All about Maddie

I'm getting closer to the year mark from when I last blogged, so I thought I better get on this and write an update! I really need to be better about updating this thing....

As you can tell from the title, this post is all about Maddie! She's the most interesting one in the family so she deserves her own blog post ;) so here are some tidbits about her!

1. Maddie's favorite book right now is Llama Llama nighty night, but she really likes all books. She also really likes a Christmas counting book and will point out the dog (gougou), kitty, baby and on the page for number 5 she'll want me to help her county the five stars every time. She loves pointing out the numbers to me and will now find them everywhere to point out to me. Every time she sees a number she points and then yells "nine! Nine!" Every number (and sometimes letters) are nines right now ;) but it's pretty funny to be driving and have her suddenly start yelling "nine" because she's seen numbers on signs.

2. Maddie loves Curious George. She calls him "ah ah" (from the sound ooh-ooh ah-ah) and will occasionally point to the TV saying "ah ah!" Since she likes watching his show. She owns a couple of stuffed monkeys and they are both "ah ah."

3. Maddie's most used words right now are "no no," "bye," "mama" and "Dada." Her communication skills are really picking up, even if the majority of her words kind of sound the same. She's very good at letting us know when she doesn't want help or letting us know when she doesn't want some food/drink with her very firm "no no!" She also likes to tell the dogs no no when they even look at her while she has a snack in hand. In her defense, the dogs have stolen a lot of her treats... Haha! She also loves to grab her sippy and some keys and yell "bye!" while making her way to the door. It's really heart warming to see your toddler already trying to leave you... Hehe!!

4. Over this past month Maddie has decided that baths are terrifying and will scream the entire time she gets a bath. Sometimes I even just quickly clean her off while she stands there trying to get herself out. I'm not really sure what has happened because she used to be such a fish and loved water! Hopefully it's just a phase and she'll get back to loving water.

5. Maddie loves looking at the quiet book that Andrea made for her. Her favorite pages are definitely the ones that have pictures of our family. Whenever she sees pictures of David she'll get excited and yell "Dada! Dada! Dada!" while pointing to the pictures and David. So while it keeps her entertained, it might not be the quietest book. Hehe!! The funniest part is that she will not only yell "dada!" when she sees pictures of David, but also when she sees pictures of Jesus. We're not really sure how she's made that connection in her head, but it's probably because David is so amazing and she knows that her dad is so Christlike. ;)

6. This one is probably TMI, but we're making progress on her pre potty training phase. She tells us a lot of the time when she needs a diaper change and still likes to sit on the potty on occasion. She's gone pee pee in the potty a couple of times, but mostly she'll just sit there and laugh and then want off. She'll then want toilet paper so she can "wipe" herself and throw the paper in the toilet. If you ask me, that's the only reason she ever wants to sit on the toilet... Now I'm just hoping that she never thinks of putting other things in the toilet.

7. Maddie is learning pretend play right now. She likes to feed her baby doll bottle to the baby, to her monkeys, to her toy gou gou and to herself. She is also picking up on pretend sleeping. She'll say "nigh night" and then last down and close her eyes really tight. David brought her into bed with us this morning, since we get lazy Sunday mornings with our 1:00 church time, and she kept snuggling up and pretend sleeping. She'd even do a fake snoring sometimes and then giggle at herself. It's so cute! I love seeing her figure out pretend play.

8. Maddie is definitely all girl! She loves bows, necklaces, bracelets, pretty dresses, shoes, putting on makeup and painted nails. I have NO idea where she gets this girliness from ;) Whenever she has her nails painted she'll look at them over and over and say "booOOOoo"  which is her word for beautiful. She also likes to accessories herself with pretty interesting finds. This morning she put my necklace on, then a sports bra around her neck, then wanted her vest put on inside out and Dave's snow mobile goggles on. When I took them off of her so we could go to church, she wasn't very happy. She sure is a funny little diva.

Here's our fancy diva this morning

And here are more pictures from our happenings as of late!

Maddie wasn't a big fan of the snow

I'm so spoiled to have my own personal hair stylist!

I love seeing these cousins play together 

So many cute kiddos

I always force my child to pose for me

Happy birthday cousin Hannah!

Teaching the art of the selfie... With the photo bomber in the back

Cute Andrea and Alicia with two cute kids!

I loved having you all here!

Look at that glowing pregnant lady!

Posing with some presents from their baby shower

Mom, grandma and Poppa

Aunt Cheryl is the best!

Cutest little nail customer

Crazy nail aunt making her nails all pretty!

Sharing a Christmas eve dessert

Family Christmas eve picture

What it's really like taking pictures with a toddler

Santa came to our house! David was sure to put the fireplace on

Maddie has a weird obsession with these flavored mints

Playing with her new choo-choo

Santa bought Maddie a slide and she loves it

Feeding her baby

Family dinner

 Trying on Dada's shoes

Hanging out with her cousin McKinley

Maddie loves Uncle Tall Paul

Enjoying some cereal after work/daycare

New year's goal... Food prep for lunches

So stylish

She's such a talented make up artist

She's saying "bye bye!" While waving to me

She's on her way out

Pushing her stroller around at the outlets in Lehi. She did not want us to help her

Pizza with her cousins Devin and Ellie. She had to sit at the table like a big kid

Smiles before church

I love this goof!

Alright, I'm signing off. I'd say that I promise to be better at blogging, but I've been told they I shouldn't make promises that I can't keep ;) but I do want to be better, so I'll try!

Much love, Rachel

Goodbye, Red Wall

After a 6 month hiatus, I am back at the blog! I'll try reeaaally hard to post more than every 6 months, but no promises. Hehe!

As you know, David and I recently purchased a home here in Utah and we absolutely love it! Well, we love most of it. There are a few things that we want to change about it, one of them being this very bright orangey-red wall in our family room. So, this weekend we have said farewell to our red wall as the first step to updating our home!

I now present....

                Way Too Many Pictures of a Wall

Here is The Red Wall

Taping The Red Wall

Step #1: Adding the primer layer

I made David take this picture to prove that I actually participated

Step #1 complete!

Our crazy-haired cheerleader. And by cheerleader, I mean demander-of-attention

Here comes Blue!
Once again, I made David take this picture to prove that I helped

Look at that handsome man painting away!

Introducing Blue! 

Enjoying our blue wall

David hung up our temple picture and then posed against our future mantle

And this concludes...    

                  Way Too Many Pictures of a Wall

We have more plans for this wall and fireplace. We want to take out the tile and switch it for a light colored slate that will go up the entire height of the wall. We then want to put a floating mantle over the fireplace as well as install floating shelves on the sides. We are also toying with the idea of putting in cupboards on either side of the fireplace.

Here's a picture that is kind of my inspiration for what I'd like to do with our fireplace. I think the light colored slate will look great with the blue wall we now have!

I absolutely love this look!

After our fun with painting we took an evening family walk to the park that is about a block away from us. We live in such a great area and we love this park. We also love walking around our neighborhood and looking at all of the cute houses and getting ideas for our yard that is slowly coming together.

I told David to pose "for the blog!"

David and I have been called and sustained as Primary Workers at church and have been assigned to the 9-11 year old girls class. We are team teaching with another young couple so will only have to teach every other week, which works out great since David works every other Sunday. Taking care of Maddie and teaching the class by myself might be too much, so it's great that David can be there every time. Maddie really is in a very busy stage and church can be hard for her! 

Today we played a new game with her during sacrament meeting that kept her entertained most of the time. We took her bag of treats and put it on the far side of David so that she would cruise over there, then when she got there we'd switch it to be next to me, so she'd have to walk back over. She loved this game, and loved getting treats, too. Hehe!

I now present...

      Sneaky pictures during Sacrament Meeting

Holding on to mom's legs to get to the treats

The treats have been spotted!

She got the treats!! 

Dad stole the treats, so here she goes to find them!
Also, side note, the girl in the background is the cute 14 year old neighbor who babysat Maddie on Friday

She found the treats again!

And this concludes...

      Sneaky pictures during Sacrament Meeting

Alright, this ends my blog post for now. Once again, I promise that I will try really hard to post again before Thanksgiving ;) 

Much love, 

THE WEBBS