Magnolia Tea

This afternoon one of my BFFs co-hosted the annual Magnolia Tea in College Station. The Tea is a fundraiser for the Texas A&M Health and Science center. What a fun event! I LOVE hats but don't have any and wouldn't have a place to wear them if I did. Luckily; however, Paige has plenty and I was able to borrow her entire outfit....love my friends :)

Paige, Jenn, Me

This picture makes me laugh because you can't get too close or forget hugging to say hello with the hats on.

The event was absolutely lovely. Paige and her mom in law did such a fantastic job. A cute fashion show, cute hats to purchase and a lot of neat things to bid on. Not to mention some amazing, intelligent women in the room! The guest speaker was an orthopedic surgeon and she had so much interesting information pertaining to women. I can't wait until next year especially since I will unveil the hat I purchased for myself. Thank you again Paige.

Backyard blast

The last few weeks we have spent a lot of time getting our yard in shape for the spring and summer. We took down our trampoline(squirrels destroyed the netting), added grass, added new bushes, flowers, trees and moved some things around(more pics of that to come). Now that it looks so good and the weather has been beautiful we have been enjoying our time playing in the backyard.

Sprinklers of course have been the favorite...

CHEESE!

We use teamwork in the Madison house :)

I LOVE this time of year and spending time with my family. Now if I can just get rid of those darn mosquitos!

Day Trip- SB '12

We got back from our trip to Nebraska on Wednesday and on Friday we decided to go to Kemah. Lonnie had weight room duty from 9-10:30 so we went with and then headed over afterwards.

We found a free parking lot that took us on a boat ride across the way. Although this ride was .2 seconds, my kids still enjoyed!

Morgan just a chillin'

As soon as we got there we headed to Landry's for some lunch and we got to sit outside. Mallory took this picture, nice job Mal!

Morgan's turn to take the picture

After we ate we decided what rides we wanted to go on. Here the girls are waiting for the choo choo train as this was our first ride since Case could not stop talking about it.(I love this pic btw-my beautiful girls!!)

Mallory was feeling quite adventerous and wanted to ride the drop zone. I thought I was too big to go on but they allowed me. In this picture Mallory is asking if I am nervous.

Watching and waiting....

Don't I look like I exceed the height/weight requirements! haha The ride was actually a lot of fun and we lost our stomach over and over

Still laughing!

Poor Lonnie did such a great job catching a few pictures. As soon as we got on the ride, Case spotted me and ran to try and get on. So Lonnie was holding him, watching Morgan and taking pics all at the same time.

Morgan, Dad and Case decided to ride the double decker carousel and here arae the boys waiting in line.

They wanted to be on the top but I am glad it filled up as I got some good shots. Morgan looks so happy and carefree

Fun Times!

It was not hard to get this one to bed after our busy day.

Although Spring Break 2012 was short and sweet it was great to be together as a family. Only 49 school days left until summer, but who is counting?

SB '12- Road Trip.....

A few months prior to Spring Break we decided we were going to take a road trip to Nebraska to see my sister and her family. Considering this has been our third road trip of 13+ hours in the last two years I feel like we are becoming a sort of expert! See below for my survival tips to a good road trip :)

Fritos make for some happy travelers :)

We got to Nebraska Sunday around 5:00 and on Monday we went to the weight room at the U of N. My brother in law is the head strength coach. Here is Mallory, Morgan and their cousin Ellie.

This is where NE has their after game press conferences.

Exlporing the grounds and girls doing some exercise!

Love this pic!

For Ellie's bday I got her a shirt to match the girls. They were so cute posing for pictures. This one cracks me up because although she might not show it on the scale, Morgan definitely feels heavier then both E and M!!

Here is our photo shoot....

Can you tell my niece is a major gymnast? Look how graceful and flexible!

I know Ellie doesn't have a sister but I hope she will grow up with my girls acting as that role.

Sassy and Silly

Most of these poses were totally their idea.

Even Maia tried to get in on the action.

This pictures sums up how much we enjoyed visiting our cousins. Can't believe I didn't get any with my sister or of my nephew Colton. I will make up for that when they come to visit this summer.


FAMILY ROAD TRIP SURVIVAL TIPS:

1. Leave in the middle of the night. We left at 4:00 on the way there and 3:30 on the way back. This ensures at least 4-5 more hours of sleep from the kiddos which equals less stops and Lonnie and I took turns sleeping too.


2. Stock Up- we packed a cooler full of snacks plus I made lunch for us so we would only have to stop once to eat. I also packed each kid a water bottle so they had something to drink the entire time and no mess. I am not saying this was all healthy eating but passes the time and helped to avoid some possible meltdowns from Case :)


3. Comfort- before we left we went to Target and I bought the girls some cute travel pillows. I also had the car packed ready to go with their blankies and therefore we just transferred them in their jammies when we left.


4. Activities- luckily we have a DVD and rented a few movies before we left. The great thing about Redbox is you can return the movies at any of them! So we dropped off two in NE and picked up two more on the way back. I also packed Mallory's backpack full of map pencils(again less mess) and a coloring book for each of them. Add in a DS, IPAD and some books- good to go!! Gotta love technology


5. Games- before we left Mallory told me she was excited about going but not about the drive. I told her to google road trip games. Of course there were websites dedicated to this exact topic and the one we liked best was http://www.momsminivan.com/ It listed 101 different activities and the one we chose was actually fun for us all. We printed a blank map of the United States and for every license plate we saw from a different state we would color that state on the map. We ended up seeing 24 different states!! Mallory enjoyed keeping track and it was actually fun when a new one was spotted.


6. Plan- last but not least plan for everything. We brought some car toys for Case when he got bored. We had easy access to diapers, wipes, paper towels and an outift/shoes for the kids to change out of jammies and into before going in somewhere.

I am happy to say on the way there we only stopped twice(I do have camels however) and on the way back three times. There was only a total of about 30 minutes on the way home in which Case made us regret the entire trip but it was short lived ;). All in all I loved the memories and actually kind of look forward to the next one.

Happy Traveling!

Busy weekend

Thursday kicked off what would be an eventful weekend. At gymnastics, with about 30 seconds left in class, Mallory got kicked in the face & out popped top tooth #1. I was at home with Case so Lonnie got to experience the blood and tears and drama. Luckily her top teeth were already loose but obviously not the way she wanted to lose one. Needless to say the tooth fairy left her $5. I think she felt bad Mal got kicked in the face. Well the kick also left top tooth #2 barely hanging on. After not eating dinner, followed by breakfast because she was so worried she was going to swallow the loose tooth, I convinced Mallory to let me get it out. Voila!!


Friday took some getting used to with eating & talking with no front teeth but she's doing great. Friday night the girls started volleyball at a local club. The program is 12 weeks with two mini-tourneys. They were so cute together. When they had to pick partners they both immediately ran to each other(tears!) after practice we went & ate at IHOP. They love having breakfast for dinner.


Saturday we went to a good friends bday party. Lonnie got good pics on his phone that I need to update but here is one of the face paint.


Sunday my mom took the girls and me to the Houston Ballet where they were performing a version of Cinderella.


Silly face & Morgan's fake glasses!


The ballet was at the Wortham Center downtown. The show was maybe one act too long(I was dozing) but the girls did great!! My favorite quote after about 2+ hours in was Morgan when she said, "they should have talked more, all they did was dance"! Too funny. Thank you Papa Marc for the tix and Mammy for a wonderful date- we topped it off with Yogurt Worx on the way home. What a great weekend!!

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