Madi turns 2!

Last Thursday was Madi's second birthday!! It's hard to believe that she's already two years old! Here are a few lot of pictures from her birthday day- we celebrated ALL DAY LONG!

First they woke up to balloons everywhere!



 Yes, it totally stuck to her back!

 And then both of the girls got princess coloring/sticker books

 Then we had special birthday pancakes

 Madi with her candle pancake (frosting added ;))

 Saying "cheese" for the camera and Gabi's Mickey Mouse pancake

 Madi saying "cheese" with her "2" pancake

Daddy's little surprise he left for Madi

 Brynlee "loving" having her pic taken

 Some of the decorations

(when I was a kid my mom would decorate

for all of our birthdays and go all out

we all loved it!)

 Cupcakes for the party

 Madi's own birthday cake

 All dressed up ready for her party at the park

(I bought the crown and earrings last minute at the

dollar store not really even thinking she would wear it, but

she fell in love with the crown and especially the earrings

and didn't take either off for the next two hours!)

 Waiting for her candles to be lit

 Getting ready to sing Happy Birthday

 Lighting the cake (it took like three tries it was so windy)

 She preferred the cupcake over her own cake!

eating and hanging out

Opening presents

Flying her new Tinkerbell doll around

 for

 the next 1/2hr! She loves that doll!

 Me and little Bryners with her big 'ol hat

(and proof I was actually there)

 Madi telling Mike about Tink

 Little Bryners laughing- LOVE her laugh

 One of Isaac's crazy pics

 Nae Nae flashing the signs

 Cutie pies (Madi was still flying Tink around

and didn't want to sit down for a pic)

 Gabi showing Madi how it's done with bday cakes

 Sisters! Notice Brynlee laughing

 Daddy and Brynlee

She seriously always smiles!

 Madi and Grandma Horne

 To finish the day off, glow sticks!!

Madi had a blast the entire day. I really don't think I've ever seen her (or any child for that matter) so happy for an entire day. I think we all had a ton of fun!

Swimming and Milestones

This summer we decided to get a summer pass at the local city pool. It's pretty reasonably priced, and we have high hopes that the girls will have fun. Gabi took swim lessons last year, and at the end of the summer this year Gabi and Madi are taking them together. Gabi really struggled the first week of swim lessons- new and scary for her- so we hope going to the pool more often and swimming will help both girls once swim lessons roll around. So far they've had a ton of fun and play until they get cold. I haven't been brave enough to take them on my own yet...but we'll see.

This summer they have a program going on where they offer free lunches for kids at the library and local park. We decided to try it out, and it's been a ton of fun. The girls really look forward to getting chocolate milk, a new-found love since we have never bought it for them. I love not having to worry about making lunch. It's also been fun to hang out with friends who come, and make new ones.
The summer reading program also started this week. We went on Wednesday for two hours- which I think is a little long for small children- and the girls had a blast. Several children from our ward were there, so nice to see familiar faces! This week they read Curious George flys a kite. They also made little puppet things and kites. The kites were super fun. I wish I would have remembered to bring my camera. It was so awesome seeing like 50 kites from all the kids flying around as they ran to get them up in the air. Madi mostly dragged hers on the ground, but she had an absolute blast!
It has been so fun to get out and do things this summer and become more familiar with what our little city has to offer.

Today when we were eating lunch the girls were chasing butterflies, really pretty Monarch ones, and Gabi tripped and fell pretty bad. She scrapped up both her knees and said her teeth hurt. Her knees were bleeding pretty bad, but I didn't see and blood or anything to worry about on her teeth. It does look like she has a scratch on her tooth, so she must have hit pretty hard. Hopefully there won't be any lasting effects with her teeth. Her knees looked a lot better after she had a bath, but she was still pretty cautious about them.

Gabi is growing up so fast! Every day it seems like lately I look at her and I think, "She just got a little taller, a little smarter, and even cuter than yesterday!" She loves to be around people and she is always smiling! She loves to play, especially pretend play (wow she reminds me of my little sister!). She also loves loves LOVES to go to church. Her favorite song is still "I love to see the temple" and she can now recite the first and second article of faith on her own! (we practice those almost every night- she wants to!) She is such a spiritual giant, and such a great example to us. She loves her sisters a ton and loves to help out in any way that she can.

Madi is talking more and more every day. In fact tonight she said her very first full prayer. I helped her out a little, but she actually said quite a bit of it on her own. It was so cute! Totally melted my heart. It's crazy how fast kids grow. Sometimes I wish they could slow down, but I love seeing them learn and grow. She has also started counting to 12, which I had no idea she could do until I heard her counting to herself yesterday. She recognizes and knows a lot of letters and knows the sounds to almost all of them. She sure is smart and surprises me all the time. She's not a show-off kind of kid with things like that, so I kind of have to catch her doing it to know, except the letter sounds, she loves doing that.

Brynlee has started eating solids. When we went in for her 4month appt. they said to see if she watched us eat, or was drooling a lot, or wanted what we wanted to eat then to go ahead and start her with some baby cereal. She does all of those things, so we decided to try some rice cereal. She. loves. it! Seriously I have never seen a baby love rice cereal, but she does. She doesn't make faces when she eats it and she doesn't spit it out. Sooo different from my other two girls! So nice! She is really developing a lot of personality. She loves her sisters and laughs at them all the time. She likes to watch movies and gets really into them- not that we let her sit and watch them intentionally, but she tends to gravitate towards them if they're on. She bounces herself in her bouncy chair, and she loves to be in the kitchen with us. She has recently started to pick things up, and took me by surprise when she pick up a fruit snack I was holding and started sucking her fist that it was in. Oh boy!

So, that's what we've been up to lately...