Maddie's Birthday

Maddie's birthday was on Tuesday the 22nd. She turned 4. Joe had to work on her birthday so we celebrated the next day. On Tuesday night though she had her favorite dinner white macaroni and cheese (homemade mac n cheese). Wednesday we went to McDonalds for lunch. After naps we went to the Y and went swimming. We stayed for about 2 hours and she had so much fun. Then we came home and ate dinner and then had cake and opened presents. She was so happy with all her presents she received. We did a second cake on Sunday for our family dinner.Here is her Angelina Ballerina cake.

We love Maddie-mo so much and are so thankful she was sent to our family. She is very loving and loves to cuddle with everyone. She also loves to walk up and say I love you for no reason at all. She loves her sister and enjoys playing princesses, dress up, tea party, and anything girlie. She has a very strong imagination and will just sit and play by her self with her princess polly pockets for hours. She also loves to play with JJ and they will chase each other around and play cars and trains together. She started preschool this year and loves it. She is so grown up during preschool and takes it very seriously. I was worried that she wouldn't do well, but she has excelled and picks everything up quickly.

Maddie 3/22/2007

March 2008-1 year

March 2009- 2 years

March 2010- 3 years

March 2011-4 years (I will post a better picture when I get one, we haven't been good about taking pictures)

JJ

JJ was reevaluated for speech therapy last week. HE PASSED WITH FLYING COLORS!!! :) He now tests at 3 years 1 month even though he is only 2 years 7 months. She said he would have tested even higher, but there are a couple of things that he should have learned before he moved on to harder things that he doesn't have quite yet like -ing verbs and plurals. He will repeat them if you say them, but he doesn't just say horses instead of horse or eating instead of eat. There were several things that were hard for even a three year old that she was impressed that he had down. He is saying 6-7 word sentences now and is constantly "acting" out what he is talking about. She thought it was funny on one test when she handed him several blocks and asked him to giver her one and he did. Then she gave him the one block back and asked him to giver her all the blocks. He thought about it for a little bit and then handed her a block and grabbed the rest and said "These are my blocks" in a not so nice voice. She laughed and said you could definitely tell he understood what was being asked he just didn't want to comply.
She was also impressed with his level of play. He picked up a bowl and an orange ball and declared that it was an orange and put it in the bowl and left telling us he was going to make it "big, big hot" We followed him trying to figure out what he was doing and he was trying to put it in the microwave. When he couldn't get it in there he tried to put it in the oven. When that didn't work he opened a large cupboard, declared it was the oven and stuck the bowl in there. Then he said "I make it big, big hot...just wait 3 minutes" and walked a way. She said that most kids his age don't have that type of imagination to play like that. It is nice that we don't have to worry about Speech therapy anymore.
He is still doing Occupational therapy through gymnastics once/week. He is doing really well at that and still has a few things he is working on. They said he will be doing that until he turns 3. The Occupational Therapist is coming this week to reevaluate him on OT and then they are also going to test him for Sensory Processing Disorder. He probably doesn't have it, but there are a couple of things that he does that the OT said is just like SPD so she wants to rule it out.

Also on another note JJ IS POTTY TRAINED! He has been doing very well at it and was potty trained in about 3 days. It has been a few weeks now, but I was hesitant to say anything in case he regressed. He has had a few accidents here and there, but overall he tells us whenever he has to go and has even been staying dry at night. Of course last night was the first night I dared try without diapers and he had an accident, but I think that it was just a fluke.

Happy Birthday to Joe!

Joe's birthday was on the 12th. We love to celebrate birthdays at our house and make it a whole day event. We used to do more romantic things like massages when it was just Joe and I, but now we try to include the kids too. First we went to Wahooz (Boondocks) and did miniature golfing. It was so much fun. The kids loved it too. Emily was actually pretty good. She didn't understand how to hold her golf club but she got the ball in the hole usually in 3-4 swings. We didn't keep her score though. Maddie and JJ just had fun hitting the ball and JJ would usually pick it up after his first swing. He didn't quite get the concept. Both of them lost their ball before the end though. JJ threw his in to the stream (it was dry) He was so upset when he found out we weren't getting it for him and he had to just follow us after that. Maddie lost hers on accident- she hit it too hard and it fell into the bumper boats water which was actually full. If it had been empty I probably would have gotten it since it was an accident. We did learn though that the two younger kids were pretty much done after 9 holes. Emily was ready to keep going even after the eighteenth and was kind of upset the hole took her ball. Joe had the best score and got most of his ball in with 2-3 strokes.
After Wahooz we got lunch (Subway for us, Mcdonalds for the kids) and headed to a park. We first went to Settler's park, but they were having football games and there was no parking so we ended up at Tully park. As soon as we got out of the car the wind picked up and it got really cold so we ate our lunch quickly and attempted to fly a kite. We didn't get it up in the air though and I learned that Joe never has so we will be attempting it again this year so he can fly a kite.
After the park we went home so the kids could nap and Joe was able to play some computer games while I napped too.
When naps were over we went to Red Robin for dinner. It is Joe's favorite place and we even had them sing to him. After Red Robin we went to a game store that I had found and Joe ooh-ed and aah-ed over all the board games he would love to have. Then we went to Yogi Bear in 3D at Overland Park Cinemas. The kids loved it and were so glad that they got to watch a movie at the theater. JJ wasn't so sure about the 3D though. He had that glasses on for about 15 minutes until the movie started and then he took them off and refused to put them back on. Everyone else liked the 3D though.
Then we went home and went to bed. It was a a long, fun day. Joe got his presents and cake on Sunday when family came over. We were too full after dinner to do cake on his birthday.

St Patrick's Day

On St. Patrick's Day Emily woke up and searched the house and asked why the leprechauns didn't come. I felt bad so decided that they would come during her nap. Joe went to the store and bought some Lucky Charms and gold coins. Then we upturned the chairs and spread Lucky Charms everywhere. We also left a bag for each of them. When they woke up they thought it was the coolest thing. JJ kept saying "kitchen mess"
For dinner we fixed green shamrock pancakes with green eggs and green koolaid.

Excitement

We are all getting excited for the new little baby to come in 4 weeks or less. My kids ask me every week how much longer we have and when Emily heard 4 this week she was so excited.
Maddie asked me if it was going to hurt when the doctor takes out the new baby. I said yes it will hurt some. She said-"Will the doctor give you a sucker AND a sticker then" I thought it was so cute that she was so concerned.
She also keeps telling me all the things she is going to do to help with the baby. She will not be changing diapers. She will bring me blankets and diapers when I need them though. :)
JJ even asks about the baby a lot. Sometimes though it is hard to tell who he is talking about because he always asks about Baby Kaiden and I have to remind him that our baby is either Asher or Anna-not Kaiden. (Kaiden is his favorite cousin)