3. Dora's Christmas
4. Barney at the Zoo
5. Baby Van Gogh
6. Baby Beethoven
7. Baby Bach
8. The Wizard of Oz
9. Elmo's Birthday Party
10. Angelina Ballerina

My friend gave us VHS (!) tapes of the Baby Einstein movies before Madison was born, and I thought, ok, maybe we'll pop these in one night when she's not going to sleep... Not really thinking she'd pay attention. But around 12 or 15 mos or so, these became the SHIZZ for her. It was all she ever wanted to do. I think "Baby Van Gogh" was among her first words in fact. It was a little weird. She was mezmerized. She's now seen them all enough to memorize the commentary... and luckily has branched out to other movies too, saving us from investing further in Baby Einstein and also saving our sanity!

Welcome 2010 & Reader Feedback

So, one of the big questions that came up while we were in Indiana, was:
Will you say: "Twenty-Ten" or "Two-Thousand Ten?"

Well, I guess it wasn't a "big" question for everybody, but it was for me!I personally am saying "Two-Thousand Ten," mainly because I was already in the habit of saying "Two-Thousand Nine." Todd insists that most people will say "Twenty-Ten" but I disagree...

So, now that it is actually 2010, how are you saying it? Reader feedback requested!

Another common discussion on our trip was: "Best ofs the Decade." As in, best movies of the decade, best albums of the decade, etc. I've decided to start out posting my Ten Favorite Movies of the Decade here. Notice I am not saying "Ten Best" but "Ten Favorites" and that way you can't argue with me since they're my own personal favorites! If you feel like expanding on your reader feedback here even more, I'd love to see other people's Fave Movies of the Decade as well.

I admit, I looked these up on imdb to find out the dates, just cause I was curious. But otherwise these were off the top of my head!

1. Almost Famous (2000)
2. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
3. Sex and the City, the Movie (2008)
4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
5. Oceans 11 (2001)
6. Mamma Mia (2008)
7. Children of Men (2006)
8. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
9. Into the Wild (2007)
10. Memento (2000)

Quotes-o-the-week!

Upon seeing a semi-strange man in the park:

"Man walking. Has gloves on. Jacket on. Hat on. Kinda weird."

To Todd:

"Mommy feel like Strawberry Shortcake."