Home Improvements and the Many Faces of Madigan

Disclaimer - the main purpose of the first part of this post is to make sure our families are informed of the changes going on in our household so that the next time they visit we don't hear, "well you didn't tell me you did that...". For those of you reading this that 1)don't care about any home updates or 2)see our house more often, feel free to skip ahead to the pictures of Madigan! For the rest of you:
Sometime last year, Ted decided he was going to build a room onto the shed in our backyard in order to house his "treasures" (safe from little hands). That project was completed in August. He did a FANTASTIC job but due to the extensive amount of time and energy it took, I told him that we weren't even allowed to talk about another project until 2008. So, it's the new year and we made it all the way to January 5th before we were buying paint for the next project! The new room out back opened up the other room that had previously held his stuff, so we are moving the day bed in the front room back there and will have a real guest room/office again! But before doing that, we decided the room needed a little color. It turned out to be a little more color than anticipated (very very bright yellow!) but we like it. Here's a picture of the work and our little helper...
This is a picture of the only clean corner we have in the room at the moment. We're going to do some more decorating and I'll post pictures of that later. But, at least you can see the color (although it's much brighter in person!)
Another new addition to the house: Our poor butcher's block in the kitchen was about to collapse, so we spent some money we received for Christmas (which had been earmarked by the giver specifically for something for the house!) on a new kitchen island. We love it!So does Madigan. She likes to hide things in the cabinets! Here she is playing Vanna White and showing off the features!Last but not least, due to the overwhelming amount of toys, books, and other gadgets acquired over Christmas and from cousins, the time had come to do some organizing. I took all of Madigan's toys and divided them up into 6 rubbermaid containers that fit between the couch and wall in the living room. We only open one tub a day and you would think it's Christmas all over again. Because there are only a few toys out instead of a room-full, Madigan plays with toys she's never played with. It's been great! Here's a picture of the tubs (you'll see a bigger tub full of the larger items - they stay out everyday, but are easy to clean up)...And here's an example of the fun inside one tub...And for the books, I HAD to figure something out for the bookshelf (which typically looks like an empty shelf with a mountain of books in front of it). So, I bought some baskets and rather than try to shelf the books, we simply pile them in the baskets and put those on the shelf. It's been wonderful! Okay - enough about that stuff. Now for the Madigan stuff...
Although she's always shown some of the characteristics, there's now no denying it. Madigan is without a doubt, a full-fledged Drama Queen. We credit this behavior to her GeeGee (my mom). Her latest is mimicking our expressions, but hers are even more dramatic. These are just a few we caught on the camera tonight.


Hope you enjoyed that show. We sure have been!
Last thing, right before she went to bed tonight, I was getting Madigan some milk in her sippy cup. I heard "uh oh" and turned around to find this.Apparently she was needing a bedtime snack :).
Well, that's enough for tonight. Hope you have a great week!