1st Dentist Appointment

Madison went to her first dentist appointment on Monday. We took her to Southwest Pediatric Dentistry & Orthodontics. I had no clue where to bring Madison, but I knew I wanted to bring her to a pediatric dentist and I knew I obviously wanted it to be close to our house. Then once I started looking, I realized that some pediatric dentists, welcome the parents to come back to the room with the kids, and some discourage against it or won't even allow it. Once I saw that I knew I also wanted one that encourage parents to go back to the room with their kids. I know Madison would NOT like going back to some room with a total stranger and having to open her mouth for them.

Well anyways, it wasn't a "real" dentist appointment because they don't do those until they are 3 years old, but they like to get the kids in 1 time before they turn 3 to give a tour of the office and to show them that it's not scary to go to the dentist. They also like to do it once before they turn 3 so it's not so intimidating getting in the chair for the first time as that is pretty intimidating to little kids I guess. They call it a knee to knee appointment. I sat with my knees touching the dentist's and Madison sat in my lap and laid her head back in to the dentist's lap. She cried right at first, but after a second she was fine. The dentist just counted her teeth and checked to make sure everything was going okay in her mouth. Madison is a excellent brusher. Who knew she had 2 more teeth to come in though??? I was shocked when the dentist told us that. Also, who knew juice was so bad for your teeth and cheddar cheese is good for them? I'm so proud that Madison was such a brave, big girl. I don't know if her favorite part was watching the fishies in the water or picking her toy out of the treasure chest.

Scott Pankratz, DDS - Madison's dentist

After Madison's appointment we took her to Clement Park to play in the water fountains there for being such a big, brave & good girl. She loved it, although she was scared to get in it at first.

Renaissance Festival

Last Sunday we went to the Renaissance Festival. It was a lot of fun, and Madison loved all the fun rides.

Riding the elephant

Daddy and Madison

Riding the pirates swings, Madison thought this one was kind of scary as it went pretty high.

Riding the "horsey", this was Madison's favorite ride. She wanted to go on it again after she was done.

Riding the giant rocking horse with mommy

Stopping in front of the fountain that would splatter on us to cool us off.

It was a lot of fun. I hope to keep going back every year!

Pool Time

We finally got Madison a little pool to play in this summer. She loves it so much!

Big Swing

I put Madison on the big swing at the park one day and ever since she will say "no wittle swing" and only wants to go on the big swing. I am teaching her how to kick her legs on the swing right now. She's actually picking it up pretty quick, I just need to teach her when to kick up and when to kick back so that it will actually help her swing move. She also needs to put a little more in to it because at this rate her swing is not going to go very high, but hey, she's only 2 years old. We have some time to teach her, right?

World of Ice Cream

Nate and I have wanted to try this little ice cream place we've seen before for a while now. We decided to go on Saturday after Madison's gymnastics class. I got the Sleeplees in Seattle flavored ice cream (coffee with chocolate chunks), it was very good! Nate got Rocky Road ice cream and Madison got cookie dough ice cream in a chocolate dipped sprinkle cone. She would have just been happy with the ice cream cone though because I think she licked her ice cream a total of 5 times. Nate kept having to lick it for her so it wouldn't melt everywhere. It was a fun trip and I'm sure we'll go back again sometime. The ice cream shop is so cute, it's like a old day ice cream shop with all these old ice cream pictures hanging on the walls and you can even buy cards and candles there. There are also games there to play while you eat your ice cream. Madison was a little too young to play any of the games, but I thought that was a good idea for the older kids. There was stuff like connect 4 and kids dominoes games.

Gymnastics Class

We signed Madison back up for gymnastics classes this year since she loved it so much last time she was in gymnastics. She had her 1st class on Saturday. She had so much fun and actually does really good with her somersaults. I bet by the time this class is over she will be over to do the somersaults on her own without any help. She was really excited abut jumping on the trampoline there, but when we got there her favorite things to do where go down the slide in to the foam pit they have and the parachute.

Fishing: Just Daddy and Madison

Nate took Madison fishing Friday afternoon. Madison loves fishing!! Nate caught his first fish on the fly rod I got him for Christmas on Friday too. I always tell Nate to take lots of pictures and when he came home I was eager to see all the pictures he had taken. He took 4... 2 pictures of the fish he caught and 2 pictures in the exact same pose as the one below. When I saw them I said, why did you put Madison's hat backwards? And Nate told me that he put it on right and Madison switched it to be backwards. Isn't that cute? I don't know where she comes up with some of the stuff she does.

Say "Cheese"

It used to be impossible to take a picture of Madison smiling. It was hard enough to get her to look at the camera, but if I told her to smile or anything she would stare at me with this blank look on her face or just ignore me and not even look at the camera at all. I don't know what changed, but seriously one day last week or the week before I would tell Madison to smile at the camera and she would instantly look over at the camera and shout out "Cheese!" and smile for me. I hope she keeps it up. It makes it so much easier to get cute pictures! Here's some I have taken of her this last week... Her smile is so beautiful!

Picnic at the park

On Monday we decided to go to Clement park and have a picnic. Of course Madison barely ate because she was having way more fun playing, but at least she had lots of fun!

Sky Diving

Nate went sky diving on Sunday. He finally used his 25th birthday present from me!! There are some interesting facts about sky diving that I never knew before:

• You can reach speeds up to 140 mph for as long as a minute when sky diving
• There is a 5 minute canopy ride following the 1 minute free fall (I always thought the fall was a minute or so long total, including the parachute ride). Of course this would depend on how high you jump from, and the place Nate went through claims they have the highest jump in all of Colorado at 17,500'!

On the ride to get on the plane (and Madison and I to get to the landing strip to wait for daddy)

Nate getting on the plane

Madison and I waiting for daddy to get back on the ground

Nate jumping out of the plane

He said that they just flipped over and over when they first got out of the plane

Freefall

Canopy ride

Landing on the ground

Nate's tandem partner

We also got a video of Nate's sky dive, but I can't figure out how to put it on the computer, so you'll just have to take my word for it. I want to go sky diving now!! It's look so fun. I just know the whole hour and half of waiting leading up to it would be torture for me!! I would be so scared! Nate said he would definitely go again with me if I ever go.

On a good morning...

These past couple of weeks I have been doing so well about waking up early in the morning and getting ready and making my lunch and doing all the stuff I need to do in the morning with time to spare. It really starts my day off on a good note when I'm not running around rushing or thinking of what steps I can cut out of my routine (making lunch, makeup, etc.) so that I'm not late in the mornings. Last Friday I even had time to put away a load of laundry, make our bed & make Madison's bed before leaving! That's a GOOD morning for me! I love leaving the house knowing I left it clean, with all the beds made, clean dishes, etc. It's such a good feeling! And as dumb as this may sound, when I leave the house and I know I left it a mess (by a mess I mean a dirty knife in the sink from making my sandwich that morning, or the blanket on the couch isn't folded, or our bed isn't made), I keep thinking about how I just need to go home and clean my mess up and it's all I can think about! It will literally stress me out! So when I can start my morning off on a good note, it really just makes my whole day smoother. On Monday I even had time to take a cute picture of Madison before loading her in the car to go off to work. Did I mention I also was 18 minutes early to work?!?! Man I'm good!

Ipad

My dad has an ipad and Madison just loves playing on it. Anytime he gets it out she gets so excited and runs over to see what's going on. Last time we were at my parents house she kept saying "point, point" to play on the ipad. I know she loves to play on it and has so much fun!! Thanks dad for sharing your point point "toy" with Madison!!

Pictures with mommy & daddy

Last Ballet Class

Madison had her last ballet class today. I'm sure we'll sign her up for another class again soon because she absolutely loved it and had so much fun at every class, but not right away because next week she starts gymnastics classes again. In just 5 weeks they learned toe taps, pointing toes, walking on tippy toes and turning in circles, ballet runs, leaps, butterfly arms, flamingo walk, and much more. And in those 5 short weeks Madison perfected 5 out of the 7 I listed above. It is so cute to watch these little girls get better and better as the weeks go by.

Geese in the park

Madison and I went to Nate's softball games (he had a double header) last night. Well we went over to the park for a little bit and she just loved the geese there. She wanted to go pet them, but then if they got too close she would get scared. She kept saying "gooses" and I would say no, geese, and she would reply "geese?" I don't think she got what I was saying, but it was so cute to see her try. She wanted me to take pictures of the geese, so I took a picture of one and she just loved that. I think she had more fun watching the geese than playing on the playground even!

LIbrary Trip

We took Madison for her first trip to the library this week. She had a lot of fun picking out her books, but sure had a hard time picking which ones we would take home. These are the books she ended up picking.

Clifford and the Big Storm

Dawdle Duckling - this book reminds me of Madison. It's about a duck that no matter how much his mom tells him to stop and catch up with her, he still just keeps dawdling. That is EXACTLY what Madison does.

Princess Peepers - This one is my favorite of all the books she picked out.

My Favorite Bear - This one is Madison's favorite.