I’m a waterfall addict, so when my Aunt Sydney invited us to go hiking with her family in Silver Falls State Park where there are 10 waterfalls, I was psyched. We lucked out and got pretty great weather for a tiring, but wonderful day enjoying one of my favorite things about living in the Northwest. Silver Falls reminds me of a mini-Yosemite, but what it lacks in scale it makes up for with lushness and magesty.

Maddy absolutely loved it, and Hayden was mesmerized as we hiked over, under, and behind waterfalls. It really was beautiful, and I was able to enjoy it thanks to having TONS of help with the girls. My Aunt and Uncle, and their sweet, super-helpful kids made a huge difference by pushing/carrying strollers, and taking care of and entertaining Maddy and her cousin Eva, who also joined us. Maddy and Eva made best friends with older cousins Sarah and Brynn, who were sure to point out every cool plant, tree and view to the girls (including the spot where someone apparently fell from a ledge and died last year – eek).

Maddy did amazing walking almost the whole way, and didn’t complain about being tired and muddy barely at all until the last hundred yards or so, even though we were hiking for 5 hours and she didn’t get a nap until the car ride home at 5:30. Hayden just sat in the stroller the whole time looking around and we barely heard a peep from her. She must’ve been exhausted though, because she finally passed out at around 3:30 while we were behind a roaring waterfall and her tired cousin Elijah was in the seat next to her screaming his head off.

Of course, this amazing outing included a few more-ridiculous-than-usual mistakes on my part. What kind of idiot brings a flimsy cheap double stroller to a 5-mile hike in the woods? In my defense, it held up well and the paths were maintained and somewhat manageable for a jogging stroller. But you sure do learn about the shortfalls of little wheels and limited steering functionality very quickly when the gravel in the path you’re on gets bigger and bigger and is joined by a gazillion tree roots. And it’s super-fun to carry a heavy stroller up a billion stairs (not that I did – thanks Uncle Andy!). Needless to say, I’ll be sore for days.

Oh and cheep, worn-out Target sneakers in the mud? Not so good. Poor Maddy’s feet were soaked by the end of the day.

I’ve seen so many more fascinating sides of Maddy’s brain since I stopped working.

First of all, she loves play-acting all kinds of imaginary stories or situations. Over the past few weeks, she’s been a dentist, teacher, princess, camper, mom, dancer, church-goer, movie star, musician, and probably much more that I missed or am not remembering at the moment. In the pictures above she’s pretending to be an oh-so-sweet princess with her cousin Eva, and a fancy mom (I never dress like this…), and below is a video of the Miss Maddy music class.

It’s a bit frightening how much of her acting involves mimicking me or Dave. She does some scary good impersonations of my discipline tactics and Dave’s cleanliness obsessions when she’s “taking care” of Hayden or her many dolls.

Sometimes, they’re not impersonations though. She recently decided she doesn’t feel like washing her hands so often. But rather than whine or refuse as some kids might, she just stops touching things so she can make a valid claim that her hands aren’t dirty. It was interesting to see how she tackled this challenge at the park the other day by keeping her hands clenched in tight fists while climbing all over the play structure and going up and down the slides. She even realized that she could swing on her tummy without holding the chains.

She’s doing pretty well at remembering letters and figuring out rhymes and things, although she’s not so interested in writing or reading quite yet. During our letter “Y” practice, she was devastated that I took the liberty of splitting part of her string cheese snack to make it look like a Y, but after she recovered from that oh-so-horrible incident I was able to convince her to make her own Y and she was very proud of herself, as you can see.

In other news, Maddy has taken to calling us the formal “mother” and “father” a lot lately, which keeps taking me by surprise. And she does NOT like her naps anymore. It’s constantly a battle to convince her to take a nap so she’s not a whiny nightmare by dinner time. Of course, on the rare days she does take naps it’s hard to get her to bed before 9pm, so we’re basically stuck between a rock and a hard place.

And finally, here’s a photo that sums up 3 1/2 year old Maddy in a nutshell:

So, last week I was doing one of my favorite things – climbing! And as usual, I kept looking over at my mom to test out how much she would let me climb before making me get down and walk around on the ground, which is SO boring.

As I climbed onto the recliner, she told me to be careful, but she says that all the time so I wasn’t listening. I was leaning over the arm of the chair, admiring our lovely carpet, and the next thing I knew my face/nose was slamming right into it!

Mom was pretty freaked out that she didn’t catch me in time, and I made sure to help her feel more guilty by screaming my head off for a few minutes. Then I seemed okay, just with a kind of pink face until I woke up the next day with a lot of swelling and black and blue going on.

These pictures don’t quite do it justice, but anyway I’m getting better and now at least the world knows that I’m one tough, fearless chick!

- Hayden