It's Too Big to Hang on the Fridge

I had another brilliant idea today. Since Madelynn is the big ONE now, I figured it was time that she do some big kid things. Like painting.

There were only two rules.

1. Don't touch yourself.

2. Don't eat the paint.

This kid loves to break the rules. We had to quit after the fourth glob of red made it to her tongue. Obviously the paint is non-toxic, but I'm pretty sure no one would recommend that you guzzle it.

It's too big for the fridge, but I did hang it in the hallway. Ya know, after I scrubbed the baby, the floor and my cheek. We won't be painting again for a while. At least a week. Maybe two.

Curly in the Bathtub

When Madelynn's hair gets wet, it looks like this:

But as it begins to dry...

A crazy curly thing happens:

I've been trying to figure out who this looks like, and the only person I can think of is Jeff Conaway (Kenickie) on Grease. Not the face, just the hair. You see it, right?

That's Wet

When Madelynn goes to bed, Jeffrey and I take off our "responsible adult" hats and turn into a couple of wild teenagers. We wrestle in the living room (I always win), put ice down each other's pants, and have water battles at least twice a week. Irresponsible placement of a water battle tool is what brings me to this post.

When I saw this coming down the hallway, my first thought was "PEE!! EW!! PEE!!"

I'm glad it wasn't pee. I stepped in that puddle 27 times. Pee would be gross.

*Speaking of gross, that's the bottle that they give you at the hospital to squirt yourself with after you a baby. Ha.

My Most Favorite Song of the Week

The Breakdown

7:30am- Boob, wake up, change dipe, brush teefers, and make coffee together. She should be able to do it herself by next week.


8:30am- Breakfast in her highchair, with her back to the Today Show.

8:45am- Splash time in the sink.

9:45am- Boob/Snack time.

10:15am- Dance time with Mommy.

11:00am- Boob/Lunch in her highchair, with her back to Ellen.

11:30am-2:00pm- Boob/Nap.

2:05pm- Boob/Snack time.

3:05pm- Boob.

4:05pm- Boob.

5:00pm- Boob/Dinner.

6:00pm- Bath time.

6:30pm- Naked time.

7:00pm- Boob/Bed time.

12:00am- Boob.

Repeat. Are you seeing a pattern here?

And now you know, I have at least one breast out from sun up to sun down, with a brief intermission from 11:30 to two. I thought they cut down as they got older? I need a nursing strike.

Tears and Stripes

A Fairy-Tale-Pic-Overload

Once upon a time, on a bright, sunny Saturday, Princess Madelynn had a birthday party.

She was a sad princess, with dirty shoes and a crooked sash.

Fortunately, she was the fairest maiden in the county, so no one cared about those dusty slippers.

The dashing prince Mason was brought in to cheer the princess up. Sadly, even a handsome prince couldn't fight the grumpies. The king? Let's just say he had his hands full.

As a last resort, the Fairy Grandmother and her sister-in-law (Tinker-Aunt) were brought in to give it a try. Princess Madelynn's grumpies were no match for the Puppy-Ear-Tickler, and they were quickly tickled away.

So happy she could burst, the princess went on a violent hugging spree, nearly crushing Sir Tiven in her uber-huggy-grip.

Famished from all that tickling and hugging, the princess went in search of food.

The wise king Pappy was more than happy to help the girl out.

With her belly full of enchanted cheese and fairy-dusted grapes, no one was sure if she would be interested in her strangely shaped smash cake. (That's a whole 'nother story.)

But the princess always has room for cake!

Although the princess has always been a fan of the shoveling method, she decided to try a new way of eating. Carrot cake diving.

Princess Madelynn's belly was full, but her outfit was in shambles! Oh no!

Knowing that messy princess means "It's bath time, Princess," Madelynn tried to escape.

Although she's pretty fast, she was quickly apprehended, and promptly hosed off.

But not even a princess can get away with messing her gown. The wise king Pappy was quick to serve up her punishment. She must walk the plank!

Although her punishment was pretty harsh, Princess Madelynn loved Pappy all the same.

After a full day of being passed around like Princess Hot Potato, Madelynn happily went to sleep a half hour early, snuggled up to her old friend, Mr. Bear.

The End.

Hiding Out

Madelynn really likes the little cupboard under the entertainment stand. I keep it latched only because she would destroy all of her books if she had access to them all the time, but I do open it once a day so she can play in there. Usually she just pulls everything out and throws it all over the living room, but lately she has been using the cupboard as a little hidey-hole.

She even tries to shut me out. Cute and sad, all at the same time. Mostly sad though. My biggie girl.

A Lazy Mom Makes Her Very First Cake

It's true. I'm pretty lazy. I've never made a cake before.

Madelynn's birthday party is on Saturday, so Jeffrey and I decided that we should make a cake (to avoid buying a cake-saster from Walmart) all alone, by ourselves. He's never made a cake either. Ever.

I could have bought out the cake-aisle at Micheal's, they had some fabulous tools and awesome rolling pins, but it was all so expensive. So we went the lazy/cheap route, and used things that we had laying around the house... which wasn't much.

So we'll start at the beginning. This is the life of my first cake ever (an important cake, at that!)

See those baby fingers in the bottom corner? They look helpful, right? They aren't. We don't have a mixer, so we had to mix the cake by hand. It took longer than the recommended two minutes and thirty seconds with a mixer. A lot longer.

My cake was lop-sided. I tried to even it out by making a little cake pile of scraps in the corner. Apparently they sell some kind of cake-leveling cutting thinger, but that was like, a 40 dollar tool! No way. I trimmed it with a steak knife. That's a frozen pizza box, by the way.

Cutting shapes. We used a wine glass for the big dots, the cap to the cooking spray for the medium dots, half of a plastic Easter egg for the small dots, and a highlighter cap for the tiny ones. Screw cookie cutters. (Don't worry, I wiped the baby drool and cat hair off of everything first. Seriously.)

I have a bakers'-blister from rolling out the fondant. I'm not kidding. I rolled and rolled and rolled and rolled. Forever.
We cut the edges off with a pizza cutter. It was clean.

This is the bottom tier. We cut the flowers out with a block from Madelynn's little shape-sorter thingy. I cut the letters out with a butter knife. A serrated butter knife. All the sharp ones were in the dishwasher.

And the top. It's x1 because Mads is "Mads times one"... right? Get it? Actually, I couldn't figure out what to put in that blank space and it totally bothered me the entire time. A flower didn't look right, stripes-no, polka dots-no, and then bam! total light bulb moment. Mady x 1. Because she's ONE!! That totally makes sense. Err, well it did at the time...

The aftermath (and a nice look at how inventive Jeffrey and I are. Q-Tips? C'mon, that's brilliant... and free).

I love it. It's cracked, the colors are running, and Mady's name looks like it was cut with a butter-knife. That's my favorite part! I just can't figure out why it looks so shiny. It's pretty shiny, right?

So yeah, I'm satisfied with it now, but what happens when we put the top cake on the bottom cake? Will it fall through? Sinking-cake-syndrome? And how exactly do we put the top cake on? Like, how do we get it off the pizza box and onto the cake?? I'm worried. Really worried.

I'm thinking that we should run out and buy a back-up cake. Just in case.