videos!

Madison riding the cars at Broadway at the Beach in Myrtle Beach last weekend. All by herself!!


Mad & her friend Alex shakin' it to Ghostbusters music at Boo @ the Zoo this week!

Mad & friends on the news!

A week & a half ago, when we went to the pumpkin patch, a local news team was out doing a story and filmed our playgroup. A week later the story finally aired & they just put it up on the internet today...

So here it is!

Mad & friends on WACH Fox News

Go Big Blue....?

A few weeks ago, I got a box from Great Granny Beverly & Papaw in Kentucky. Inside was a University of Kentucky cheerleading outfit. Very cute, but we're Gamecock fans down here.

As luck would have it, on the day Carolina played UK, Madison was spending the day with Nonnah. I was helping a friend move and Daddy was out of town...so Madison Michael was left unattended with a crazy Kentucky graduate.

Poor kid, not only was she dressed in blue, but Nonnah probably had her cheering for the Wildcats all morning, without Mad knowing any better.

But that's all fine...

because look who won.

"Punkins!!!!"

Our playgroup made it's annual trek to the pumpkin patch, way out in the boonies, today! Mad had a blast! We got there and went inside to get our tickets for the hayride. Turns out there's a lot inside Harmon's barn to touch and potentially break. Bitty got a cracker from the "Taste our jellies!" table, ate half of it, and politely put it back on the tray with the uneaten ones. Whoops. We also encountered some semi-scary "displays" (?? what do you call giant statues of zombies and such? Displays will have to do). First time that Madison's actually gotten upset about something "scary". So between the breakables, the cracker table, and the zombies, we were quite glad to pay and be on our way.

Hayride time! We loaded up the tractor bed with the kiddos and got on our way. Madison sat with her best friend Lindley, Alex, and her favorite baby, Gabe. The hayride travels down past some farm animals (which, of course, warrants shouts of "MOOOO!" at all the four legged creatures), over a lake ("Ooooooh. Wata.") and through a "haunted" forest, complete with things like ghosts and bats and monkeys hanging from the trees ("Bye bye monkey!"). The hayride stops out in the middle of the pumpkin fields where they've set up 3 "mini" pumpkin patches, with just the right size pumpkins, already picked, ready to be...well, picked.

Mad promptly began rearranging the stacks of pumpkins to better suit her idea of what the pumpkin patch should look like.

For whatever reason, after this picture to the left, it suddenly became completely impossible for me to catch a photo of my daughter with her eyes open for any part of the next ten minutes. Meaning I've captured several cute moments in time...with Madison Michael appearing to be asleep. Standing up.

So here we are.

Thankfully, this trend didn't continue for too terribly long.

The mini pumpkins were set up next to a sunflower field, right next to a lake...
Absolutely beautiful. Madison plopped herself down in the sand and proceeded to cover her nice black pants in sand.

And then Baby Gabe decided to join her with the fun!

smooches for Baby Gabe!

We rode back up to the barn, with Madison Michael singing a very rousing rendition of "E-I-E-I-OOOOOOO!"
(here we are singing)

and did a quick change in the van into our costume. You may remember last year Madison Michael was the cutest version of Tigger the world has ever seen.

This year?






We are a bumble-bee.

After we finished up our photos, the owners of Harmon's came over and asked our playgroup if we wouldn't mind going on ANOTHER hayride, for free, because they had a news camera there that wanted to do a story on Harmon's and the things they have for children. There were enough of us left to fill up another hayride, but by this point, Bitty was exhausted. She kept nodding off in my lap through the second half of the ride, one time falling asleep with her face on her knees. Bless her heart, she's even a cute sleeping bumble bee!

The news is supposed to air tomorrow night. I'm hoping for three things: #1: they got cute footage of Mad, #2 they put the video on their webpage, and #3 I don't look like a complete fool.

whew. How's that for an update!?

Madison Michael's FIRST haircut!

I kept swearing I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't cut her hair. I had some TRAGIC bang cuts growing up (ask Nonnah. I'm sure she has some terribly embarrassing photos to prove that point) and I just didn't want to deal with weird bangs on Little Bitty.

But here lately, Mad's hair has gotten a wee bit out of control. Just a bit. Her bangs were practically down to her mouth, and with a toddler, that means they were in PRIME sticky locations. They never seemed to want to stay behind her ear (as you can see from the mall merry go round photo there) and a hair bow or barrette just never seemed to make it through a whole day. Or half of one, really.

So I braced myself and decided it was finally time for a hair cut. Our very first one.

Thankfully, Madison's friend Lindley, there to the left, in a picture from LAST September (Mad's on the left, by the way), has a mommy who does hair! Yvonne did my hair for the wedding in May, and Madison knows her, so I decided she'd be the way to go for haircut numero uno.

So today, at our Hip Mama's playgroup outing to Alex's house, Madison got a little trim. And even though I was absolutely terrified my kid would come out of this experience looking silly (however impossible that may be), I am SO happy with her cute little cut.

So here's the pictures...because I know that's all you're here to see.

crazy hair BEFORE the big cut...
the first snip!
sleepy baby with bangs....
and finally a good shot of our new 'do!

When I said "major update later" I apparently meant "August".

Whoops.

So it's August. We've been busy people this summer. Mad's now 17 months old and just getting funnier by the day. I won't bore you with extra reading, since I know you're just here to see pictures of the small person!













Below are more recent pictures (last few days or so). Mad's taken a liking to hats. But she prefers to wear them backwards, because that's how "Dada" does it. That's what she said.


VERY proud of her planting skills at the children's museum.


hanging out with Nonnah in the construction area of the museum.


Such a smart girl!


And last but not least, our new Elmo hat! (The sun rises and falls with "Melmo" around these parts...)

Video

I'm going to do a major update soon, but for now, here's a video of Madison with our dog, Joey. Our cabinets are "child-proof". Unfortunately, Mad figured out how to open it enough to reach in for dog food. So she decided to feed the dog.

Busy, busy, busy!!

It's Easter morning here and Daddy and Little Bitty aren't up yet...so I'm sneaking time to update the world.

First things first, right after her first birthday, Madison decided to attempt the Great Escape from her crib. So we've moved up to a big girl bed!

Last week, Madison found beads in the house. Decided to wear them. And we wore them everywhere...we went to the zoo with Leigh & her daughter Lauren and we wore our beads. We went to Target and wore our beads. To the park? Wore our beads.



Last weekend we had our annual St. Patrick's day breakfast on Saturday at Bella's house! This is a tradition Mommy started with Bella when they were roommates at USC. But this year was Madison Michael's first year in attendance! She put on a new green St. Pat's shirt and Mommy put her hair in pigtails and she was VERY excited that Mommy had green beads for her to wear! She had a great time showing off for everyone and enjoyed munching on Lucky Charms.

After our breakfast, we went to an Easter Egg hunt at a state park across town. It was really crowded and we were pretty late, but she still got to hunt for some candy (but no eggs...?) & play with some bunnies.



Friday we went to see the Easter Bunny! (Mommy needs to scan this picture) I was worried she was going to freak out, because Santa wasn't a very big hit at Christmas. While we waited in line, EB took some breaks and came over to wave at the kids. By the time we got to the front of the line, Madison had decided that this guy was okay, because he danced. And Madison LOVES to dance. The picture is super cute. Big smile!

Yesterday was our VERY FIRST Easter Egg Hunt at church! We invited Nonnah along since Daddy was playing golf! Madison wore a cute new pink dress with her new pink plaid shoes and carried her new Easter basket she got from Nonnah & Poppi. They had the toddler playground ready for the egg hunt for the 2 and under crowd. It was chaos trying to get through the grandparents to get in the playground, but once we made it in, Madison managed to find 3 eggs by herself! One she found after everyone else quit looking and had gone inside...persistence pays off! She got a little distracted in the middle of the egg hunt and decided she'd much rather just play on the slide and with the toys outside. But three eggs! I was impressed with our first showing.

Today is Easter and we're going to put on a new dress from Great Granny Ely & Papaw in Kentucky and go to church. After church we're headed to Aiken to see Gran & Pappaw & Great Granny!

...but not until after we check out what the Easter Bunny left!


Edit: Mad & her Easter basket!

First Birthday party!

Saturday was Madison Michael's first birthday party! We had a house FULL of people at Nonnah & Poppy's house and everyone had a great time. Madison's friends Lindley & Alex were able to come, along with lots of her "grown up" friends.

She did a great job opening all of her presents and making such a fuss over them, especially the clothes. It was so cute. Stephen's worried though. At one year old, his daughter's already making a huge deal out of clothing and shoes.

The cake was beautiful. A mom from our playgroup does cakes on the side and made Madison Michael's birthday cake, as well as her very own smash cake. Madison sat in the center of the kitchen and listened to everyone sing to her and smiled and waved and then slowly dug into her cake. She eventually ended up sticking her face in it!

We all had a wonderful time and we're so glad for everyone who was able to make it to the party and share our special day with us!


And on another happy note, Madison has a new friend in the world! Melissa, Nonnah & Poppy's sweet neighbor, had her baby boy, Sam, on Sunday afternoon! Congratulations Melissa & Jon :o)


I'll add pictures later. I'm currently uploading them to the computer from the CDs.

Happy Birthday, Madison Michael!

Yesterday was Madison Michael's first birthday!!! I can hardly believe it. The first year was rough at times, but it just seems like it flew by in the blink of an eye. Our Little Bitty is getting so big!

We had lunch with Nonnah & Daddy yesterday at New Orleans Restaurant, then Nonnah and I took Mad to Toys R Us to pick out something with her money from her great grandparents. She's quite the little shopper! And, because she's a member of the Toys R Us birthday club, they gave her a special crown and a balloon and even announced her name and the fact that it was her first birthday over the loudspeaker. Really cute.

Last night Nonnah & Poppi came over and had dinner with us and we opened presents and had our very own cupcake!

She was COMPLETELY exhausted and even slept in a bit longer than usual this morning. Bless her little heart. Her BIG party is on Saturday. I'm really excited and I hope she has a good time!

I leave you with photos from our day...