Where did July go?

Well folks, I have been MIA for the month and there is only one thing to blame- Graduate classes! I have been taking three classes this summer and they have KILLED me! I've had classwork literally every night of the week! It's over now and I have a week of Summer vacation to enjoy life and not do work before the next term starts and I go back to work. It wasn't all work this summer. We were busy doing a lot of things. Madeline took gymnastics and music classes this summer.She loved both! We went to Colorado to visit Aaron's family and really enjoyed ourselves. Here are some pictures from the month of July. I promise it won't be this long again before I post next.

I will post more pictures from my phone later.

Madeline is learning her colors and adding to her numbers. She amazes us every day with what she knows. She loves to read books. There are a few we read over and over and over! She has learned to "read" these books on her own! She reads "Brown Bear Brown Bear, What do you see?" on her own! And she will read parts of Llama Llama Misses Momma" with me. It's the coolest thing! Her favorite color is purple and has started to want to eat ONLY purple foods! Thank goodness for frozen blueberries I can add to her oatmeal, pancakes, yogurt, etc. We successfully have gotten rid of her pacifier. It was a tough week! She cried and cried at bedtime, even worse she called for her Momma! She would say, "Come back Momma!" I was too weak to endure that for more than a couple of nights. Luckily we stuck with it and she is better now. Nap times can still be difficult- they don't last as long now either.=( Hindsight, we should have gotten rid of it much earlier- before she fell in love with it and started asking for it by name.

She knows how to manipulate with tears I think. Just this evening she told me that she cries at night in the dark and  momma comes in and rocks her to sleep. She has me figured out folks! We changed that discussion very quickly. She did great on our two day car trip to Colorado. She loved seeing her grandparents and meeting a few of her cousins there. We haven't gotten much house cleaning down, or work on my new curriculum finished, but we have had a lot of fun spending time together.