and now, moments with maddie

maddie and i were in the bathroom yesterday cleaning up after maddie had an accident in her pants. she's great at making it in time when she has to tinkle, but when it comes to, uh, going number two she's been doing it in her pants. so, in a moment of frustration i asked her why she went in her pants instead of the toilet. she told me it's because she's too busy!

later on she was busy playing with her shrek figurines and brought over princess fiona's dad who turned into a frog in the second movie. anyway, maddie was pointing out his crown to me and said, "look, his f***ing crown." i knew i had to be hearing her wrong so i asked her to slowly say it again for me. she repeated it again, slowly, and i still heard the expletive plain as day. just then i realized what she was trying to say --the frog king -- for me to look at his frog king crown. :) we're working on enunciation now.

our first ferry ride!

dame and i decided to take a drive yesterday since we were all going crazy in the house. we took the bridge over the river and drove the loop to take the ferry back. it was our first time taking a ferry so we were pretty excited. all of us except samson --he was a nervous wreck.

family BBQ

raylee is being camera shy. ;)

startin' solids

noel is trying out solid foods now. he's not too impressed so far. he ends up wearing more than he eats and somehow i end up wearing it as well. the other day i had various sweet potatoes, snot, and poo smudges on my shirt. it's pretty bad to get poo on me, but i guess it's worse when i don't change my shirt because "it's not that much."

he's remarkably clean in this pic.

our maddie

here are some pictures of madeline.

we took her to chuck e. cheese a couple weeks ago and she had a lot of fun. you'd never know that by this pic. she was terrified when she saw chuck e. cheese come out to say hi to the kids. and what bothered me was that he kept turning her way trying to wave to her even while she was shacking and screaming in my arms. he finally left and after a few minutes she calmed down and enjoyed the rest of our time there.

here she is after eating an italian ice cup --she got every last bit --except for the bit she got all over her face. her face was stained this way for a day. and, last but not least, here's my most recent picture of her that i took today. see the sticky hand print on the wall?

time to catch up!

well, it's been brought to my attention that i haven't made an entry in quite a while. truth be told, we haven't been up to much --especially not anything interesting enough to post on the internet. i did find a few pictures, though, on my camera that i guess i'll put up for you all to see. so they'll have to do until something truly extraordinary happens. hahaha. okay, we won't wait for that. ;)

here's maddie & dame stretching their legs on the nearby marine base. noel was asleep in the car so i stayed in with him and the air conditioning. :) you northwesterners can get a bit of a feel for the scenery around here from the bottom two pics. it's very, uh, swampy.

here are a couple pictures of noel. he's getting big fast. i think he'll be crawling very soon since he's pretty good at scooting around on the floor using his legs and right arm. once he figures out his left arm i'm in trouble! :)

this pic pretty much sums up maddie and noel's relationship. i forget what she was saying to him, but his expression cracks me up.

oh here we go! ... something extraordinary!

dame is definitely turning into an old british man. complete with rogue ear hairs and, as you can see, unruly nose hairs! ready for the close up??

(side note: that's noel's hair. he got his first trim and instead of putting his locks in a baby book, dame stuck them in his nose.)

happy b-day, dame!

dame turned 32 this month! he spent the weekend in las vegas with his dad and brother and had a really good time. when he came home we surprised him (sort of) with a cake. i say sort of because as soon as we picked him up from the airport maddie asked if we could have happy birthday cake now. and yeah, dame figured it out right away.

anyway, raylee decorated it with his favorite undersea friends. she also decorated maddie's cupcake so she wouldn't feel left out. she even put a candle on it for her. here are a couple pics. oh, and the cake was actually a brownie. i'm horrible at making cakes. but dame liked it!

the finger test

maddie is in a new phase. she's getting her finger stuck in everything since she can't resist testing small openings to see if her finger will fit. this time it was in the back of her cement truck. dame came home right as i took this picture and came to her rescue. his reaction: help maddie. my reaction: get the camera! :)

our "toot" turtle friend

we had a little visitor on our door step a couple weeks ago... he made it all the way up to the door mat before he turned around and headed back to the front garden where i took these pics. i really do love turtles. maddie does too. she squealed with delight "he's so cute!" when she saw him. (i'm translating for you. what she actually said was "he so toot!")

as requested... here's another video of noel. :) this is a few weeks old, though, when he was first catching on to rolling over. he's a pro now. isn't his smile great? he smiles all the time --such a happy baby! :)