At Home in the Mountains

First word? you may be thinking. Hasn't Maddy been a chatter box for several years now? Yes, yes she has. But, today, Maddy read her first word with no pictures or context to clue her into what the word she recognized might actually be. We were doing errands and stopped to fill up at Kroger. Maddy has gotten into this thing where she likes to get out and "help" by doing her version of "cleaning" the windows with the  squeegee. She didn't get to do that today because, much to her chagrin, the squeegee was missing. Instead she "helped" me pump gas. At the end, when it asks you if you want a receipt, press yes or no, I had picked her up to put her in the car. I quickly pressed "NO" on the keypad and turned to put her in the car. She asked, "Mommy, why did you say no?" Used to automatically fielding about 2.78 billion "why" questions a day, I automatically started to reply, "Because I didn't want a........" ...

Yesterday we had the opportunity to go out to a lake house owned by a distant cousin of Aaron's. Maddy had her first fishing experience. We went fishing for catfish. I haven't been fishing in about 5 years and I've never done catfishing so it was pretty fun. Aaron's cousin tried to do some noodling. Creepy! Not something I EVER want to try. Maddy liked eating the catfish bait :) Maddy was so funny when she caught her first fish. She's been wanting to fish for quite a while now. They got her set up with a pole and tried to make the best possible conditions for the catfish to bite right away. It was a private lake so not over-fished at all. Anyway, Maddy liked holding the pole and was super excited when she got a bite. As Aaron helped reel the fish in and she saw this gray/white flopping thing on the end of her line she freaked out. She started trying to scramble away like a rat in a trap. If Aaron hadn't of had a good hold of her I think she woul...

Last day of school  Today is Maddy's last day of school. I can't believe it has been a whole school year already! It seems like just yesterday I was nervous and excited to leave my baby at school for the first time. Maddy has learned and matured so much over this past year. She had had amazing teacher and amazing friends. God has really blessed her through her school program and she has loved just about every minute of it. She only had two complaints all year: One was for a few weeks when she was really not liking walking stairs. She cried about going to school a couple of times. The second was that one of her teachers told her to put her book away. That one makes me laugh. She was really offended about it. I could not get her to do the same pose as on the first day of school so It's hard to compare but I guess the picture shows a lot too. On her first day of school she would have been way to scared to stand on the steps and do a silly pose like this. Last day of sch...

This week, Maddy got obsessed about taking a trip to a museum. She kept talking about how she was going to go the museum with her cousin Bethany but it would be a museum where they wouldn't have to be quiet. They could yell if they wanted. Finally, I suggested that she make her own museum in the upstairs bedroom, formerly known as "Tammy's Room". Maddy spent all of Friday evening and all day Saturday getting her art gallery and museum ready. She informed us that when she was in her gallery her name was "Uhpra". (At least this is the closest we could come to understanding what she was saying.) We invited Tammy to come and Maddy prepared snacks for her opening. Her choices were: goldfish, peanut butter, and some old, dessicated freeze dried baby fruit snacks. We invited Tammy to come for opening night of the gallery. Maddy gave everyone the big tour, explaining all her pictures, what they were, where she made them, what they were about. Unfo...

Flowers from Maddy  I had a great Mother's Day, as usual. This year we decided to go on a picnic for Mother's Day. We found Mockingbird Nature Park in Midlothian on the internet and decided to go check it out.  The park was beautiful. The only downsides were no picnic tables and no bathrooms. Not a good situation with a 4 year old, but we made it work. We had a yummy picnic on the grass and then hiked the mile long nature trail loop. It was perfect because it was flat and Maddy could do a lot of walking on her own. The park had tons of flowers, plants, trees, etc. designed to attract birds and butterflies. They had a lot of info available about which kinds of plants different butterflies like to lay their eggs on.  Every time Maddy saw a patch of flowers, she would run into the middle of it and yell "bunnies!" instead of cheese, wanting us to take her picture.  Posing session.  Maddy loved this little wooden bridge walkway. She w...