Fall Photos - lots of photos

Today Madison went for a walk in or neighborhood to take some pictures of the trees that are changing for the family back in the valley (no fall back home). So here goes..... (my favorite are the red leaves, Madison likes the red and the orange leaves)

if you scrolled thru this far here is also a little preview of
Madison's Halloween costume. She was trying it out on our
walk thru the neighborhood.

Room - Emma Donoghue



best review for this book -
"Room is a book to read
in one sitting. When it's
over you look up: the
world looks the same but
you are somehow
different and that feeling
lingers for days."
Audrey Niffenegger
author of The Time Traveler's Wife

Family Visit

since i moved 3 hours north of my entire family and J's parents, i've been lonely. i miss them. so my little sister (next in line, there are 5 of us, yes all girls, and no - not poor dad. we adore him) and her family came up to give me a weekend dose of family. it was great...

Austin and my Pixie
only i can call her Pixie
it's our special thing

my sister and Pixie's adorable twin Carebear
another nickname
but everyone calls her Carebear

Madison and Pixie
these 2 are super close
Madison mothers Pixie
Pixie loves it

my kids
their twins
and my brother in law

the girls
i hope even with the move these 3 stay close friends
nothing is better then family

Snow...

well just a dusting but for us that are native to the valley, this is snow. And man were we cold. I think it was in the high 20's this morning. Then, I worked in Madison's class this afternoon and drove home while it was snowing (not sticking). It was so cool. I called one of my sisters, I just had to share. It was a first for me.

Foot Doctor

Austin and Madison had an appointment with the foot doctor. Austin got an ingrown toenail cut out (without being numbed) and Madison went because she has flinstone flat feet and it had been suggested we have them looked at. Madison went first and did great, the doctor was funny and great with kids. He found a wart on her big toe (gross), and put acid and a band-aid on it to remove it. He also had orthotics cut for her shoes and told us she needs to were them 80 - 90% of the time and she may be out of them by the time she is 14 - 7 years, yikes. Then Austin went, this was a follow up visit for his ingrown toe nails. The first visit he was just put on antibiotics, even though the doctor offered to just cut the toe off. He guaranteed that would solve the ingrown toenail problem permanently. This time he wanted the nail cut out - even after my horror story of 9 shots in each toe just to numb them. He was tired of it hurting all the time. The doctor looked at his foot, grabbed his clippers and started cutting, I couldn't watch. I felt so bad for Austin. I know that had to really hurt. He was tough though So, Madison has a follow up in 2 weeks to check both her wart and her orthotics. Hopefully that will be the end of our visits for a while. We really like the doctor, but specialists are expensive.

these 2 had a great day together
it was so nice seeing them get along,
I let both of them stay home from school and enjoyed
watching them wrestle and play and just hang out.  

she was a little nervous - new doctor and all
Austin did really good keeping her laughing 

WART ON MY BABY - GROSS

Madison's new favorite recess activity. She is becoming a bit of a daredevil, and totally stressing me out. She wants to hang upside down like the rest of the girls. She doesn't do that when I am there but I would guess she does when I'm not there. I worry about her falling and getting really hurt, but at the same time I want her to have fun. I can just hope she is making "good decisions". (the only rule on the playground is to make good decisions, this school is all about kids being kids)

1st grade picture preview

Today is picture day. Here's a preview.
Pictures I took - not the school picture professionals
Mad had fun taking these pictures this morning

pose all hers - where does she get this stuff

there's my sweet girl

Madison thought it would be great if she could wear her
vampire teeth in her school pictures

our 1st grader

The barrette was made by my sister Angela. Madison has a few of them and she loves them. They are easy for her to put in by herself. I need to get a better picture of them, they are adorable.

A-1 Mountain Road

Our Saturday adventure was on Sunday this week. Sunday morning Madison decided she wanted to go for a drive to see if she could spot some deer. Unfortunately it was already 8am, and I've heard it best to go out before sunrise. But we thought why not, it was a good day to get out as a family.

A-1 Mountain Road
a forest road not far from where we live
we have to come back here - it's so beautiful

we pulled off the road and went exploring
so fun
such a change from summer days back in phoenix

I absolutely love wild purple flowers

we all climbed around on these rock piles for a while
don't worry J stayed close to Madison
she was never in any danger

these two are so close
they are almost always holding hands
J is her protector
Madison brings out the fun kid in him

J helping Madison down from one of the rock piles
i like how he lets her be brave - but is always there to catch her

the kids

Me and Madison
thank you Austin for taking a few pictures

another thing I love about forest roads
bumpy dirt road + no traffic = kids in back
(J is very careful, they are safe. I promise)

me and Madison
taking fun pics together

2nd stop further down the road
deep in the forest
we saw deer here - in the distance
Madison decided we were going to follow them
so we hiked up the mountain

about half way up we had to take a quick break

finally at the top
"top of the world"
we could see our whole little town

and back down
this was the fun part

my typical picture of J and Madison
they alway joke that I am taking pictures of their bottoms
actually i just love seeing them holding hands
i love Madison's choice of shoes - rain boots

J and Madison jumping down the mountain
they were having so much fun

Austin - thankfully he lets me sneek in a few pictures of him

these 2 are so done having their pictures taken
I promised them that they would be thankful for all the pictures someday

Fun Run

For the past couple weeks Madison has been calling our family asking everyone to pledge her in the Fun Run at her school. She ended up being pledged a total of $16/lap. She's quite the little sales lady.

Today was the Fun Run and she did so amazing, beyond amazing. She ran, or jogged as she keeps telling everyone, all 36 laps. I could tell it was really hard for her, 36 laps is just over 2 miles. She worked so hard and really pushed herself today.

I'm so proud of her.

another book

good book, quick read.
i enjoy james patterson books - not too thought provoking, just a good escape for a few hours

Homework

Ever since Madison was little she has wanted to do homework. Her brothers would come home from school and take out their notebooks, school books, pen, pencils... and do their homework.

Not only did Madison not get to go to school (that being to young thing), she also didn't have homework. She felt left out.

Last year Madison started school, Kindergarten. And guess what? No homework. Again she felt left out.

Now Madison is in 1st Grade, and she finally has homework. She loves it. She spends over an hour a day on homework without complaint (I totally hope I am not jinxing myself saying that). A quick run down of all she does each day:
-one side of a worksheet (math)
-finish her rocket math timed test (math, guess that one is obvious)
-300 sight work flash cards (reading, currently she is getting over 250 correct)
-a timed reading passage, she has one minute to read the passage to determine her words read per minute (next week she is being moved up a level in this, our little smarty pants)
-and finish any class work that did not get completed that day (our smarty pants is a chatter box too)

So, now she is not left out. In fact, most nights she has more homework then her Freshmint (another post) brothers.