Relay For Life

Madeline with Jack and Addison a few weeks ago at the zoo

This past weekend the Cancer Crushing Cuties (my girlfriends and I) participated in the Madison Heights Relay for Life event. We had a GREAT day. Our on-site fundraisers were temporary tattoos (thank you Megan), a flea market (to get rid of our junk), and selling Italian sausages (the skaters loved them). Bri and Madeline came for part of the late morning and then returned for the evening and stayed quite late. Bri manned the grill with our friend Steve and Auntie Megan and Broc came as well. Our team raised at least close to $700 that day in addition to individual donations and then the $1000 plus we made for the pub crawl. Our entire team minus one member walked 24 miles the day of the event and we can't wait till next year. Madeline enjoyed the event DJ and then bands that performed and was very happy that there was a playground on-site as well :) Madeline wore her "Find a Cure before I Get Boobies" shirt and everyone loved it. I think next year we should sell t-shirts :)
This week Bri's mom Sandy is staying with us and watching Madeline. They are having a BLAST. Monday they went to the park and had a busy day riding the bikes and playing at the playground. Yesterday Nana Linda came down and the grandmas took Maddy to the zoo all day. She was spoiled rotten. She got a new hat, a giraffe and a tiger stuffed animal. She took a long nap but i could tell she was exhausted from the long day when i got home. Today i think they were going to take it easy and tomorrow evening Scott and Dave will come into town and then auntie Leigh arrives on Friday. Busy weekend with Kickball on Friday, Tiger's vs. brewers on Saturday and Sunday and Father's day as well.
Not sure yet what Madeline and i are going to get for her awesome daddy this year. he is such a great dad (and husband) and there are no gifts in the world that could express how much he means to each of us. We are lucky gals :) Below are some pictures of Maddy from the Relay this weekend and I'll get some of her from the zoo from sandy.


Madeline dancing with Kerri and I at Relay for Life

More dancing

Sunday's Tiger's Game

This past Sunday at the Tiger's game we were asked if we wanted our pictures taken. Here are the results. We are gallery 55 and photos # 200 and 201. Madeline looks so cute in her Tiger's hat. The group photo is our good friends Leah and Ryan. Clink on the link to view the photos.
http://www.printroom.com/ViewGallery.asp?userid=tigersfanphoto&gallery_id=1591806

Scored Bigtime at Garage Sales :)

This weekend was a complete success. Friday night had a kickball game and was fortunate enough to have our dear friend Alex there to help out with Madeline in the dugout. Thank you Alex:) Hopefully next week we will have a new sitter, Madison, who lives down the block watching Madeline. I finally went down the street and asked for her phone number and she seems like an excellent teenage girl and am excited to ask her for this Friday.
Saturday morning i noticed some garage sale activities taking place down the street and pleaded with Bri to come along to look for outside toys for Madeline. She has so many inside toys and since it's getting so nice out we need more activities for her to do outside. I was mostly looking for a sandbox, slide, etc type things but no luck. still the purchases made were awesome. We found a bike trailer for $10, a pink scooter for $1, soccer ball for $1 and two my little ponies at $0.25 each.
The bike trailer i have been actively shopping for and have been struggling with the costs. Brand new at the cheap end one starts at $100 and can climb all the way into the $300/$400. i cannot justify this as she HATES the stroller and to buy one and have her hate it would drive not only me nuts but Brian would be even less happy about it. I was picturing us buying even the $100 one and using it only once with her screaming to "GET OUT" the entire time. Even on Craig's list the ones in decent condition were still going for $50-60. So here we are garage saling and we come across one for $10, how could we resist. After getting home i decided to test it out and SUCCESS. Madeline didn't utter a peep and was perfectly content. JACKPOT!!
The $1 scooter she loves. She has a hard time riding her bike at the moment since she doesn't really understand the peddling and steering concept yet. With the scooter she can practice steering and then we can move onto peddling and i think it will be a great transition. and for $1 how could we pass it up.
A soccer ball for $1 is also fantastic. You cannot buy a basketball, soccer ball, football in a store for less than $15 and when you have a 90 lb black lab at home that LOVES balls and more than that PUNCTURES them upon impact kinda a waste of money to buy them at full price.
And last but not least the My Little Pony purchases we am impulse buy for Madeline. we all have them. If they weren't a quarter we probably would have passed but who could resist.
Madeline was so cute shopping. we let her hold the money in her pocket and paid for everything herself and said thank you so politely.
Sunday Madeline attended her first Tiger's game of the season and for the most part was fine. Unfortunately we probably should have purchased her a separate seat this season since her behavior was 100% better when she wasn't sitting on my lap but oh well. We thought we'd get another full season saving on a seat and we did but i don't think it will be very much fun when we go. she made it thru till about the 7th inning and then her and i had to bail. by the time we were a block outside the stadium she was asleep in the stroller. luckily Leah and Woodke were at the game as well so Bri didn't have to leave early and was able to just catch a ride back home with them. Packed lots of snacks though and seemed to help. We'll see how the rest of the season goes. At least with this new sitter right down the street maybe we'll have to hire her services for not only kickball but also baseball games:)
This week no big plans really. Just getting ready for Relay for Life on Saturday. Everyone should come out and see what the even is about. Should be lots of fun. We are doing a flea market for our on site fundraiser and also having Bri grill brats and burgers and a little craft area for kids. Can't wait!
I'll get some pictures of Madeline using her new toys if the rain ends at some point.

I just can't decide :(

I have been spending all morning trying to find a new cute blog layout. let me know what you think. it may be a winner :):)
Madeline got a new hula hoop the other day and is OBSESSED. She doesn't quite get it to spin around her hips so she just holds onto it and twirls around. Super Cute!
This week's drama has been my hair color. I needed to dye it due to thegrays that are starting to sprout and have been advised by my stylist that i CANNOT just pluck them every time or i will become bald. So i went and bought what seemed to be the color that was closest to my natural color. or so i thought. after an exciting trip to Walgreen's which had me chasing Madeline all over the store as she ran with no shoes on up and down the aisles i got home and was ready to go. let me just say i DO NOT look good as a redhead. It was terrible. although no one else seemed to notice except me but that's not the point, I KNEW it was red. After spending two days completely hating my hair i decided to dye it Dark Ash Brown. This ASH word was the key i guess. apparently gals like me that don't want red in their hair need to choose only colors with ASH in it to avoid this. The result.... SUCCESS! it still has a little red to it from the initial dye job but now i am a dark brown color that is quite a bit darker than my original but much better than red so I'll take it :) I would send you a photo but i think that's kinda weird to just take a picture of my hair. i am sure you get the point :)
Tonight Madeline and i are going to go and try to find her a babysitter for Friday nights. there is a girl down the street i have been kinda stalking for the past few months and now since i have officially met her and her mom and brother and sister i feel comfortable enough to go and get her number :) Hopefully this works out because Brian and i have discovered that kickball with a two year old = NO FUN!
Wish us luck!

Memorial Weekend Photos

Here are some pictures that Sandy took over the Memorial Weekend up in Marquette and at Krista's open house in Iron Mountain. Enjoy!!

http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=a51237c28eb4842c&sid=0CZsmjZq3bsX9Q

http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=d91ebd8a1c7bb6e9&sid=0CZsmjZq3bsWEK

Thoughts and Prayers

Just wanted to ask everyone to send thoughts and prayers for my boss' family. His mother passed away last night and it is very sad. She was a neat woman and will be dearly missed.

weekend update....

This weekend was pretty busy. On Friday we had our first kickball game. The Bayside Tiger's came up short with a loss in the first game but then a tie for the second. Starting the season at 0-1-1 i guess isn't so bad. Then Saturday my Relay for Life team hosted a pub crawl in downtown royal oak. it was a SUCCESS!! We raised more money than expected and all had a lot of fun. Not to mention the Wings pulled out their first victory for the Stanley Cup finals. GO WINGS! Sunday my mom (Nana) and Megan and Broc joined Brian, Scott, Madeline and i at the Detroit zoo. It was a beautiful day out and we had our own little Jimmy Johns picnic and then enjoyed the sights. There is a new joey at the zoo and i was sad Maddy wasn't with us at the time to see him/her but i can't wait to take her back to em out. Finished the weekend with a marvelous dinner, thank you Scott and Bri and enjoyed a second Wings victory. This week is pretty low key so that feels nice. I need to get back on track with my Half Marathon training schedule so this will be a good week for that. Life gets so busy sometimes. I really think if Madeline would suck it up and let herself enjoy a nice ride in the jogging stroller once in awhile it would make my life a whole lot simpler:) oh well. Here are some pictures that my sister captured yesterday. One of these days I'll invest in a new camera and be able to keep everyone up to date with more current ones. Until then i will steal them from sandy and Megan, thanks ladies :)