Madeline's 8th birthday Minnesota Weekend

We came. We saw. We froze.

No, not really. I thought we actually handled it pretty well. I realize the difference between 40 here and 13 in MN is not so much, because at 40 here we are freezing because we are trying to run to the mailbox in our bare feet and going out on errands with a coat begrugingly thrown on and hanging open and lamenting how cold it is, whereas, at 13 in MN you assume you will be freezing so you prepare to exit the building with boots, heavy coat fully locked in place with buttons or zipper, gloves, scarf and possibly a hat, slip into your car and shiver until the seat warmer starts heating up your butt, and then dash in to your next indoor adventure.

I had a very special time with Madeline all by herself in MN. Mads is the 2nd born and of the four girls is the "quiet perfectionist". She is a rule follower and is always well behaved and is very conscientious of doing the right thing. She willingly chats and entertains if the floor is unmistakably hers, but she will never fight for the floor, and around here that means she never gets the floor. This lack of floor time produces a quiet moodiness and pouting that is also easy to go unnoticed.

My goal for the weekend was to hyper-focus on Mads and make her feel noticed and special. I hope I succeeded. She is a precious girl and I love her very much!

Grandma picked us up and we met up with Grandpa for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe at the Mall of America, and then went in to Minneapolis to a Children's Theatre performance of The Gruffalo, which was excellent.

The next day we lunched at the American Girl at Mall of America with Grandma and Auntie Nonny and then got her dolls ears pierced and hair done there. She also spent her birthday money on a new American Girl doll and some accessories.

We stayed at the Radisson Hotel next door to the Mall of America. It had an indoor waterpark, and Mady's cousin Raley joined us for the night to partake of the fun in the waterpark.

Saturday we spent a big part of the day with the Wolfe cousins at Nickelodean Universe, an indoor amusement park at the Mall of America. Then we watched High School Musical 3 at the hotel with Auntie and Grandma.

It had snowed 4 inches on Friday while we were there, so our last morning we let Mads spend some time outside playing in the snow and we also went to an outdoor ice skating rink, and she tried her hand at ice skating.

Then we boarded the plane and headed home where daddy and the sisters were waiting for us at the airport. Daddy surprised Mady with a really cool homemade treasure chest cake that he had made with the girls over the weekend.

My girl Madeline is sweet, special, creative, quiet, trustworthy, and fun to be with. I love my girl.