Madi Grace at her pageant last Sunday with 3 of her best buds-Austin, Dylan, and Landon! She romped and ran in this dress like nobody's business!

We did get our second set of tubes on December 8th! Skin allergy testing was done while she was still under the anesthesia from the tubes. She is allergic to cats, dogs, wheat, eggs, and malt!! Fun! Fun! Having to watch what she is exposed to. Luckily, our pets are ok because they are outside pets and the rule is just no inside pets. She can have indirect eggs (as in recipes) but no direct eggs, including french toast. Labels that read wheat are ok as long as they don't read "whole wheat". We will try "process of elimination" first and then if the problem persists we will have to consider allergy shots, which I will try my best to avoid. Just hate to put her through that and most likely(and hopefully) she will outgrow all of this! Anyway, both procedures went fine and by 6 o'clock that evening, after a really long nap, she was right back to her same energetic, funny self!

This is Madi Grace's race car buddies. Like her daddy, their daddies race, too. Needless to mention, racing allows her to spend alot of time with these little guys between February and November. They are so sweet! Brady (brunette) and Madi are 2 months and 3 days apart. Carson (blonde) and Madi are 6 months and 23 days apart! Be looking for a hot pink race car labeled with "Daddy and Madi's racing team" to come about 15 years into your future! If she keeps this "fear nothing" attitude she has, I am afraid its coming! :)

Madi Grace and Conner (a.k.a. Bubba, as MG calls him)

Madi Grace loves glasses! When she sees them she thinks she MUST
put them on! She's modeling Pop's glasses for us in this shot. Does she look like the smartest
2 year old you've ever seen
or what?

The four of us on Thanksgiving Day

Pop, Mrs. Donna and the grands on Thanksgiving Day

My three favorite guys, of course!! My husband, my stepson, and my father! We had Thanksgiving at my dad's house this year. Daddy just bought a new house this year for him and his new wife Donna. We finished building our new house this year also. We decided to do Thanksgiving at Dad's new house and Christmas at our new house. We had a great time and a wonderful meal. My Babaw (and those of you who know me well enough know that this is my grandmother) was in the hospital on Thanksgiving Day. We missed having her at the dinner table with us. However, we finished our meal and packed her a plate and paid her a long visit at the hospital to make her Thanksgiving as pleasant as possible given the conditions. She really enjoyed that.

3 of Madi Grace's Best Friends

These are Bridget's three boys, Austin, Dylan, and Landon. Madi Grace loves these boys! They have been around her since she was born! She and Austin have a big brother~little sister type relationship. He always watches out for her and she knows it and just adores him. It's unbelievable how close she is to these boys even though they are several years apart in age.

Conner is 16 years old. He is in the 10th grade at New Hope. He enjoys New Hope Baseball, hunting, and of course, his pickup truck---what teenage boy doesnt? I don't know which job is harder. Being the stepmom of a 16 year old teenager or the mother of a two year old who fully defines the "terrible two's". Anyway, you can just imagine how crazy it is raising a teenager and a two year old at the same time. However, its always an adventure and I wouldnt change any of it for anything in the world!

Here are a few more recent pics of MG! Does this grin say "I'm Caught!" or what?

Daddy and Madi reading a book before bedtime.

The class of 1998 had our 10 year class reunion a couple of months ago. It was so much fun! Wow! How fast ten years passes you by! We didn't have as many there in number as we had hoped for but we still had a ball! We met at New Hope's homecoming football game. From there we all hung out at Woody's on the Water. Saturday we met at Lake Lowndes for a picnic and everyone brought their children. Everyones kids were so cute, and let me just say our class has been "re-productive" in ten years! Haha! Saturday night we held our main event in the banquet room at the "Holiday Inn". It was lots of fun! Sally Galloway and I did the planning and thankfully it all went over extremely well. Thanks again Sally if you are reading this! We had so much fun spending time together as we put the weekend together. I will post more pics of the actual reunion when I get back to the office and get my CD of the weekend. Amy White, now Amy Thomas does photograpy on the side of her regular job and she gladly provided the photography for our weekend adventure. Thanks, Amy! You did a great job! Anyhow, these pics here are at my house before we left for the football game. Just me and two of my longest, nearest, and dearest friends-Bridget and Erika. The other of our spouses. And yes, we finally got Erika married even though we thought we never would. She married Scott Andrews and he is a really nice guy. When he has his cowboy on everyone says he looks like Tim McGraw and he really does! Is that what took you so long Erika? Were you holding out for "your" Tim McGraw? :)

This is my most recent snapshot of Madi Grace! I know, I know, she looks nothing like me! But when you see the way she acts you know she is mine. She is happy and full of energy and yes I have to admit, she is hard headed, and yep, she got that from me too!

Madi Grace was a lady bug for Halloween this year! She LOVED this costume! She threw a fit in the dressing room where we tried it on because she did not want to take it off when it was time to go! When we got it home, I had to keep it out of her sight because if she saw it she wanted me to put it on her. Thank goodness the costume has served its purpose and now she can have it within her own reach in her playroom to run around in as she pleases. I wouldn't let her have it prior to trick-or-treating time because I worried she would tear it up. She is "modeling" it for you in this picture. However, she had on layers (and I do mean layers.... and stockings) the night she wore it out.

Madi Grace

We went back to the doctors office again today because I knew Madi
Grace still had an ear infection going on! When we got there, she not only had the ear infection that I was certain of, she had an ear infection in both ears! We started our first antibiotic about a month ago for her left ear. Completed the whole dosage and the left ear still remained with an infection. We returned to the doctors office and started another antibiotic to see if it would clear it up. We just finished that one last Friday and it seemed to be gone. Then starting on Tuesday, she was complaining of her ear hurting. We learned at the doctors office today that BOTH ears are now infected. They gave us a Rocephin shot and another antibiotic. They are working on getting us scheduled with Dr. Cosby, the ENT specialist. Dr. Cosby put in Madi Grace's first set of tubes at 9 months old. Looks like we are about to be heading for a second set! I hate that she will have to go through that again. However, it looks like our only option at this point! We have to put a stop to this. I worry about it affecting her hearing after all of these long term infections! I had alot of ear problems when I was her age and Jay's ears bother him off and on to this day! I guess I should have expected our child to have ear problems of some sort!!!!

My First Blog!

I cant believe I am doing this! I had forever decided against starting a blog simply because I felt I wouldn't have the time to keep it updated. Anyhow, here I am and we shall see how it goes!