Truevalue Spring Market & some other stuff!

Mom and Dad arrived on Friday night in the rain and we painstakingly searched for a place to eat that didn't have a 2 hour wait, luckily we found one! Dad left early Saturday morning to head to the hardware show downtown and Keith went to work for a few hours.  We joined Dad at the show around 11am. For those (probably most) who haven't been to a hardware show, they are pretty huge.  There are hundreds of vendors selling anything you might ever want to find in a hardware store.  So you walk around and buy stuff for your store, or in our case, walk around and see what's there, get the free stuff and eat the plentiful peanuts. While looking around, we came across the Radio Flyer booth and were looking at their stuff.  (Dad had already commented that he was thinking about getting a wagon for Maddy and I wanted to see what all they had)  So, we walk up and there is this Radio Flyer Sport Coupe that I put Maddy in cause it looked fun.  It had a handle so the parent could push the child if necessary.  I asked the salesman if I could take her picture in it and he said, "sure, in fact if you want, you can push her around in that." I was like, 'sold' and we took off.  So here are various pics of Maddy in the awesome coupe that I think we talked Pop into.  Oh, she had her monkey has her passenger, thanks to the Jernigan's for her birthday :) 

The Yummy peanuts I took a picture of for Jo Jo (who desperately wanted to come, but couldn't due to school).  Everyone had to have a badge to get in, even Maddy. And a random alligator we got from a vendor. 

After we left the show about 3ish, we went to lunch/dinner at Landry's.  It was so good, except having to look at the 'snot rockets' as I like to call them.  Dad & Keith enjoyed them though.

Dad likes to entertain Maddy with some dog-like activities! Fun for everyone. 

Outside of Landry's (the one located on the Lake, not the French Quarter). Mom pointing out the sail boats to a very tired one year old. 

Playing at home after her nap on Sunday! 

It was a fun weekend, I took Mom and Dad to the airport this morning.  Beth Moore is coming to NOLA this weekend and I got a free ticket from one of my neighbors!!! I can't wait to go! A big thank you in advance to my amazing husband for keeping Maddy while I'm gone.

Maddy turned One!

We left on Thursday March 12th for the long trip to Cleveland.  We arrived at 11:30pm, it was late, Madison was past ready to get out of the car seat.  Picked up a few hours of sleep before Friday hit.  We had the priviledge of going to eat lunch with my great grandmother in Norcross. This is a picture of Grandma Minnie with Jo and Maddy at lunch.  

We also we preparing for my cousin's bridal shower, which was Saturday morning AND making the cake for Maddy's party.  I started before dinner and finished at 1am. (When I say "I" I really mean me, Mom, Keith, Jo & I think Verona helped too, my memory gets fuzzy past 10pm).   The ONE cake was mom's idea, I can't take the credit, but it did turn out cute.  Jeff told me he wanted a TWENTY ONE in May, I laughed. 

Saturday came and Mom & me headed south at the crack of dawn (or so it seemed after my few hours of sleep) for the shower.  It was so great.  I got to see tons of family and my almost new relative Caitlin.  Another cousin Shana is about 5 months pregnant and it was so great to see her! She and Josh just found out they are having a boy and I am so excited! After the shower was over, I drove me and Nana back to Cleveland for Maddy's party.  People were already arriving and it just seems like a blur in my mind.  My cousin Tiff got engaged on Friday morning and we doubled the birthday as an engagement party too.  It was such fun to see everyone and open gifts (Cause Mad was not interested) and eat cake.  She liked that okay, but it was like eating with the paparazzi, I think like 15 cameras went off and she was like "whoa, everyone's staring at me." 

The rest of the week flew by.  We got Madison a passport, Keith took a trip to middle GA for work, got hair cuts, went to church, shopped, & hung out with the fam.  Jeff and Courtney got to come home on Friday evening and we had lots of fun with them! All good things come to an end and we took a leisurely trip home on Sunday.  By leisurely I mean it took a total of 11 hours!  We stopped in Montgomery to eat at Red Robin (can I say Yum) and decided to go to Kohls and let Maddy stretch some more, from there we went to Target and back to Kohls to purchase some luggage that was 50% off. Yay for that.  Also stopped in Gulfport to get gas and groceries.  It was a long day and our house looked like a hurricane ripped through it once we (mainly Keith, actually I think totally Keith) unloaded the car. We're getting unpacked though and settling to to a semi-normal routine before Mom and Dad arrive on Friday for the Hardware Show.  So excited about that, I'll definitely post about it.