Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

And a happy birthday to princess Paela, ruler of all at the Madsen household. Our little adventurer was busy with firsts this week.

Paela's first birthday was on Wednesday and she had a host of visitors. Her cousin Thomas came to share in the cake and wrapping paper bounty and a friendly squirrel also wanted in our back door, even though an agitated cat was waiting on our side of the screen. I have been putting nuts outside the door for the past couple of weeks and this brown squirrel is braver and braver as the days go by. I think he must have a death wish. But Paela's day went by so fast: she opened presents throughout the day, had her first ice cream and cake, and tore paper all day long. You can see pictures here, and I'm sure we will be posting videos soon as well. And Rebecca did a wonderful job on the cake, designing it to look like Paela's favorite stuffed animal.

Paela has been using a few sign language words for a little while now -- such as "up," "all done," and "airplane" -- but at the beginning of the week she started saying "more" during meal time and shaking her head "no" when she doesn't want what we're offering. She now shakes "no" where appropriate, shaking her head only occasionally. We have been trying to teach her where eyes, ears, mouth and nose are; sometimes she gets it right, most of the time she doesn't.

She has been really fascinated with throwing balls lately, so we made a short trip to a learning center to get her a red rubber ball and a spiky "sensory" ball as post-birthday presents (Paela says thanks for birthday money!). Then, last night as she was throwing the ball with daddy, she started doing the sign for ball and saying vocally "ball," and pointing to the ball. So, I guess her first sign language word was up and her first oral word is ball.

She chewed through her sippy cup. And she doesn't like the replacement we got her. At least she'll have a harder time chewing through this one. She likes to lay on the edge of the swimming pool and splash her hands in the water. Then she does the same thing at night during her bath -- laying face down in the water and splashing her arms. The neatest game is one she plays with her toy fish. They are hollow, so she likes to carefully put them onto our fingers. She will walk up to Rebecca -- raise Rebecca's hand for her -- and then carefully balance the fish on an extended finger. Paela attempted this same trick on the bushes outside. She tore off one leaf, then carefully tried to reattach the leaf. It didn't work.

Last first (or is it first last)? Paela colored her first picture. Personally, this was the one I was hoping would come sooner rather than later. I have tried helping her learn how to make marks with crayons, markers, pens, pencils, etc. But in Primary, during coloring time in Rebecca's class she joined in the fun, making a beautiful picture with the orange crayon.

And somehow we fit all this in between preparing my pre-thesis project for next week.