BIG BIG GOD= BIG BIG BLESSING

Tonight, we won a $400,000 St. Jude Dream Home. We have been blown away by the generosity of our friends and family. The benefit last night was outstanding! We had such a wonderful turnout and were superbly blessed by all of you. To top it off, our prayers to find a bigger home have been answered in a way we still can't fathom. I will share the full story soon.

Love you guys.

Ouchie

I got a bee sting in the palm of my hand today. It made me want to throw up it hurt so bad. I thought I might swell up and not be able to use my arm, but alas, nothing happened. It has been about 8 hours and it still aches, I'm pretty sure I never want to be stung again.

The commercial took longer than expected to edit, it should be on Youtube in the next couple of days. They put it on Youtube in order to raise money to put it on local TV. The first ad that came out in Maine raised about $100K in 12 hours on Youtube... pretty crazy.

I think we are going to develop big, huge, heads from all of the publicity we have been receiving. In the last week we have shot a commercial, a news program, and had an article in the local newspaper and the Bing-efit is scheduled for tomorrow. Not to mention, there are posters and fliers all over town with our picture and a brief synopsis of our predicament. What a blessing to have so much love and support and all of these people trying to help us. We are so appreciative!

Maddox now growls when asked, "what does a bear say?" Blows kisses, flexes his muscles, knows where his nose is, dances when he hears music, stands briefly on his own &
knows sign language for more and all done (those are the only two I know).

Photo frenzy

We took a day trip down to Sheridan, Wyoming to see new sights. We checked out the Don King Rodeo, kinda lame, we don't know much about calf roping and all of that but it was a really cool arena. It was just a wide open, grassy field. There were very few fences, which is apparently uncommon. Someone kept throwing a ball out into the field for their kids to retrieve. The announcer totally called them out and asked someone with common sense to explain why this was a bad idea... probably the highlight of the whole thing.

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Mom and I had a garage sale to rid our homes of unnecessary crap (I mean treasures). We were pleasantly surprised at the turnout, especially since it was so far out of town. We made a couple hundred $, while spending a good deal of time together... totally worth it! Maddox hung out with us, wandered around in the walker, entertained shoppers, and shared Grammie's snack food. Dad didn't pack socks and shoes so we were stuck with pink socks and the leather moccasins that my sisters and I wore as baby girls.

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Bing, Maddox and I are in a commercial for the Progressive Change Campaign. We filmed out at my parent's house and a little bit in downtown Billings. It should be on Youtube tomorrow and TV by the weekend.

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Aunt Sissy gave Maddox a Little Tikes car for his birthday, what a hoot! He loves the thing and tries to put all of his other toys into it... they promptly fall through the open bottom. Maddox fell out the bottom and Bing didn't notice, so Maddox was run over the day we got it :) He also love the little scooter/walker we got him for his birthday and like to fill up the "trunk". The first day he figured it out, he would hold it open while desperately trying to reach something to put into it. Blocks are the best fit. At his 1 yr visit we learned that Maddox is tall and skinny with a very large head... tell me something I don't know! Also, the doctor told us to start brushing ALL of Maddox's teeth, he much prefers doing it himself.

The Big, Billings, Benefit is this weekend! Pray for a good turnout, good weather and a rocking-good-time. For more on this see Heavy Head or The Softer Side of Cynical.
Soon to come: baby shower, friends come to visit, Bing-efit...

I finally got my videos loaded. I know there are a bagillion pictures of Maddox eating his birthday cake, but now.... there is VIDEO! Also, Maddox has learned how to give kisses. They are very sweet and very, very slobbery.