Picking Flowers at Dean Park

We went to Dean Park after work today. Maddie's favorite part was running through the big open field and picking flowers!

Playing at Eckhart Park (with Video)

This past Sunday we went to visit our good friends Julie and Paul and their 4 week old baby Ivan!  Maddie was great around Ivan, she was not jealous at all when I held him and would come up to us and say "Baby! Baby!"

After the visit we went to nearby Eckhart Park for her to run around. They recently renovated it and it's great! Lots of nice play structures and Maddie could do almost everything!

She especially loved swinging with Daddy!

Here are a couple of videos of her swinging with Daddy, and also of her climbing the slide on her own.

Trip to Brookfield Zoo!

Over Labor Day weekend we went to the Brookfield Zoo!  I got free tickets from work and it was the last weekend we could use them.  It was a lovely day for the zoo! Maddie was just getting over being sick (very high fever) so did not sleep too long the night before so she was pretty grumpy the whole time we were there.  We'll visit again on a day she's in better spirits.

Despite the grumpiness, we got to see a lot of the zoo!  We paid a little extra for a special exhibit that had some hands on experiences. We got to pet and brush baby goats! We also got to feed some beautiful parakeets! We saw so many different animals - lions, boats, wallabys, birds, monkeys, a polar bear, a brown bear, giraffes, and zebras!

Tons of pictures below.

Also thanks to Grandma Kathy for the adorable outfit she made for Maddie!

There is a sleeping lion in the upper right.

One of the few playgrounds they have there. So much fun!

Petting a baby goat.

Feeding the birds

So many birds!!

In the monkey house

She's making a fish face in this picture.

Another fish face.

Polar bear

Brown bear

Brown bear taking a swim

Polar Bear

New Sand Pit in the Backyard

Joseph set up Maddie with a sand pit in the back yard! He got a $2 toy from the thrift that was broken, but would work out perfectly for a sand table!  Maddie enjoyed playing with the sand, but it was difficult to keep the sand in the pit. She of course wanted to play with in in the wood chips!

All Smiles for the Camera!

Maddie Says: Some family members names

Within the past 2 weeks, Maddie has started to string 2 and 3 words together! She has also started to put together words that start and end with consonants as well. Pau Pau and Yee Pau recently taught Maddie how to say "Yee Pau" and Pau Pau got a couple of videos of Maddie saying the names of various family members.

You can also hear Maddie say her name, which she pronounces with a sharper A sound, which is slightly different than how she pronounces Mama with a softer A.

Toddlers, Tunes and Turtles at Smith Park

Smith Park had an event called Toddlers, Tunes and Turtles one day after work! We got there a bit early so went to the playground to play, then headed to the gymnasium for the activities. We sat down and watched the Turtle Guy talk about his turtles. Maddie was really great and sat and listened the whole time. He passed around little turtles in plastic containers with water, and brought out a lot of larger turtles which he put on the blanket in front of him.  At the end of his presentation, he let all the kids come up and touch the turtle shells and even the live turtles! Maddie got to touch a smaller live turtle, she patted it lightly on its shell.

Later on a musician started to sing and play guitar on the other side of the gymnasium so we made our way over there. Maddie perked up when she recognized a song she knew!  

We didn't stick around for the entire evening as it was getting close to dinner time but it was nice to get out of the house and enjoy what our parks programs have to offer.