LFL

This is the second installment of my Lessons for Landry Series. Okay, correct me if I'm wrong but why on God's green earth would you ever give your child, son or daughter, this to play with? Help me out here people! And, yes, I know I took Landry to Hooters but their buffalo shrimp are outstanding. That counts for something, right?

Note that it is placed right next to the Hello Kitty Walkie Talkies. Geesh!

Safety First!
Landry had officially moved up to her big girl seat. I researched for a long time to find out what car seat had the best ratings and would protect my girl the best and here is what I came up with. It is the Britax Boulevard CS in the Riviera pattern. It was a little on the pricey side but she is worth it. It has side impact protection and the head rest raises as she grows. It is still in the rear facing position so it seems really big right now but she won't move to front facing until after the first of the year sometime. They say 20 lbs and 1 year but I still haven't decided if that is long enough. There have been studies that say they should stay rear facing until they are about 14 or 15 months because their necks are still not as strong as they need to be in the event of a crash. The pros: SAFETY!!! It looks very comfy and grows with her. It is also stylish and easy to maintain. I even installed it myself despite the reviews that it was kind of difficult. I didn't find it difficult at all....just thorough. That sucker ain't goin' no where! I hope we don't ever have to test its safety but if we do, I feel as safe as a Mama can with her in this seat. The cons: $$$$!!

Our First Trip to Sophie's Playground

We took Landry to her first visit to Sophie's Playground last week and I guess you can see from the pictures that she loved it! I had a sneaking suspicion that she would. We let her swing and then we took her over to the playground and told her all about her sister and how special this playground was. When we got to the plaque she almost immediately reached out and touched her sisters name. I could feel that little ones presence there with us and it was just a great way to spend our Sunday.
This Sunday it was solo for me and the Bug because her Daddy left on Thursday for his annual golf trip. He always has a great time and his friends are the best so I am glad he goes on this trip. It used to be a little sabatical for me every year but this year was a little different. It was all Landry...all the time. I am beat and I have a feeling that I will be in bed early tonight.

Jason-Codename:G4
One of my favorite people in the whole world is my friend Julie aka Aunt Big Mama to Landry. She has 4 boys whom I love and adore. They have always loved me and have known me only as their aunt even when the legal papers said I wasn't any more. The youngest one, Jason, wasn't even born when I first came into their family so he doesn't know life without me. He is so smart and funny. He is one of those kids that everyone likes at school and he works hard to be the best he can be. I admire his work ethic and am so proud of where he is in his young life and certainly where he is going. His Mama and Daddy won't ever have to worry about him taking care of himself...that's for sure!
One of his senior projects was to make a calendar and write a poem for each month. He surprised me with this today and I couldn't believe what he wrote. He even made it for the month of March in honor of Sophie's birthday. I know you will all enjoy it as much as I do. Thank you, Jason, for being such a special young man to me. I love you so much!!! Aunt Renee

**side note...G4 is the first letter of his last name and he is the 4th son/child.

Little Miss Landry Elaine

There is a little girl who is full of sunshine
And her love has no restrain;
She is truly a gift of Divine,
This is Little Miss Landry Elaine.

She is as cute as a bug,
And her toothless grin drives us insane!
This is why we love to give her many kisses and hugs,
This is Little Miss Landry Elaine.

She is the spitting image of her mother
And, hopefully, has some of her daddy’s brains!
She is unlike any other,
This is Little Miss Landry Elaine.

Her best friend is a schnorky named Bella
And their friendship is anything but plain!
Bella is her favorite pillow,
This is Little Miss Landry Elaine.

When she grows up she will be quite sassy,
But hopefully Momma Renee and Daddy Mike won’t think she is a pain!
They know that she will be quite classy,
This is Little Miss Landry Elaine.

God has placed His many blessings on this little one
And knows she will not refrain
From spreading His love like the light of the sun,
This is Little Miss Landry Elaine.

And one day she will meet Little Miss Sophie Caroline,
Her sister who has already been called to Heaven’s pearly lane,
Two beautiful sisters in God’s Holy Shrine,
This is Little Miss Landry Elaine.

Delicious

If toes were edible....I'd eat these up! The photo looks better blown up so click on it if you wanna get a look at how sweet and pink those little lips are or how only a baby can pull off fat rolls like that....it's good stuff! I know I am just a little biased but isn't she just the sweetest thing? Landry took a long nap today and let me get a few things done. We took a stroll to go visit some friends that just moved in to another house in our neighborhood and she got to see Jack. He is 11 months old and he was all about kissing on Landry. She wouldn't let him at first but she finally warmed up. They were so cute together. I think she may walk before him but he has her on the tooth front by about 8 teeth! Bella went with us and we put her in their back yard not knowing that there was a board missing and she got out. We call that a Jail Break around here. I was so worried that we weren't going to find her but we did...actually, my friend Tracy was riding her bike and she ran straight up to her. Landry was amused too so all was well. Oh the fun in the Mader house!

Party Animal

WHEW!
Yesterday, my friend, Ken left for Atlanta to play in the final PGA event of the regular season. He is in the top 30 and will playing in the Players Championship. We had a great time following him while he was here this week and we wish him the best of luck this week.

Since the first weekend of August I hosted a wedding party at my house, had Sister Rosalie in town for a month, went out of town for 10 days in 3 cities, and had Ken here for a week. I am beat! It was a very fun, tiring & meaningful time and I would do it all over again tomorrow...well, maybe next week :) but I am absolutely spent. In that time, I also found out that a good friend of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy last Friday. I organized food for them from all our friends for the next month so they can concentrate on important stuff like getting well! Please keep her in your prayers as she gets through this healing process. Last but not least, there is a very special friend of mine who lost her baby to a miscarriage. She is one of those rare people in your life that is just irreplaceable. It breaks my heart because I know her heart was very much attached to this baby. She was early in her pregnancy but as any Mama knows....once you know there is life...there is love. Thoughts and continued prayers for her too.

Landry is getting a sprout too! When she lets me take a picture of her new hardware I will post it. Bless her heart...she has been pretty grumpy and unhappy about it too. I hope the next few teeth take it a little easier on her. I know I could use the break! She is getting so big and funny. She is saying Dada, Mama and bye-bye. I will show her off later on this week. Now....back to my regularly scheduled posting.

My Wish

My wish for Landry in creating a happy, peaceful life is summed up in this piece. Mother Theresa was a big fan of it and I thought it was certainly worth repeating.

Do it Anyway

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful you will win some false friends and true enemies; Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, some could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

~Kent Keith

These Guys are Good!
A good friend of mine is a PGA tour professional and he will be teeing it up bright and early tomorrow morning at the Viking Classic. He is staying with us while he is here and we are looking forward to a full weekend of golf and fun. He is the only player here that will also be in the Players Championship next week in Atlanta because he is in the Top 30! He will be there with the 30 players in the world playing in the final Fedex Cup tournament of the year. His name is Ken Duke and if you want to check him out...Click here. Here's to a great tournament, Ken We'll be rooting for you!

Wordless Wednesday
Why do you need words when this face says a thousand of them?

MMO

Today was a big day at the Mader house. Landry went to her first day at Moms Morning Out. I didn't think I would ever put her somewhere until she was at least 2 years old but Mike really wanted me to do this. As much as I work with her and play with her she is starting to get bored with her Mama. Hopefully the interaction with other children and adults will do her good. She is really a people person and I think she will love it. Her Mama on the other hand had a hard time leaving her this morning. She did great for most of the time but did have one meltdown toward the end. She ended up falling asleep in the arms of one of the ladies there and was still asleep when I picked her up. She was so tired that she didn't wake up when they handed her to me, I carried on a full conversation and I got her all the way into her car seat and she never made a peep. I drove home and she finally started to stir when I was getting her out of the car. They said she played very hard and got along with the other children very well. All in all, I was very proud of both of us on this big day. We both had a little separation anxiety at first but quickly recovered. This is a picture of my big girl and her new friend. BTW...A tooth is starting to make it's way to the top. I could feel it today. It's really just a short matter of time.

Sassy Girl

Are these not the cutest shoes!? She is quite sassy in them especially when they are paired with this special bracelet. It was a gift from the Barharts and they gave me one to match. It has two strands and soon it will have another one with Sophie's name on it. I really love it and can't thank them enough for being so good to her and to us. I don't know what life has in store for us and if Landry will be the only child I have the privilege of raising. With that said...I find it hard for me to not buy her everything I want her to have....a.k.a. spoil her. One day I am certain she will be telling me what she wants. Until then and God willing, I am going to have fun with her.

Best Buddies

The Shaws

On the last leg of our trip we went to Brandenburg, KY for my nephews wedding. He married his high school sweetheart after being apart for 6 or 7 years but somehow found their way back to each other again. Love has a funny way of doing that. As I watched them wed, I thought about how it didn't seem that long ago that he was Landry's age. It's hard to fathom how fast life can happen. My prayer for Mark and Tammy would be that they enjoy life, they cherish the time they have with their children and that they embrace every minute together in the same way they did on their special day. Congratulations and may you have a wonderful life together!

World Wind Tour
I am back and soooo tired! Why didn't anyone of you fine folks tell me how dang hard it would be to do 3 cities in 10 days would be?! Traveling with a baby is so totally different that it used to be. I can't believe we made it through it all. I got to see some of my most favorite people in the whole world in that short time so it made it all worth while. Landry did so well flying. It never fazed her and since this was her second time to travel by plane, I really wasn't that worried. The hard part was trying to haul her, the stroller, backpack loaded with laptop, camera, baby essentials and a purse. There was a man that offered to help me carry her out of the plane and when he tried to pick her up, he couldn't believe how heavy it was. He said, 'You can't pick that up!' I told him 'Don't worry about it. I got it. My backpack is even heavier than she is!' He was stunned that I could carry it all. Now that I think about it, so am I! I flew in to Birmingham for a number of reasons so we had a pretty long haul back to Jackson. We stopped off in Tuscaloosa and we found that we didn't have very many food options. My overwhelming desire to dine on buffalo shrimp outweighed my need to take Landry to a more wholesome establishment(like Waffle House) so she got her made her debut at Hooters( or the Hoo-Tay as my friend Pam calls it.) Landry could be a Hooters girl for Halloween if they only had an orange diaper cover. The girls there went nuts over her and we were waited on hand and foot. Oh my! Please don't tell me my child was a Hooters Girl protege. Harvard, Landry...not Hooters!

Roll Tide Roll!!

Look at my little Bama girl! BTW...She wore a Southern Miss outfit yesterday just for her Daddy.

Kelley B
I have been with Kelley B. in Lexington, KY for the last few days and Little Miss Landry thinks she is the bomb. There are more cute pictures of Kelley and Landry together than there are of Landry and her Mama! How cute is this...
Happy faces everywhere!!

M.I.A.

While we were at my Daddy's Landry didn't have her pack 'n' play to sleep in so we had to make do with a pallet on the floor. There was a 2.5 foot space between the bed and the wall so I put pillows around the sides and laid out a blanket for her. I went to go to bed one night and I peeked over the side to check on her and she was nowhere to be found. I ran and flipped on the light just to make sure my eyes were seeing right and sure enough...no Landry! I immediately hit the ground and looked under the bed and this is what I found......

Poor thing, I almost gave her a rug burn getting her out of there. I guess I'll never know how she cleared all of those pillows either.

Farewell

I said a tearful good-bye to Sister Rosalie today. It was much harder than I expected it to be. Mainly because she is my family now. I have grown to love her in a much deeper way than I have my whole life. Before I loved the person that took care of me and ultimately gave me the life I have now by giving me to my parents. Now I love her for the person she is to me today. She is so many things that I can’t put in to words. She has a story that humbles me and makes me appreciate all that I have in a way that makes me want to be a better person. She told me that many people had asked to adopt me but she said no. She said she waited until she found the right person for me because I was special and knew that I had great things in store for me. She said she knew that I would have a good life one day but she never imagined that I would have it so good. After visiting Vietnam last year, I know how right she is! I wanted to photograph the initial meeting that she and my Daddy had at the airport but my camera was buried deep inside my bag and I just wasn't fast enough. It was so sweet and heartwarming. If only the people around them knew what was actually taking place. Standing there was the remarkable story of two people who have given selflessly their entire lives. My sister and I are the grand benefactors of what their hearts are made of and hopefully we are paying it forward in some small way in how we live our lives.
I said I would tell you the story of Sister Rosalie in an earlier post but know that this is just a thumbnail print of what I know. Her story is far greater and more complex than I could ever possibly comprehend.
Thi Tho Tran, known to me as Sister Rosalie is a Catholic Dominican Sister in Vietnam. She is college educated and a doctor of Traditional Medicine. When she was finished with college(in her late teens) she went to work at Tan Mai Orphanage. This is where she met my Daddy who was a Major in the US Army at the time. He and his soldiers spent much of their off time helping the nuns repair things, build things and work at the orphanage. They played with the children, taught them things and even helped care for them on occasion. My father was instrumental in getting her supplies, food, toys, clothes, diapers and medicine for the children. He even got her a refrigerator which was ironic because when I went to Vietnam last year, we asked her what she needed and she said a refrigerator. Little did she know that I had a letter that she had written my mother 35 years earlier telling her that my father was so kind and generous for getting them a refrigerator. She never remembered that letter and when I showed it to her she just smiled so big. It was one of those full circle moments in my life that I will never forget. Of course we got her the best one we could find in Vietnam! My sister Rhonda got her a butane stove top burner to cook on so we did kind of a kitchen makeover for her. Giving her those things made us feel so blessed. She said she had had her refrigerator for almost 30 years and that she had painted it 3 times! It was no bigger than a dorm size unit but since they cook fresh vegetables every day it was adequate.
After communism took over in 1975 Sister Rosalie was moved from running the orphanage to working long hard days in the rice fields for 10 years. If you were educated they moved you to field jobs so you wouldn’t be a threat. Finally she went to work at the Charity Hospital where she currently practices medicine. She works long hard days seeing 300-400 patients a day and also teaching. I don’t know how she does it! They brought in another doctor to take her place while she was here but they email her everyday wondering when she will be back. She said the last time she had a vacation was 10 years ago for 2 weeks and before then it had been longer. She works 6 days a week seeing patients and since she lives at the hospital she has is usually on call on the 7th. Makes my life with little ole Landry seem a little less stressful!
I wish I could have written down all of the funny things that happened while she was here but there were just too many of them. In the coming days, I will post a little more about our trip and more importantly, our journey here with Sister Rosalie.
I will miss you Sister Rosalie. Thank you for loving me enough to give me to such great parents and for being my ‘first mother’.

Whistling Dixie
Landry has found her whistler! I kept hearing these sounds and I could never figure out where they were coming from and finally figured out she was whistling! Now, I'll catch her belting a tune out or I'll whistle first and she'll copy me. She is such a hoot!

Splish Splash I was taking a bath!
Landry took her first bath in a sink today and she was hilarious! She thought splashing water all over the place was the greatest thing ever. Check out my water baby.

Changing

Mike, if you are reading this, this post is going to be very boring so you might as well go watch the World Poker Tour or maybe a rerun of the 1972 Masters. Yeah, you'll be bored so don't feel obligated to read your wife's silly ole' mumbo jumbo.

Okay, I think he's gone...Anyway, today Daddy got up from dinner and said he was going to change his flat tire. Of course I wasn't going to have any of that because his back is really hurting him these days. I got up and went to work. I usually don't find this kind of thing very stimulating so I usually rely on the men folk in my life to do chores like this but today was an exception. I got the tire out, loosened up the lug nuts, jacked the car up, put the new tire on and put the old tire back in the trunk. I haven't done that in quite a while let me tell you! Anyway, don't anyone of you tell Mike. I wouldn't want him to get any funny ideas! Daddy took this picture of me and all my evidence!

Here is a picture of two of my favorite people!