St. Jude Bike-A-Thon

Last night Maddy participated in a bike-a-thon to raise money for St. Jude's hospital. Her friend Elise is fighting a malignant brain stem tumor and her family decided to host this bike-a-thon to raise money for St. Jude's where Elise had her treatments done. It was a big success and Maddy raised over $600 with donations from family and friends!!!! Thank You to everyone who donated!!!!! We are waiting to hear the grand total raised for 'Team Lambert' but online pledges alone were over $4,000!!!
It was so much fun with a big obstacle course for the kids to ride their bikes through, clowns, face painting, food and a visit from Cy!!

Maddy and Elise:


All the kids:


Maddy riding her bike -- she took this VERY seriously and rode so fast the whole time; I told her to take it easy a little, but she was determined ;-):


Colby on his tricycle:


Maddy and Cy:


Family pic:

Happy Half-Birthday Colby!!!

Colby is 18 mo. old today! How quickly this year is slipping by! We decided to make a special dessert to have after dinner! Maddy had fun helping and Colby had fun eating leftover cool whip ;-)

2 Weeks from Today ----

In exactly 2 weeks from today, Maddy will start Kindergarten!! I have been thinking about this a lot lately and it's really hitting me that she is going to school soon and I won't see her all day --- wow, what a change. I know she is ready and very excited, but I know how much I will miss her as well. It's hitting me that everything we have done to raise her the past 5 1/2 years is now coming to fruition with her starting school.

I was having a hard time with this the other day until I read one of my daily blogs and I realized how lucky we are to have a healthy little girl who is fortunate enough to grow up and have a bright future. This paticular blog I read is about a little girl (who I don't personally know, but have followed her story since seeing her on tv last year) who has cancer and could not start Kindergarten last year because she was too sick. One year ago at this time her Mom wrote:

"Many mothers today are sending their children off for their first day of kindergarten with tears. Tears that their children are growing up. We are not sending Kate to kindergarten today, with tears. Tears hoping our daughter gets the chance to grow up. So please continue to pray, pray that Kate gets this chance. A chance to grow up healthy. A chance to one day go to school. Thank you!"

The other day while catching up on my blogs, this Mother wrote about how her daughter just started Kindergarten this year (a year late) and re-posted what she had wrote last year (above).....It definately put things into perspective for me as of course what we all want is for our children to grow up healthy and happy with a future to look forward to!

So, my new outlook on this whole school thing is that we are very blessed, fortunate to have the chance to see our daughter grow up happy and healthy!!!!! And, while I will miss Maddy so much, I would not have it any other way!!!

Oh, and stay tuned for updates on a 'special project' Maddy and I are working on these next 2 weeks!! It will be done before she starts school!

It's Too Quiet Around Here!

Okay, so I'm officially really missing Maddy now. She left on Monday to go to the Black Hills with Tami, Jon, Meg and Abbie. We at first thought she might be too young to be away from home for 5 days since she's never really been away w/out us before. Well, last minute on Monday morning, we decided, what the heck, she can go! She adores her older cousins and being that they live in VA, we can't just go see them everyday, so off she went! I'm pleased to say she is having a GREAT time and supposedly not missing us at all! I, however, am really missing Maddy!! The first day was nice, got some stuff done around the house, but really, how much do I have to do around here???!!!?? Seriously, not that much.....Can't wait for everyone to get back tonight!!! Then, we have anothe week of cousin fun this whole next week before they drive back to VA.

I am sensing that I may need to have lots of little things planned for Colby and I starting this Fall, as I don't think I realized how much our days revolved around Maddy's little play dates, friends, activites, etc.....Oh, what will we do when she's at school all day???!!!!!! A new chapter for all of us!!!

Running Time ----

Last weekend I ran in the Taste of Hope 5K and Maddy ran in her first kids' fun run. It was about 100 yards, so not too far, but she did great! We went to the track to practice the week before and also did some 'sprints' on the sidewalk out front to get Maddy ready. She was pretty excited (as of coruse I was ;-)) Here are a couple pictures from the race and a video of Maddy's race:

More Summer Fun ---

So, I almost forgot our 'unforgettable' trip to Sioux City a few weeks back. Summer is going by so fast, how could I forget about our first summer trip. I decided to take Maddy and Colby up to Sioux City to see Grandma and Grandpa and Dick and Dana's family. It had been a long time since we'd been up to Sioux City and we were also getting new trim put in the house, so what a good time to go ---- This happened to be another trip with a little snag in it as Colby decided to throw up in the car when we were about 20 min. out of Sioux City. He was hysterical, out of control, so I pulled over at the nearest rest stop and got his clothes changed and cleaned out what I could of the puke in the carseat with a few napkins I had in the car. We continued to Grandma and Grandpa's as we were so close.

Grandma can take the credit for getting the rest of the van cleaned up (as Colby was definately not going to let me leave him in the house w/out me!) and she also googled how to get the smell out of the straps --- it took 2 days (she also had to disassemble the car seat to get the padding off to wash it, with Dana's help), but she did it and was successful in getting the smell out with some baking soda and water!! Thanks Grandma!!!! (you probably thought your days of cleaning up puke were over, didn't you???!!!!?? ha!)

We had a great trip after all and Colby started to feel better the next day. We went to the park, museum, out for coffee and to Dick and Dana's house. Katie, Rob and RJ were there for one the days also, so we got to hang out with them as well.

For some reason, I only got a couple pictures from the trip. I also included a couple pictures of a trip we took to the DSM zoo a couple weeks ago.


Grandpa and Colby at the park:


Grandpa, Maddy and Colby at the park:


Maddy and Colby meeting 'Buddy' at the zoo:


Maddy riding on the camel at the zoo:

Summer Fun!

I ran into some problems posting pictures on the blog again, so am behind on my posts big time!!! We've been having a lot of fun so far this summer. Maddy has been busy playing with the neighbors A LOT and we also had Stephanie come stay with us for a week. Maddy loved having her older cousin here for a whole week and we did a lot of fun stuff. We also went to Kansas City last weekend for Jolyn's baby shower and got to see a lot of family, which was really nice. It's hard to believe it is already the middle of June. We're starting to think about the 4th of July already and what we are going to do -- Crazy! Here are a few pictures of what we've been up to!

Jolyn's baby shower --


Jackie showing Maddy her 'big bed' --


Colby and Jackie having a snack --


Me and Finn --


Brennan, Cara and Colby at the BBQ at Sarah and Roy's --


Steph reading to Colby; what an awesome helper!!! --


Root beer floats with Steph and neighbor friends --


Maddy with neighbors Reese and Drew eating the rice krispie treats we made --