Homemade New York Style Bagels

This was our first morning in Indiana, and Auntie Kim made it extra special by making New York style bagels! Madelyn enjoyed helping in the kitchen, as did Ethan.

Daddy and I enjoyed devouring them! So yummy! Thanks, Auntie! You truly spoil us!

Madelyn's Visit to Kidscommons in Columbus Indiana

Today was Madelyn's first day in Indiana and we had been looking forward to this visit for a long time. Ethan, Madelyn and I spent the day in Columbus, Indiana about a 40 minute drive from Bloomington. We asked my friend Amy and her four year old daughter, Tessa to join us for the fun. We started our day at Kidscommons, a children's museum in downtown Columbus. 

One of the highlights of the museum is this giant toilet. It's part of the exploraHouse exhibit where kids can learn the 'ins and outs' of a house. This exhibit is where the kids spent most of their time. The house had many secret hiding places to climb in and out of. The toilet is on the second story and there are steps underneath the toilet that lead you down to the first story. When you climb down those steps the toilet makes a loud flushing noise, very fun!

Here are some more pictures from the museum.

Basketball Shoot

Bubble Room
 

Silly faces picture on the bridge in the Early Childhood Garden

Madelyn's other favorite area of the museum was the arts and crafts area. We spent a lot of time here fingerprinting turkeys, and making melted crayon artwork.

After playing at the museum for a couple of hours we walked across the street to the huge indoor playground to eat our lunch. There were plenty of places to run, jump, and climb, including this structure that looks like a giant ship.

Madelyn was a little overwhelmed by the by the size of it and we couldn't seem to convince her to give it a try, but she had fun anyway.

After our lunch we walked across the street to Zaharakos an old fashion ice cream parlor that has been serving ice cream since 1900. 

The shop was very festive and decorated for Christmas. The kids had a hard time deciding what order but finally settled on root beer floats.

Despite  the fact that it was huge, Madelyn made a pretty good dent in it.

A fun day was had by all and it was a great way to start to our week long visit with Madelyn!

 

On our way to Indiana!

It feels like we've been counting down the days until this trip forever! But here we are, ready to get out of town and hang out with Auntie Kim and "the boys!"

But, before we could see everyone, we had a little bit of traveling to do, so off to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport we went!

We enjoyed breakfast at the airport while we waited for our flight to board.

Madelyn is all set, and comfortable for take-off!

The flight attendant gave Madelyn wings!

Madelyn said take-off was like riding a roller coaster!

About 1 1/2 hours into the flight Madelyn took a nap to pass the time.

Auntie Kim and Ethan were waiting for us when we arrived! Madelyn could hardly wait to get this trip started. After all, Mom and Dad were heading to Green Bay for the weekend and she got to go on this trip to Auntie's without us! She thought that was pretty cool!

Too grown up for her own good!

"Scientific Tooth Research"

Madelyn's class has been learning all about writing and I believe she has officially caught the writing bug! Tonight she decided to write a book entitled, "Scientific Tooth Research." (Yep. She came up with that all by herself! Honestly, I don't know where she gets this stuff.) 

I decided to share it with you because it is too sweet not to share. Forgive the pictures (I did not have enough energy to scan them, so I just used my phone. You can click the images to make them larger.)

First Visit from the Tooth Fairy

Several years ago (October 8, 2008, to be exact) I posted that Madelyn's first tooth broke through the surface! Now, just over 5 years later, she lost her first tooth!

Her tooth has been wiggly for about two weeks now. When it started getting really wiggly, Madelyn couldn't keep her fingers out of her mouth! She was so excited to lose this tooth! Several of her friends have lost teeth, and I think she was very excited to join this elite club! She had been coming home every day telling us that she was going to have her teacher pull it out soon. That really grosses me out so I told her that was fine by me, but she shouldn't rush it because if she forces it out too soon the new tooth won't be ready. (I am pretty sure I made that up, although it makes perfect sense to me. I think honestly, I was just not ready for this to happen.)

I received the following email from Madelyn's teacher on Friday morning:

I responded that it was fine by us so long as she took a before and after picture for us!

Less than one hour later, she sent an email saying the tooth was out! And she included these pictures:

Mrs. Musselman said it came out quite easily and there were no tears! She commented that Madelyn asked her if she needed some tweezers or something. HA! We agreed that Mrs. Musselman did indeed miss her calling as a dentist! Apparently she pulls out all the teacher's kids' teeth! I informed her that Madelyn will be coming to her from now on, until all her baby teeth are out! ;)

We remembered Madelyn's pediatrician telling us that she will loose her teeth in the order they come in so we were anxious to do some research, and look what we found! You can see her first tooth popping through, and low and behold it's the exact one that came out first!

Madelyn was sure to put her tooth into her very special Tooth Fairy pillow. When she woke up in the morning she was so excited that she left her FIVE DOLLARS! I think the Tooth Fairy business must be doing well because I certainly don't recall getting 5 bucks for any of MY teeth. We told Madelyn it must be because it was her very first one. She agreed. And she also said the Tooth Fairy was quite noisy. Apparently she heard her open her closet door, and she also heard a little "ting" from her wand. Maybe that's why she left her five dollars. Maybe she felt bad for being so noisy. ;)