Chalk and Boxes

Chalk and boxes, who would have thought! Its so funny how easy it is to entertain children, it seems like the best toys are those that are simple and require just a bit of imagination and little to no money, thank goodness. One of the best one dollar investments I have ever made was sidewalk chalk from the $1 section at Target. Madeline loves the stuff, and I think its pretty fun too! She loves to write all over everything and I think its great because it wipes right off! Then after you wipe off all the chalk, just give the kid an empty box and she will be entertained for the rest of the day.

Best free toy ever, an empty box. This one is from Maddies car seat. Daniel cut a window on one side and a door with a little finger hole door knob. She loves it! She likes to close the door and sit for a few seconds and when the dog sniffs at the door to find her she jumps out at him, it is so cute!

She also likes to sit in it and decorate the inside with crayon. I do have to check in on her every once in a while because she has a small taste for waxy crayons.

Here she is trying to get her door shut. If you look carefully, Daniel is in the box too. He is such a big kid.

Here are a few pics of my little chalk artist making a mess.

Here she is on my sisters porch, she likes to decorate all surfaces, sidewalks, walls, columns you name it.

Again on my sisters porch, she gets very focused while she is "working".

On our front porch back in May.

Daniel's New(ish) Job

Daniel and a couple other guys on the train in Atlanta GA.

Well I could write about Madeline for days but I will digress and write about something else for a change, Daniel's newish job. Back in October/November of last year Daniel took a web position at Norfolk Southern Corp. I think he likes it, its quite corporate, which I wouldnt be able to handle but he doesnt seem to mind. His office is very close to home in downtown Norfolk, which I think is awesome. I can't wait to take Maddie on the ferry to visit him. He works just on the other side of the Elizabeth River, I have visited him once so far at the office, its a pretty cool building although I didnt like the elevator ride, it made my ears pop. Daniel's new job requires him to travel a bit which I havent gotten used to yet. So far he has gone to Washington DC, Atlanta GA, somewhere in Florida, and Charleston SC. I wish we could go with him, maybe sometime in the future. Well I would go into to details about his new job but I am not exactly certain what he does and that place is crazy when it comes to security so even if I knew I dont think I should share:) So here are a few pics instead.

Daniel standing in front of his office building, thats alot of windows.

A picture of his view from his office, if you look closely there are a bunch of fire fighters on that roof across the way.

And this picture is taken from the end of our street. As you can see Daniels office is within view, its a shame there is a river with a tunnel/bridge between us and it. The traffic is horrible and they are about to put a toll on the tunnels. When they do that, Daniel is going to get a boat and sail it across the river. It just might be faster, maybe even cheaper, depending on how much they decide to make that toll.

Where to begin....Maddie walking

Photo of Maddie in February before walking.

Lets see here, where to begin? Well I havent written since November so I am going to back track a little bit but not that far. I am going to begin in the new year. Over the past 7 months a few things have happened in our little family. One of the biggest and long awaited events(at least for my aching back) was Maddie learning to walk.
I am going to be honest, there were a few moments when I doubted that Madeline was ever going to walk. It was like she loved crawling, I dont blame her it seemed like an excellent mode of transportation, very solid and safe. The only problem really with crawling was she couldn't carry things around and of course the park/playground wasnt as fun as it could be. She was an excellent crawler, climber, she could stand completely up with no support and turn around without falling, she climbed stairs, she even could take a step or two by herself but she always went down on her knees to get around. It didnt really bother me that she didnt walk, although I really wanted her to for her 18 month doctors appointment, I had read that if children didnt walk by their 18 month check up some doctors suggest physical therapy for the child and I really didnt want that. So we did all that we could to get her to join the world of the bipeds. We bribed her with food, toys, puppies, kittens, you name it, all a no go. We would try to hold her hands and guide her like they show on TV, happy parents teaching their happy children to walk, no way, as soon as she realized what we were trying to do she would start crying and flop out on the ground in protest. It was like she knew we wanted her to walk but she was going to do on her own time. She would not walk for Daniel and I but she would walk for was my two young nieces. So while I went to work temporarily in late MArch/early April, Maddie learned to walk at my mom's house with her two nieces helping her. So I am not really certain when exactly she walked more than three steps and I didnt get any pictures of it but at least she was walking by eighteen months of age. So here are a few pics of my little nonwalker.

Above is a photo of her at the park, as a crawler she started walking on the back of her hands so that she could carry stuff, here she has a rock in each hand (she loves rocks). She even learned to tuck things under her neck to help her carry things and crawl at the same time.

Above is a photo of Maddie in her favorite hiding spot, under the island in the kitchen.

Here she is with the pink batman tee shirt her daddy bought her.

Here is my little crawler showing just how great she was at standing and reaching. She is trying to show me what she wants for lunch.

Here she is looking sheepish on the stairs.

And last but not least, this is the first photo of her that we have where she is actually walking, this was taken March 21, 2011.

So Neglectful!

Wow! I can't believe my last post was November. I am so disappointed in myself. A lot of things have happened since November. A couple huge things were that Daniel got a new job, we all went to Oregon for Christmas so Maddie met her Grandma and Grandpa Donna and Dan for the first time and last but not least, Maddie finally learned to walk. So much to write about but so little time right now. It is 1am and I really need to go to bed but I promise will be starting this blog again and plan to write an entry every night this week. I want Maddie to be able to look at it when she is older so she can see all the fun things we did and what is was like growing up in this family. She cant do that if her mom is such a slacker. So if anyone out there is interested in the happenings of our little family, stay tuned for more very soon. As for the above photo, its a pic of Maddie playing in my parent's backyard. She looks so cute in her Boston Terrier dress, she loves to be outdoors and says that word "outside" from the moment she wakes up to the minutes before she drifts off to dreamland. SHe is so cute!