Trick or Treat

Here we are preparing for the evening's festivities. Madeline is carrying my little pumpkin from long ago.
Starting off on the trek.
Meeting up with Lulu and her mom. Susan is an artist and is so creative. Lulu will have great handmade costumes over the years while Madeline will be stuck with premade ones.
Back home ,carrying around a picture frame. We had a lot of fun! She hung in there longer than I had planned! Thanks for sharing your candy, precious Madeline.

Halloween Party

Our friends, the Sears', had their annual Halloween party this year. This party is always a blast and we have had many costumes over the years.

This year, another Halloween first was that I actually saw "The Wizard of Oz". I have never viewed it. Of course I know the basic story but hadn't seen it. What prompted our costumes was the musical "Wicked". I am a Volunteer Ambassador at the Fox Theatre and I had recently seen " Wicked". It was wonderful and I wanted Mark and me to be characters from it. I think I have a really unique perspective on the movies because I saw "Wicked" before the "The Wizard of Oz". I have been told the book and the musical are vastly different so I need to check out the book.

So here we are as Elphaba (AKA Wicked Witch of the West) and Scarecrow (AKA Fiyero).


Ever since the party night, whenever Madeline sees the scarecrow costume she says "Dada" and when she see my wig she calls out for me. She is so smart!



Our friend Kay joined us as Galinda (AKA Glinda the Good Witch)

Pumpkin Carving

The annual pumpkin carving took place in late October. I loving carving pumpkins and carve one every year. This was Mark's first year carving a pumpkin. Not sure how that happened but he has now carved one. This was a Halloween of firsts for the Macdonald family, more on that in another post. Mark decided to be super impressive and go with a design from the stencil.

I went with traditional carving but tried for spiral eyes. They didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. They broke off.

Ladybug fun

Our little ladybug flew off to another Fall Festival.

She still loves her thumb. I'll tackle that hurdle next year....

18 months

Madeline's 18 month check up went really well!

She continues to be tall and thin. She is 21lbs 10oz (10-25%) and 32 inches (50-75%). She says many words and is really becoming independent! I was only able to get one picture before she decided the photo shoot was over! It's been a wonderful 18 month journey!

Cumming Fair and Highland Games

A little hand erased an image so now we are slightly out of order. Sorry.

Our tradition continues at Stone Mountain. Here is Mark and his little donald. I love this picture.



We love the Fair so we headed off this year. We normally go to the North GA State Fair in Marietta but ventured to the Cumming Fair this year. It was fun!


Madeline and I went down a huge slide and she loved it!
"Come on, Mom. Let's go again!"
She is set with cotton candy and a balloon! (The cotton candy was for me!)

"I did it!"

We have a Sky Chair on our porch and one day I walked out there to find Madeline in the chair! I was curious as to how she got in the chair since it constantly moves. For the next several days I had my camera handy and stealthily was able to catch her in the act! Now the three of us will be fighting for the best place in the house to read!

RPC Fall Fest

Our church had their annual Fall Festival. Nana, Grandad, Grammy, Aunt Elizabeth and Lauren and Graham all came to play.

Madeline got her face painted with a heart. It wasn't long before she smeared it. Oh, well.

Scarecrow Festival

Our Fall Season began with lots of festivals and that has continued! Here is Madeline in the bounce house for the first time at the Scarecrow Festival. She loves jumping on our bed so I thought she would love this but she was a little timid. This house was specifically for little people.

Here we are at the craft table. It was a sticker project and the stickers all ended up on top of one another. It was cute!

Madeline's procedure

Madeline was born with both eyes having clogged tear ducts. Her left eye cleared up after about 4 months and we were hoping her right eye would as well. Unfortunately it didn't clear. So after a visit to the pediatric opthamologist, it was determined the duct needed to be unclogged. This would involve a hospital trip and anesthesia. Our suregeon was great. He has performed many of these procedures. I was most worried about the anesthesia. I get nervous when the dog is put under for teeth cleaning, much less my 16 month old baby. The day arrived and we headed off very early to Childrens.

Here we are in the waiting area. We had to be there early so there was a lot of entertaining to do.

She looked so tiny in her hospital gown. It was weird to see it on a little person.

Everything went very smoothly. I was allowed to go back with Madeline when she was put under the anesthesia. I think the hardest part was when she was brought back to us. We weren't there when she came out from under the gas and she was almost hysterical when she made it back to us. I think waking up in a strange place feeling groggy and disoriented from the gas and only seeing strangers was too much for her. Once she saw Mark and me, she calmed down a little bit. She still had the IV in and a little brace on her arm to keep her from tearing it out. That was also upsetting to her. She was able to eat and drink and we were allowed to go home. We all rested that day. Her eye has been looking great so I think the surgery was a success! Thanks be to God! I don't have any pictures after the surgery. My arms were too full of baby that needed soothing. But she is back in action now!

Cheerios

Just some cute pictures of Madeline with Cheerios.
A mouthful....

Maarten is hoping a few will be tossed her way. And most likely there were!

September 11- Honoring First Responders

On the 10th anniversary of September 11, our church honored First Responders. Mark and I were not involved when 9/11/2001 occurred, nor was he a police officer at the time. We were talking about Sept 11 and I said it was weird for me to think that he would be running into danger to help, not away from it in situations like this. His response was "It's what we do." And that perfectly sums up the mindset of first responders. I am so thankful for the people who come to our rescue when we need it. Like others, I don't enjoy getting tickets (which my husband makes me pay and won't fix for me) but that is just a small part of their jobs. Mark and our head pastor, Dr. Lane Alderman
Mark with his parents and in-laws

A cake at the reception. Mark took the rest back to the police department and it was demolished quickly.
First responders at worship: Andrew (fire fighter), Krissie (firefighter and EMT), Mark (police and SWAT Team) and Bracken (police and SWAT Team)