Flower pictures for Mom and Dad and interesting facts about Madeleine

Mom and Dad, our flowers have grown a ton since you helped us plant them back in May.  The marigolds and dusty millers especially are thriving.  The zenias in some spots are also great.  The basil still isn't doing terrific.  I wonder why?  Madeleine and I were sitting outside last night and so I took a few pictures for you.

Also noteworthy is that Madeleine can take 4-5 steps by herself now.  She crawls up onto the step going out of the great room then sits down and scoots back to the edge where she stands up and runs to Matt or me if we're within a few feet of her.  It's pretty cute.  She's getting more daring and occasionally lets go of whatever she's holding on to when she's standing.  The other day she let go of the gate at the foot of our stairs.  That one worried me because if she'd fallen it would have been onto the tile; she just stood there smiling, triumphantly.  She's also very good at crawling up stairs by herself now but prefers when we help her walk up them.  I'm so glad we have a gate so that she can't get to them unless we're with her.

She's also trying to say a lot more words.  This is basically her vocabulary so far: crack (for cracker), DA (for calling Matt, which she does throughout the day), bread, cup, step, butt (for button), snaps, wat (for water), that (as she points to various things), clock, ffff (fan), and mom (she usually only says mom if she needs something after she's been laid down in her crib).  

Funny story: one of the older ladies on the street behind us called me yesterday for something and as she was about to say goodbye she mentioned how much she loves when Matt and Madeleine come to the church library every Sunday (she's one of the librarians).  She said Madeleine points to the clock in there and yells "clock!"

Madeleine also loves books, and loves pointing to all the things Matt and I point to during the story.  When we look at the pictures in our Bambi book she always kicks her legs when we get to the picture of Thumper.  Her other favorite books are 101 dalmations and Thomas, the really useful engine.  We also have one of those word books with a bunch of items grouped by theme and she's pretty good at identifying what pictures matches the words we say.  Oh, and Gramma sent us a book that you can touch and move things on.  We used to be able to move a flap back and forth and the elephant's ears would wiggle.  Poor Mr. Elephants ears are now detached though.  

She's also beginning some pretend play.  She loves putting our cell phones to her ear and I found her last week putting the calculator up to her ear as if it were a phone too.  She likes taking things out and putting things back in boxes or containers.  She loves playing with other kids and interacts more instead of only watching.