I finally found it!

So after about five different backgrounds I promise I am not changing for a long time!

As soon as I saw this one I knew it was Perfect!

The name of it is Southern Girl another sign it was meant for my blog, hehe!

I got the 50mm 1.8 lens that I had ordered in the mail today! Get ready for picture overload!

I am so ready for it to warm up so Madison can wear all of her cute new spring and summer clothes!

Thats all for now, I'll be posting tomorrow!

 Please excuse all of my randomness!

Happy Friday to you!

what to blog about.......

Well I have been stuck this past week as to what to blog about.

It's like my brain has been frozen. Help!

So today I am just going to post some pictures from our visit to one of the best museums that we have ever been to, The Museum of life and science in Durham, NC.

They had so much to offer even for Madison!

 If you live in the area I would highly recommend it!

This is Madison on the way to the museum with her $1 sunglasses from Target that she is obsessed with, she wears them all around the house! haha!

Do you see the  big uh-oh that seems to always happen to me?

I didn't take but a few pictures inside the main building because it was quite busy and plus I wanted to watch Madison exploring all of the sights and sounds.

It is amazing how much and how fast she is learning these days so I don't want to miss a beat.

After that we went outside for some drum banging and running in the wonderland of drums and bells and tunnels.

Then it was off to the incredible butterfly house.

My favorite part by far!!

A group of people from the photography group that I am a member of went a few weeks ago but I couln't go, I'll be going the next time they go thats for sure.

Oh boy how I wish I had MP-E 65 mm f 2.8 lens then I could really have fun in their.

hmm................

 Mabye I will rent it and pretend its mine since I won't be owning one any time soon!

After that we went for a walk around the explore the wild exibit where they have bears, foxes, lemurs, and other wild animals. We were not lucky enough to see any bears or lemurs.

 We didn't stay their long because Madison was ready for her nap and we needed to head out before their was a meltdown.

So silly, I think thats why I love him so much!

Ok here is the last picture, I know.... finally!

 Thats all for now, I'm going to go try and figure out what to post about next. Wish me luck!

 Happy day to you!

How sweet it is to be loved by him...

I had great Valentines Day with my little family! Eric and I decided to just give each other cards this year and go out to eat with miss Madi the night before Valentine's Day (didn't want to deal with the huge crowds) .
Eric was so sweet and picked out a card and little stuffed Dora doll for Madi, it was a suprise to me too, man I love him!
When we got up on heart day he told me that if I wanted to I could pick somewhere to go and take pictures, well what was my answer...

hmm..........

lets see................

YES!

 I decided I wanted to ride over to Nash county, where we are from, and find some cool old farm houses and stores off of hwy 97 .(middle of nowhere, but so peaceful and beautiful)

Everytime we would go and visit family there I would always say that we needed to go and take pictures one day, but we had just not gotten around to it.

Madi fell asleep about ten minutes after we left and didn't wake up for a hour and a half, it only took us 45 min to get to our first stop, that gave Eric and I some nice conversation time, which is always nice. 

The first place we stopped at was this really quaint old church,( Madison was still sleeping in the car)  I loved how there was still snow around the edges of the church, so pretty!

When I went up to this window to get a picture of the inside I heard a loud crashing sound, it totally FREAKED me out, I ran to the car and told Eric to get out of there! Eric said it was just an animal, but I thought it was a ghosts way of saying you have no business being here so leave! I know that Eric was right, but I have always been that way about "haunted" stuff.

I give everyone who reads this permission to  laugh at me!

This is the only picture I got of the inside of the church...........freaky huh!

Notice how crooked it is, that is because I was running!

I would love to be able to build a house in the back of this field, I think we would stay outside forever if I had that much land!

Cool collapsed barn, I took this from the car as we were driving down the road, so its not that great.

This is the Dam in Rocky Mount, when Eric and I were younger it was the "hangout spot". You can usually go walking on the rocks at the bottom, but between the rain and snow lately the water was really deep.

Eric decided to get out his golf clubs and hit a few balls. He started playing about a year ago and is totally hooked on it now. Personally, I think it is kind of boring  but to each his own. I must say he does look pretty darn cute when he plays, hehe!

so serious

Daddys Little Cheerleader!

These last 2 pictures are from downtown Rocky Mount, I am dying to take pictures of some people at these 2 locations, I think they would make great backgrounds.

Please excuse the bad pictures once again, I took them as we were riding down the road!

I love the brick arches 

After we finished riding around we went and got a nice cup of coffee and headed back home!

We had such a good time together, I was worried that Madison would get tired of riding in the car but she was happy the whole time, plus she got to run around and play at the dam so that helped!

 Another little adventure with my 2 favorite people!

That is all for now, lots later!

  

Happy Valentines Day!

Enjoying the day with Eric, the love of my life and Madison the light of my life! I hope everyone is doing the same with their families!

A Few of My Favorite Things...

Bethany at Hissyfits photography blog did a really cute post on her favorite things (she got the idea from Laura) so I thought I would share 10 things that I am loving right now.

 By the way, I would not be here if it wasn't for her blog. When I was looking for ideas for Madison's ladybug themed first birthday party I came across her blog, she had thrown the most amazing ladybug birthday party for her daughter, plus countless other amazing parties! Before that I had never read a blog and so hers just got me kind of got me hooked on the whole blog world.

so here it goes :

1.  I got Madi this dress yesterday and I am in LOVE with it! It has a kind of "handmade"look to it with the cute flower and I love anything with polka dots! The best part is that is was $9!

2.  Another adorable target find for Madison. I figure these cute flats will go with just about everything.  Madi is loving them too, she has been dragging them all around the house with her!

3.  You would not want to be around Eric or I if we don't have our coffee in the morning! Our coffee maker broke and we got this one for $25 at where else..... Target! I live like 1/2 a mile from there, and so lets just say the employees know me well!

4. I found this end table at Goodwill for $15, it needs a good sanding and some sort of paint or stain, I'm not sure what I want to do yet.  It is very sturdy and that is what we need with  monkey girl around!

5. I could not live without this stuff, I have like 10 of them! I am really loving the burts bees with pomegranite oil right now, but all of the Burts Bees products are great! By the way it is made like 10 minutes away from my house!

6.Eric and I both use St. Ives, it works great! Plus its around $3!

7. Diet Mt. Dew, I think it taste better than regular Mt. Dew! Yummmm!

8. So I have virtually no eyeleashes so everyday (twice a day) I use my faithful  eyelash curler to TRY and make  them long and beautiful! My daughter has her daddys long, thick and beautiful eyelashes! I'm very jealous of both of them!

9. Madi has these cute pink window panels, they block out the light very well and they are suppose to block out noise! They have a cute circle pattern on them, but you cant see it good in the picture.

10. this cute valentines day shirt from Gymboree, I only paid like $8 because I had a coupon!

Have a good day everyone!

Cupcakes with my cupcake!

Madisons favorite book is Pinkalicious, I read it AT LEAST 3 times a day!  It is the cutest book about a silly little girl who makes pink cupcakes with her mom and then she turns pink!

So I decided it might be fun to bake some cupcakes with Madi so she could be just like Pinkalicious!  I just used some box mix and icing this time and bought some cute heart shaped strawberry marshmellows to decorate with!

I was kind of worried about how things would go since she is only 17 months but she was able to do alot and she(we) had a great time! 

Here are some pictures,

  She's eating M&M's, talk about sugar overload!

My $50 mixer that I have had for three years!

What can I say, I tried, but failed!

Santa brought Madi her apron and a matching chefs hat, but she wouldn't wear that

We did some coloring while we waited for them to bake, as you can tell she is a pro at getting on the table, my sweet little monkey girl!

This was the only shot I got where she is actually looking at me, little stinker!

Madi ate like half the bag of these marshmellows

Madi kept saying "petty, yum yum" I must say I thought she did a pretty darn good job!

Yeah I'd say that we made a huge mess, but I would clean it up 30 times over again to spend that time with Madi, just more memories that I know I will relive all over again when I see these pictures in the years to come!

 Good Night!

Well it snowed........

We did get a lot of snow!

Originally it was suppose to be 8-10 inches  but we ended up getting about 6 inches, which was more than enough for me.

Six inches of snow for Raleigh is a whole-lotta snow, the schools were closed again today, yes i know to a lot you you reading this that is INSANE, I was really suprised that they were out again today to be honest but they are saying that a lot of the neighborhoods still have ice on the roads and so they dont want to take any chances! You see, there was ALOT of sleet that combined and compacted with the snow and made huge thick sheets of ice everywhere, I sound like a meteorologist , NOT!

It started snowing on Friday night around 8 and we were at our friends house! Check out this picture of Tim he looks like he was on fire, it was an out of control  firepit on their patio!

This is just a random picture of it snowing from the car window

Before we went home we stopped at Walmart to pick up ground beef (for chili), a sled, an icescraper thingie, and a big bag of M&M's to bribe Madi with (best trick in the book j/k) well my wonderful husband went in while I sat in the car with my precious sleeping baby girl...

more random photos from inside the car in the walmart parking lot as a I waited for my sweet hubby...

Back to why we were at walmart in the first place.... when Eric got in the car he told me that they were sold completely out of ground beef, can you believe it! Plus they didn't have any type of sled or an ice scaper! What a bust, oh well!

So when we got home this is what Eric and I did while Madi was sleeping

I love Barefoot wine, great price and great taste!

So this is what it looked like when we woke up on Saturday...

See the cute cold little bird!

 

Ok, so I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked because I had just finished reading about how bad it is for my camera to go from a "controlled" temperature to the twenty five degrees it was outside,  and so I was paranoid!

As a usually am about something, thats just me, ha

But we had a super duper day playing out in the snow, Madison loved every second. We took her sleding down a pretty good sized hill  and she said "Weeeeeeeee" the whole way down and every time one of us went down too!

The first time I took her down with me she gave me a kiss when we got to the bottom and said "Cool mama" I know that I will remember  that moment forever, it makes my heart melt just thinking about it! God, I love her!

Enough getting all emotional on you here are a few more pics

Eric with "smoking hot hands"

Megan