Photographer

We try as often as possible to take pictures of Madeline. Lately though she has been very insistent that she is the one behind the lens. Fifty percent of the time she forgets to turn the camera around, so she takes an extreme close-up of her face. The remaining half of the time, she is lucky to have an actual subject in her pictures.

In this picture, she actually thought she was taking a picture of her doll on the chair. The camera was pointed the wrong way.

There is the doll!

Sometimes you have to lean to get into the frame

Dare Devil

Madeline decided she had absolutely no fears the other day at the park. She did give me a bit of a heart attack. She decided, without warning me, that she was big enough to go down the giant slide. I tried it, and it is scary! I guess she did not inherit mom's scared of everything gene. On one hand, that means that I'll be extra worried, but I'm glad she won't be the only 10 year old at the pool terrified of doing a back flip.

This is Andy standing next to the slide

This is Madeline arriving at the bottom.

Morning Time

I don't think anyone actually likes getting up in the morning. Nothing is more unmotivating though, than walking past your bed when all you want to do is crawl back in and see this.....

I never thought it was possible to envy a dog as much as I envy Nelson every single morning!

Our trip to the zoo

This post has been sitting in drafts for awhile....


We took our first trip to the Houston zoo. Madeline was so excited to go, and could not stop talking about seeing all of the animals. When we got there, we started with the fish, and she was hooked. She did not want to leave at all. We had to practically drag her out of the aquarium. Then she got stuck on the ground hogs, then the giraffes, then the elephants, and so on. Most of out trip was spent trying to talk up the next animal. She loved every minute of it though. Here are some cute pics.

There is the cool clear tunnel through one of the aquariums.

Madeline and Daddy checking out the animals

In her love for giraffes she wanted to ride on our shoulders so she would be very tall.

Madeline LOVED the monkeys

It was kind of insane that prairie dogs are in the zoo, considering they are at every intersection in Lubbock. The exhibit was cute though, and M got to pretend she was a prairie dog.

M was in LOVE with the giraffes that day


She is brushing a goat in the petting zoo.


M's "Thank You!" hug

Show and Tell

Madeline has show and tell every Friday. Usually she just brings a book, sometimes a picture of something she did during the week or weekend. This week Madeline wants to bring Nelson. A few months ago she took pictures of Nelson to school, but this month, she is adamant that Nelson George Bartlett come to school with her. I’m not sure how we’re going to dodge this bullet. 2 more days to figure that out.

OKLAHOMA!

We went to Oklahoma this past weekend with Julia and Zac. Zac's family has a working ranch with lots of cows and horses. It was very fun but extremely cold. I was secretly a little excited about the opportunity to touch a cow, but they are quite skiddish, so that didn't happen. Madeline did get her big wish though. The whole week prior to the trip we talked about her getting to ride Dollar, Zac's horse. Dollar is 27 years old, and very very tame. Madeline was so excited. Prior to the trip I also took the time to sing "Oklahoma" to her several times. She didn't have it all down, but did sing "H-O-M-A Oklahoma!" all day. It was really cute.

Our two favourite Madeline quotes of the weekend were:

1. She saw a Hannah Montana hat at Wal-Mart and announced, "Hannah Montana is yucky! I like Hannah Texas!"

2. Andy asked her if she was a cowgirl and she replied back very sincerely, "No Daddy, I'm not a cowgirl silly goose! I'm a Dollar the Horsie Girl!"