18 months (and our week)

Our cute Madi Lynn turned 18 months! You can see in this picture what happens when she eats dairy--she gets a nice rash around her mouth. Poor girl. She only drinks almond milk, but sometimes it's hard when she sees Ty and Bryn eating yogurt or soemthing and she doesn't understand why I don't want her to have it. So obviously sometimes I let her, and she gets that rash.

I feel like I don't say enough good things about Madison; especially lately as we've been having such a hard time with her. But she really is such a sweetheart. She's very playful and loving. Just this last week it seems like she just hit a mark and has had a language explosion. She says several new words a day and it's lots of fun to watch her communication develop.

This is how she gives kisses. She just leans her head into you, and waits for you to kiss her.

Fishin with daddy

 

 Madison loves to read books, sing songs, see animals, climb on the table and throw everything else off, follow her big brother and sister, and give loves to Kelsey. She likes to have me sing songs to her until she falls asleep every night and every nap time. I am trying to break that habit, but sometimes she just tugs at my heart strings when she looks at me with her big brown eyes and says, "Mama" all pathetic-like. :) She has an infectious smile and the cutest baby pudge ever.

Highlights of our week:

Monday: Tyler started the summer season of soccer. It's definitley not typical "summer" weather for us, but it's still outside. It's pretty far away, and it's Monday and Wednesdays from 12-1. So I just pack lunches for us and we eat while we watch him.

Tuesday-Thursday: Tyler went to a bible camp at the University Baptist Church. Our neighbors brought us over a flier for it, they are pretty active in that church and their teenage boy was one of the youth leaders for it. It was from 11-2 those days and Tyler loved it!! He had such a good time hanging out with other kids. When I told him it was with the Baptist church he asked if they were going to baptize him, lol. Since attending there, I have seen him writing things on his drawings/papers like "Jesus is Alive" and "God is Powerful" haha.

Tuesday afternoon I took the kids down to Tony Knowles Coastal Trail. It's a beautiful trail with a fun park. We played there for a couple hours.
I accidentally left my phone there, and didn't realize it till we were on our way home. I hurried and turned around and went back to look for it. Some kind lady saw me looking around and asked if I had lost my cell phone. She had stayed there waiting for me to come back and get it!! What a saint! I'm so grateful for honest, good people. That could have been a very expensive mistake.

Thursday while Ty was at the camp, I went with the girls to the library where they hold a "concert in the park" thing. It's every Thursday and a different band comes and plays music. There's kids dancing and running all around having a good time. It's a very relaxed, fun environment--perfect for little kids!

Kelsey, Brynlee, and the Air Force Band

Thursday night I had one of the YW from our ward come over and babysit at 8. We had all the kids asleep when she got here, and Kenny and I snuck out on a date. We wanted to go play tennis, but we can't find our tennis rackets anywhere! Very frustrating. So we drove over to the church to play basketball, but there was a big party going on. So we went across the street to the lake and ran around it. It didn't take nearly as long as we thought it would, so we drove around and found a basketball court that wasn't being used. We had a great time playing horse (which I won), and one-on-one (which Kenny won, but only barely) :). Then we went back to the lake and walked around some more. We nearly got attacked by a moose there!! Okay that might be an exaggeration, it wasn't attacking us. But it was walking towards us. I was seriously about to jump in the lake I was so scared. Kenny wasn't scared at all, and was walking towards it, which made me freak out even more! Anyway, it was so good to get out and have fun together.

Friday night we went down to Cheney lake again as a family. Kenny and Ty fished, the girls just played and loved seeing the baby ducks. It was a nice evening.
This week was infinitely better than last week because they brought somebody up from Cleveland to help out with the work load. That means Kenny's actually coming home at regular hours! It's so nice not only to have him home, but also to not have him so stressed out day and night.