What I do all day (by Madilyn)

I thought I would let you all know what I do during the day! First I wake up and play for a little bit. Here are me and my mom playing peek-a-boo. I hide behind the couch, and when she least expects it, "BOO!". I come out and scare her!! It's a fun game.


Here, I'm showing my mom how to do ballet. I can't wait till I can take dance classes and soccer and stuff. It looks like so much fun.


After I finished dancing, I heard a noise outside! I went to look, but then I decided to look at the blinds. They are fun. I would play with the blinds all day if my mom would let me.


I decided to play with my toy next. I tried to act natural, but it's hard when my mom is following me around with the camera! I like taking pictures; it's fun to look at them on my parents computer.


Here I am after I got dressed; my mom didn't know it but I was tricking her. I acted like I was just going to sit there, but I surprised her and....


...Lunged for the camera! Haha, I'm so tricky!


Then, me and my mommy decided to play pretend. Here I am acting like a MONSTER!


Oh wow, what a busy day. I'm pooped. I think I'll go rest now. Thanks for looking at the pictures and what I do all day!

We're back...and guess who's walking?!

We got back from Qatar a couple of weeks ago. It was a great trip! We rode camels, went on a "dune-bashing" trip in the desert, and had a fun Christmas there. The country is beautiful, like a desert paradise. Palm trees everywhere, beautiful water right next to the city, and LOTS of sand. Maddie had quite a hard time adjusting to the time change, and was up a lot at night and wanted to sleep during the day. But she was a trooper! And she adjusted just in time to go home. Haha :)

Here are Maddie and I in front of some old fishing boats in the bay. The water was beautiful, and boy was it WINDY! Maddie had a good time there and fell right asleep once we started walking.


This is a good view of the water with the city behind us. This area is called the Corniche. It's a beautiful walkway along the water that streches through the city. Maddie had fallen asleep with her hood covering her face :)


This is the pool at the villa where Mike's parents live. It's a gorgeous clubhouse and pool!


Here is our family on Christmas morning. We were happy that Grandma Murray was able to get a Christmas tree!! You don't see very many Christmas trees in Islamic countries!


This is the villa where Mike's parents live. It's a very nice place!! And it's VERY pink! The weather was gorgeous and we had such a good time there.


This is our guide that took us through the desert, his name is Muhammad. They come and pick you up in these land cruisers and take you out there. That's when we rode the camels, which was awesome! Going through the dunes was one of the coolest things we've ever done! They just fly through them, and go off these WAY steep hills. On one of the flat streches we went 170 KPH. (Which is about 110 MPH I think). They take you to a place called the inland sea, which is beautiful. It's only accessible through the dunes, and if you look into the distance you see Saudi Arabia.


These two next pictures are just really cute :) They are in the bedroom we stayed at in Qatar, when Maddie came in a was excited she found us. I LOVE her smile!!



So, this is a new trick that Maddie learned a couple weeks ago! She's quite the walker! I think she started walking a little early (9 1/2 months) because she's so determined to do everything we do! Including eat everything we eat! Anyway, she was quite wobbly for the first week or so, and now she's just walking everywhere. It's so cute to see how independent she's getting. I can't believe how fast she's grown up! Oh, and one of her favorite things in the whole world is Elmo. She can't get enough of him! It's so cute to see her face when she hears the music from Elmo's world come on. She gets so startled and serious about getting to the T.V. immediately!