How Many of Me?

I saw a post on a friends blog recently about a website called HowManyOfMe.com -- Apparently you can find out, in a few seconds, how many people there are in the U.S. with the same first and last name.

Being the curious one that I am, I typed in the names of my family. Here's what the site came up with:

Jennifer Bettinger - 6 people in the US with the same name
Mark Bettinger - 6 people in the US with the same name
Madalyn Bettinger - 1 or fewer people in the US with the same name

I'm not sure what the "or fewer" means but I'm sure Madalyn is the only one with her name... or so it seems by this site.

Check it out at http://howmanyofme.com/

Gettin hit on while watchin hits

Yah, it's a play on words, you'll understand by the time I finish.

I came to Cleveland yesterday on a 2 day business trip. Not a big deal I come here about every month or two.

I got in last night and realized I was pretty hungry so I went to a local sports bar that is known for their wings. (They were able to put on the Cardinals-Brewers game, so it was a good night!)

I was sitting there watching the game and this guy about 4 stools down from me says, "Psst, hey buddy, you watchin that?" I was like, "um, yah." He points to the TV that's in front of him (So You Think You Can Dance) and he says, "You should come watch this, they're absolutely beautiful." (Mind you, this is from the guy drinking a beer with a straw.) I responded, "My wife likes that show, my wife, she's a dancer. She likes that show. I'm sure my wife is watching it. I'll probably keep watching the game. But thanks anyways." I've never used "my wife" more in one 5 second time in my whole life. Evidently he got the picture as he got up and left about 10 minutes later. Poor guy, he was probably just lonely...

On a different note, I decided to drive to Cleveland (and then this afternoon down to Columbus and then back home). It'll be about 1100 miles in two days. They raised my mileage reimbursement at work this month, so I figured I would try it out and see how it goes. Nope. Not worth it. I'll fly from now on like I've always done. It was 463 miles one way...and I didn't stop one time. 6.5 hours. I REALLY had to go potty when I finally got here...and no, it wasn't going #1...and no, I won't tell you my secret...

My daughter, The Sponge...

I've always heard that old saying that kids are little sponges and today I actually realized just how much that Madalyn picks up on.

Let me start off by giving a little bit of background... Every Tuesday evening at our house, Mark and I lead the college group from our church. They all come over, hang out, and then we do a study and have prayer time. Mady really enjoys it when everyone comes over. She gets excited every time she hears the door open - she runs over to see who is here. She has done a pretty good job at saying everyones name (I usually run through all the names of everyone before they come over.) Two weeks ago we spent Tuesday at the zoo in St. Louis. On the way home I randomly asked her "The Fusion group is coming to our house tonight. Do you know who is coming over?" She turned to me and very excitedly said "Char-leeeee," just as plain as day. She was definitely right - Charlie usually comes over a little before Fusion starts and apparently she was excited about seeing him that week. She said "Char-leeee" all evening over and over until she saw him. I was just surprised that she remembered names without me going through them first.

Tonight on the way to church I said to her, "We're going to go to church tonight and you are going to go to your class. Who are we going to see at church?" She immediately started rattling off names... "Crystal, Loni, Stacie, Steve, Charlie!" Just as clear as can be! It amazed me that she remembered names and that she named exactly those people that come to Fusion. I did tell her that none of those people would be at church but that some of her friends would be there. I asked her again who she might see (to see what her response this time was) and she proudly stated "Nemo!" Apparently Nemo goes to church with her :) I used that as a teaching moment that Nemo is a fish! ha! We'll see if that soaks in! (no pun intended!)

On another note, I babysit for a girl who Mady has named "Leena." I have watched her randomly for a few weeks this summer. One week "Leena" and I were addicted to Uno and we played at least once every day. This evening I was downstairs picking out games to take to church and I pulled out the Uno game. To my surprise Madalyn belted out "Leena Leena!" Wow. She put the connection together of "Leena" playing Uno. She continues to amaze me. Kids truly are little sponges and I think they know a lot more than we think they do!!!

Funniest Quote of the Weekend...

So, Saturday night we went with some friends of ours to Tuscola to watch a local group perform "Oklahoma." It was really good and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. On the way home we were talking about the time that we saw the musical Evita at the Assembly Hall. Neither Mark nor I could think of the name of it. He finally popped up, from the backseat, with "that time we saw In-Vitro!" It was hilarious...
Evita... In-Vitro... sounds similar doesn't it? I guess I could see where he would get "confused?" Haha. It had to be the best quote of the weekend! We all got a good laugh out of that one. You can tell what things are on the mind of the Bettinger Family.

Go, Go, Go!!!

Those were the words that Madalyn spoke over and over this afternoon.

Mark was headed to Six Flags in Chicago this morning with the college group from our church so Madalyn and I decided to go to my moms house (maw-maw as Mady says). I told her where we were going and she got so excited. But, before we left she had to pack her purse (a new obsession lately - we ALWAYS have to pack her purse and take it with us). Today she decided to put a bracelet in her purse along with a plastic bird (yeah, you read it right!).

We got to my moms house around noon and had lunch. After we finished eating I found my brother ("bubby" as Mady says) and Mady out back in the garage. I knew exactly what they were doing... For Christmas my family bought Mady a 4-wheeler.. yep, that's right.. a REAL, gas powered 4-wheeler. It's a smaller one and it can be adjusted so that it goes about as fast as a crawl but it's definitely a real machine! Mady got to ride it Christmas day for a bit but today was the first day she really got to spend some time on it. She absolutely loved it!!!

Bubby took her most of the time and I even took her once. When I took her, I had problems getting over a small pipe on a little hill in the backyard. I didn't have enough "umph" when I was going up and I got stuck. I hit the gas a little harder than I needed to to get some power and I actually popped a wheely... a small one anyway. I about wet my pants..! My brother found it to be amusing though!

After many circles around the yard with my brother on the little 4 wheeler, my dad pulled out the normal sized one and took her for a ride on that one. She wasn't too sure about it though and when he stopped she definitely wanted down. She ran straight back over to my brother who was sitting on the smaller one and said "please." Apparently she liked that one better.

At one point, she was trying to climb up on the 4 wheeler by herself but couldn't get up. I went to help her but she was reluctant.. My brother went over to sit on it and she bee lined it over to him! It was too cute! She definitely had a good time with my brother!

Here are a few pics from the afternoon:
Riding with "bubby" Riding with Mommy - my face says it all! (click on the picture to see a bigger version) Riding the big dude with "paw-paw"

She definitely had learned the ropes by the end of the day. She knew exactly what cord to pull to start it, she knew what button to push to turn it off and she knew what button to push to make it go. Even though she couldn't make any of them work, she still tired. For a while, every time my brother would put his hand on the throttle she would push his hand away and put her hand there. Apparently she wanted to run the thing by herself!!!
Paw-Paw was looking underneath to see if he could figure out what was rattling. Of course, Madalyn had to help too. I think she actually was the one to fix it in the end... haha!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, OH MY!

Yesterday we decided to make a trip down to the St. Louis Zoo. Mark has a client down there that he had to call on so we decided to go with him. Mads and I dropped him off at his client and then we drove to walmart. I forgot to bring shoes for Mady (we left at 6am and shoes were the last thing on my mind) so we had to make a pit stop. After we picked Mark up from his appointment we headed to the zoo. We had packed our lunch so we had a quick picnic first then headed in. It was extremely HOT but we all had a great time. We rode the train, the carousel, we went to the Children's zoo ( a new attraction) and the sea lion show. I have to say that Madalyn's favorite part was probably the sea lion show. I have never seen a 20 month old sit that still for that long. She was into those sea lions - clapping and waving at them while they performed. She also, of course, loved seeing the turtles. She has some obsession right now with turtles..?

One of the neat things about the children's zoo section was this slide that they had built inside of the otter tank. Mady went down but stopped about halfway down and just stared at all the otters swimming around her. It was neat to be able to watch her experience new things.

We finished off our day at the zoo with a cherry coke slushie. We all 3 enjoyed it throughly! It was a nice end to a very hot day!

Here are some pics from the afternoon:
Mady and Daddy checkin out the box turtle exhibit. Watching the sea lion show (notice her pink cheeks from being hot!)
The fun sea lion
Mady going down the really neat slide that goes through the otter tank.

Bay-Ball

It's summer time. That means sprinklers, hotdogs and baseball. Good ol' American past times. Especially baseball. I play softball on Monday nights, so Madalyn gets a good dose of live action and the St Louis Cardinals on TV periodically. Evidently, I've been watching quite a bit of the latter and her new favorite word is bay-ball! This morning, I let Jenn sleep in and so I took Mady downstairs to keep the upstairs peaceful for Mom. We were walking down the stairs, and Mady starts saying bay-ball, bay-ball. I put her down and she ran over to Fred (my easy chair) and picked up the remote and said bay-ball. I turned on ESPN. That satisfied her need to watch bay-ball. I love it! Go Cards!

She is her mothers daughter...

Madalyn is a lot like her Daddy (i mean, a lot!) however last night I proudly said "you are your mothers daughter." Daddy got the idea that he would take us out for ice cream. He taught Madalyn how to say the words ice cream and he had her come tell me what we were going to do for the evening. After a few minutes I was able to decipher "eye keem" as being "ice cream!"

We had dinner and then I was ready to go (I absolutely LOVE ice cream and I think I could eat it every day if possible!) I asked Mady "are you ready for ice cream?" and that's where it all began... She started running through the house shrieking "eye keem! eye keem!" and squealing. She was dancing and clapping her hands! She was definitely excited!!!! About as excited as I was! haha.

Mady and I shared some "eye keem" at Baskin Robbins and we both throughly enjoyed it (although I didn't let her have as much as she would've liked!) Daddy doesn't like to eat it as much so that just saves more for his girls!