1) PRAY!!! We need all sorts of prayer! Pray that we stay healthy. We’ve gotten all sorts of vaccines, and have started our malaria medication, however I wasn’t able to get the yellow fever vaccine because of the Remicade I am on for my Crohn’s. So please pray for protection of our health. Also pray that our eyes will be open to whatever it is that God has in store for us. Pray for safe travels, peaceful flights, and no missed connections! Also pray for our safety there. Things are currently peaceful in Uganda, but there have been riots and protests there recently. Pray things remain peaceful and calm while we are there. Finally please pray for our kids. 2 weeks is a long time to be away from them. Pray the time will fly by for them, and please pray for my parents as they will be watching them. Pray for unexplainable energy for them, and inexplicably perfect behavior from our kids

2) We’re going to spend a TON of time loving on orphans. We’d love to fill a suitcase full of special items to help us make them feel special. Here are some things we need:

• Face Paint
• Paint Brushes
• Nail Polish
• Stickers
• Construction Paper
• Crayons
• Soccer Balls
• Small Prizes (Beanie Babies, little dolls, yo yo’s, little balls, notebooks, pens, pencils, shirts, dresses, anything a child would love to win).
• Lots of CANDY

If you’re able to donate any of these items, or if you have something else that would be great for kids let me know. I know as a parent sometimes we end up with all sorts of stuff and it’s way more than we need for our kids. If you have an overabundance of anything, or if you’d be willing to purchase and donate some of these items that would be great!

3) While we are there, Dwight, the pastor who is leading our missions trip will be putting on a pastors conference for about 800 men. They are coming from all over the place, and we’re all very excited to see how God is going to use these pastors! Right now we need to raise A LOT of money to ensure that all of these men can afford to come. It only costs them $10 a person to attend. Are you able to help these men attend this conference? If you would like to donate some money to support these pastors please get in touch with me. It would be awesome if we could sponsor lots of pastors!

4) So, David and I thought we had a great plan in place for what to do with our kids while we are gone for 2 weeks, and things haven’t worked out the way we had hoped. My parents have very kindly stepped up and are going to take the kids for an entire 2 weeks, which is awesome. The thing is, my dad works, so my mom will have the pleasure of having the kids all day long every day, which speaking from my experience is exhausting. I would love it if we could find some people who would be willing to take the kids over for some play dates so that my mom doesn’t suffer from extreme exhaustion. If you would like to have a play date with one of the kids could you let me know? I know the kids would love the chance to play with some friends, and it will help my parents maintain their sanity in our absence

5) And this one is not super critical, but we don’t have anything to do with Sadie. We could pay to board her somewhere, but if anyone is just dying for the chance to have a little puppy love in their life she’s all yours!

I wanted to blog about Madeline today. There’s been much talk of Africa in our house. We spend a lot of time looking at pictures of people from Africa and talking about what mommy and daddy are doing. Madeline understands things pretty well for a 4 year-old. She talks about our child in Africa, and prays every night for him or her. She also has put in her request for a baby girl, and has promised she will change the diapers and take care of her

Today I was online reading a blog of someone serving in Uganda. I passed my computer to David so he could read a blog post about a sweet 4 year-old little boy who had passed away due to severe malnutrition. He was basically the same age as Madeline and weighed about 14 pounds when he died.

As David was passing the computer back to me, Madeline wanted to know what we were looking at. For a split-second I questioned whether I should show her the picture. She’s so young, maybe it’s not appropriate to show her a picture like that?

Instead I chose to show her the pictures and I explained to her that the little boy was her age, and how kids in other parts of the world didn’t have food like we do. She had just gotten done eating an ice cream sundae, and I explained to her that kids like that little boy didn’t have any food to eat, let alone special treats. I don’t even think I bothered to tell her that he had died. She asked me a question, and I honestly can’t even remember what she asked, I only remember that I heard her choking back tears. Not the tears I’m used to hearing when she is whining about wanting something, or upset that she didn’t get her way. These were genuine tears, coming straight from her heart. I glanced over at her and saw tiny, little tears forming in her eyes.

It was then that I realized I wasn’t stealing her child-like innocence by showing her that picture. I was just giving her a chance to show it. She hasn’t been hardened by our society, or jaded by all of the ridiculous stuff on TV. She is still innocent, and showing her that picture and explaining to her the truth of what other people are going through only allowed her to feel those genuine emotions deep inside of her.

Most of us have seen TV commercials with pictures of emaciated children asking for our support, but most of us continue to eat our snack and wait for our show to come back on without giving it a second thought. I’m so thankful for the empathy and concern that Madeline was born with. I know she was born with an extra dose of it, and I pray that we will be able to encourage her to grow in these gifts that she has, and that she won’t become hardened by life.

For those of you wondering what in the world I’m referring to, I mentioned a while back that it’s sad we don’t spend more time talking about why we love people, and fun memories of them all the time, instead of just at funerals. When I was thinking of all of my happy memories of my Grandpa Jack I found myself thinking of so many fun “Grandma Mary” memories, so I figured I would share them on here.

Growing up, Grandma Mary was the epitome of everything you would desire in a grandma. You could always count on marshmallows in your hot chocolate, a cozy warm bed, with fresh smelling sheets, an afghan while watching your favorite TV show, a home-cooked meal complete with dessert, and plenty of hugs and kisses. There was never a shortage of love at Grandma and Grandpa’s house and it was a place we could go and feel special, and cared for.

One of the coolest things Grandma would do for my brother and I was let us go “fishing” down her laundry chute. We didn’t have a laundry chute in our house, but Grandma and Grandpa did, so it was quite the novelty. Their laundry chute went from their first floor, into their basement, where Grandma also stored her extra canned goods. She would give us some long string, and Steven and I would take turns sending it down the chute into the basement where Grandma would surprise us with green beans, or corn. Never were canned vegetables so exciting! I think we ended up carrying it all back into the basement when we were done, but fishing down the laundry chute was a special activity we got to do with Grandma!

One of the many “grandmotherly” things Grandma did was knit. I can’t even count the number of home-made gifts Grandma made just for me. Not only did I get all sorts of special, knit gifts from Grandma, she also was the one who taught me how to knit. She patiently taught me the basics while I did my best to knit a washcloth. I believe it was the saddest, most pathetic looking washcloth ever made, but it laid the foundation so one day I could pick it back up and even knit my own children a few hats, and blankets. Even as an adult Grandma has continued to gift us with her lovingly, made creations. David and I each have our own afghan, my kids received baby booties, sweaters, blankets, and most recently Madeline got her very own sweater, in her favorite color…Pink of course!

Not only did Grandma knit, she also painted. I remember all sorts of beautiful pictures she painted for our family. What I always thought was the coolest, was that she taught me how to paint. She would come up with craft projects for me to work on, and I always felt so proud of myself after having her help me paint whatever project she had come up with for me. She painted some Easter baskets for my brother and I that were made out of wood and looked like bunnies. We still have those baskets, and my mom has been known to still put goodies in them for us for Easter!

Up until I was 13 we lived just minutes from Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Whenever Grandma heard that I was home sick from school I could count on her stopping over with some chicken noodle soup for me. She always made sure that we were more than cared for when we weren’t feeling well.

Even after we moved further away, I was still always able to count on Grandma being at every birthday party, holiday gathering, or any other special occasion. She’s always made family a priority and loves to be a part of our special days. In fact, if a get-together is scheduled to start at, say, 2:00, we start to worry at 1:55 when Grandma hasn’t arrived yet. You see, we can always count on Grandma to arrive bright and early for any gathering and if the set-time arrives and she’s not there we start to wonder where she must be!

When I moved even further away to go to college Grandma was still able to share her love even from a distance. She would send special cards and notes and would even surprise me with care packages! When the weather cooled a little, she was even known to send me some Wisconsin cheese curds! I went to school in Virginia, and no one there knew what a cheese curd was. I had the pleasure of introducing my dorm friends to the wonderful world of squeaky cheese thanks to Grandma!

I’m all grown up now, with a family of my own and my parents have now taken on the “grandparent” role but I’m thankful to say that Grandma Mary is still an active part of my life, and my kids’ lives. It’s been so much fun to have her at all of our family events, and she has taken on the role of Great Grandma without skipping a beat. So this Thanksgiving, among all of the many things I have to be thankful for, I am so very thankful for Grandma Mary and the ways she has been a part of my life growing up, and how she continues to be a part of my family’s life.

I love you Grandma, and hope you know just how special you are to me and everyone in our family!

Countless people came up to me and introduced themselves as church friends of my grandparents’. My grandparents’ have always been very faithful attenders of their church and it was obvious that their time at church has been spent getting to know people. Everyone who introduced themselves explained how much they loved my grandpa, how he was so special, had a great sense of humor, and made an effort to get to know them.

After my grandpa passed away my first thought was of my Grandma. How would she go on after spending the past 60 years with someone who took such good care of her, and loved her so deeply? After meeting all of their friends from church I felt a sense of relief knowing that she is not alone. There are so many people who love her, and care for her who I know will be sure to continue to show their love and support for her. I listened to her pastor explain to all of us how the church was here for her and all of us as we work through our grief, and once again felt such a peace knowing that she has such a great group of people wanting to support her and carry her through her grief.

As I lay in bed reflecting last night on the funeral, and my impressions of it I had a few thoughts I wanted to share. The first thing that came to my mind was what a beautiful day it was. Yes, it was very sad, but the spirit in the church was one of love. We shared our favorite memories of my grandpa and honored him for who he was. There was laughing and tears, but the spirit was very uplifting.

Another thing that really stuck out to me was the impact that my grandpa had on people (and when I say my grandpa, I really mean both my grandma and grandpa, because they were always a package deal). The number one thing I heard repeatedly was how my grandpa made people feel loved and special. People could have talked about what a funny guy he was, or how smart he was but instead told me how he made them feel. Instead of just interacting with people on a surface level, he chose to get deeper with people and made an effort to uplift them. I think it shows that my grandpa had a genuine love for people and instead of being selfish and making his relationships all about himself he chose to make people feel important. That doesn’t come naturally to most of us. I mean, who doesn’t love talking about themselves? We all think we’re pretty special, right? It takes an effort to put others above us.

The last thing I thought was that I would hate to think of anyone I love dying without truly knowing how I feel about them. I’m very thankful that just last month we all spent a morning celebrating my grandparents 60 years of marriage and sharing with them what was so special about them, and how thankful we were for them. I think in this day of technology and social media we really neglect that personal interaction we used to do more of in years past.

These days we spend our time talking all about ourselves. Our Facebook statuses are all about us, our kids, and our lives in general. We’re all so used to talking about ourselves that it almost seems unnatural to take the time to address one another, and if we do address each other, then we just post on each other’s wall on Facebook or if we’re feeling really motivated we text the person.

So, my challenge is that we not wait until a loved one dies in order to talk about why they are so special to us. My grandma told me that she had forgotten some of the memories I had shared on my blog and in the eulogy, so why not reminisce with those we love about all of our happy memories while they are still alive? So, keep an eye out for a future blog post all about Grandma Mary. I have already thought of all sorts of things I want to share, and I want to be sure she knows the impact she’s had on my life.

Yep, we’re getting a dog, a golden retriever to be exact. Last week we took the kids out for a visit, and Madeline picked out her favorite. Thankfully she seems to have extraordinary talent when it comes to picking out a puppy, and David and I agreed that she made a great choice.

It wasn’t too hard of a choice. She was a very social puppy, who seemed to have the perfect blend of playfulness and cuddliness. Every time we put her down she would immediately come running back to us and either climb into our laps, or snuggle up next to us. She seems to love our attention.

She happens to be the biggest girl in the litter, and is also bigger than 3 of the boys. That was one thing I wasn’t so excited about. Lucy is 12 pounds. I used to think I was a big dog kind of girl, but then I got Lucy and thought maybe I liked little dogs. It was a big step for me to agree to a Golden Retriever since they are pretty big, and I have to admit I kept picking up the tiniest one hoping she would be a good match, but it turns out that the chubby one had the best personality. So, yeah, she will probably end up being really big.

Sadie is still not quite old enough to come home with us, and needs some more time with her mom so we have 2 more weeks until we will get her. In the meantime the breeder is keeping us updated with pictures and emails, and we are welcome to go visit her while we wait, so tomorrow we are going out for a visit.

Madeline is very excited about her new puppy, and is doing a surprisingly good job of being patient while we wait for her to come home. Anthony, on the other hand, isn’t really that interested in puppies. He preferred the big dogs.

He had lots of fun throwing balls for the big dogs. He did take a little bit of time to harass play with the puppies, but overall he wasn’t very interested in them.

Now the only family member left to come to terms with Sadie is Lucy. I think Lucy will do great with her, and will be excited to have a playmate. I’m sure there will be an initial adjustment period, but I think overall it will be a good thing.

So why another dog? Well, we happen to think Lucy is a pretty awesome dog. She is about as low-maintenance as dogs come. She’s great with the kids, isn’t crazy, and has an overall sweet personality. So our hope is that Sadie will learn all about how to be a dog from Lucy. Lucy has congestive heart failure, has seizures, and just recently had a herniated disc. Needless to say she’s not in great health, although she is only 8 year old and potentially has a number of good years ahead of her. Our hope is that we’ll have these 2 dogs for a long time, but just in case, we didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity for our next dog to get a little training from Lucy.

So, wish us luck!

What’s she look like to you?

Today my Grandpa Jack passed away. It came about somewhat unexpectedly, and after a summer of so many losses it seems like an even bigger blow. Grandpa Jack is my Dad’s dad, and is also who Anthony got his middle name from (John).

So, who was my Grandpa Jack? How do I best describe him and all of my wonderful memories of him?

Probably the most prominent memory that always comes to mind when thinking of Grandpa was listening to records with him. I remember when we were little my brother and I would browse through his record collection. This was back in the day when we thought we were really progressive listening to our cassette tapes, and that record player was so old-fashioned! We had a lot of favorites among Grandpa’s record collection, but the most important record that Grandpa had was the song “Once in Love With Amy.” From the time I was very little Grandpa would play that record for me, and we shared the occasional dance together while listening to it. That record, and dancing with my Grandpa made me feel so special. Who doesn’t love a song with their name in it? Especially one so flattering!

Once in love with Amy, Always in love with Amy.
Ever and ever, fascinated by her, sets your heart afire to stay.

Once you’re kissed by Amy, tear up your list, it’s Amy.
Ply her with bon-bons, poetry and flowers, moon a million hours away.

You might be quite the fickle-hearted rover, so carefree and bold.
Who loves a girl and later thinks it over, and just quits cold.

But once in love with Amy, always in love with Amy
Ever and ever, sweetly you’ll romance her, trouble is the answer will be
That Amy’d rather stay in love with me.

Yep, Grandpa played that record for me all the time! Very few people have ever heard that song, but just in case you’re wondering the great Frank Sinatra sang it! Grandpa made such an impression on me with that song, that it was played at my wedding and the torch was then passed to David who was able to dance to it with me. We actually have a CD with that song on it, and every now and then I get the pleasure of hearing David sing that song to me. I can’t listen to the song without thinking of Grandpa.

Not only did Grandpa do a great job of making me feel special, he was also always dependable for some great treats! We could always count on Grandpa to have “special” cookies, and yes that is how we referred to them. These were not ordinary cookies, they were “special” cookies. What constitutes a “special” cookie? Well, in our world they happened to be pinwheel cookies, which were a chocolate cookie, piled high with marshmallow cream, then completely coated in a chocolate shell. What could be better to a bunch of kids? The thought of those cookies right now, makes my stomach feel a little upset with all of that sugary, marshmallowey craziness, but as a kid they were the best!

Back in the day, Grandpa worked in the trucking business, so I have many childhood memories of evening phone calls from him to my parents filling them in on the fact that gas was about to go up the next morning. I guess he had the inside scoop for the gas industry. All of that time in the trucking industry helped him develop a deep appreciation for Mack trucks, something that David also has a great love for. David and Grandpa spent lots of time talking about Mack trucks, and I think Grandpa loved having someone to buy all of the cool Mack paraphernalia for as Christmas presents! In fact, Grandpa at one point had drilled a Mack Truck hood ornament from a truck onto his deck at their old house. I guess he loved that Mack dog quite a bit, because when they sold their house Grandpa took the dog with him. No, he didn’t take the bolts out and bring it along with him. He took a saw to the deck rail and chopped the dog, with part of the deck right off! We now proudly display the Mack Dog Hood Ornament along with a chunk of Grandma and Grandpa’s old deck on our deck!

I remember at one point when we were little and were over at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. One of us kids spilled something on the carpet, and Grandpa went straight to work getting that stain right out. I remember we all had a good laugh when we watched Grandpa pour what seemed to be bucketfuls of water all over the carpet to get that stain out. We jokingly coined the term “floating” to describe Grandpa’s stain removal method. To this day I crack a smile when I am on my hands and knees trying to get stains out of my carpet thinking about Grandpa’s “floating” method. I have to admit that I have used the floating method for some tough stains, and pouring bucketfuls of water on stubborn stains seems to work!

Grandpa was also the person who I credit with changing my opinion on burgers. What do I mean by this? Well, my mom loves her burgers well-done. If the burger resembles a hunk of charcoal then it is ready for consumption. These were the burgers I was given growing up, and I was under the impression that I didn’t like hamburgers. All that changed one day when Grandpa grilled me the best burger I had ever had! I couldn’t have been much older than 8, but Grandpa served me the juiciest, best burger I had ever eaten in my entire 8 years of living! Yes, Grandpa introduced me to the wonderful world of medium-rare burgers, and my burger-eating days have never been better!

There are all sorts of fun memories I have about my Grandpa, but really what it all boils down to is that he made us all feel special and loved. I’m so happy that my children had the opportunity to get to know him and spend some special time with him. It was fun seeing him make my kids feel as special and loved as he made me feel as a child. Madeline loved going over to Grandma and Grandpa’s house because Grandpa always let her walk their dog, Darla, with him. He would take her outside and let her hold the leash while they walked all over with Darla. It was always the highlight of her visit to see them.

Grandpa was at every single one of my kid’s birthday parties, and you could always tell that he considered it a joy to spend time with them. He held them as babies, and played with them as they grew older. He would smile so big when he got to spend time with them.

Not only dad Grandpa love his grandchildren and great-grandchildren with a passion, he also loved my Grandma Mary for the past 60 years. Just a few weeks ago our family got together to celebrate Grandma and Grandpa’s 60th wedding anniversary, and they truly have created a legacy of love and commitment. I know Grandpa was proud seeing us all gathered together as we celebrated their anniversary, a testament of the love he has shown to all of us.

I know today has been a hard day for all of us as we come to terms with the fact that Grandpa is no longer with us, but I am so happy knowing that Grandpa loved the Lord and is in heaven now. Even though we are all sad he is no longer with us, I take comfort in knowing that he is now experiencing joy like none of us could even imagine. We will always miss him, and there will be an emptiness in our hearts for him, but it’s only a matter of time before we are reunited with him in heaven. For now we have these memories to hold onto you, and I’m thankful for so many happy years with him.

We started the day off with our daily Starbucks run. There wasn’t much time to drive and enjoy my hot beverage (yes I drink it hot even on hot summer days. The thought of iced coffee is disgusting to me). We headed over to Costco which is kind of like our home away from home these days. We walk through the sliding doors and immediately Madeline is asking to go find some samples. She’s her mother’s child

Unfortunately Costco doesn’t offer samples at 10:00 AM, so the kids had to do without. After we finished up at Costco we headed over to Target, and after Target we ran to the grocery store. 3 errands are a lot for one morning when 2 kids are involved, but I persevered because we were seriously out of everything…toilet paper (we were down to one roll in our entire house so Madeline had to wander around with her pants around her ankles looking for the rogue roll so she could wipe), milk, cereal, paper plates, napkins, diapers (seriously I put the last one on Anthony before we left on our shopping excursion). So yeah, shopping was kind of necessary!

After I was done torturing myself shopping, I took the kids home so we could unload all of our merchandise and eat a quick lunch before running out again. I had told Madeline about the butterflies at our local botanical garden a few weeks ago and ever since then she has been asking when we could go see them. I didn’t want to miss out on seeing them, and our days are always so full I figured I’d better just go do it so we didn’t miss it.

So, off we went to the botanical gardens to see the butterflies. Madeline was very excited. Here she is showing off the guide for all of the butterflies we could potentially see.

The butterflies were everywhere. They were flying all over the place and landing on everything.

The kids had fun spotting them, and Madeline wore that flower clip in her hair in hopes a butterfly would mistake her for a flower and land on her.

I tried to get a good picture of the 2 of them, but didn’t really succeed.

Eventually Madeline did get her wish and a butterfly landed on her.

After I couldn’t keep Anthony from terrorizing the butterflies any longer it was time to leave (at one point we saw a butterfly resting on the walkway and all of these kids were gathered around it and I held my breath the entire time that Anthony wouldn’t walk over to it and stomp on it. Thankfully I was able to keep him outside of stomping distance).

We got home, ate some more lunch and then I attempted to put Anthony down for his nap. He was so overstimulated from our busy day, and was about an hour overdue for it that instead of sleeping he mostly jumped around in his crib, yelled all sorts of random things, and threw all of his stuffed toys out of it. Eventually he did calm down and fall asleep, but we had to wake him up about 45 minutes later to go to Madeline’s first soccer game.

Here is our little soccer player.

Ahhhh, she’s so grown up. She seemed to have a good time, although at one point she noticed a plane flying overhead while the 2 coaches had them all huddled up and were trying to explain the rules of soccer to them. She got all excited and started pointing at it yelling, “airplane” and jumping up and down. Then all of the other kids got involved, and all of a sudden the rules of the game were overshadowed by the airplane flying overhead while all of the 3 and 4 year-olds watched it in the sky. It’s so funny watching them try to instruct a bunch of kids with almost zero attention spans!

So yeah, it was a busy day but we had a good time and it definitely flew by quickly. I’m hoping tomorrow we’ll keep things a little bit more low key so we can all rest a little bit!

Danielle, my sister-in-law (Timothy’s wife, not the other sister Danielle…it gets confusing!), and Joey came over today for lunch and a playdate. Of course both of my kids think it’s awesome to have Joey over here and spend all of their time doting on him, and I’m sure overwhelming him with their love. At one point Madeline asked if she could go into the basement and get a toy for Joey, so I told her to go ahead.

What I didn’t realize is that she had actually gone into the garage to find a toy in my car. She came back in with a toy for Joey, but then I realized that Anthony was nowhere to be found so I asked her where he was and she said she didn’t know. I noticed the door leading out to the garage was open and when I went out to investigate I discovered Anthony crawling around in my van. After a quick check I realized that he had locked the doors to the van.

He wasn’t bothered at all, and was just running around tearing up my car while I quickly assessed the situation. My keys were in the car (I always leave them in there, since I don’t have to try to keep track of them in the house). I went in the house and told Danielle what happened and she asked me where the spare set were. I spent a few minutes trying to find them without any luck. We’re usually pretty good about keeping stuff like that in our safe, but not this time. We don’t have OnStar, or anything like that either.

So, I went out to the van and tried to get Anthony to open the doors. One nice thing about my van is that you can push buttons in the back to open the passenger sliding doors, but I guess they don’t work when all of the doors are locked. So I convinced Anthony to come to the front of the car and tried to tell him how to use the power locks. He tried a few times, but only succeeded in locking the doors. He couldn’t get the motion down for how to unlock them, though. He wasn’t very committed to the cause, either.

He would focus on trying to unlock the doors for a few seconds and then start digging in my purse for gum. At one point Danielle came to check in on “Operation Free Anthony” and saw Anthony dangling from one of the handles in the front seat (the ones next to the doors that you hold on to when the crazy driver is taking corners too fast). He was swinging from it like a monkey with his legs practically wrapped around his neck when all of a sudden he lost his grip and crashed to the floor, at which point Danielle gasped worried for his safety. She didn’t need to fear, though, because Anthony popped his head up from the floor and was cracking up at how funny he was.

Finally, out of ideas, I called David at work to get his input on the situation. He suggested getting a treat and dangling it in front of the window to convince him to come out. So I grabbed a popsicle and dangled it in front of him in hopes that it would motivate him to try harder. It did motivate him to stand at the window and say “popsicle” repeatedly, however it didn’t encourage him to unlock the doors.

Finally David had the brilliant idea to get Anthony to take the keys out of the ignition, which is where I always leave them, and try to get him to open the doors with that. My keychain has buttons he loves to push to open the passenger doors, so I thought there was a good chance he might open one of them with the keychain.

Unfortunately he had a hard time getting the keys out of the ignition. He stood there pulling on them, but they wouldn’t budge (and I was starting to get scared he would break the keys off in the ignition with the way he was yanking on them!). Finally he was able to get the keys free, but then instead of pushing the buttons like he always does he decided he wanted to practice putting them in and out of the ignition.

I was trying to coach him from outside the car on what to do, and finally he stopped messing with the ignition and decided to start pushing buttons. Within his first few presses of the buttons he had unlocked the doors and our drama was done.

He quickly ran to me to get his popsicle and I quickly put him in the house well away from my car!

Thankfully during the entire incident he was never upset about me not being in the car. Frankly I think he was happy to finally be able to play in my car uninterrupted, and play he did. There was quite a mess in the front seat of my car where he had ransacked my purse!

Unfortunately while he was in my car he turned my hazards on, which I didn’t remember at the time. A few hours later I went into the garage and saw the lights flashing at which point my battery was too far gone and the car was dead. The perfect ending to our little story.

And, here is Madeline with her cousin, Joey.

She loves him.

1) You have to have a FB account.

2) Now, you need to go to her FB page: Karmen Lindner Facebook Page

3) Then go to the Cutest Kids album: Album

4) Click on Madeline’s and Anthony’s pictures and “like” them. Comments don’t count, you have to “like” them.

So there you go. It’s kind of a process, but I would be ever so grateful if you feel so inclined to help a girl out

And another bonus is that you will then be a “friend” of Karmen who takes awesome pictures, and has great prices and that way when she offers her super awesome deals you’ll be the first to know!

And since no blog post is complete without a picture, here you go!

And I just realized that if you’re my friend on FB then you’ve already seen that picture. So here is a brand new one!