Rothlisberger Randoms - June

Better late than never :)

McKinley
- Our little girl is now completely weaned! She loves milk now and especially loves when she can get ahold of her sister's sippy cup, which usually has chocolate milk in it! While it was tough to let go, it has been very nice to be a little more free during the day, although we still have to make sure we give her regular food A LOT!! We call her our Hungry Hungry Hippo :)
- She's become a great sleeper this month! She's been sleeping through the night since she was about three months old, but she's always been an earlier riser, usually by 6:30 am. But I think summertime is wearing her out because lately she's been sleeping until more like 7:30 and has even gone as late as 9 am on a couple occasions! She still needs two naps a day though, even when she sleeps in, and is pretty good about going down. 
- We've discovered a couple new food loves this month - grapes and olives! But she really does not like cereal, which is crazy since her sister wishes she could just live off of cereal! McKinley also really loves cherry tomatoes so I'm really excited for our garden to start producing! We planted one cherry tomato plant, and she got to eat the very first one a couple days ago!
- Thankfully, she takes after her sister and is already a pretty smart little girl! She's quickly learning how a lot of things work, including phones, shoes, combs and clothes. She puts our phones up to her ear and just jabbers away and then hands them to us to talk too. She's always trying to put my shoes on my feet and loves to sit on the bathroom floor and comb her hair while I get ready in the morning. My favorite is clothes though. She tries to pull every clothing item she finds over her head, which means it usually ends up around the back of her neck! It's seriously cute to see her going around the house with her pajama pants around her neck :)
- She is a world-class tantrum thrower. She arches her back, throws her head back, throws anything within her reach, and sometimes just puts her head on the ground and cries. She's crazy! Every diaper change is grounds for major protest around here and the fighting over toys has begun in earnest! Thankfully, Madison has quickly learned that McKinley is easily distracted so she usually just grabs something else for McKinley and gets her interested in that so Madison can keep playing with what she has.
- She still loves to play with Madison's doll house and has gotten really into puzzles, the Dora car and the music chair this month. She also still loves the play kitchen and the ball popper.
- In addition to playing in all the cupboards and being so helpful unloading the dishwasher for us, she has also discovered the wonder of the pantry! Our pantry is big enough that she can go completely in it and be hidden from sight so a lot of times I just hear rustling noises coming from inside the pantry as she rummages through all the shelves she can reach. She especially likes to bring us fruit snacks and raisins from the pantry ... you can hear her coming across the floor with the bag or box slapping on the ground as she crawls. Then she comes over to you, takes your hand, opens it and puts the snack in it and then looks at you expectantly. She definitely knows what she wants and is good at communicating it!
- Stands on her own a lot now and is walking more consistently, like 8-10 steps at a time or even across the room. But she still crawls more than she walks so I'm not ready to call it yet!
- This girl jabbers constantly!!!! She always has something to say, which fits right in with the girls in this family :) Poor Jordan! We can make out six distinct words - Mama, Dada, uh-oh, hi, bye and tickle.
- She still loves her sister more than anything in the world! If she wakes up before Madison, we have our hands full trying to keep her out of Madison's room, she's so excited to see her sister! Sometimes we just give up and let her go in there. She crawls right over to the bed, stands up and immediately starts hitting Madison and jabbering to wake her up. Thankfully, Madison loves McKinley just as much and thinks it's awesome that McKinley comes to see her in the mornings :)
- Has gotten a lot more into books this month and now brings them to me and climbs in my lap to read them with me, although I still usually can't read the whole page before she wants to turn it! Her current favorite is "I Love You, Goodnight"

Madison
- Loves doing "special projects." I try to do something fun/educational with her every morning during McKinley's morning nap, and she's started calling these activities "special projects." Now she constantly asks to do her special projects!
- We've been keeping pretty busy this spring/summer so now before bed every night, Madison asks "What are we doing?" the next day and insists I tell her our plans for the day before she goes to sleep. It's like she's okay going to bed as long as she knows there will be more fun tomorrow! I think this is cute, and I like knowing that my kids enjoy our outings and activities so much!
- She has gotten very good at writing her letters and now consistently writes her name on things. She also likes to make cards for other people so she always asks me how to spell names and then carefully writes them on the cards she makes.
- She has taken over a small cupboard in Jordan's desk as her "mailbox" and loves to put things in there that she wants to send people or that she makes for us. We've found some pretty random things in there :)
- She also loves to give us presents and has some squares of wrapping paper that she uses to wrap up various items and give them to us. I think she throws me a birthday party every other day :)
- LOVES being a big girl and gets very upset when anyone says she isn't a big girl. She's had a couple kids at gymnastics and church say she's little and she seriously gives it to them!!
- She goes potty by herself now as long as we turn on the light for her first. She also is obsessed with getting dressed on her own and is getting pretty good at it!
- Her favorite activities this month include swimming with her floaties, doing Just Dance on the Wii with Mommy, helping me make anything and everything in the kitchen and building towers with her blocks. She also still sings almost constantly :) She's learned what red, yellow and green mean on the stoplights and is a total backseat driver! She also learned how to send emails this week, which has been another fun way for her to practice her letters. I tell her what letters she needs to find to spell what she wants to say and then she finds them on the keyboard and types them in.
- We've had some fun adventures with her this month that are best described with pictures below, but her Maddieisms also never cease to amaze us. Here's a few gems from this month:
* She doesn't pretend to be Zoey anymore and told me that she "put Zoey away last year." However, she still is rarely Madison. Now she likes us all to pretend we're different people in our family, like she's Daddy, I'm McKinley, Daddy is Mommy and McKinley is Madison. Our roles are always changing and I often have to ask who I am or who she is! If you call her by the wrong name, she immediately corrects you and won't do or say anything else until you get it right!
* I told Jordan we needed to throw the girls in the bath and she looked at me upset, and said "Mommy, don't throw us."
* I was being silly and singing Old MacDonald with random words instead of animals when we had this exchange... Mom: "Old McDonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o and on that farm he had a mountain ..." Madison: "No, no, silly Mom. Mountains live at Disneyland." (We've obviously lived in the south too long if the only mountain she can recall is at Disneyland!!)
* Dragging her big Winnie the Pooh chapter book from her room: "Well, this is a heavy situation."
* After being caught red-handed playing with my make-up in the bathroom: "I'm just using some things in your bathroom to get ready so go away so I can shut the door so you won't see me and get mad at me"

 Someone thinks she's a big girl :)

I just love this picture! I love the girls in their matching jammies and I love that we have such awesome friends who are so wonderful with our girls!!

What a good big sister!

Returning the favor :)

This is what happens when you have a 13-month-old. Books and sippies in the pan cupboard!

This is Madison's "book stool". One evening, Jordan and I were just enjoying some time together when we heard a crash. We ran into Madison's room and she proceeded to launch into a detailed story about how she wanted to turn on the lamp on her bookcase but couldn't reach it so she found every book in her room and built a stool "and then suddenly it crashed." The end. It's been a new goal of mine to find the humor in my children's craziness instead of getting mad so I thought the book stool deserved a picture. Her telling of the story was really the funniest part as she tried so hard to explain herself and make us see how important the book stool was to her and how horrible it was when it suddenly crashed :)

We've done lots of swimming this month and Madison now loves to use her floaties in the "big girl" pool!

McKinley also loves her pool floatie :)

McKinley has become obsessed with sitting in the chairs at the play table. She can't climb in them by herself so she goes over there and just yells until you put her in the chair. Then she pretends to color like a big girl

Family drum circle

Madison found the Nemo costume she wore almost two years ago for Halloween and insisted on running around the house with it on one day. Silly girl!

More post-bedtime mischief! We always go in and check on the girls before we go to bed around 10 pm and one night we found this girl working hard building a tower. It was actually really impressive and taller than she is! She was so proud of herself :)

 Love this cute little girl!!