My little mermaid

Last week, a large group of the Humphries/Crosby/Hoover women decided to take a little girls weekend trip to Charleston. It was a blast! I am blessed to have a hilarious group of women in my family and it couldn't have been a better trip.

On Thursday morning, my mom, Maddie and I arrived, picked up Kat (she is a sophomore at the College of Charleston) and headed to the aquarium. It was pretty cool- it's been years since I've been to an aquarium and obviously it was Maddie's first time. Her eyes got huge when we walked into the room with the 2-story tank. After about 20 minutes she was more interested in climbing the stairs than looking at the fish, but we still had a good time.

On Thursday night, Nancy, Cyndi, Kelly and Sarah joined the party and we celebrated Mom's birthday! On Friday Haven and Louise rolled in and we all hung out on the beach and at the house. It was very relaxing. This was Maddie's first time seeing the beach/ocean! It was so much fun- she loved it! She got so excited when she saw the ocean, and ran straight in and started playing. We weren't able to stay out too long, b/c it was only in the 70's and the water was a little chilly, so Mads was blue and shivering before long (although it didn't seem to bother her!). On Friday night, some extended family that lives in Charleston joined us for wine and snacks- yum! It was great to see most of the Charleston crew. We stayed up late with board games, drinks and a LOT of laughing.

On Saturday we checked out a local festival and ended up eating at a FABULOUS restaurant called Taco Boy for lunch. If you're ever in Folly Beach, you need to eat there. It was SO GOOD! Then we hung out at the beach some more that afternoon. Saturday night we met up with our Charleston family again and went out to dinner at a yummy seafood restaurant on the pier.

Sunday we visited the GORGEOUS new residence of my great-aunt and uncle, Jane and Mason, and said our goodbyes. Mom had a sorority luncheon to attend with Kat, so Maddie and I toured downtown Charleston, which was lots of fun. We ate lunch, played on the Cistern and saw lots of horses walk by (very exciting for Mads).

All in all it was a fabulous trip, and hopefully it we will do it again someday! Here are some of my favorite pics from the weekend, and a link to all of them!

Maddie checking out the fish at the aquarium:


Looking at jellyfish with aunt Kat:


Maddie sees the ocean for the first time!


This is cool!


The waves kept knocking her over, but she didn't mind- just kept licking her lips wondering what that salty taste was!


Had no interest in the shells- just wanted to play in the water!


Sarah and Mom at our dinner on the pier


Kat hanging out with Mads at her house

In your Easter bonnet...

I'm a little late, but Happy Easter! We had a low key Easter this year, we just went to church and let Mads discover her Easter basket- which she was totally unimpressed with. A week before, Mike took her to an Easter egg hunt at the WRAL gardens, so she got to see the Easter bunny there. She was pretty unimpressed with him too- really, unless you are a Yo Gabba Gabba character, this baby is tough to wow.

Here are some of my favorite Easter pics!

Obligatory Easter bunny pic

Clearly she is an awesome Easter egg finder

A few from our Easter photoshoot- Maddie was SO not
in the mood for pictures that morning!

Easter morning, checking out her loot

The whole fam in front of the flower cross at church

And finally, a couple of the crazy girl in her cute
Easter attire

1.5 going on 17

I put Maddie's hair in a ponytail today, and besides being ridiculously cute, it made her look so grown up!!! My fancy new camera had a dead battery (oops!) but I had to whip out the old camera since she was looking cuter than a puppy kissing a kitten.






Not too much new to report! Maddie is still a model of good behavior most of the time. For a toddler, she really amazes me. She eats food even if she doesn't love it, she says "please (pees or tees)" and "thank you (ta ta)" most of the time with no prompting, and she is just the sweetest girl in town giving hugs and kisses all day long. We are SO glad the weather is warm- Mads loves playing outside anywhere. We go to the park weekly and Maddie has an awesome new climber/slide on the screened in porch that we play on every day.

That's it for now! Easter pics to come next week :).

Fancy Schmancy Pants

Thanks to my AMAZING camera that my darling husband gave me for my birthday, the number of Maddie pictures have risen to new heights. Since Shutterfly tends to mess pictures up by cropping them weird, I've switched to Flickr for hosting my photos. I mean, I'm a photographer now that I have a fancy schmancy (that's a technical term there, don't worry if it's over your head) camera, so I can't have Shutterfly ruin my art, right? Ok, ok- I really just like Flickr b/c it lets me look at pictures of my sweet baby really big.

So if you were a previous stalker of Maddie's Shutterfly site, feel free to stalk my new Flickr site. I've divided it up into nice little categories so that you can only look at what you want- or just check out my photostream to see all of my latest pictures. I am the first to admit that I take WAY too many, but I'm getting to know my camera and trying to learn to take a decent picture here and there. So here ya go, let's link this baby up:

My photostream
Maddie Pictures (only Mads in these)
Non-moving subjects (so much easier to photograph btw)
Sweet doggies
My peeps (Maddie will appear in these too, but so will some other cool people)

There are RSS feeds if you're a lazy stalker and want to subscribe to a particular set (Mom, I'll show you how to do it :P). That's all for now!

That's More Like It

After a particularly cold and yucky winter, we have been enjoying a rather fabulous first week of March. Maddie and I are both so sick of being cooped up inside, so we've been spending a lot of time outside this week.

Maddie continues to get better at walking/running outside, although she still falls quite a bit at this point. She's got bruises and scrapes all over from various playgrounds and yards, but it doesn't slow her down one bit! Here are some of my favorite pictures from our outdoor fun.

New play area on the porch- will have a fun slide up soon!

Mom, I found a pine cone in here!

On a nature walk at Buffaloe Rd Park

So happy to be outside!

King of the world! Notice Daddy- he is a helicopter
parent at the park, lol.

Snack break!

Practicing those running skills

Oops, fell down. Hi Mom!

And my fave- relaxing with (on) Ginger after a long day of playing!

Yadda yadda yadda

After conquering the major task of learning to walk, I think Mads has decided to talk next. In the last few days, her vocab has expanded by several new words, including "bye," "baby," "papa" and "six." She has to make a fish face when she says baby.

I'm really not sure why she says six, but sometimes when she says it she holds up 6 fingers. And if I hold up 6 fingers, she says six. Sooo, I think it's safe to say she's a genius. I mean, any regular kid can learn 1-5. Maddie skipped straight to six.

Here are a couple of short videos of Mads trying out her new words:
#1
#2

Other than that, nothing much is new. We're still trying to stay happy with playing indoors- blah! Can't wait for that warm weather next week. I've never been a huge fan of snow, and at this point I don't care if I ever see it again!

1.5 years old!

Go Heels! Beat Duke!

Maddie's stats from her 18 month appt:
Height: 30.5"
Weight: 22 lbs
She has gained a pound and grown an inch in the last 2 months! She's continuing to follow her 15% growth curve perfectly. The appointment went well, she didn't like her shots but seems to be over her fear of anything touching her ears, so that was a relief. The pediatrician was not concerned that she isn't talking yet, he said she seems to understand plenty for her age, and we won't worry about actual words unless she hasn't made any progress by her next appointment when she is 2.

Her words right now are: dada- meaning Daddy, and often said in her "monster voice," which her Daddy thinks is hilarious and encourages, mama- meaning please or I want something, dat- meaning what/who is that, doe- meaning where did that/they go, hi/hey- meaning hey look at me, and yay- meaning yay. I took a little video of her words- the only ones she will say on command are dada and mama. Although it kind of sounds like she is trying to say please for real in this clip! Sorry it's sideways...for some reason I just held it the wrong way.

We went to the kid's museum with some of Maddie's friends yesterday, and she got to play dress up a lot there, which she loved. She also colored her first picture (markers are much more fun than crayons I guess) and groomed some dogs in the brand new pet shop.






Maddie's favorite things to do this week are play with the dogs and sit on the couch like a big girl. She and Ginger are hilarious together- they have started playing a game where Ginger licks Maddie and knocks her over, Maddie buries her face in the floor while laughing hysterically, and Ginger noses her head underneath Maddie's body until Maddie stands up and the whole thing starts all over. Mia doesn't love Maddie quite as much, but she is very tolerant of Maddie's incessant hugs and kisses.