Maddy is 37 months old

We hope everyone enjoyed/made it through the holidays. Our holidays were busy, but fun. We so wanted to put up our big Christmas tree for Maddy, but ended up with a smaller scale tree due to the lack of floor space. Currently, we are making great progress with our living room project. The drywall should be finished by next week! Our family welcomed Ollie, the scout elf, to our home last year. He returned this year and was in a different, crazy location every morning after his nightly trips to the North Pole. If you have no idea about scout elves, please look into a book called "The Elf on the Shelf" for answers. Maddy was thrilled to see Ollie again and looked foward to finding him each morning. We baked cookies for Santa, hosted Christmas Eve supper and went to the Huseby family gathering on Christmas day. Maddy definitely knew what to do with presents this year. She even tried to "help" others open their gifts. What a difference one year makes! During the week after Christmas Matt had vacation so we took Maddy to a hotel with a water park. It was Maddy's 2nd time staying at a hotel and her 1st time at a water park. She is still asking when we can go back. We have a hunch she is part fish.

Madeline weighs 37.6 pounds and is 39" tall. She is fascinated with building with blocks and just building in general. She will take her blankets, pillows & stuffed animals and build a "nest" or call it her castle. She absolutely loves dressing up complete with jewelry, hair adornments and magic wand or pretend companion. After she is "dressed to the nines" she announces to anyone within ear shot that she is going to the dance or ball. She is also testing gravity on a consistant basis. She tries to balance on anything not moving! When successful she shouts, "Look, I'm balancing!" Is balancing a word that all 3 yr olds use? Maddy has always wanted to "help" so as Maddy has grown, she has been given more opportunities to help. She now sets the table, rinses and stacks dishes, helps unload dishes from the dishwasher, transfers clothes from the washer to the dryer, operates light switches and will open doors when asked. Her most exciting skill this month was she learned her phone number. We made our phone number into a song and that's all it took for her to memorize it. Can you tell we're proud of her? That's all the bragging we can muster for this month. We'll try for more soon! :-)

Having fun at the waterpark - Thumper Pond

Toddler slide - Furnace box = hours of fun!

Building with blocks - Dressing up

Ollie our scout elf - Making Christmas cookies for Santa

Wanting to eat one of Santa's cookies - Caught in the act

Opening an early Christmas gift - Christmas Eve supper

Opening presents on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning

Happy New Year!!! Hopefully, 2012 will bring much prosperity to us all.

Maddy is 3 years old!!!

Maddy turned 3 years old on Friday, Dec. 2, 2011! We can't believe it either. We had a small birthday party on Sat. Dec. 3, 2011 including both Grandmas and Godparents. She was delighted with all the wonderful birthday wishes she received and had no trouble understanding what to do when it was gift opening time. This Christmas should be really fun because she now gets excited about opening presents. On the morning of Madeline's birthday party, she was able to have another right of passage. She went to see Santa Claus! Daddy and Grandma Huseby took Maddy to our local elementary school where Santa (AKA- Uncle Byron, Matt's brother) visited with all the boys and girls. Her face lit up when it was her turn and she could sit on Santa's lap.

This fall/winter has been a treat as far as the weather is concerned. It has been so dry that we still have grass showing. The weathermen have predicted a "brown" Christmas here which is extremely rare. The snowmobilers are not happy, but we aren't complaining a bit.

Maddy has grown 3/4" since our last post approx. a month ago. She went from 37 3/4" to 38 1/2" and weighs 37 lbs. She is such a grown-up girl now. Potty training is going quite well too. She still wears a Pull-Up for nap and overnight, but during the day there are very few accidents. Matt continues to work on the living room remodel. Debbie continues to enjoy being a stay-at-home mom. We are busy preparing for Christmas and hope that your holidays are happy and not too stressful.

Have yourself a Merry Christmas and celebrate the hope of a better year in 2012!

Birthday Diva - Rainbow cake

Maddy with her birthday booty.

Opening the dollhouse.

Favorite pjs - Santa's little helper

Nov 2011 - Bday card with stickers from Uncle Rick & Aunt Beth

Reindeer snack - Mmmm!

Birthday cake video:

Maddy is 35 months old

Only one more month until Maddy is officially 3 years old. Wow! Madeline Eva weighs 37 pounds and is 37 3/4 inches tall. She is now in 4T or size 4 clothing exclusively. Shoe size is 9W. Do we have a basketball player on our hands?

September was an extremely busy month. The campground closed on Sept. 18th and then the winterizing began. In the midst of winterizing, Debbie's dad, Jack, passed away. He died on Sept. 27th after a valiant battle with asbestos-related lung cancer. There are way too many emotions and details to discuss surrounding this event. Maddy still asks about her grandpa and doesn't quite grasp what has happened. We all miss him terribly.

Another major event was the removal of the old campground store. It was a 16' x 32' building that served it's purpose for over 20 years, but the walls and floor were separating. The floor was also soft to say the least. It took a ride down the road to be a hunting shack. We will be using a brand new park trailer as the new store. It's already in place on a concrete slab. We moved the decks, ice cooler and all the contents of the store which was "labor intensive". We still need to extend the decks so that they can accommodate a new screened room in the spring. Stairs are on the agenda too.

Back to Maddy - Potty training is now in session! She is doing very well and will "go" on the small potty or the toilet. She did have reservations about "#2" and the toilet, but bravely conquered her fears with the help of "incentives" (AKA bribes). She wanted a toy so every time she went she earned a dollar toward the toy. That worked really well. Maddy still needs a diaper or Pull Up at nap time and night time, but during the daytime she is making great progress.

Halloween was the usual picking and carving of pumpkins along with trick or treating. Maddy has told us all year that she wanted to be a black kitty cat for Halloween so that's exactly what she dressed as. Candy, popcorn, fortune cookies, Dairy Queen ice cream coupon and even a photo button from one business were examples of treats that she received. With Halloween over and Thanksgiving in 3 weeks, the holiday season is in full swing. We will be hosting the Huseby Thanksgiving get-together this year. It will be physically at Debbie's mom's house because she has the much needed space, but we will be purchasing food and other supplies. We are very thankful to be able to be together as a family so everything else is just details. We hope you are able to enjoy Thanksgiving with family and friends too. Gobble, gobble and then shop, shop!

Debbie's 41st birthday - Grandma Escherich & Maddy coloring together.

Maddy in pigtails and polka dots as wells as pink overalls.

T-shirt says it all! Maddy's 1st bike.

Maddy was a black cat for Halloween this year.

She also picked pumpkins at her Uncle Dewey & Auntie Carmen's patch.

Elmo live performing & Elmo "watching Maddy's back".

Fun outing at a the local community center.

Chocolate mustache - Maddy "dresses up".

Madeline is 32 months old

Madeline Eva is now 37 1/4 inches tall and weighs 35 pounds. She is in size 3T, but some 4T clothing fits depending on the brand. She is growing at such a quick pace. We are ever thankful to friends and family for their generous hand-me-downs. Matt & I are in awe of her growth. She is not only growing leaps and bounds physically, but socially and mentally too. Maddy is much more adept at puzzles, self help skills like zippers, taking off shoes, brushing teeth, washing hands, etc. Coloring is more about "staying in the lines" and drawing yields more recognizable figures. She is also starting to mimic writing with zig zags and squiggles. She knows most of her letters and can spell her first name. She counts to 20, but keeps forgetting the number 13. Due to the generosity of Maddy's Uncle Dewey and Aunt Carmen, we received fresh sweet corn a plenty so Maddy learned to shuck corn like a pro. Maddy went to her first circus. She loved it, but couldn't sit through the entire performance. Luckily, there was a playground behind the circus tent which provided the rest of the evenings entertainment for her.

The campground closes on Sunday, Sept. 18th so we are getting ready to winterize everything. Maybe we can get one last boat ride in before pulling the dock, lift and boat off the lake. We also hope to visit a local orchard with Maddy before the snow flies. We hope you enjoy the fruits of autumn and look forward to jumping in leaf piles galore!

Water ballet - Toes under the water.

Teeter totter - petting zoo

Patriotic dresses for the 4th of July weekend.

Fun in the grass at daycare.

Fun at the beach - close up and personal

Playing at the park. Castle made of blocks.

Bucket head. LOL

First swim in her pool.