Aquarium

Nick and I decided to buy season passes to the Living Planet Aquarium right after they got the penguins. We've gone twice and both times it was so packed! But we still had a good time and Maddie loved all the fish and other moving creatures. Here are a bunch of pictures we took of our trip to the aquarium...

The penguins were sooo cute!

Maddie clapping for herself in the canoe!

The first time she went with mommy and daddy and the second time we went with Grandma, her two aunties and 2 cousins...

Maddie and Auntie Dani

She pointed to everything! Here are just 4 pictures of probably 20 or more of her pointing to all the cool stuff at the aquarium

The girls and the kids

Trying to get one kid and 2 babies to sit still for a picture is pretty much impossible. This is the stillest picture we got...

It lasted like 1 second and then Maddie was on the move...

She's smiling so I guess she thought it was pretty funny to crawl away from the picture taking

Like I said there's no way to get 3 kids to all smile at the same time in a picture... at least not in my experience! Look at the cousins... they all have different funny faces!

Grandma and her cute grandkids!

Nathan's got a straight face in both of the pictures and Josh and Maddie are apparently making some kind of noise... :)

At least Auntie Dani's looking at the camera :)

Fun activities..

Well I'm so glad the weather is getting warmer and I can take my daughter out to see and do more things! We've done some fun new things this past month, and I get just as excited as Madison when she explores and sees new things.

She absolutely loves animals (what kid doesn't I guess?), especially horses (she has a favorite stuffed horse named Trotter). My sister-in-law was house sitting for some people that had 2 horses, so we went out there twice to show her and I think she really liked them!

Feeding the horses

One of the first things she wants to do when she wakes up in the mornings or from naps is go see her rocking horse or her stuffed animals. She will point to them and do her famous "oooooh" mouth...it's so cute!

**More animals!

We went to a play group at Gardner Village a few weeks ago. It was such a nice day and there were ducks and birds everywhere... Madison loved it! She is getting so good at finding birds in the sky and pointing to them and doing the sign for bird. She is so observant!

Look how close this goose let us get

Our friends Whitney and Ezra

**We started baby aquatics a few weeks ago. It's an 11 week parent-tot class. Madison LOVES baths so I figured she'd have fun swimming too! She has done really good so far, except when she gets dunked and especially when the instructor does it! Poor thing, but she is catching on and I'm sure it won't bother her after another few times. She goes with little Ezra, who has taken the course already and he is a pro! They have lots of fun together!

Working on her floating

She's a little fish! She will be all ready once summer comes!

**Madison's first time at the playground! She loved the slide and swings as you can tell!

**My sister and I have started doing a monthly play date with the kids (I'm sure we'd do it more often if we lived closer!) We switch off houses and this time we were up at her house in Farmington. They have some cool walking trails nearby so this is us on a walk...

**The annual Spring Gruv up at the Canyons.

We went up this year with Nick's brother, Patrick, and my sister, Danielle. They have free concerts and pond skimming (which we missed). People go crazy and come dressed in all sorts of weird outfits. The best part is probably the people-watching... it's very entertaining! haha

On the gondala

9 months old

Well Madison is now just over 9 months old and I thought I would give a quick update about her... She weighs 18.17 lbs (38%), is 28.74 inches long (87%), with a head circumference of 17.7 inches (79%)... (So basically she is long and skinny with a big head!) :)

I don't think it will be much longer before Madison is walking on her own...she is so close! She has started cruising, pulls up on almost everything and is very good at it. She has pretty good balance for a baby and can stand alone for a few seconds. She has climbed up our stairs a few times (with me standing right behind her of course) and is a pro at it already. Madison started officially crawling just before turning 9 months. She had been rocking back and forth on her hands and knees for almost 2 months, and was somewhat mobile since she could move her legs and lunge forward. But now that she has the crawling thing down, nothing can stop her! :) She is a very active and busy little girl, with tons of energy! She is a lot of fun!

She loves to clap for herself, and she can do high-fives and play patty cake! We are still teaching her baby signs but these days she seems more interested in saying the words most of the time. She tries to copy words we say but also says quite a few on her own. My favorite word she says is "hair" (which sounds just like the word by the way)... oh and momma and dadda too of course! :)

Here are a few recent pictures of our adorable little girl...

Crawling pics