She's Two!

Although she insists she is "tree!".

Our little Madelyn has a personality all her own. There is nothing she likes better than to "go!" When she sees the four wheeler or hears it fire up, she begans a non-stop stream of "Ride! Ride! Ride!"

Grandma and Grandpa have to spell "bike ride" when they are talking of going, or little Madelyn won't let them rest until they take her.

Nothing makes her happier than declaring "Bye-bye" - as long as she is the one in the car leaving the premises. If another person is leaving in the car and she is having to stay - we know there will be tears for quite some time.

She has recently become very empathetic. She hears Abigail crying and comes running to her rescue with hugs and kisses - and occasionally a baby doll bottle or pacifier to put in Abigail's mouth.

She is incredibly independent. She doesn't rely on us for anything that she can possibly figure out how to do on her own. This can be anything from fetching bucket and shovel and happily scooping dog do-do while chanting "Poop! Poop!" whenever she comes across a pile in the yard that Joshua has missed, to getting juice out of the refrigerator at 2 o'clock in the morning and pouring herself a glass.

She is very adventurous and daring. She sits backwards on the edge of the couch and flips over backwards onto the floor - and thinks it is fun. If you looked really closely at her birthday pictures, you would notice a scraped up forehead (from attempting to do a somersault down concrete stairs), a banged up chin, a healing lip and a skinned up knee. She goes through a lot of bandaids.

Every evening when Ernie comes home from work, Madelyn dances around and yells, "Daddy home! Daddy home!" with more vigor and excitement than I can describe. She hugs his legs and giggles as she continues to yell "Daddy home!" And every night it is as precious as the first time.

Happy birthday, Baby Girl!!!

Her favorite gifts of the evening were her birthday cards and the two candy canes - left over from last Christmas - that Joshua and Abigail gave her.She did love playing with her new water table,and was quite upset when it was time to go in for the night.