Maddy’s now officially a 2.5 year old. In honor of her old age, here are some cute recent photos:

She continues to talk up a storm at home (not so much in public), and lately she’s been especially obsessed with a few things:

- People’s facial expressions, especially the characters in her books. I need to get some photos of her imitating these facial expressions – it’s hilarious. We talk a lot about why so-and-so is “making her face like that?” She loves to cock her eyebrows to demonstrate consternation, even when asking a question that she already knows the answer to (which is most of the time). She also likes to shift her jaw when she’s puzzled (or pretending to be) about something.

- How other people are feeling. This morning my back was hurting and Dave was helping me stretch it. Maddy asked “why does mommy’s back hurt?” and Dave kindly said “Because she’s getting old.” Maddy promptly replied, “It’s okay mommy, I’ll take care of you if you’re old!” Then when I told her my back was feeling better, she said “Mommy you’re young! We’re all young together!” I asked her how young we are exactly, and she explained: “Hayden’s 1, I’m 2, Daddy’s 5 and you’re 6.”

- Daddy buying her a dollhouse for her birthday (in 6 months)

- Kids/animals who’ve lost their mommy and daddy (thanks to Annie, The American Tale, and The Lion King)

- Planting a Mango tree in our backyard

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in PhamsterWorld. I think the girls would sum them up as funfunfun, and Dave and I would sum them up as simply exhausting. Before getting into our recap, let’s pause for a moment to celebrate Hayden’s latest milestone. Yes, the little bubba is now a movin’ and groovin’ 8-month-old who says “dadada,” but not much else yet.

With all her locomoting, she hasn’t been gaining as much weight as we’d like – she’s now at just over 15 lbs, which keeps her in the 5th percentile for her age. She’s crawling/ trying to climb all over the place and gets very antsy if we leave her in the exersaucer or high chair for too long. Her favorite places to crawl to are under our coffee table and behind the recliner.

In other news, Maddy had her first real experience in the snow 2 weeks ago when we met up with my old college roommates (Amy and Joanne) and their families at Lake Tahoe. Pictures here. She loved building a snowman with Dave, and gave sledding a try but got tired of that after 2 runs down the hill in our backyard. Most of all, she loved making friends with Amy’s boys Nathan and Chase.

After that, my dad came for a brief visit and Maddy and Hayden got some good grandpa time in. Last weekend, we also had one of our super-fun playdates with Syd and Sierra and Lily at Burton Park in San Carlos.

This weekend Maddy and I have already had some fun playing around the house with Hayden and at our little neighborhood park.

Sorry we Phamsters have been so quiet on the blogging front lately, we’ve been busy busy. I can’t possibly remember everything I’ve been wanting to post about, but I’ll try.

Two weeks ago, the Noonans came all the way out from Rhode Island to visit us and it was so great to see them. I just love my Auntie Leigh, Uncle Jim and my boyfriend Blakey. I miss them so much now that they’re gone and ask mommy about them all the time.

While they were here, we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Pastorino’s and Lemos farms in Half Moon Bay. We had close encounters with all kinds of fish and farm animals. I especially liked meeting the penquins and going on hay rides.

Everything was so much fun until poor Blake had a too-close-for-comfort encounter with the H1N1 virus. After that, he spent the next 5 days cooped up and miserable in our house.

That was no fun because mommy and daddy wouldn’t let me play with him hardly at all and kept telling me to give him space and not wipe my runny nose all over him to make things worse. I think we heard “Catch your cough/sneeze!” about a gazillion times from the grownups. I guess it was all for the best, because so far Hayden and I seem to have steered clear of that nasty nasty flu and now Blakey is all better.

In other news, I’ve enjoyed cheering for the Yankees in the playoffs and wear my Yankees hat for every game.

I also squeezed in a visit to Ardenwood farm with all the cool Yahoo! kids – Gavin, Sydney, Sierra, Lilly, and Sienna. I wasn’t too fond of the peacocks I saw there, but I was so excited about these little pine cone-like things I found on the ground. Mommy let me bring them home and I’ve been carrying them around in a disposable diaper wipes container ever since.

Oh, and I did a great job of singing Happy Birthday to my mommy on Sunday. Daddy helped me make her a really neat card with a drawing of our family – we even put Hayden’s mohawk and everything on there!

I’ve also been Skyping a lot with my Ba Ngoai (Gramma Anne), who’s working in Afganistan right now. We keep reminding her to stay safe.

- Maddy