Washington State March for Babies

Hey everyone!  Boy have the past few months been a whirlwind or what?  I’ve traveled to 19 states, 48 cities and probably met a billion people along the way.  I’ve done a lot of really cool things since I started being the 2012 National Ambassador in January.  Just to recap a few of the great things I’ve done…

Met the President of the United States, Barack Obama, in the Oval Office

Met the President of United Airlines, my new friend Jeff Smisek

Hung out with a beluga whale

Made friends with a real racecar driver, Denny Hamlin

Last week when I went to my home town March for Babies in Seattle it was super fun! 

I got to walk with some of my best neighborhood friends (a special thank you to Zoe, Bo, Talia, Liliana and Lauren for joining me), and say hello to everyone at the booths who I say hello to every year.  I also got to see Mr. Mark Marsters from Cigna.  His daughter raised a lot of money for the March of Dimes and he donated it to my team! 

It was a BIG bag of dimes.  Thank you Grace Marsters! It was my 4th March for Babies in Seattle, and my 4th March for Babies of the year.  It was pretty cool to come back to my own walk after being in so many places.

This past weekend I went to the Tacoma March for Babies, also in Washington state.  It was really fun!  I walked with my mama and daddy.  It was my last walk of the March for Babies season and I was really excited to see that they were serving popcorn and Pepsi before and after the walk!

Thanks to everyone who I met along the way for supporting the March of Dimes!  I hope you all had lots of fun Marching for Babies!  I will see you soon, but for the next few weeks I’m going to have fun playing outside and going to kindergarten.

Bye!
Kieran

Chicago March for Babies

Hey everyone,
Super bright and early on Sunday morning we went to the Chicago March for Babies.  It was really fun!  Let me tell you a little about it.

First we headed over to the Kmart tent.  As usual everyone there was really nice. We took a few pictures and met a few really nice people.  They even invited me into their tent and even shared some muffins, cookies and chocolate milk with me.  

After we visited Kmart we went over to see United Airlines.  United has also been another fun group for me to hang out with this year. 

After meeting so many pilots, Mr. Smisek, and being treated so nice by everyone who works on and off the planes, it was so fun to meet so many more when they were at the walk. 

Everyone knew who I was, it was like I was famous!  After we visited United we went over to the stage to speak.  Ms. Sue Poblieski from Cigna introduced us and we talked to her for a little while.We kicked off the walk, it was so beautiful and there were lots of people committed to the March of Dimes. But I sure was pooped at the end of it!

This was a super fun visit, and I still have two more Marches to go to!
Thanks for everything Chicago, see you soon.

Kieran

Atlanta March for Babies

Hey everyone,
This week I went to my second official March for Babies as the 2012 National Ambassador.  The day before the walk we went around to visit some of the top teams and say hello.

First thing in the morning we went over to General Electric. 

They had some yummy snacks out for me and gave me a bag with some really cool stuff, including Elephanty! 

After that I got to play in a room that had some big screens and fun things to play with.

Next we went to Hardin Construction.  Mr. Bill showed us all around the building and gave me some really cool stuff including my very own tape measurer! 

 Mama and daddy are happy about that because they said now I won’t use my dads and break it.  I never even broke it though! But I’m glad I have my own.

Next we went for lunch at the famous Varsity.  I had one and a half hot dogs,  a chocolate shake, and some french fries.  Yum!

After lunch we went next door to AT&T.  Ms. Carla brought us up to introduce us to Ms. Tracy.  She has a really awesome view of all of Atlanta, especially the football stadium for Georgia Tech.  I was so excited when she gave me a bag of goodies that I couldn’t even wait!  Then we watched a really fun cheer that AT&T was planning on doing at the walk to cheer people on.

Last but not least we did two interviews at Radio One.

We had a really fun day saying hello to everyone and thanking them for their support of the March of Dimes.

The next morning we woke up to go to Atlanta March for Babies. 

We met Mr. Dan Hoodin, who is my moms friend from Cigna.  He brought us up with him on stage to say hi to everyone. 

They had a really cool kids center that General Electric set up, I played on it after the walk. 

We also got to meet Layla, the Georgia March for Babies Ambassador.  We also got to meet Shaquille O’Neill! 

He was so big and tall I couldn’t even believe it.  He picked me up so I could do a slam dunk on stage in front of everyone who was getting ready to walk.  It was super fun!

Thanks to everyone in Atlanta for Marching for Babies.

See you soon,
Kieran

When I was out sick…

This week I got an ear infection so I wasn’t allowed to travel until Thursday.  My mama loves the March of Dimes so much though that she went for me!

On Monday my mama flew out to Boston to go to the Cigna Total Health and Networking conference.  She told everyone there about my story on Tuesday.  On early Wednesday morning she was in Manhattan at Rockefeller Plaza to say hello to me with Al on the Today Show.  She was so excited! You can watch a video of her in the Plaza HERE. That night she went down to Washington DC to go to the Gourmet Gala.  They watched my video and then raised $800,000 for the March of Dimes. Whoa!

Thanks so much to my mama and everyone who she met!

Dallas March for Babies!

Hey everyone,

This past weekend I went to my first March for Babies as the 2012 National Ambassador.  It was really fun!

I went to Dallas, Texas with my mom and dad.  It was the same city we were in the week before when we spent time with FedEx and Denny Hamlin- and guess what?  Denny’s race  car was AT the walk!  It was so cool! 

This was a really fun walk because I got to spend a lot of time with Cigna at their huge-mongous tent. 

This was the Cigna office that my mom visited back in November because they were the top fundraising office in 2011.  We even saw Mr. Mark Marsters there.  I see him all over the place!  I went a little early to do an interview with Heather from Fox, Mr. Mark did the interview with us.  Neat!

After that we went up on stage to say  hello to everyone.  Then they did a big loud countdown and then we started the walk! 

They had a band playing really cool music called calypso, they had cheerleaders, and at every mile they had people to cheer us on. 

The Dallas walk was five miles and I was pretty tired by the end, but not too tired to play with some kids and have a little run around time.

Thanks to Dallas, Texas and Cigna for making my first walk of the year a really special one!

Kieran

NASCAR Samsung 500 with Denny Hamlin, Fort Worth, TX

Hey everyone, I had such a fun weekend.  I can’t wait to tell you about it!

On Thursday me and my mom and dad came into Dallas to get ready for our first NASCAR race.  My Papa TJ likes car racing, but I have never seen a race so I didn’t really know what to expect.  I was excited though.  On Friday we went to the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas.  We met up with some folks from FedEx and they helped us to get around by driving us in golf carts. I loved riding in a golf cart.  The FedEx people are so nice!  They invited me and my family to the race so I gave them a big smile when I first met them.  I got dressed in this white jumper suit that everyone said was called a “firesuit”, but I wasn’t even near any fire so I don’t know why they call it that. 

I did some interviews with a top racer whose name is Denny Hamlin.  Denny has been supporting the March of Dimes for 5 years by decorating his racing car to have March of Dimes stuff on it.  The car looked really cool this year! 

Me and Denny hit it off really well, especially after I shared a bubble gum cigar with him.  We had matching firesuits on, and when we walked past everyone was taking pictures of us.  I felt like a racing superstar like Denny.  We did lots of interviews together, got a chance to fix up the car in the garage and then Denny went to go to qualifying.

The next day was the big race day!  We came in a little early to see all of the cool stuff that was for sale, and I got a Kona ice.  It was yummy.  We also went to see Denny’s trailer which was selling some pretty cool shirts and jackets.   Then we went up to the FedEx suite where they had lots of toy cars that I played with, that was awesome!  Me and the FedEx people hung out for a while until Denny came up to say hello.  Then we went back down to do another interview with Denny outside of his trailer.  The press team let me shoot some video footage and play with the microphone – so I started taking it apart. :) After the interview, we went to see the cars up close and look around the pit.  Denny took me up on stage with him to say hello to the crowd before he started his race.  I gave so many hi-fives I thought my hands would fall off – it was so fun.  We went to sit in the pit with Denny’s crew, and we even saw them do a pit stop up close.  WOW, they go so fast I couldn’t even believe it.  Denny did a real good job racing, and since his car says March of Dimes that means a whole lot more people know about the March of Dimes and March for Babies!

I can’t wait to come back next weekend to Dallas to do my first 2012 March for Babies.

Thanks so much to FedEx for inviting me and my family to the Samsung 500 to spend time with Denny for the March of Dimes.

See you soon!
Kieran

Marching, hopping, skipping and running for Babies

Hey everyone,

I’ve been traveling all around the United States for the past few months to tell my story and to encourage everyone to “Support the March of Dimes!”.  I’ve met a lot of the people who read my blog, and I’ve introduced a lot of people to start reading my blog.  Thanks to everyone who has been following my travels!

While we are on the road me and my mama and daddy have told everyone to go and sign up to register and fundraise for their local March for Babies, and now it’s almost time for the walks to actually start.  I will be doing a whole lot of walks this year, a total of 20.9 miles!  Wow.  That’s a whole lot of miles, but it will be worth it because it’s all for babies.  My parents have been doing the walks since I was born 6 years ago so I think it will mean a lot to them to be able to do so many walks this year.  I might end up running through some of the walks, but as long as I go I think it’s okay if I choose to walk or chose to run.  I might also skip and blow bubbles at the walks!  March for Babies walks are super fun, I can’t wait to see all the different ones through the country.

Even though the walks are coming up quickly, it’s never too late to register to walk and fundraise!  Just head over to MarchforBabies.org.  I don’t have a facebook but if you do you can even send your fundraising requests through your facebook account, that seems like it is pretty easy to do.  I’ve been fundraising a whole lot.

Make sure to say hi if you see me at your walk!

Kieran

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Hey everyone,
I’ve been on the road for three whole weeks.  I’ve met a lot of super nice people who are friends with the March of Dimes, and I’ve done a lot of really fun things.  Although it has been fun, I am happy to go home and see my friends.  The last day of our big road trip was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

We started the day on Pittsburgh Today Live!  I told Ms. Kristine all about Meows, and then mama and daddy told her all about when I was born.  We spent a lot of time with her, she was really fun!  If you want to watch the video you can click HERE.

After we went on TV we had a little time to rest, then we headed over to Philips.  They make lots of things for little preemie babies, like tiny diapers, binkies (pacificers) and machines that can help the babies if they need extra help.  They were so nice, and gave me yummy lunch, cookies AND a birthday present!  Then we talked to a whole bunch of people from Philips and I handed out my cards.

After Philips we went to Cigna.  We actually went to two Cignas in one day if you can believe it, but let me tell you about the first one first.  There were SO many people there, and I fixed someone’s boots with a sharpie.  They had a really big yummy delicious cookie cake to say happy birthday to me, it was so nice!

After Cigna we went over to Farmers Insurance.  They gave me real gold money coins, my mom says they’re not real but I’m pretty sure they are.  We talked to some of the Farmers agents and told them my story.  I even got some cool office supplies!  It was fun.

After Farmers we headed over to another Cigna office and there were even more people who wanted to talk to me!  I couldn’t believe it.  They were so nice, and I even explored their building a little bit.  Since I’m part of the Cigna family they are always really nice to me, and I was so happy to see SO many Cigna people at both visits.  Thanks Cigna!

Last but not least we had a really fun night at the Pittsburgh March for Babies kickoff.  There was a room for kids to play, arts and crafts, a kid-friendly dinner and SO many kids!  We had lots of fun.

There was also a professional baseball player there, Mr. Kent Tekulve!  He was on the Pittsburgh Pirates, and he had a granddaughter, Taylor, who was born early like me.  He really likes the March of Dimes.

I had so much fun in Pittsburgh, and it was such an awesome way to end our road trip.  Thanks for a really fun time Pittsburgh, I hope I can come back and see you soon!

Wilmington, Delaware

After we left Philadelphia we headed to Delaware.  We had dinner at a place called the Charcoal Pit, they are really well known for their delicious and big hamburgers.  We met the Lt. Governor, Mr. Matt.  He was super busy, but made some time to see me.  It was fun!  It was also my birthday eve, so I had some ice cream after dinner.

 

The next morning it was MY 6th BIRTHDAY!  It was such a fun day, and so many special things happened everywhere we went.  First we went to Kmart to say hello to everyone there.  I got a Monsuno for my birthday from Kmart, it’s still my favorite toy to play with right now.  Kmart is going to raise $100 million dollars really soon, so I’m glad I could spend the morning of my birthday with them because they are really special. 
 
After Kmart we headed over to Cigna.  They had such a nice party for me, with Rita’s water ice, Star Wars birthday things, and a big happy birthday sign.  They had music playing and balloons everywhere. It was such a special birthday celebration!  Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better we heard Star Wars music playing, and then Obi-Won Kenobi walked in the room.  Can you believe it?!  He took some pictures with me, and I was so excited. Then, just when it could not get any better, Darth Vader walked in the room and started battling with Obi-Won.  Then Obi-Won got hurt and I had to continue the battle!  I won of course, but it was a hard fight.  That was such a fun thing for my special birthday, thank you Cigna! I am STILL smiling about defeating Darth Vader! 
After Cigna we headed over to the A.I Dupont Hospital for Children.  First we played outside on their awesome playground- it was so fun!  We ran all over, went down slides, and just had some plain old fun. 
Then we went inside to say hello to Dr. Churchwell and thank him for all that he does for the March of Dimes.  We also saw Dr. Jay Greenspan, who we saw the day before in Philadelphia!  It was fun to see him again.  I think the Lamba was following us from Cigna, because Darth Vader showed up again!  It turns out he didn’t want to battle though, he just wanted to give me a birthday cake.  Thanks Darth!  After we had some yummy lunch we went on a tour of the NICU to say hello to the nurses who help so many babies at the hospital.  If you want to read something some nice people from the News Journal wrote when I was in Delaware you can click HERE.
 I had such a super fun birthday, thank you to everyone who made it so special for me!
 
See ya soon,
Kieran

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Man oh man, this was another fun filled week on the road!  This time we were in Philadelphia. Both my mom and my dad had been there before but it was my first time. 

It was fun!  We had some free time over the weekend and I climbed some bigs steps and my mom and dad said I was like Rocky.  They’re so silly.

 

Our first day we started with a tv show, NBC10! Mr Bill Henley and Ms. Jillian Miele introduced us.   I met a super nice man who was showing the tv people some toys he sells online, and he even gave me some!  They were called Monsunos, and they’re pretty much my favorite toy right now.  After the tv show we went to Cigna to say hello to everyone in the Cigna family. 

They had ‘old fashioned’ candy – like the little dots of candy on a piece of paper, wax bottles filled with sugar juice and Good & Plentys. Yum!  Then we had lunch in a really tall tower with some Cigna people in a restaurant called R2L.  I had yummy chicken fingers and they had really yummy desserts.  It was fun!

After Cigna we went to Temple University to say hello to Dr. Kaiser and some of his team. 

They have REALLY cool waterfalls in by the front door, and big germs on the top of the ceiling! 

Then last but not least we took a quick stop back in New Jersey with the South New Jersey Executives Club.  I said hi to everyone there and even climbed a tree. We were so happy to have beautiful weather…it was hard to stay indoors.

 

The next morning we started at a place called Braskem. They had cookies and juice for us!  They also gave me a really neat bottle that changes color when hot or cold drinks go in it! 

After Braskem we went to Health Partners, a place that really likes the March of Dimes.  They gave the March of Dimes a $5,000 check, and it had my face on it.  That was pretty neat.  

 Mr. Bill George even gave me a present, a stuffed cat and spy gear!  Meows will be pleased.

Last but not least we went to the Transportation and Building Luncheon.  There were SO many people there, probably like ten hundred million, but my mom says closer to 900. 

 I said hello to everyone and gave out my card.  We even went on stage after they played my video.  

It was a really fun time in Philadelphia, I hope I can go back one day!

See ya,
Kieran