Pictures as promised...

Here they are...

Pics of Madison and a few of her buddies at the park!

Strawberries all around

13+ pounds of strawberries... that's how much 3 adult women and 3 children under the age of 3 can pick (minus the ones tasted) on a Wednesday morning at Belvedere! It was such a blast. There were goats for petting and feeding and an open bounce house for fun! Madison is a dare devil and jumped from perch to perch in that thing! Keeping 3 kids in a row at a strawberry patch proved to be the biggest feat of the day, but all in all it was a blast! Strawberry juice from forehead to toes on all involved!

What the heck... or there is a God

Ever had one of those days when you think you should just go back to bed? I can honestly say I have. Yesterday nailed that one on the head. It all started when my brothers car broke down in the early morning. My dad was working on it as Madison and I left the house to pick up Heather and Dolan to go to Hurkamp Park. We were headed to meet Sherry and Alyx and Vanessa and Ella there. We pulled out of the driveway and I noticed the car was driving funny and sounded strange. I pulled into Burton's and jumped out to find my tire was FLAT as a pancake! So, a $15 dollar repair and we were on our way. We picked up Heather and Dolan and made it to the park in record time. I ran into half the world yesterday. That part was nice. Everywhere I turned I saw someone I knew and hadn't seen in a while. Just when things we starting to look up Madison took off running and turned in a crowd of mommies and babies and I lost sight of her... for about 5 sec until I could catch up. My heart dropped to my feet and my world started whirling around me. What was 5 seconds felt like eternity. I can't even begin to describe how scared I was and how much flew through my mind in those few brief seconds. Once I located her I watched close behind her but waited to see that she would do. I wanted to teach her a lesson out of this. To my relief, when she realized she was "lost" she went right to the very next tent/vendor and said "I can't find my mommy. I need help." I then went and retrieved her. I reassured her and told her I was proud of how she handled herself and then discussed how dangerous it was for her to run away from me in a crowd. (I am seriously thinking about putting her on a leash!) We recovered and spent the rest of the concert playing and then off to walmart. At walmart we picked a cart that was apparently falling apart. Madison asked to get out of the cart and as I picked her up, we caught her new shirt on the rusty broken metal and ripped it. First time she wore it, and all they could do was say sorry! Good thing she didn't get hurt! When we got home we played outside and made plans for Heather, Dolan, Mads, and I to meet up with Carrie and the twins (Aiden and Alexis) at Joe's Crab Shack. As we were about to leave I learned that my very good friend had been in an accident. As soon as we got to Joe's Mads took off running through the patio to the playground and ran head first into a table. I swear I felt a dent in her head and almost ran off to the ER. After a few minutes and a frantic call to mom I determined she was just fine b/c she was running around playing and climbing on the playground. Dinner was uneventful, everyone ate well and then went off to play some more. As we were about to leave Dolan hit a 10 point face plant into the curb. He got a fat lip and a bloody nose. Talk about sad =o( What a day! I would say it can't get any worse, but I know it could be much worse. o , all and all, God was there and took care of all of us! Bless you!

Oh yeah, at bedtime I have gotten into the habit of asking Madison what her favorite part of the day was. Her reply... "getting lost!" I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. And so, on went the discussion about strangers and the danger of running away from mommies and daddies... I'll try to get pics up from the park tomorrow. They are on the other camera.

Poppy Fridays

Poppy Fridays have gotten to be a tradition. Madison looks forward to them all week. As soon as Poppy is done with work for the day they have special time together. Madison often stops to let us all know how she feels about us. "Poppy, I sure do love you." This past Friday they had "lawnmower races" and went fishing after digging up their own "sqwilliams" (worms). They even caught a few fish. Poppy always asks her what she wants to do with the fish after they catch them. Madison always says, "throw them back in." But this Friday she said "I want to eat them!" And they did. I asked her if the were scaley to eat and she said, "No mom... We took the scales off!" What a smart little girl! She continues to grow and surprise us everyday. I am so lucky to have her. I can only hope she feels as lucky to have me one day.

Adrianna comes to visit

If it is possible to have a best friend before you are born, then Adrianna would be that for Madison. From the time both girls were in our tummies they would go wild around each other. We assumed Adrianna was a boy and that our kids would date, but Rachel and I were wrong. Our girls just knew they would have a special bond that no one could come between. After Adrianna was born, 9 weeks early and 7 weeks after Madison, and came home from the Nicu we started getting together with the girls. They have loved each other since. We continued to get them together regularly and Rachel even babysat for me until last summer. Rachel and I have been through as much together as the girls have. Both of us found ourselves in the middle of Divorce this past year. The girls are no longer living down the street from each other, but talk on the phone and see each other at least once a month. They talk of each other everyday. We were so excited when Rachel and Adrianna were able to come visit this week. The time went by so fast, but was much needed on both ends. The girls were so happy to see each other and played wonderfully together. We took them to build a bear and they made each other bears with a special message. Madison is sleeping with hers at night. I snapped a few pictures of the girls and wanted to share. Enjoy! They are precious...

Hurkamp Park

I am so excited to say that warm weather and sun returned in time for the concert in the park this week! I have loved going to the concerts on tuesdays and for the first time in 3 years I don't have to work the night before!! It was beautiful there. The music was great and friends were plentiful. Heather and Dolan went with us and Alyx and Sherry met us there! If you ask Madison it was a perfect day... her "little brother" and "little sister" were their with her!

CBS comes to a close...

I am sad to say that our first year of Community Bible Study has come to a close. It will start back up in September. I can't even begin to tell you how much this time meant to my family. Madison has a hunger to learn and loves to learn about God and life's lessons. She looked forward to going to church each week. They ended with a small children's program and Madison's class sang several songs. Grandma and Grandpa came and Great Grandma too! She was very excited and proud to stand on stage and see everyone there cheering her on! Grandpa has pictures and will share when he gets home! I grabbed a few pictures before going into church that I thought I might share...

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was a very special treat this year. It gets to be more special as your child gets older and is able to make you gifts. These gifts from the heart are forever more valuable than anything they could ever buy. Madison and her Grandma Linda spent a lot of time on a very special project for me this year. i have to say it is my very favorite thing and I will treasure it forever. Because Madison put so much hard work into it and because it will remind me of how tiny she was this year. Thank you so very much Madison and Grandma.

We also had lunch together on Friday before Mother's Day to celebrate with Grandma Linda since Grandpa was away on travel. We had great fun and even went to feed the baby ducks and geese outside of Outback. On Sunday Madison and her Daddy met me to have dinner at Outback and we got to feed the ducks again. it was so great to spend part of the day with her!

Personal Hygeine...

May 8th, 2009


Ever wonder what might happen if you are napping and you leave your child alone with grandma and a bag on personal hygeine products (AKA emergency bag for work)??? This might answer your question...

More Catching Up....

April 16th

Garden Girl!! Madison loves to dig in the garden with her poppy! She has her own garden tools too. hey have planted quite a bit this year and am happy (and saddened) to say that what she planted is coming up better than what poppy planted. She is my little green thumb nature bug! Her favorite thing lately is to look for worms. She holds the little slimey squigglers in her hand and talks to them. Poor things go swimming sometimes too. She doesn't understand that they can't breath in water... She came up to the deck today and said "Mommy look at my wormy. His name is sqwilliam." She comes up with the silliest yet most appropriate names for things. I think we even have a picture of sqwilliam...




April 24th

What a beautiful day! And so special. We went downtown today, (at Madison's request), and met Great Grandma. Madison loves Goolrick's so we have started to visit at least once every 2 weeks. We met for lunch and then walked around a bit. Madison and GGrandma shared a coke float and posed for some treasured photographs! I am sure these will be special to her for years to come! She even conned me into a new lovie! (Like she needed another one!)






April 29th

Anyone who knows me knows my best friend Shannon. Our story is a rarity in that we have known each other literally all my life. She was waiting for me when I was born and we have grown up together ever since. She is a year and 3 days older than me. We have seemed to do many things together about a year apart... We got married a year apart and even had our babies a year apart... Madison is 1 year and 4 days older than Kendall. Strange how things work out! We have promised to keep our girls close so they would always have a solid friendship to fall back on... one where even when life gets busy and you lose each other it is only a matter of a phone call, or dinner to get right back to where things left off... we have done a terrible job this far!! Life is so busy and we work opposite schedules, but Shannon has had us over for dinner lately and it has been a blast to see the girls play (and fight) together. They are both sweet but hot tempered girls. They had an altercation tonight over a toy vacuum. It got pretty heated. We laughed a bit at them, took a few pictures and then broke it up! So silly! Can't wait to see what kind of trouble they get into one day...