A converstation with my grandmother

Tonight at dinner with my Grandma, a good Irish woman, we were talking politics.

***
G-ma: I've known who I am voting for even before the conventions.
Me: Who is that G-ma?
G-ma: O'Bama, because he's Irish.

***
I love my Grandma. She is always good for a laugh.

mg

EMHE: Part 1

The big news in my home town is that Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is just a block and a half away from our house tearing down and rebuilding a new home for a family in need. On Wednesday, the day the family found out they had been picked Kev, Madeline and I headed over to the house to see what we could see. We learned a lot about the show talking to the security and others standing around.

First, they have their own security that travels with them from house to house. They used to hire new security at every site, but by the time they got them all trained they moved on and would start all over. So now they just travel with them.

Second, Even the security doesn't know if they are going to be knocking on the door and giving the family good news or bad news. Sometimes they knock on the door and tell them they are not the finalist. Then they go home. That was not the case in STL.

Third, They told the family Wed. AM, sent them to Disney world in the PM, then finished filming, and started packing up their house. Thursday the finished packing. Friday at 1pm they started tearing down the house. By 6pm the house was completely gone and they were leveling dirt. They say the house will have a roof by Saturday night.

Fourth, The cast and crew have spread their tents and trailers over a six square block area of our city. The roads are completely closed off and the side streets all have no parking signs. (ours included.) There is only one way in and one way out for spectators.

Fifth, If you are a neighbor, and you live next door, they put you up in a hotel. If your lawn is being used as a spectator area they will be replacing it. They can also get massages and help themselves to food in the rest tent.

These are the photos we took on Wednesday.

The house. On Brunswick just a block and a half from our house.

The family. The mom is the one in black, the dad is holding one of the twins and the little girl looks like she has to go to the bathroom. Their other son isn't in the photo. They are all standing in front of the neighbor's house.

One of the women with Calliers Thompson and Shea the construction company that has taken on this huge project.

The spectators. We were a montley crew, and about 10 minutes later, after St. Mike's got out, there were at least 20 kids their with their moms.

The "Beefy" security guard kept hamming it up for my camera. They were all very kind.

Designer John Littlefield
I don't want you to think that I actually know who these people are. I got their names off of the EMHE TV show web page. You can find their bios there too. Which by the way, are really interesting. All of them are actors who just happen to be handy. They never really explain that on the show. I could have guessed after looking at this guy. He's just too pretty.

Designer Eduardo Xol (pronouced soul)
He's awfully pretty too.

On the far left of the group is designer Ed Sanders.
Ed, not so pretty.

The lone woman in the group is designer Paige Hemmis.

And of course, you have Ty Pennington. (That is him in the center between the tree and telephone pole.)

The family pulling away and the designers going into the house to "start working." The limo stopped right there and then backed up. The family then got out and they started over. They taped the send off three times before actually allowing the family to head to the air port.

Two of the crew members. They were hanging out with the few spectators that gathered at the site. They were extremely nice and weird.

Yep. That's right. They were eating Mom's deli on set. Lucky ducks.

More to come. Madeline and I walked up today as they were tearing the house down and that was pretty exciting. I have some really great photos of the tear down and of Ty. I'll post those soon.

What a crazy week.

mg

Cha Cha Cha Changes...

sing it, you know, like David Bowie circa 1971. Click here if you still don't know what I am talking about. And if that is the case, shame on you.


As you can see I have changed my masthead. (That is unless you are using a reader of some sort, then shame on you. OK, not really I am just all up on my high horse today aren't I?!?) Again, one of Madeline's many faces.

You might also notice that I am playing with a new title for our little blog. mGk just isn't that exciting nor does it give a potential reader any idea of what this blog is about. So, what do you think? {I am toddler. Hear me roar.} It seems pretty appropriate for this phase in our lives. It is the most clever thing I can come up with. Honestly. Any of you extremely cleaver and creative people out there have any ideas, or suggestions? I am open to ideas.

For now I hope you enjoy the new masthead. I do.

**Updated** to include masthead photo. 2.1.09

mg

Madeline is 16 months old!

It has been a while since I posted a true update for Ms. Madeline Opal. She is suppose to be the reason for this blog although I have sort of usurped it for my own purposes. To get back on track I thought I would get you all caught up on growth and photos today. This is going to be a long one, so settle in.

I am not an early childhood expert. I'm barely a novice, but they have some broad categories of development that I have heard over the past 16 months so I thought I would try to organize this post using those categories. Here we go:

Gross Motor:
Madeline has been walking ever since she was 10 1/2 months old. She is now running just about every where she goes and has discovered crawling again. For a while she wouldn't crawl at all. She was like "I learn how to walk and now you want me to do what?!? I don't think so!" As you have seen in some of the MaddyTV posts, she is a dancing fool. Last week we were playing at a park with some friends and a car alarm went off and Madeline couldn't stop herself from dancin'. It was hilarious.

Since starting at the day care, Doodle Bugs Madeline has mastered both going up and down stairs. Up she has been doing for 4 or 5 weeks, the down is a last few days thing. That is both exciting and frightening. We don't have many stairs in the house, but the ones we have are not padded in any way. I must break out the baby gate more regularly.

Madeline loves jungle gyms and can climb the stairs at the park near our house. She also is a fearless slider. (She is fearless, not me.) I think she could go up the stairs and down the slide at Grandma and Grandpa's house all day if they let her.

She is also trying to jump. One of the kids at Doodle Bugs mastered this recently and now Madeline wants to as well. She generally just bobs up and down or stomps her feet when you ask her to jump. It's super cute.

She throws anything she can get her hands on. Most of the time she his throwing her toys at Kevin or I. Occasionally she throws them at the cat. We're working on that.

Fine motor:
Madeline loves to color. Unfortunately she also likes to eat crayon. (Thank goodness they are non toxic.) So we color occasionally, with me sitting diligently beside her, unblinking. She has also used a paint dauber (like the paint thing they use at church Bingo) and loves that. She has a ball painting the sidewalk outside with water and an old paint brush.

We introduced her to the fork months ago, but it wasn't until recently that she started to use it regularly. She still prefers using her hands. She can pick up pretty small pieces of food with her fingers. Tonight at dinner she picked up a pea with her thumb and pointer. Very advanced if you ask me.

Language Development:
So this is my favorite. Madeline is in the middle of a language explosion and she gets at least one new word a day. Not only is she repeating things we say but she is then using the words correctly later on. I am going to list the real word and then her pronunciation in parenthesis.

Right now her words are (in no particular order):

banana or nana
baby
hot
stop (op)
more (mo)
apple
hi
bye bye
peas
noodle
truck (uck)
Grover (dover)- like from Sesame Street see this post
help (hep, hep)
please (peas)
bath (ba)
water (ah ta)
Blankie (kiki)
G.G. (that is Kevin's Grandma's name, short for Great Grandma)
boo boo
poo poo
Keys (geeez)
up
down (doww)
ba ba -what a sheep says
moo- what a cow says
aah aah ahh- what a monkey says- like ooo ooo, aah aah
raar- what a bear says- and it takes her at least 10 seconds to say that one word
woof-what a dog says
guck guck- what a duck says
ooo ooo- what an owl says
book
Dada
Mama
Olive (ah la)
Poppy (pop pop)- Grandpa Gene's name
Angie (an gee) - the sitter
Doodle Bug (doo doo bug)
ball (baw)
uh-oh
yummy
me- as in give it to...
oval

and my personal fave:
empty (m. p.) - yesterday she brought me a box that didn't have any toys in it, so I told her it was empty. About an hour later she opened up the same box and said, "m p". I was shocked. Then tonight she opened a different box and said the same thing. She is a genius I've decided.

There is one word missing from this list that I am not looking forward to appearing. Yep, that is N.O.

It should be noted that Kevin got her to say 'Hockey' very clearly today... although she has no idea what that is... YET.

Social Development:
Madeline is a huge cuddle bug. While playing she will just walk up to us and give us a hug and kiss then go back to playing. It is one of Kevin's favorite parts of being a dad right now. Those random acts of love feel so much cooler than the ones you are asking for. It is really amazing.

She is always giving her baby (named baby Leo) hugs and kisses and she attacks the cat with loves every time she can. Tonight she sat on Olive just to give her loves. We thought it was adorable. Olive was not so amused.

Madeline is fascinated with other kids. Since she has started at Doodle Bugs she is getting much more social with other children. She is still a little cautious but we are working on that.

One of the most amazing things to Kevin and I is that Madeline recognized and gets really excited when we pull up to either of the grandparents house. Her excitement is so extreme that she screams with joy and her face lights up. That Madeline L.O.V.E.S. her grandparents, no doubt.

Food:
Madeline eats just about everything. The only thing she consistently refuses is broccoli. (But who can blame her, it is a deadly vegetable that try's to warn you with its horrible taste. OK not really... that is for my brother's benefit.) She still doesn't love meats, but she had pot roast tonight and loved it. Tomorrow will be another story I am sure. Her favorite things to eat are grapes and green beans. And of course ice cream.

Growth:
We have no idea how tall Madeline is, or how much she weights. The last time I had her at the doctor, when she had that virus with a 103 fever in early August, she weight just over 21 pounds. I would guess that has changed. She is in the middle of a chunker stage. But as soon as she bulks up she tends to grow up and lean up again.

Her shoe size is a 5 1/2 however and she is fast growing out of her 18 m size clothes. I hope everything I have for the fall winter will fit...

Teething has had its ups and downs. Madeline currently has 9 teeth. Three molars, and 6 front teeth. Her teeth are mainly on her left side, but she has one molar on her top right. Not having that many teeth never stops her from eating anything so I am not concerned!
__________

I think that is it for now. (Eyes tired yet?) Enjoy the photos from the last month.

August 4- Bath time with Madeline!

August 4- Look at that adorable little tongue!

We were waiting in the car for my dad to come out of the house to head to the park. I asked, "Where's Poppy." That is what Madeline did:

August 11- Priceless isn't it?

August 11- There he is mom!

MY FIRST...

August 11- Painting! I broke out the tempera paint and let her go hog wild on that half sheet of paper! I know, livin' large. We have painted only once since then (to paint some wrapping paper) and I am still finding yellow and red spots all over my kitchen. Next time, we go outside.

August 24- See that dress Madeline is wearing? I made it. Yep, I sewed something. For reals yo. And it didn't even give me a head ache. I have to admit though, it could be better. From this angle it looks OK, but the photo below isn't quite as cute.

August 24-I have no idea what she was doing, but I L.O.V.E. this photo. It is so Madeline.

August 25- Always the fashonista, Madeline is sporting the "swim dipe" look for summer '09. Get ready, it's coming!

August 25-

MY FIRST...

August 28- corn on the cob! it was delicious and now she won't eat corn any other way. She devoured this chunk in record time. Amazing what a few teeth will do for ya!

August 28-

August 28- Again sporting the latest trend. Madeline pulled each of these hair clips out of her drawer and brought them to me pointing at a bare spot on her head. So I just did what she asked... this is the result. She ended up with at least 5 more in her hair that night.

August 31- Dinner with Mia and Mazlin. Sunday we were invited to dinner at my aunt and uncle's. Madeline had a ball playing with their two girls and running around their house like a crazy person. I love this photo b/c she is barely in focus. It truly captures how wild she is 95% of the time!

August 31-Getting kisses from Mia.

I hope you enjoyed this post and I am sorry it was so long. I am going to try to be more proactive about posting... but we will see. I am always taking photos and planning posts in my head that never come to fruition. Maybe someday. Not today. Some day.

Love, Maureen, Kevin and Madeline

mg

EMHE

What is EMHE you ask? Well that would be Extreme Makeover: Home Edition! Those of you in the area have probably hear that the ABC TV show is in town building a house for a deserving family. We were excited that it was going to be in The Lou, but had no idea it would be in our own front yard (almost literally). The house they are building is just a block and a half away!

This morning we saw them hammering these down our street:


This is going to be a crazy week I think. Kev and I have already decided that we are going to walk over and see what we can see. We'll post a photo of Ty soon!

mg

Enjoy the BBQ and sunshine. We will!

mg

Back log

I am a {little} behind in my photographs. I just downloaded a ton of photos from my camera, dating back to August 15th. So instead of posting a huge overwhelming (for me) post of photos, I am going to take the next few days to play catch up.

Enjoy these photos from August 15th!

Aug. 15-Madeline loves all of the Olympic pool events. I think this was one of Dara Torres' races. As soon as they started swimming she ran up to the TV and started laughing and smiling.

Aug. 15- It was adorable. Look at that smile! She is going to be a fish just like her mommy and daddy.

Aug. 15- Later that day we were watering the plants and ended up with an impromptu water party. She was so funny playing with the hose. At first she didn't want to get wet, but about 2 minutes later she was drenched and trying to "drink" the spraying water!

Aug. 15

Aug. 15

mg