Happy Halloween

Since becoming a teacher, I've been a huge fan of Halloween. I'm a part of the let's-just-party-all-day camp on staff. I love the dressing up, playing BINGO, crafts and big party in the afternoon. The the best part is that the kids are always sooooo happy. They have huge smiles on their faces and it's really fun to be with them.

This year was especially fun because it was Maddy's first Halloween. She really had no clue, but I was excited enough for the both of us! She was only about 2 weeks old last year, so we were still in shock with the whole parenthood thing. I was really looking forward to carving the pumpkin with her. I thought she'd loved to get in there and help pull out the seeds and guck. Turns out she wanted nothing to do with pumpkins innards. It was quite funny to see her pull her tiny little fists as far back as possible.



When Maddy was born, her cousins Frances and Pippa gave her a book called This is NOT a Pumpkin. It's all about how you don't call it a pumpkin because it's called a Jack-o-Lantern when it has a face carved in. She loves this books and giggles every time we read it. When it came time to carve the pumpkin, we couldn't resist getting her book out and showing her. She sat so well in our lap as we took turns carving the pumpkin with her. She was so tickled each time we push the newly carved piece of pumpkin out for her to hold.

All dressed up and ready to go.

After the carving was done, we had a quick dinner before changing into her costume. At this point it was only about 5:30 and still light out. We were the only ones out in the street. It's too bad she couldn't stay up longer to see the other kids all dressed up, but she knew something exciting was going on. We went to two houses and she got two little treats. She looked so cute clinging to her little treat bag. We were home early and she got to bed on time and fell asleep right away. It would be so interesting to read her mind and know what she thought about her first Halloween.

Happy Halloween everyone!!!

Maddyism at 12 months

In the last month, Maddy has changed so much. She went from barely crawling to motoring around the living. Her appetite has also increased and her new favourite food is scrambled eggs with cheese. Plain scrambled eggs, bad; with cheese, can't get enough.

One of my favourite recent stories has to do with Maddy's newest food. We decided that it was time to give Maddy some Cheerios. Not that she needed them nutritionally, but because it's something that she can eat and it'll keep her busy for a bit. We already knew that her finger dexterity was great, she's spent tons of time picking up puffed rice. She can pick up a single grain of puffed rice and put it in her mouth. While doing this, she has ALWAYS been willing to share and it would take her a long time because she'd do it one grain at a time. I thought the Cheerios would follow the same pattern. I guess I was wrong because she loves them so much, she grabs them by the handful and shoves them into her mouth! To top it off, when asked to share, she'll raise a Cheerio up to your mouth, but at the very last minute she'll pull it back and shove it into her own mouth. At first I thought it was just a fluke but she has yet to share more than 3 Cheerios in total. Recently she's developed a little smirk on her face after she knows she's just pulled a fast one on you.

Another new development is Maddy's musical side. She got a Leap Frog Learning Table for her birthday. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this toy, it basically makes a lot of noise from different kinds of buttons and switches. Recently she's learned how to get it to play music and while it does, she waves her arms and bounces her body to the beat. As soon as it's done she'll hit another button and start all over again. Maybe this is just her mother speaking, but I think it's sooo cute! :)



Other fun things she's learned how to do in the past month is to clap and to give high fives!! She now has 6 teeth with the 7th on the way and can stand up while leaning on something.

The last story I have to add to this update is more for Maddy to know when she's older. Some of you may remember that one of Maddy's first 'words' was "Lottie". It doesn't mean anything, she just used to say it over and over again while she babbled. One day I was at the park with her and we went to see the dogs. There was one brown puppy that she played with. The owner was kind enough to hold the puppy up for her to pet. While playing, I asked the owner what the dog's name was and she replied "Her name is Lottie"! I almost fell over in shock. Ever since then we've named her brown stuffed dog Lottie and she loves it. Josh recently caught her playing by herself while he left the room. He said she reach over, picked up Lottie and gave her two kisses before putting her back down to continue playing.

A Beautiful Fall Day

We decided to take advantage of the gorgeous weather and head to the pumpkin patch today. I'd been wanting to go for a while to get some pictures of Maddy for the 'Fall' page in her scrapbook, but I'd heard that the pumpkin patch is often packed with people. On a day like today, I'd have to say that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We went out to Aldor Acres in Langley and it was a great place.

Our only goal was to get some nice shots of Maddy with some pumpkins but we were pleasantly surprised to see so many farm animals as well. Maddy was so cute, each time she saw a new animal she wanted to kiss them all. Her favourites were probably the fuzzy chickens, but we didn't get a photo of them. There were some piglets that were just 2 weeks old. The mama pig was just laying there beside the litter ready for a feeding at anytime. The only thing was that she had to be in a very small cage to stop her from rolling over onto the litter! Good thing because she weighed 550lbs.


In the same barn, they had a cage filled with bunnies. Later on, I saw kids holding bunnies all over the place. It turns out they had another bin of bunnies that you could take out and hold 'under parental supervision'. I kinda felt bad for the bunnies, but at the same time I couldn't pass up the opportunity for Maddy to have a bunny up close and personal. I'm glad she didn't try to squish-it-with-love like some of the other kids.

This is Frank. He is only 5 weeks old!

Before we knew it Maddy was getting that dazed look on her face, so we figured our time was up. We didn't know that you had to get on the hayride tractor, go out to the actual pumpkin patch and pick your pumpkin. After seeing the line up we decided that a trip out and back would take too long and called it a day. It's funny how even after a trip to the pumpkin patch, we'll be buying our pumpkin from the grocery store again this year!

Pumpkin Turns One!

It's almost 4pm on October 13th, 2008 and exactly one year ago today I was probably just getting up from a nap and getting ready to go for a walk. I'll never forget that day, the weather was sunny and crisp. As we walked around the block, Josh and I knew that our lives were about to change, but we never expected how awesome it would be.

By about 6pm the hard labour contractions had started and we walked and walked, and then walked some more around the living room. Maddy was born at 12:21am on October 14th. What an amazing feeling of overwhelming love, joy and relief that everything went well. In the days that followed I think 'shock' is the word I'd use. Shock that I was now somebody's 'mom'. Shock that she was all ours and how wonderful that felt.

The year has flown and I'm still amazed by how fast it seemed to go by. Even as I look at her today, I can't believe that a year ago all she could do was nurse and sleep. Now she is crawling around, clapping, drinking from her sippy cup all by herself and is so curious about the world around her. The initial shock of being a 'mom' has worn off by now, but it certainly took a while. I've loved every minute of it and watching Maddy grow and change has been the most rewarding thing I've done in my life.

This weekend we celebrated Maddy's first birthday with a 'small' party for family. We were so happy to have the entire Blommestein clan stay for the weekend and to help us celebrate. It was a packed house, but lots of fun to be all together again. Maddy loved all the excitement in the house. On Sunday she napped great with the help of one car ride just before the Lee-Youngs were scheduled to arrive. She woke up right at 3pm as if she knew that it was time for her party.




For those of you who don't know, Josh and I nicknamed Maddy "Pumpkin" when she was still in the womb because her due date was so close to Halloween. The name has stuck and so her party had to have a pumpkin theme! She had an entire mini-pumpkin cake all to herself, but she was so into the icing that she never really made it to the cake part! I'm sure next year will be a different story. She was spoiled by everyone with so many presents that she still has some to open at a later date.



I just glanced at the clock and noticed that it's 8pm. It was at this time when we told the midwife that it was time to come over. I've been doing that ALL day today and I imagine I'll be doing the same for the next couple of hours and into tomorrow. The memories of this past year are all ones that I hold close to my heart to and hope never to forget.

Happy 1st Birthday dear, sweet Maddy. We love you more than words can say. We are so proud of you and so lucky to have you in our lives. Thank you for choosing us to be your parents.

xoxo with all our love,
mom and dad