Joyeux Premier Anniversaire, Mademoiselle Madeline!

Grandmother outdid herself and made an awesome yellow hat smash cake.

She's a big girl! One whole year! We celebrated her birthday with a Madeline-themed party, of course. I copied a lot of what we did from a blog I found online, and I'll probably recycle the Madeline-theme a couple of times as she grows up. It's just too easy. I made the invitation, and had my graphic artist friends at work "fix it." At the party, we had French food, French wine, and red, white and blue Parisian accents. Oh -- and the yellow hat smash cake, courtesy of Grandmother. Just like little Madeline in the book!

Our in-town (and San Antonio) family all came as well as a couple of neighbor friends. She was cute as ever and the bigger kids had fun playing outside in our huge pool (with six whole inches of water) and slip-n-slide.

Party was fun! All the grandparents and local aunts, uncles and cousins came, along with a few of our neighbors.

My wonderful grandparents came, too! Luke and Maddie are so lucky to get to spend time with them.



Madeline, meet Madeline.



Maddie and her oldest cousin Katie

Madeline and her little friend, our neighbor Trevi, who is just four months younger. They should have fun growing up and give me plenty of anxiety attacks when they're teenagers.

What's That? What's That? What's That?

What's that, Momma?

I think I must hear this at least ... oh ... 20 times a day.

What's that? That's a sprinkler.
What's that? That's a camera.
What's that? That's a cricket.

It's really cute, albeit sometimes a little challenging to figure out what Luke's asking. Yesterday, he was asking about the loud noise coming from the neighboring house. What's that? That noise? Yeah. That's a saw. What's that? That's a big saw that is helping build a house. What's that? They're building a house next door, and it's a loud saw. Oh. He seemed satisfied with that answer, given in three different ways.

And, he says the silliest things. Today, we were driving into the neighborhood and he saw a lawnmower service. "Look, Momma! Mr. 'Bino!" He was talking about our lawnmower guy, Sabino. He gets excited when Sabino shows up and he sees him through the window, but sad when he can't see him (my favorite is when he tells Sabino that he drinks his milk): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cafa0l-06Q.

Just tonight, he developed a newfound dislike of a dinosaur that Katie and Lauren gave him more than a year ago. He threw dinosaur into the mix when singing "Old MacDonald," even adding his roar, but then said suddenly, Momma, where's Dinosaur? Dinosaur's in your gameroom. Dinosaur isn't scary. No -- he's not scary, he's a nice dinosaur. Yeah. Then he changed his mind, jumping off his chair during dinner and throwing Dinosaur out the back door. Dinosaur goes outside! Oh no -- why? Dinosaur is scary.

He's really talkative at dinner. That's when we find out who he played with at daycare, who cried, who bit or hit that day, etc. And, he likes to point out things about each of us: Lukey has blue eyes. Two eyes. One. Two. Mommy has blue eyes. Daddy has brown eyes. Sissy has brown eyes. Max has brown eyes.

My favorite might be his commentary during potty training. We were doing great for about a week or so, but now I feel like we're going backwards. So, I'm not pushing it too much, but when he does sit on the potty, you might hear him say, "C'mon, pee pee!" or "Pee pee, come out!" And, when he's decided that peeing in the potty is overrated: "Momma, put my diaper on. Pee pee is coming!"