Maddie in the News!

We made it into an online news article about Boo-Palooza!

We aren't in the main article but in the photo gallery. Click on the photo box on the top right and we are picture # 6 of 23!

Here is the Link!
http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20151026/wicker-park/for-new-oak-parkers-wicker-parks-boo-palooza-was-homecoming-photos

Lillian's Second Birthday Party!

As soon as Maddie woke up from her nap after Boo-Palooza, we headed straight for our friend Lillian's 2nd birthday party. It was luau themed and we all got flower leis!  Maddie had lots of fun playing with lots of new toys and especially enjoyed her first bite of birthday cake!

Boo-Palooza Halloween Event at Wicker Park

This Saturday the 24th, Wicker Park held their annual Boo-Palooza Halloween Event!  Unfortunately it started raining cats and dogs on the walk there and Joseph and I got soaked!  Luckily we covered Maddie with the umbrella. We hung out in the park fieldhouse until the rain cleared and got a couple of cookies, and Maddie had her very first chocolate chip cookie!

Grandma Kathy made Maddie the cutest lion costume!  We got so many "Oohs" and "Aws" as we wheeled Maddie around the park.  The sun popped out shortly after the rain cleared and it turned into such a lovely morning! They had lots of activities and goodies, Maddie will be able to participate much more next year. Maddie also had her very first candy bar, a couple of small bites of a Twix bar Joseph picked up from a booth. They had a "pumpkin patch" where each child could pick out a pumpkin for decorating and we had fun decorating the pumpkins with stickers! We also got a couple of toothbrushes which Maddie enjoyed chewing on during the parade.

We walked through the costume parade and unfortunately did not win a prize. We headed home for a much needed nap, then headed to our friend Lillian's second birthday party (separate post)!

Lots of pictures & videos below!

Very first candy bar!

 

Using her new toothbrush!

Maddie threw a tantrum when we told her to stop chewing on the side of the wagon. It was definitely time for a nap!

More October Pictures

Maddie is great about sharing! Here she is handing me a ring.

Madeleine eating a yummy Madeleine cookie! She loved it!

Maddie Speaks!

Here are some videos of Maddie saying some words.

Here is one of her saying "Cat."  She says it like "Gah" with a very soft "g" sound and lately she has been speaking it pretty clearly.

Maddie loves to say "Da da" while babbling, and will now say it if we ask her to.

Maddie saying "UP!" very clearly! She wants UP!

Blowing a Kiss

One of the new things we are trying to teach Maddie is how to blow a kiss.
Here is a video of Maddie doing it pretty well!

Step by Step, Ooh Baby

Maddie gained some confidence and decided to take lots and lots of steps today!  We were able to get her to take anywhere from 2-4 steps at least 20 times! We had her stand by the couch, then tried to have her walk towards us.  She had the biggest smile every time she was able to take a few steps, she was so proud of herself!

Here are some videos, with some good and some not so good attempts.

We used the slo-mo feature on my camera to take this video of her taking a few steps. 

October Pictures and Videos

Here are pictures and some videos from October

Mouth full of pear!

She likes to stick this ball in her mouth like a doggy and will crawl and stand with it still in her mouth.

Helping mama out with the laundry!

I woke up like this. Super cute bed head after a nap.

And a video from September I forgot to post earlier

Sweet Moments between Maddie and Daddy

Visit to Goebbert's Farm and Garden Center

We have really wanted to take Maddie to a pumpkin patch to take some cute fall photos! We have been busy this month so today (Sunday the 18th) was the only day we were able to go before the end of the month.

We went to Goebbert's Farm & Garden Center which is about an hour drive northwest of the city.  They did not have apples but pumpkins and a petting zoo and lots of activities for kids! Wow was it busy! It seemed everyone wanted to go at the same time we did :)

They had a few large petting zoos with some very exotic animals! They had 2 giraffes right in front in their own area!  Only one giraffe wanted to eat so there were swarms of people and it was impossible to get close. The other giraffe seemed full and was sitting in the back of the pen.  Maddie did see the giraffe sitting in the back so that was good, but not up close and personal like we would have liked.

We saw and fed so many animals! We saw piglets, fuzzy chickens, goats, deer, emu, alpacas, llamas and ponies!  We also saw camels, 2 tiger cubs (!), 2 young zebras (!), and an animal called a Watusi originally from Africa. They had huge horns and were very beautiful.  Maddie seemed a bit more interested in eating the carrots from the feeding cups and picking straw off the ground than feeding the animals.

We let Maddie crawl around the pumpkin "patch" and she loved it! She crawled around so much, pulled up on pumpkins and loved banging on them. She even had her first (I think) taste of a donut! We bought some delicious apple cidero donuts and let Maddie have some.

We had another first today, Maddie skipped her second nap so only napped 1 hour today (a shorter first nap than normal)!  She did not nap on the car ride home (as we had hoped) so we kept her awake when we got home, had dinner, gave her a bath and put her to bed. She was so tired she practically fell asleep while she was having her bottle and I actually was able to rock her to sleep (which I haven't done in over 2 months).

Piglets!

Petting a piglet!

Watusi

Feeding an alpaca!

Apple cider donut!

YUM!