Child Labor

Just before this clip begins, Gary tells Madelyn that she is being a "helper monkey," which makes his next question make more sense.

Madelyn really is a great helper. She can follow pretty specific instructions, and she loves to participate. SHe knows how to put away her toys and pick up the messes she makes. We can ask her to put something in the garbage and she will find the nearest one. If she is clamoring for attention while I'm busy in the kitchen, I can tell her to go get her stool so she can see what I'm doing, and she'll push it in from the dining room and climb up. How wonderful to be able to communicate, for one thing, and for her to demonstrate a real interest in helping as well. We'll see how long that attitude lasts...

Lake Trail

For a lovely Sunday afternoon activity we decided to check out the hiking trail around Hagg Lake. It's only 15 or 20 minutes from our house, and for such a short drive, we decided that it was worthy of our visit.

Madelyn doesn't love being in the backpack carrier. But we found that with a baggie of nuts and raisins, she was quite content.

But for a change of view, we had her get out and walk or get carried a little bit too.

Stopping to smell the flowers

Daddy showed Madelyn how to spread the grass seed, and she blew some on the ground too.

This hill leading back to our car was pretty killer. It keeps going up beyond what you see in this picture too. Madelyn's daddy is such a stud.

Picking many a Bean

After a ride on the John Deere with Grandpa, we picked beans in his enormous garden.


Madelyn was a great helper, putting each bean into the buckets and trying really hard to carry the buckets.

Of course, she also really likes to eat the beans, by which I mean chew on them for a while then spit them onto the ground.

That's what Madelyn tends to do with most vegetables. Which leads us to wonder whether she gets any of their nutritional value from whatever juices she might swallow. Hope so.

Post Title Reference: "Fear of Flying" The Simpsons Season 6

Homer: [sarcastic] All right, Lisa, you got your way. Your Mom's going to a psychiatrist. She's going to tell Marge to leave me. It'll break up the family and you'll have to live with your grandmother and pick beans.

Lisa: Dad, I like picking beans with Gramma.

Homer: Well, keep it up, then.

Lisa: [sarcastic] OK, I will.

Homer: Good. You do that.

Lisa: Fine.

Homer: You'll be picking many a bean.

Lisa: Hope I do.

Doggie Treats

A new favorite activity: giving Loki and Kezia their treat biscuits

Gary re-discovered these cool rubber cage balls that you can fill with treats and the dogs have to roll them around until one falls out.

Madelyn knows just what to do.

Tonight Grandpa Dale and Grandma Bonnie came over to celebrate Mommy's birthday. Madelyn was being a Grandpa's girl tonight, bringing him story after story and climbing up in his lap to read them together.

Video Extravaganza!

It is a huge project to upload, review, edit, save, and post videos. Maybe I am just using poor video editing software (it's the one that came with the camcorder, so probably), but it takes forever! Which is why you don't see videos from my very often, and why today you are getting a Video Flashback Jamboroo! I hope you enjoy my hours of A/V labor. And I also hope you will feel free to recommend better video editing software, as long as it's FREE! :)

February 2008: Picnic Basket

She makes some funny noises, and looks like a baby! Chubby cheeks!

April 2008: Running around the Deck

That's Yuka she's playing with at the screen door, then she signs and says "dog."

April 2008: Spoon

This is when Madelyn was first getting the hang of the spoon effectively. Notice her ambidextrous switch partway through, and then she signs "all finished" at the end.

April 2008: Chew Toy

Madelyn is having a blast stealing Kezia's cow ear chew toy and then giving it back for about 2 seconds. Kezia is being so good about waiting to get it back. Madelyn signs "thank you" when she gives it to Kezia.

May 2008: Airplane with Daddy

July 2008: Crib Games

This was totally hilarious, Madelyn kept this up for about 20 minutes and it cracked us up. I love how she throws it behind her and she gives the doggie a little kiss.

Daddy's Breakfast

I know Madelyn gets enough to eat for breakfast. But when Daddy comes upstairs to eat his, she is mysteriously hungry again! (I learned of the "Second Breakfasts" phenomenon from Miriam as well.)


The thing is, you can share your food with Madelyn if you want, but she will then assume that it is hers.

And she can put a death grip on calories she plans to consume.

But she is so sweet, you can't resist that smile!

Out of this World

Saturday afternoon. We're bored. It is 100 degrees outside. We wanted to do something fun, but for us that usually means an outdoor activity, park, or the like. In this heat that wasn't an option we were willing to pursue. Gary suggested going to McDonald's to play in the playground. That actually was just the kind of thing we were looking for, but I just did not want to be that family that goes to McDonald's on a hot day to play in the playground. Sorry if I've offended. But this lead us to consider Chuck E. Cheese, which is more of a "destination" playground. I called Bryan and Laurel, because it's always more fun to go out with friends (or family, in this case). But Laurel had the idea that I had been trying to conceive: a new place in town called "Out of this World Pizza and Play." It wasn't far from there house, so we met there.

Check out the website for this place. It has so many fun options for kids of all ages, and I couldn't believe the price! Only $5 for kids under 5, and parents are always free! That's the biggest drawback to doing fun family activities, is the "adult" rates are always so high when it's often something the parents couldn't give a crap about, but they have to accompany their kids. This wasn't actually one of those things, because I'll admit I probably had more fun than Madelyn.

She wasn't thrilled with the bouncy areas, because it was so hard to walk!

Here she is going down the weeny little slide in the young kids' area.

And then one of the monster slides.

We went so fast I was afraid we might fly off one of those big bumps! A little bit scary.

It was hard to get any real good pictures of this huge climbing structure thing. There is a great image of the whole thing on their website. So, okay, it had a little bit of a ghetto feel, like some of the painting wasn't quite finished, and the go-kart track was just red masking tape on the floor. But for 5 bucks it was JUST what we were looking for!

They have a whole area just for babies/toddlers. You can't tell by her face here, but this rocking horse was probably Madelyn's favorite toy in the place. She played with it for a long time, and said "wheeeee!"

We'll definitely come back here again, in spite of the mediocre pizza (we'll just eat somewhere else before or after).

Final Day of Cousins Camp

Today we learned about Nature at Camp Winfair. We were missing an entire family because Emma and her clan were in Delaware with her family. It took a while for us to get motivated and pull the bigger kids away from their video games or whatever to actually start the planned activities. We decided to make it a simple day and just go on a nature walk to collect some leaves and then come back in to make crayon impressions of our findings. Thankfully Grandpa came to the rescue with a top-notch lesson! He taught us about the baby trees that were growing all over the property, and we could recognize them by comparing the big leaves on the tall trees with the tiny baby leaves growing out of the ground.

We saw baby Cedar trees and baby Maple trees. Madelyn is wearing those boy pajama shorts because a few moments after arriving she spilled water all over her pants. I don't recall how at the moment...but the diaper bag which I had carefully packed that morning (including a change of clothes) was still neatly hanging on its hook by the garage door. So this is what was available in the bin o' kids clothes at Grandma's house.

Smelling the "flowers" (aka weeds)

Madelyn always wants to climb ON the table! We're working on that.

Coloring an impression of a maple leaf.

Next year Madelyn will be able to enjoy Cousins Camp more, I hope. We also decided to try splitting up into an older and a younger group of kids next year. It's hard to find activities that the younger kids can participate in but are still challenging enough to hold the older kids' attention. We usually weren't very successful at this, so hopefully next year will be even better.

Journey Home

A family photo in front of the house the Winkel family stayed in during the Alder Reunion in Sunriver. Stories are always better from start to finish, so start here for the full experience.

Madelyn quickly fell asleep when we started driving. She looked so peaceful, but the instant I snapped this picture her head flopped forward

We stopped for some "Legendary" Abby's Pizza in Redmond with Bryan's family, then also met up with them at the DQ in Government Camp for Blizzards.

I had Gary fetch me another spoon because Madelyn was hogging mine, but you can see how well that worked out.

Even Loki and Kezia got to have a little ice cream.

Closer to home, Madelyn needed another snack (hey, it's a long drive!). I had swiped a handful of plain noodles from the fridge in Sunriver (leftovers), and they made a great car snack (no crumbs, not liquid or sticky). But, of course there is this:

Madelyn says, "Uh-oh."

We finally arrived home safely, grateful that we had such a fun time in Sunriver and that Madelyn behaved so well, all things considered.

Popsicle

Being silly with Grandpa

Enjoying a delicious popsicle...I think it's her first one.

So good at sharing!

Playground with Five Slides

In the evening, we headed out again to play at the park.

Observing the giant merry-go-round contraption

I was impressed by how well Madelyn climbed up these ladder-style steps.
She went on every slide in the park.

SLIDE #1 SLIDE #2
SLIDE #3

After those big slides, how could she look so worried about...

SLIDE #4

SLIDE #5
In the crazy spinning apparatus with Bryson. This was after the overzealous father there stopped breaking the spirits of the children who wanted to get off. (No, he wasn't with us.)
Riding around the outside with Daddy

On Slide #5 again with Jack and Bryson

On Slide #1 again with Mommy

Wheee! Swings!

Pick me up, Grandma, I'm ready to go home!