Feeling very sad...

Today has been one of the worst days of my life. I am exhausted but feel like I need to get get my thoughts out. Today my Grandpa Ford passed away. He has been very sick with chronic COPD amoung other issues for a long time but I still feel in shock that he is really gone. He has been such a constant in my life for as long as I can remember.

I am just so sad. Why do people have to leave us? I am tired of loosing people that I love! I just cant imagine life without him in it. How weird it will be to go to the house and he isn't there. I will never be able to just pick up the phone and call him or go over to have one of our long talks. This isn't fair. Right now Maddy is taking her nap and I am just laying in bed feeling down. funeral and viewing isn't for a few days so it just seems weird like things are at a standstill.

(Grandpa used to always "sneak" the grandkids icing before the cake was cut! Here is me and Grandpa when I was little and then again on my wedding day. Missing you so much Grandpa!

Maddy at 18 months

My Mom and I went this week to get Maddy's professional pictures taken and I loved the way they turned out! I got a whole cd full of images but here are just a few of my very favorites! The Cheerios were my idea! Well, actually someone else's idea that I copied! I brought the bowl and Cherrios and asked if they coul do some and they said sure! These ended up being my favorite because they are just so naturally Maddy!

And just so I'll always remember! At 18 months:

Maddy loves DUCKS!

Jello

Potato chips

Strawberries

Cheerios

Dinosaurs

Her little baby doll

Her paci!

Being outdoors

Barkley

Her bottle-yes at 18 months she is still on it- were working on it!

Her shiny, touchy, smelly book

Baby Einstein

ELMO video's

Doing My Gym At Home play video with Mommy

Doing "Airplane Arms" with Daddy

Playing in the laundry basket

Climbing in and out of chairs

Swinging

Tickles!

Playing peek-a-boo

Going for walks in her little pink car

Feeding the ducks

Kingsley Lake

Sunday Matt, Maddy, and I went on a road trip to Kingsley Lake. Our friends Kelli and Phillip invited us, Kelli's parents have a Lake House and we were excited to go!

The drive down was great! Maddy slept most of the way, about an hour. When we got there we dropped off our stuff at the lake house and headed down to the water! Maddy spent the first half hour or so trying to decide if she wanted to play in the water or on the shore! She liked going back and forth. After a little while we put her little floatie arms on and brought her in the water with us. She had fun chasing Kelli in the water and splashing around! The guys took off on the Jet-Ski and Kelli and I went over to the dock to let Maddy play on the slide. They had one of those little Tykes slides and I took Maddy up the steps to the dock and Kelli waited in the lake. Then we slid Mad's down the slide right into the lake! At first she wasn't too sure about it but then loved it! She kept wanting to climb back up again and again but it was funny because when we would get to te top of the slide I would say, "Are you ready?" And she would go, "Uhhhh..... no!" Which is one of her things that she does all the time now-even if it's something she wants to do! But then after saying that she would try to get me to help her down the slide.

She we went a few more times. then we took the slide to the shallow end and let her play on it, climbing up and sliding down. Much of the time was spent telling her she could 't climb UP the slide which she wasn't very thrilled about! Then she got on the top pf the slide and Kelli began making mud castles on her legs and she LOVED this! She would just laugh and laugh! After a little bit Matt and Phillip came back and Kelli and I went out on the Jet-Ski. Now let me just tell you this was my very first time on a Jet-Ski EVER!!!! I was excited but a little scared! Kelli promised she wouldn't go too fast! We went off and it was so beautiful out of the water! So much fun but I got a little scared if she tried to go faster and told her ok slow down! We saw lots of cute little boat houses and talked about which one we wanted to own one day!

When we got back we saw 2 little ducks swim by, Maddy was thrilled of course! Then we had a picnic at the tables right beside the lake. Kelli and Phillip has picked up drinks, subs, and chicken. Oh it was soooo yummy! Afterwards we played for a few more minutes before getting packed up. Once we got in the car to head home I gave Maddy her paci and within literally 3 minutes she was sound asleep!

Yesterday was hard...

So yesterday was a hard day for me. Some days I just have harder than others. First I was at work and a little boy in the class I was subbing for was named Tyler. This made me so sad to think that I will never see Tyler at this age.

Then we went to visit Tyler and Matt went up to see if they had gotten the green paint off of his marker- which they hadn't yet. It just little green chips but still!!!!! Matt was furious! He went into the management office and told the guy, "I normally wouldn't complain but this is my SON we are talking about and I want it fixed now!!!" So the guy came out, apologized alot and said they will have it done by tomorrow. While Maddy was waiting in the car waiting with me she saw Matt and the guy looking at Tyler's marker and wanted to get out, she was excited to get out of the car. I don't know how this made me feel but it got me thinking alot.

I am definitely happy that she likes to come out with us and visit Tyler but I am still afraid of the questions that will come when she gets older about her big brother. What if she asks me why God would take her brother away? I have no idea how to answer that. Because I don't even know and I don't think I ever will. What if she is mad at me because I couldn't keep her brother safe? I couldn't save him. I know there is nothing that could be done but I still feel guilty as a Mom that I couldn't save him, I am his mom and there was nothing I could do to change things and make him better. Also Matt and I don't know if we are even going to have any more children or not, what if Maddy feels sad because she will never have a sibling here on Earth with her? I have too much on my mind today. Its been a rough week already and it's only Wednesday.

Barbara Jeans

I love Saturdays!!!!! Pretty much every Saturday me and my friend Jeanna get together and go to garage sales! We pack up toys, snacks, and some DVD's for the portable DVD player and we're off! The kids usually do pretty good in the backseat and Jeanna and I take turns going up to garage sales. I found lots of good deals today! My favorite deal??? A book rack like the one below. They sell for about $140 at the store, my price at the garage sale???? 10 bucks!!! Woo-hoo! We are thinking about turning our guest bedroom into a playroom for Maddy and this would go perfect in there!

We then decided to go to this nice neighborhood about 30 minutes away that was having a Community Garage Sale. We found some good stuff there too and then since we were already in the area we decided to go to this neat restaurant on the water called Barbara Jeans. It's right on the river and we got great seats so the kids could watch the boats go by. And the food was soooooo good. It's seafood and home-cooking type things so I had the turkey and dressing with squash casserole. Oh my gosh, yummy!!!! After we ate we took the kids outside to the dock and let them watch the boats up close and we also saw lot's of fish in the water, some of them were jumping fish! Too cool! Now Mad's is napping and I am relaxing, what a great day!

Hugenot Beach

A few days ago Matt had off and we decided to take Maddy on the ferry for the first time and then go to Hugenot Beach. My Mom, Dad, and Josh came too! We got on the ferry and Maddy was very excited about the sea gulls flying all around! She was just pointing to everything! When we got ready to leave the horn blew and scared her like crazy! She started screaming crying and wiggling all around, poor thing she didn't know what was going on! After a minute or two she calmed down and enjoyed the rest of the ride! We got the Hugenot Beach and it was awesome because it was pretty much deserted! There wasn't hardly anyone there, we saw maybe two or three cars. We drove around looking for the perfect spot and came to an area where campers can park that is right directly on the beach. We got lotioned up and headed down. Josh was scared of the water so Mom stayed on the shore with him. Maddy wasn't scared at all she went right into the water, wading around with me. She liked to walk to me in the water then walk to Daddy and do this over and over again. She also enjoyed carrying around her little silver bucket from Grams and putting water and things in it! As I was sitting in the water all of a sudden a felt something hit my hand and a second later a horrible burning feeling!!!! It was a jellyfish! I yelled for Matt to get Maddy out of the water and I got out too. Luckily it only grazed two fingers but it still was burning sooooo bad! I was screaming!!!! Then if you have ever seem the "Friends" episode where they are on the Beach Matt came to the rescue if you know what I mean!!! I was going to try anything to get the stinging to stop. But I wouldn't recommend trying this it didn't really work and still burned! Ewwww!!!!! Ew! Ew!!
A jellyfish like the little monster that stung me! This one I saw after I got stung-figures!

After that we headed to another area. Hugenot Beach has the beach side and another side that is more like a lake where the river runs into it. We went to this side to try and get away from the jellyfish. This ended up being better because it didn't have any waves so Josh wasn't afraid to get in the water. We spent the rest of the morning here collecting shells and swimming in the water.

And of course, here are some pics because you know I don't go hardly anywhere without my camera!

18 months, Huskers, and retirement party

Haven't been blogging as much lately. So here's an update of the last few days! So my Dad has

finally retired! He has been counting down the days for a LONG time! We had a retirement party this weekend at Grandma and Grandpa Ford's and had so much fun! We had food, old time games, and lot's of swimming! Here are a few pics!

Two legged race! Egg Toss

Sack Race

Playin with Daddy
With Grandma Ford
We also went to this restruant called Ham's with Mom, Dad, Bek, Eddie, and the boys. They go there for the Husker's games and it was PACKED! The whole restraunt was Huskers fans! They were a little crazy for me! They go to all the games here that aren't on regular TV but I dont think we will go near that often! Maddy had fun playing with her cousins as always!

Today was Maddy's 18 month well visit. I cannot beleive that she is a year and a half, the thing that amazes me most is that it has been 6 months- a half a year since her 1st birthday! It seems like that was just the other day! She is doing great! She is in the 90th percentile for height-33 inches! Our tall girl!!!! And around the 50th percentile for weight-24 pounds. Which is great to us because when she was born she was in the 20th since she was 6 weeks early and a preemie. Can't beleive how much she has grown! She is on target with most everything!!! She is a little behind on how many words she is saying they said at 18 months they should be saying between 10-15 words and Maddy says about 8 words. So they really arent concerned but we are going to really try to work with her on this more! Mainly encouraging her to name the items she wants instead of just doing the ugh...ugghhh that toddlers do when they want stuff! Today was a busy day we went to Pump It Up, a kid's play place that house inflatable jumphouses and slides and had lots of fun but I forgot the memory card for me camera! Oops! Well I'm going to go to bed now since I have to be up early -tomorrow is one of my working days. Fun, fun!