My Spare Time

My new friend

2012-02-02T09:00:00.000-06:00

I have a new friend...

Isn't she beautiful?! She's so great and works so hard for me.

Seriously, I love my new laminator! I have laminated so many things since Christmas and it never gets old. Well, cutting the laminated items gets old, but the actual laminating is so much fun! ;) I've been printing and laminating different preschool printables that we've be using so that we can use them again another time or when Meredith is ready for preschool.

These are just a few of the items I've laminated:

Once they've been laminated, I put them in the ziplock baggies to store so that I can grab the individual bag and place it in the drawer that day for school. I've been printing most things on regular printer paper, cutting the cards, laminating and then cutting again. But, one of the blogs I read says that they print on cardstock, laminate and then cut. I guess it will still last since the paper shouldn't be tearing apart...I think I'll have to try that the next time I have a sheet of cards to laminate.

If you were looking into buying a laminator, I highly recommend this one. I got if for Christmas, but had I not, I would have spent my own money on it. The pouches aren't that expensive and you can buy them in packs of 50, so they last quite a while. I've laminated a ton so far and have only used a box and a half (maybe 75 sheets).

This is definitely one of my favorite Christmas presents this year! It's the little things in life that bring happiness! ;)

10 year journal

2012-02-01T14:00:00.000-06:00

When I started pinning on Pinterest a couple of months ago, one of the first item I pinned was a box filled with dated index cards that you record your daily memories on for several years. So, year after year, you are able to look back at what happened on that day in the past. I had planned on buying the box and index cards on my next trip to Target.

Then, I read Kim's post about her night stand and she mentioned her 10 year journal. The journal sounded like a much better idea than index cards - how would I keep up with something like that for 1 year, let alone 5 or 10 years. I googled it and found where you could buy an actual 10 year journal for about $30, but I decided to make my own like Kim and Holly did for half the price. I ordered this pink journal from Amazon - there aren't many choices when needing a journal that has at least 366 pages and I liked the pink!

When I got it last week, I dated each page from January 1 to December 31, including February 29.

I then backtracked a little to record some of the moments in January since I was starting a little late in the year. As I add comments for 2012, I'll add the years on each page, but I don't feel like adding 10 years to 330 pages all at one time.

I keep a blog, but not every post is about our daily happenings and funny stories. I also have the 365 blog, but those are just one picture for each day and not recaps of the day. The idea of the journal is to write a recap - 1 or 2 sentences - of what we did that day or funny things that were said or done. By keeping 10 years worth of notes in the same journal on the designated day, I can replay the memories for each year that I add another comment. It's just another way to document our life and I've very excited about it!

"She wanted to play with her toys..."

2012-01-31T08:00:00.000-06:00

On Sunday morning I put Meredith in her crib with TWO toys so she could play while I finished getting ready for church. I could hear Mackenzie playing in Meredith's room and talking to her, but that's not unusual, so I didn't think anything about it. Once I was ready, I went to get Meredith dressed for Church and this is what I found:

Mackenzie had put every single toy of Meredith's in her crib with her. She claims that "Meredith wanted to play with her toys". As you can see, Meredith was laying there happily holding one of her toys.

I did laugh and take a picture but after looking at some of the toys and books and their locations, I realized that Mackenzie had to have thrown a couple of the toys in the crib to get them where they were. We told her that she shouldn't do that anymore because Meredith could have gotten hurt and that she could only ever give Meredith her own toys, not Mackenzie's toys because they were too small and she could choke..

Meredith is 5 months old and will be crawling in 3-5 months, so I'm going to have to do some major organizing of the playroom and keep my eyes open, because boy do we have A LOT of toys for ages "3 & up"!

5 months

2012-01-30T14:13:00.002-06:00

Meredith is 5 months old! It's an off month as far as a doctors check up, so I have my own stats:

Weight - 18 pounds
Height - 28"

At 5 months, Meredith:
- rolls from her back to her stomach every time she's put on her back
- is eating (5) 7oz bottles a day - pretty much every 3 hours from 7:30am to 7:30 pm.
- eats oatmeal and other solid food in the evenings.
- recognizes a bottle when you show it to her and then reaches for it to put it in her mouth.
- tries to sit up in her car seat and high chair.
- wears size 6 month clothing.
- wear size 2 shoes.
- loves to hear me sing. If she's upset in the car, I can usually sing to her and she stops crying.
- is finally starting to like baths.
- still loves to be swaddled at night when going to sleep.
- is starting to fall sleep on her own without being held.
- has started trying to get her knees under her when laying on her stomach! Please don't crawl anytime soon! ;)

I didn't really have any good pictures of Mackenzie at 5 months. Apparently I only took 3 pictures total and the one below is the best one to use for a comparison with Meredith.

RRSP: Letter H, 3, triangle, blue

2012-01-29T12:00:00.000-06:00

This week we focused on the Letter H. If you are curious about the order we are going in, the intent is to start with the easiest letters to write and work toward the harder letters. Curves are harder, so we focus on the straight line letters first.

This is the PowerPoint presentation we do everyday. Mackenzie really likes to push the button to make it go to the next slide.

We put heart stickers on our letter H collage.

Again, Mackenzie cut out the vocabulary cards and the she traces the H's. Look at that concentration! ;)

She likes to do the letter mazes and letter sorts. Sometimes the fonts are tricky for her to see what the letter is, but this way she is learning the letter in all kinds of fonts and not just one.

One of our new games/activities is this bug sort. She has to use the scoopers (kind of like salad tongs) to pick up the bugs and sort them into their labeled cup. She's having a little difficulty with the scooping, but that's why I got the game - to work on those fine motor skills.

We do a lot of the same activities each week (collage, letter sort, letter maze...), but this week I supplemented our lessons with a themed unit - ballerinas. Since she loves ballerinas and just started dance, she really liked the theme.

This is a ballerina puzzle with numbers on the sides. You have to put the numbers in order to finish the puzzle. This first day, she needed my help, but on Friday, she had it completed by the time I finished fixing her a snack!

We did graphing for the first time as we rolled our picture dice and filled in the matching image on the paper. The ballerina slippers made it to the top first!

On another day, I put ballerinas on a "dance floor" and she had to count them and find the corresponding number. We also worked it the other way, where I chose a number and she had to put that many ballerinas on the paper.

During our first week of school, we did some patterns and she really struggled with them, so this week we worked on them again. She did much better this time with the ballerinas!

We'll continue the ballerinas and winter themes (from week one) this next week and then move onto Valentine's Day the week after.

She memorized her memory verse pretty quickly again this week and now she knows 3 verses! (And so do I!) Her other memorization that I've been impressed with is the months of the year song and pledges to the US and Texas flags. So good for only 3 weeks (9 days) of school!

Rolling - the hard way!

2012-01-28T09:00:00.000-06:00

Meredith is rolling over the hard way, from her back to her stomach. I can't put her down on her back without her rolling to her stomach in a matter of seconds. The problem is that she is still not rolling from her stomach to her back, so she eventually starts to fuss.

Friday Flashback: wedding dresses

2012-01-27T11:47:00.004-06:00

I've only ever tried on one wedding dress. That's it. Just one. When it's right it's right.

Brandon and I met in September 1998, started dating in December 1998 and talked about marriage in May 1999. When it's right, it's right. I didn't say anything to my parents until December 1999, just before Brandon came down to ask my dad. I told my mom as we were picking up dinner at Wendy's or some fast food restaurant. She smiled and said my dad owed her $50. Apparently she thought it was coming and my dad didn't think it would happen so soon. That's how we told my dad...we walked in the house and my mom said, "well, you owe me $50." He figured out what she was talking about pretty quickly.

Anyways, after that, I bought lots and lots of wedding magazines. I kept flagging the same dress in every magazine, so when I finally went to try on dresses I asked if they had that particular dress and they did. I tried it on and the rest is history.

When it's right, it's right.

dollar stores

2012-01-26T13:49:00.002-06:00

I've never been one to shop at dollar stores. I just always thought it was a bunch of junk. But, recently, my opinion has changed slightly. A couple of weeks ago Brandon and I browsed one and I was able to find some craft supplies for Mackenzie, plus holiday (Valentine and St. Patrick) paraphernalia and other items for us to use in school. I spent $13 and felt like I had walked away with a good amount of stuff. Today, the girls and I went to a dollar store I found a few minutes from our house. It wasn't very big, but we went down every aisle to see if we found anything we wanted. Guess what...we did. They had lots of craft items, some tiny clips for Mackenzie to practice her pinching fine motor skills, wooden lady bugs in different sizes to practice sorting, painted wooden blocks to use for sorting or counting, and plastic shape ice cube trays to use for other sorting games!

I tried to look at all items and see if they could be used for anything other than their original purpose, so I ended up with quite a variety of items. One of the random things we also bought were toothpicks with little paper US flags attached. We've been saying the Pledge of Allegiance and Texas pledge every day we have school, so when we are out and about Mackenzie looks for the two flags. I thought she would like to play with the little flags, plus we can use them again for the 4th of July and our letter F collage in a couple of weeks.

One of the items I stared at for a while were these 8" square wooden trivets. I don't even remember the picture on them because I was thinking I should cover them with fabric I have and hang them on the wall above our bed. The only reason I didn't buy them was because originally I was going to have Brandon make 12x12 frames for me to cover and I didn't know how many I wanted if I switched to 8x8 boards. I'm going to re-evaluate that in the next couple of days and I might go back next week and buy them. They weren't made for hanging, so I'd have to attach some picture frame hangers to them, but that's no biggie.

Anyways, don't get me wrong, some of the stuff in a dollar store is still junk, but some of it's not to bad. I've spent a total of 29 dollars at 2 different stores and have obtained a lot of stuff. A lot more than I would have gotten at target or even amazon. I've decided I'll just go once every month or two and check out the holiday items or any craft supplies they might have. It never hurts to look!

5 Love languages of Children

2012-01-24T12:36:00.002-06:00

I'm currently reading this book:

I have really enjoyed learning about the 5 love languages...words of affirmation, quality time, touch, receiving gifts and acts of service. Every child needs love shown to them in all of these languages, but they usually have one language that is their predominant language - the one they need to feel the most.

Brandon and I think Mackenzie's predominant love language is quality time. She will ask us several times a day to specifically play with her or watch a movie with her. She doesn't always let us play with her (she likes things a certain way), but she still wants us to sit next to her while she plays. Now that I realize quality time is her predominant love language, I've really been trying to focus on spending more quality time with her. I think the home school helps tremendously because it's time that she and I spend together while Meredith naps. That's actually a time when I can use all of the other love languages at the same time.

words of affirmation - "you did awesome", "you are so smart", "thank you for doing so well"
touch - sitting in my lap, hugging her when she has done well, holding her hand when we sing
gifts - new exciting school stuff for her - usually a new school activity/game each week
acts of service - helping her with the coloring or cutting when she asks

In one of the chapters it talks about discipline and still using the love languages. It said that for a child whose love language is quality time, being sent to their room to be alone can really hurt their sense of being loved. With that being said, I think that's why the threat of being sent to her room really works for Mackenzie. She rarely is sent to her room - only when she has repeatedly disobeyed us, but the threat of isolation is usually enough. I did this before I read the book, but after she's had her time out, we always hug her and tell her we love her. So, even though we punished her through her predominant language at least we are telling her we love her with two other languages.

They say that a child's love language can change over time, so it's good to use all of the love languages and to also watch for clues if it has changed. I also bought the original 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman and I plan to read it next. It has the same languages, but relates to marriage, so I think it's still worth reading. I think my love language is words of affirmation, but I'm going to take the survey at the back of the book to confirm.

I just thought I'd share this info with those who haven't read the books. I highly recommend buying, borrowing, or checking it out from the library!

Super Momma

2012-01-23T13:20:00.002-06:00

Brandon took Mackenzie to play at the neighborhood playground last week and when she came home she was calling us "super momma", "super daddy" and "super Mackenzie". Yesterday after church she told me that I could be super momma if I stopped being silly. I'm pretty sure she doesn't understand the concept of super hereos because when I asked her what super mommas do, this was her response,

"they drive...they iron...watch tv...and play with super Mackenzies."

If that's all it takes, then yes, I am a super momma! ;)

Organization: Recipes

2012-01-22T13:00:00.000-06:00

One of the small tasks I wanted to accomplish this new year was to organize my cookbooks and recipe box. Since I've been trying new recipes for the last few months, I had amassed quite a collection of 8 1/2x11 printouts of recipes and it was driving me crazy.

My mom gave me this recipe box at one of my wedding showers 10 years ago and I only had a few remaining blank recipe cards left, so I ordered some new cards off amazon.

I copied all of the recipes that I had tried on Friday and laminated them yesterday. Look how pretty!

Then I put all of the recipes I have yet to try in plastic folders so they at least look neat and tidy.

I also went through my cookbook and looked to see if there were any that I wouldn't use and could give away. I found 2 or 3 small ones that I had gotten at the grocery store on sale that I realized none of the recipes look appetizing to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the recipes are great...they just don't look appetizing to me, the fairly picky eater. So I didn't clean out the books that much, but just to declutter al of the paper is great!

Now I should be able to easily find all of the new recipes we've recently tried without having to pull out a huge stack of papers.

My next task in this area is to slowly start to go through the cookbooks and make a list of recipes I want to try. This will obviously be an ongoing task. Maybe I can try to do a cookbook every one or 2 months. What do you do? Do you just pick up a different cookbook every week and decide right then what to cook? I plan meals on a weekly basis, but I feel like I need to do by the month. Is that normal or is that just me going a little overboard?

RSSP: Letter T, Number 2, square, sight word "the"

2012-01-21T21:51:00.001-06:00

This week's Raising Rock Stars Preschool unit was focused on the letter "T". The memory verse from My ABC's Memory Verse was Exodus 20:15 - Thou shall not steal. We talked about the 10 commandments and then focused on what it meant to steal. The example in the book was "stealing" flowers from a neighbor's yard if you don't ask for permission, but I focused on taking someone's toys from their house when they are not yours. The coloring sheet on the first day shows a person taking a piggy bank and so now that's the lesson she remembers. If you ask her what it means to steal, she says, "when you take someone's piggy bank." ;)

We also focused on the number 2 and the site word "the". The curriculum has really cute little books that she reads every day. Last week the book was titled "I see" and so each page said, "I see 1 lion" (or lamp or ladder). She knew the letter I, we were focusing on the word see and she knew the number 1. The only thing she didn't know was how to read the last word and since it had it's picture on the page, she knew what it said. She thought it was great because she was actually reading. This week the book was titled "The Turtles". Each page said, "I see the turtle" (or happy turtle or funny turtle or angry turtle). Again, because of the picture she knew what the last 2 words were and it made her feel great that she was reading on her own.

*On a side note to last week's word "see" - Tuesday night, Mackenzie said, "Momma, momma, I found the word see." She was reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear. It was the perfect book, because "see" is on every page! I didn't even think to read it the week before, but that's okay since she found it on her own, I think she'll remember all the more now.*

We made our letter T collage with all things starting with T and we also did a letter T sort.

She did great with the letter sound sort where we looked at pictures and determined if they started with the letter T.

She's getting much better with her cutting and cut out all of her vocab cards this week by herself, except that I help her hold the paper. I didn't get a picture of that, but I did get a picture of her cutting her memory verse.

Since it's so short, it didn't take long. I had her stand up and see how tall it was compared to her and afterward she started measuring other items around the house. Apparently, the memory verse is longer than the tv remote!

Next week is the letter "H" and I'm planning on adding a supplemental themed unit on Ballerinas, now that we've got the hang of our school schedule. I'm loving this and am so glad she's loving it too!

Nap Time

2012-01-19T12:00:00.000-06:00

I've never been a stickler for where Mackenzie's naps are taken. Before she walked, she napped in the swing because that's what she was used to sleeping in at school. When she was a toddler, we kept a pillow on the living room floor and she would just lay down on it whenever she got tired and go to sleep. When we first moved to this house, I had her sleep in her room, but she almost always slept in her nap mat on the floor. After she transitioned to a twin bed, she actually took naps in the bed, but once I was really pregnant, she started taking naps with me in my bed. Since we've been home I've allowed her to choose where she wants to nap. Some days it's the couch, some days it's the recliner or her small chair. A lot of time, it's the floor. I guess it just never changed from when she was a toddler. As long as she has a pillow and her bunnies, she's good to go. A couple of months ago she actually took a nap in the dining room! I can find something else to do in another room while she sleeps, so I don't care where she sleeps as long as she takes a nap! I found these pictures of Mackenzie taking her naps in the past 3 years. Enjoy!

What we've been doing...

2012-01-18T22:25:00.002-06:00

This week has already been kind of busy which is good and bad. The randomness of the week is as follows:

1. we bought a mini server for our house so that we can have the ultimate back up of all our photos and files. This means that in my spare time, I've been cleaning out and transferring photos/files from the 2 computers onto the server. I could probably do it very quickly if I just wanted to dump everything on the server, but I'm using this time to clean up all of the junk we've collected on our computer.

2. By "we" I mean "me". I'm a hoarder. Not a hoarder of physical stuff like on the tv show, but of free files and documents from the Internet. I have so many organizational lists/charts/calendars...preschool files...recipes...craft ideas...scrapbooking...photoshop stuff...anything and everything. I think I have a problem. ;)

3. We started a new letter, number, color, site word and memory verse this week. We had school on Monday and haven't done anything sense. That's OK though, I had only planned on doing it 3 times a week and we still have Thursday and Friday.

4. Mackenzie started her first real dance class on Tuesday. She loved and I loved that she loved it. The school requires that her hair be pulled up in at least a pony tail. Their online document says they are to wear a bun, so, me being the obeyer of rules that I am, made her wear a bun. She fought a little that morning, but once I put it up, she liked it. It's small, but oh so cute. Her sparkle shoes are what she wore there so that we didn't ruin her ballet or tap shoes outside. Oh, and she wouldn't stop dancing long enough for me to snap a decent picture, which is the exact reason we signed her up for dance.

5. Meredith has been eating. Surprise, surprise, she likes to eat! ;) She's had rice cereal, oatmeal, sweet potatoes and squash. She made a little bit of a funny face with the first bite of sweet potatoes, but has eaten every thing I've put in front of her! Again, not much of a surprise with as big as she is.

6. We've had 2 morning activities followed by 2 lunch dates the last 2 days and it kind of makes you tired at the end of the day (but clearly not that tired since I'm writing this post at 10pm). I guess I'm on my second wind! ;) I asked Mackenzie if she was ready to just stay home tomorrow and do school and play all day and she said yes. I think we'll do that tomorrow and Friday! Maybe I'll even get a few projects done during nap time! ;) You know me, I can't stay still for long!

Greeting Card Randomness

2012-01-16T08:00:00.000-06:00

When I was cleaning out the greeting cards last week, several cards made me laugh out loud!

1. I opened up a Christmas card from my step sisters and (2) 10 dollar bills fell out! I have no idea how old the card is, but for just my sisters to sign it, I think it was at least 8 years old! I texted them that night and said thanks again! ;) Looks like I now have some extra money in my purse!

2. While looking at mine and Brandon's 30th birthday cards I noticed that we both had the same card. When I opened them, they were both from my mother-in-law. It would appear that Cindy likes the same cards! Oh, and apparently greeting cards don't change as often as you might think. At least not less than every 2 years! ;)

3. I found a card Brandon had given me for Valentine's Day one year with a picture of an old couple on the front. Later I found an anniversary card I had given to Brandon with a different picture, but the same couple. Apparently we both think they are cute!

4. I have 3 different George W Bush birthday cards through out the years. I didn't realize they made so many different ones?!

I finally see it!

2012-01-15T11:35:00.000-06:00

So many people have told us that the girls look a like and I just never saw it. I see them every day, I look at their pictures all the time and I just didn't see a lot of resemblance. The other day I saw one of our framed pictures and thought, "when did I frame that picture of Meredith?" Then I realized it was a picture of Mackenzie!

Yep, they look alike!

Raising Rock Stars Preschool: Letter L, number 1, circle, sight word - see

2012-01-14T19:08:00.000-06:00

I started my own preschool with Mackenzie this past week and it was great! I found awesome printables based on My ABC Bible Verses, a book we already had. The link above is the blog where I found the Raising Rock Stars curriculum. I love it all! She even makes PowerPoint presentations for each unit that help reinforce the lessons for the week. I'll try to get a video of Mackenzie doing the PowerPoint because she loves it. I also supplemented the unit with activities from the Bible and Rhyme Program and other miscellaneous crafts and puzzles. We only spent about 1 to 1 1/2 hours each time we had "school" and we only did it 3 times this past week.

Each day we started with Calendar time. I made a small binder that includes the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, the Texas Pledge and the Texas State Song. We said/sang all 4 of these every morning. Next came the actual calendar stuff. I printed a months of the year and days of the week song with a graphic so she can start learning what the words look like. She already knew the days of the week song, so the challenge is the months of the year, but on the 3rd day she was already kind of singing along. We look at the date for that day and also check the weather outside. Finally we sing our ABC's and we are ready for the lessons that day.

I made this board for the weekly unit and so far it's working pretty well. We read out of our ABC Bible Verses book to learn our memory verse for the week and then we read the application and sing our song. We use the popsicle sticks to hunt for the letter, number or sight word on the board for that week.

I asked for these drawers for Christmas and Mackenzie loves to open each drawer to see what we are doing next (I only put one task per drawer).

I won't go into a lot of detail about what we did, but here are the pictures from the week.

Coloring our memory verse.

Clothespin number cards

Letter L collage

Getting ready to write the letter L

Color matching puzzles

Vocabulary cards she helped cut out.

Letter L sort - capital and lower case.

"L" and "not L" sort.

She cut her memory verse into strips and taped it together.

I'm so glad I have this opportunity to teach Mackenzie. We had such a good time and we both really enjoyed our quality time together since Meredith usually slept while we were having school. And after only 3 days of school, Mackenzie has memorized her first verse!

Next week, the letter T!

Organization Project: Greeting cards (Day 1)

2012-01-14T08:00:00.000-06:00

I'm tackling this mess of a book shelf in our office one step at a time!

First, I took every thing off the shelves and sorted into several piles - greeting cards, pictures, keepsakes and miscellaneous. The next night, I decided to tackle the greeting cards pile to see if I could find a better storage solution.

I looked at every card and sorted through what should be kept and what should be thrown away. It would be nice to keep every card we've ever gotten, but the reality is that we'd need a lot more storage boxes! So, I looked closely and carefully purged the cards that didn't really have any sentimental value. Anything for Mackenzie or Meredith was kept and put in the keepsake stack. The final result was several categorized stacks:

After they were sorted, I pulled out all of the hand made cards to put in another storage bin I have set up for card ideas/inspiration.

I placed the miscellaneous pile back in the previous storage container. They include thank you's, invites, announcements and general notes/letters from family and friends. Generally, it's just a keepsake item that should be stored. The other 2 stacks that I put right back in the box were the miscellaneous holidays and the cards from me and Brandon.

This is going to sound abrupt, but this is where I stopped - it was 12:00am and I was sleepy. Where should I go from here? Should I store or display the cards? I saw an idea on pinterest using a binder ring and that might work for the Christmas photo cards, but what about the actual greeting cards. I'd like to be able to have them on display AND be able to read them some how. Do you have any ideas?

Flashback Friday: My room

2012-01-13T09:00:00.000-06:00

I came across this photo a few months ago and knew it had to be a flashback Friday photo! This is my bedroom (at least a portion of it) when I was a senior in High School - 1998. It makes me laugh at how eclectic my decorations were!

Let's look closely...
Upper left - a Gone with the Wind calendar - my favorite movie even in high school. I made my best friend go with me to see it in the theaters when they re-released it to theaters one year.

At the very top, the picture is cut off but it is a painting of the letters in my name with an oriental theme from, if I remember correctly, a street artist in San Antonio..or maybe Dallas...somewhere in Texas! How random is that?!

Below my name is a framed pastel drawing I did for "Rodeo Art" in junior high. You can't see it, but to the left of the drawing is a ribbon from the Houston Live Stock Show and Rodeo - "an award of excellence." I still have this in our guest bedroom closet.

To the right of the world famous art work ;), is my Texas A&M clock and another random decoration, a poster from the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

It's not that I don't like every single one of these decorations, it's quite the opposite since I remember everything about them. I just think it's funny that they are all jammed into about 20 square feet of wall space! If I had pictures of the other portions of my rooms you probably wouldn't even realize it was the same room. The other side had my dresser and wall shelves filled with my music box collection, my book mark collection and other keepsakes I had received over the course of 18 years. I don't remember thinking my room was so eclectic, but it certainly was! Does anyone else remember their room being so random?

Organizing: Christmas ornaments

2012-01-12T08:00:00.000-06:00

I finally finished taking down the Christmas decorations this week! Our trees are still up, but Brandon will do that this weekend. Last week I packed up the ornaments and was excited to try a storage method I had seen on pinterest. I grabbed a stack of plastic cups I had in the pantry and put as many ornaments as I could into the individual cups. About 2 dozen of our ornaments were too big for the cups, but that's ok because 2 1/2 dozen did! I taped the filled cups to a piece of cardboard cut to fit our storage container and then placed the whole thing in the container.

Then I put another piece of cardboard over the cups so that I could place things on top.

I continued to pack up the remainder of the larger ornaments like I had in previous years and add the tree skirts, jesse tree ornaments other decorations to the container. This worked great and I eliminated all of this extra trash, just by using the cups.

I also cleaned out our ornaments and threw away the filler/generic ornaments that were scratched and falling apart or ornaments we hadn't put on the tree for years. For the remainder of the household decorations I didn't really change anything, because they are mostly bulky items that are packed in their original boxes, but I did removed the fall decorations that were packed in the same container because I couldn't find them this past fall because I thought the containers were only Christmas decorations.

The next task is to store the containers. The only closet we can store 2 large containers is Meredith's closet. For now, this is ok because she obviously doesn't care, but I don't know where we are going to store them in a few years when she wants her closet all to herself. Where does everyone else store their Christmas stuff? the attic? the garage?

Staying home

2012-01-11T14:08:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, Brandon asked me if I liked staying at home with the girls. I've been a "stay at home mom" for 4 months now and I can honestly say I love it. There is only one thing that bothers me and surprisingly it's not at all what I thought it would be. I always figured not having a lot of adult interaction on a daily basis would drive me crazy, but it hasn't been an issue at all. We get out of the house 2 or 3 times a week and as Meredith gets older, we'll be doing that even more.

The real thing that bothers me most is that my brain is so used to working overtime on work tasks (ie: things to draw, things to check on site, RFI's and submittals to send to contractors) that I find myself constantly finding tasks I need to do here at the house. I'm not talking about your basic cleaning, picking up of the house or grocery shopping - those existed when I was working. The tasks I'm constantly dreaming/thinking of are cleaning out the junk drawers, designing millwork for the office, reorganizing the kitchen cabinets, decorating any and all rooms of the house...it never ends. I kind of did this when I worked, but I didn't have as much time to dwell on them because I was either at work, taking care of Mackenzie in the evenings, or sleeping because I was just so exhausted. Now that I'm at home during most of my waking hours, there's hardly an hour that goes by that I don't walk by something in our house and wonder how I could change it or make it better. It's sort of a good problem to have, right? If only I could shut off my brain when I want to go to sleep...

So, yes, I love staying home AND now I have tons of stuff I want to do as a result. I guess I should get off this computer and do them, huh?

Cleaning list

2012-01-10T09:00:00.000-06:00

So, one of my new favorite blogs is iheartorganizing. I feel like she and I think the same way about organization, except she actually follows through with the organizing tasks. I tend to have great ideas and plans, but can't always make it all come together. Hopefully that will change this year!

One of the lists (see - we are meant to be BFF's) she made was a cleaning list based on daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual tasks.
iheartorganizingcleaninglist

After I stared at it long enough and forced myself not to buy it off her etsy shop, I realized I could make my own personalized list!

I used excel and it was surprisingly quick and easy to do! I've already printed it and will laminate it later today so that I can check off the items when I do them. Brandon suggested that I check off the items in the actual excel file, but one of my goals this year is a lot less time on the computer while the girls are awake, so I'd rather have the laminated copy that I can use as a dry/erase board.

I'm so excited that it turned out well and am looking forward to making my own files for other organizing projects I have on my list.

If you haven't done so already, go check out Jen's blog (iheartorganizing) - I have loved al of the projects I've read so far!

Just Because

2012-01-09T08:00:00.000-06:00

Just because it's Monday, I thought I'd post pictures of the girls from this past week. Nothing new going on really, but they looked just too darn cute not to post the pictures!

This is what Mackenzie is doing all of the time - either posing or dancing!

...until I tell her to stand still and then she gets sad and looks bored! ;) oh the drama!

The girls on Saturday before a birthday party - you'd never know it's early January!

Please excuse the yellowness in the last few pictures. We had little to no natural light, so the overhead light is making the pictures very yellow! This is Meredith in the dress my aunt made her. I think I mentioned that I would blog about this a long time ago, but I never got around to it! It is absolutely adorable and Meredith looked so cute in yesterday for church. This is how she went to church - no socks, no shoes. Again, can you believe we are doing this in January?! The high was 78!

Since it has been spring and summer like weather and Meredith is such a *big girl*, I thought I should start pulling out the 6 month spring clothing I had so that she could wear it at least once before it gets cold again or she out grows it. This was my favorite outfit of Mackenzie's and it's no different for Meredith! I still love it! It's definitely one I'll keep as a keepsake for me and the girls.

This is one of my favorites that isn't the girls. Do you think Mackenzie was cooking the safari animals for us to eat or are they eating dinner she prepared for them? I'm not sure what the answer is, but it made me laugh when I saw it in the playroom the other evening.

*At Meredith's doctor appointment she measured 16 lbs 9.5 oz (94.83%) and 27 1/2" long (99.94%)! I looked in Mackenzie's baby book and Mackenzie weighed 16 lbs 9 oz at 6 months and 27 3/4" at 9 months! My dream of Meredith being able to wear all of Mackenzie's old clothes is slowly disappearing!

New camera lens

2012-01-07T09:00:00.000-06:00

I received a new camera lens for Christmas and absolutely love it so far! I've only played with it a little bit, but can tell it's going to do what I wanted it to do. I wanted to take better indoor pictures without having to use a flash that would wash out the girls faces. I also wanted the background to fade or blur more so that you couldn't distinguish everything in the picture. This blog made it clear that I needed this lens. I have really only played with inanimate objects, but the one picture I've taken of Mackenzie is exactly what I wanted it to do.

love it - you can't even tell that the background contains a plate with crumbs and an old napkin!

This is actually my original lens, but I'm using my new lens to create the blurred background.

The lens doesn't zoom in and out, so you physically have to move if you want to "zoom out" or "zoom in", but I really like it. I will still use my other lens for exterior shots or when I want a larger frame, but switching them is super easy, so that won't be a problem. I'm looking forward to taking many more photos with this lens and finally relearning how to take pictures like I took with my old SLR camera. I might even try a manual mode soon! ooooh so daring, I know! ;)

Flashback Friday - Highschool Friends

2012-01-06T09:00:00.000-06:00

I was in band from 6th-12th grade. I met the 3 friends above in 7th grade. Richard and Brooke (top row) had known each other in elementary school, but Michelle (bottom right) had just moved to our area that year and we all became friends in 7th grade band class. The picture is our senior year at the annual "Powder Puff" football game. Brooke, Michelle and I were not about to play football and I'm pretty sure Richard wasn't going to dress up as a cheer leader, so we all just went to watch the game. My face is so washed out, but oh well. I still remember the clothes - why did we wear such over sized clothes?!

A lot has changed in 14 years - there's me - married with 2 kids...Brooke is recently married...Richard is married with 3 kids...Michelle is also married and has a little boy 2 months old. The 3 of them are still really good friends and see each other on a regular basis. I, on the other hand, never kept in touch after high school. I didn't do it on purpose, it's just never been my strong suit. Thank goodness for Facebook - at least I can somewhat keep up with them, especially since they were a big part of my adolescent years.

Christmas - the final chapter

2012-01-05T09:00:00.000-06:00

So it's 5 days into the new year and I'm still blogging about Christmas! To be fair, we had our final Christmas event on January second, so really I'm not behind in the blogging! ;)

Brandon's mom, youngest brother and sister-in-law came to celebrate Christmas at our house. They came on New Years Day and left the very next day. It was a short visit, but it was good to see them. Mackenzie loved all of the gifts she received and has played with them all week. She especially like Meredith's gifts, too.

Other than gift opening, Dustin and Aubrey had their own tea party in the play room...

and Meredith became a clown.

She also enjoyed getting some love from Uncle Dustin!

While Dustin and Aubrey were here, we looked at my blog books from 2008 and 2009. In both of those books, the first post is about Christmas and I guess the future 2012 book will also include Christmas in it's first 3 posts! Why change a tradition?! ;) Christmas is now over and the decorations are packed...it's time to get on with 2012!

Christmas Gift: Goodie Boxes

2012-01-04T09:00:00.000-06:00

I made the Dad's Goodie Boxes full of treats for their Christmas gifts. Since I'm addicted to Pinterest, I thought this would be the best time to try out all of the yummy desserts I had seen online. Each father received a box that looked like this! I know there isn't anything to scale this box with, but it's big! I made A LOT of goodies! ;)

Inside it looked like this:

Here are the cookies in detail. The pictures don't do them justice. Don't judge a cookie by it's packaging - just go to the recipe link and try them yourselves! ;)

Candy Cane Blossoms - the basic sugar cookie covered in red or green sugar with a candy cane hershey kiss on top. Be careful - these will turn your teeth and hands red or green!

Funfetti fudge - white chocolate fudge with candy sprinkles.

Chocolate Chip Cooke Dough Truffles - my absolute favorite! Raw cookie dough, but it doesn't have eggs, so it's safe to eat. I have eaten way to many of these in the last month.

White Chocolate Cherry Shortbread - Cherry shortbread cookie dipped in white chocolate.

Mint Chocolate Chip Chocolate cookies - I couldn't find the mint chocolate chips so I just used Andes mint chips instead.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Marble Cookies - these were probably my least favorite. Not because I don't like chocolate and peanut butter, but I felt the recipe was a little bland. I'll have to ask my dad what he thought to see if I'll keep the recipe.

Elves Snickerdoodles - snickerdoodles covered in colorful sugar. Again, becareful with the teeth staining.

Chocolate fudge with walnuts - the easiest fudge recipe ever. I found this one in a food network magazine last Christmas, but they have it on their website too.

Oreo Cake Balls - everyone's favorite. These are the easiest thing to make! That is great and dangerous at the same time. These are great!

I made a list just after Thanksgiving of all the desserts I wanted to make and created a shopping list for everything! I made about 2 or 3 recipes a week and stored all of the goodies in the freezer until I gave them away. I did have a couple of duds that were so bad, they went straight to he trash and I had one cookie I never got to, but all in all, the cookies and fudge were great. I also created smaller boxes for the neighbors and I still have a small assortment in the refrigerator. I baked so much in one month, that I think I'll be fine if I don't bake any time soon! ;) The good news is that I have an arsenal of desserts ready to go if ever I need to bake!

Christmas Gifts: Memory Book

2012-01-03T20:39:00.001-06:00

For Christmas I made my mom (Momma) and grandmother (Granny) memory books. I decided to make the book out of brown paper sacks - an idea I had seen online.

First I started by folding the brown paper sacks in half.

I stacked them in opposite directions every time I put one in the pile. This way every other page would have the opening of the sack on the end.

I punched holes in the middle and bound the book with cording.

I used these journaling cards to record 38 memories I shared with Momma and 38 memories I shared with my Granny. I started each card with, "I'll always remember..."

Next I created 38 layouts for the cards that would cover each page in the paper bag book. These are Granny's pages. I haven't scrap booked in so long and I had forgotten how much stuff I had. I didn't have to buy anything to create all of these pages and I didn't even put a dent in the amount of scrap booking paper I own! Well, I guess I should say that I didn't buy anything recently...since I bought all of this stuff years ago!

Momma's layouts:

After all of the pages were glued to he book, it was pretty full!

Every other page opened and created a keepsake pocket for pictures or mementos. I tried to place the memories that I knew I had pictures or other keepsakes for at these locations so they could be inserted into these pockets.

Below are the finished products. I covered book with card stock and added ribbon to hold the fat book together! Granny's is the brown and floral book to match the page motif and Momma's is the polka dotted book to match her bright colored pages.

They aren't perfect and if I do another paper bag book, I will make it about half the size. These were just too fat and hard to insert the last few pages correctly. I also think I might make the pages a little larger than the paper sack in height so that they can cover that edge. I worked on these books every night the week before Christmas (9:30-12:00) and finished them on Christmas Eve Eve and Christmas Eve. I could get used to having the time to be crafty like this, but it would be nice if I could do it during the day rather than after everyone has gone to bed!

Brandon was also creative on Christmas Eve when he found his childhood legos and created this:

2011 Blog Recap

2011-12-31T12:00:00.000-06:00

I've done an end of year blog recap the last couple of years, so why not do it again for 2011! I love looking back at the year to see/remember what we did. In the past I've only focused on the first post of each month, but this time I think I'll just catch the high lights of each month.

January:
January had 2 big highlights - Granny's surprise birthday party and Mackenzie announcing she was going to be a big sister. Granny's party was fun because we also got surprise her with my Aunt and cousin. We don't get to see them often since they live in Utah, so it was great to have them at the party. We actually didn't get to see them again until a couple of weeks ago for our Girls' Christmas. Announcing I was pregnant was also great, especially since we got to tell it through Mackenzie this time.

February:
February was random with no major highlight except my birthday. Mackenzie was sick Valentine's day week, but I'm happy to report she hasn't been sick since! That's a record for us. here's hoping she finally got mine and Brandon's immune system and will hardly ever get sick. February is when we also learned that Mackenzie's most feared punishment is to go to her room. Not time outs in the living room, no this girl hates being sent to her room. This is still true!

March:
Wow only 5 posts for the month of March! The highlights include going to the Livestock show and the Children's Museum. The latter was more fun for both Mackenzie and us. Since animals still aren't Mackenzie's thing, I'm not sure if we'll go back to the livestock show this year, but we'll definitely go to the museum this next year.

April:
Whoa - April was big! Brandon and I went to Vegas, All 3 of us went to Sea World, Mackenzie moved to her "big girl" bed, I turned my first year of blogging into a book, we celebrated Easter and we found out we were having a girl! So many things and all sooooo soooo fun. I have since made my second year of blogging a book and I've finished 2010 (3rd year) but haven't sent it to the printer yet as I was waiting for some Christmas money. ;)

May:
May was oh so random, but the biggest post was that we had finally chosen a middle name for Meredith. It's funny to look back and see when we chose the middle name, because I had it in my head that we didn't choose the name until about a month before she was born, but no, we had plenty of time. This is why I blog, so I can remember all of this information!

June:
Activities, celebrations, activities. Mackenzie had a dance recital (it happened in May, but I blogged about it June), a birthday party at a gymnastics place, and another trip to the Children's museum. Brandon and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary. And most importantly, I discovered that Mackenzie's hair is, in fact, getting lighter! ;)

July:
In July, I pampered my self, Brandon became oh so crafty in the garage, I finally finished my pregnancy book I'd worked on for 3 years, I finally decorated our bedroom and was contemplating a repeat c-section. Since then, I've pampered myself 2 other times, Brandon has built several other things in the garage, I have done nothing towards creating book for Meredith, I haven't done any other decorating and I had a repeat c-section!

August:
August was another big month! We prepared for Meredith's arrival, I decided to stay home with the girls after Meredith's birth, Mackenzie was so very cute in so many new clothes, I got bigger and bigger and bigger, my niece and nephew turned 1 and finally Meredith arrived at the end of the month!

September:
In September we celebrated Mackenzie's 3rd birthday, Brandon and I went to and Aggie Football game for the first time in 9 years and in general I just fed and cuddled my two little girls!

October:
26 posts - a very busy month! I discovered Pinterest in October and my life will never be the same! Meredith found comfort in the sling, Mackenzie and I did fun Halloween crafts and activities, and I started a daily picture blog. Mackenzie's birthday party was also in October and boy did I go a little overboard! That's what happens when you are stuck inside with a newborn and pretty much constantly think about a party and shop online! ;) I also took lots and lots of pictures of the girls, played inside and outside with Mackenzie and started cooking again!

November:
Another busy month! In November, Mackenzie and I played outside, did crafts and learning activities inside, we all celebrated Thanksgiving (twice) and I took the girls to have portraits made! I still need to buy frames for a the pictures I'm keeping. We also started getting out and about going to the library, visiting Granny and Papa and going to ladies bible class. Fun!

December:
As the year was wrapping up, we celebrated several Christmases (3 so far), discovered Tiny (our Elf on the Shelf), made Christmas crafts, said funny stuff and in general had a lot of fun!

So that is 2011 in a nutshell - well, maybe a very large nutshell! If you blog, I highly recommend you go through your past posts for the year. It's really cool to look back at your year and see what you've done or at least what you blogged about! ;)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Friday Flashback: Big Cheeks

2011-12-30T11:51:00.000-06:00

I came across the photo on the left of my brother on his 3rd birthday. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had the matching comparison 21 years later! Apparently he's always had big cheeks! ;) I love that nothing has changed since he was 3 and that we still take pictures of our family members blowing out candles on their birthday!

When I showed Mackenzie the picture I asked her if she knew who it was. She didn't, but when I told her it was Ryan when he was 3, she said, "Just like me!" She was pretty excited to see that her huge uncle Ryan was once little like her. ;)

4 months

2011-12-29T22:26:00.001-06:00

Meredith is 4 months old today! We don't go to the doctor until next week, so I don't officially know her stats, but according to my scale and measuring tape she is 16.5 pounds and 27 inches long! According to what I found online, she's in the 90th percentile for weight and over 97th percentile in length! We'll see what the nurse/doctor calculates next week.

At 4 months, Meredith:
- has rolled over twice from stomach to back
- is eating (5) 7oz bottles a day - pretty much every 3 hours from 7:30am to 7:30 pm. We'll be starting solids next week after the doctor's appointment!
- squeals when she's excited.
- has found her hands and they are constantly in her mouth.
- is drooling like crazy!
- kicks her legs A LOT. I took video of her tonight laying on her stomach and she is still kicking her legs and moving around.
- does not like to lay back in your arms or in her seat. She is always trying to pull herself up to an upright position.
- barely fits in size 3 month clothes and just started wearing some size 6 month pajamas this week.
- is wearing size 2 shoes as of today.
- loves for me to sing "My God is so big" and do the hand motions with her.
- hates her baths.
- still loves to be swaddled at night when going to sleep.

Below is the comparison picture of Mackenzie and Meredith. By 4 months, Mackenzie had really started to gain the weight, so I can really see the similarities between the girls in these pictures.

Christmas Day

2011-12-28T09:00:00.000-06:00

We are down to having only one more Christmas celebration left and technically it will happen in 2012, but that's ok! ;) Even though it was pretty rainy and gloomy around here on Christmas day, we still had an awesome day filled with family, food and fellowship!

We actually had to wake Mackenzie up on Christmas morning. Of course the one day she "sleeps in" (past 7:15) is really the one morning we sort of needed to get up. I think since it was rainy outside, the sun didn't wake her up and she didn't know it was morning. Since Meredith is the second child and also the second girl, there wasn't much we needed to buy her for Christmas. We already have tons of toys for her and lots of books, so unlike Mackenzie's first Christmas where we used all of our gift cards on her, Meredith received bows, tights and onesies!

I also bought her a couple of small board books and an owl towel. Her gift from Mackenzie was a toy turtle...

I think she likes it!

Mackenzie especially liked her Angelina Ballerina movie...

and her new boots from Meredith!

I received some nail polish that Mackenzie is a little afraid of, but I really like. After having the nail polish on for 24 hours, it's already chipped on 6 nails...now I remember why I don't paint my nails! I will however paint my toenails with these polishes after it warms again for flip flop weather.

After breakfast we got ready and headed to my grandparents house for Christmas with my mom's side of the family. As usual, there was lots of yummy food!

And of course, presents and visiting with each other.

I hope everyone had as good a Christmas as we did. Stay tuned later this week for my crafty projects I completed for Christmas!

Tuesday with Tiny

2011-12-27T18:07:00.000-06:00

Today we bid farewell to Tiny...in the blog world anyway. We actually said goodbye to him on Christmas Eve, blew him kisses and said see you next year. In his final week here he wasn't very active. I think flying back and forth from the North Pole really got to him by day 21! ;)

Day 21 - Riding in the sleigh on the mantel.

Day 22 - Hanging out in a stocking. Maybe he was trying to see how much room Santa had for gifts!

Day 23 - Riding a horse on the exersaucer.

Day 24 - He turned on the Christmas lights for us!

It's been fun having Tiny in the house, but having a house guest for an entire month can get kind of tiring! So long Tiny...see you next year! We can't wait for our snow donuts again at our North Pole Breakfast! ;)

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T10:00:00.000-06:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

from Charlton...

...and Brandon.

Project: Laundry Room

2011-12-24T09:00:00.000-06:00

It seems like since I've been home, my list just keeps getting bigger and BIGGER! I decided that I want to tackle a few rooms this next year. I plan to clean out, organize, paint, redecorate the room that I'm working on at the time. I want to start with the laundry room - the smallest room, other than closets. I took a few "before" pictures the other night with the intent of taking pictures of the finished product in the next couple of months.

While looking at paint colors online the other day, I found an awesome tool at Sherwin Williams. They've probably had it for a while, but since I haven't painted anything in forever, it's new to me. You upload your picture, "mask" off the walls and drag and drop colors onto the photo. What do you think?

I want something kind of bright that I wouldn't normally do in any other part of the house. I like the idea of the turquoise walls with black or white accents. Mackenzie said I needed a bright pink, but I'm thinking I'm going to pass on that idea. ;)

Besides paint, I want to take down the rod above the dryer and add shelves for household supply storage. As nice as it is to have a rod to hang clothes, this one is just too high (7'-0) and I have to try and reach over the dryer to get to it. Because of the difficulty I don't use it and since all our doors are 8'0" tall, I can't hang anything in the door ways. I end up pushing clothes out of the way in the closet for something to dry there or I have to hang it on the shower rod in the hall bathroom. I'd rather have some additional open shelves where the rod is and add a drying rack to the other wall above the laundry sorter. This is one I found online that Brandon can easily make for me.

It pops back in place against the wall when not in use, so I think it's perfect. I also need to find a place to hang my ironing board and iron so that they aren't always in my bedroom or the living room.

Anyways, we'll see how fast this project goes and if we start in January. The first task, painting, is a doosie since it requires moving 3 large appliances! I think I need to pick the wall color soon so that I can be ready to paint as soon as I have 2 free hands and Brandon to move the appliances. I might need a babysitter for a day so that 2 free hands can become a reality! ;)

Flashback Friday: Honeymoon

2011-12-23T08:23:00.000-06:00

This is me and Brandon 10 1/2 years ago on our honeymoon! Look how young we were! It's not that we look young...we ARE young. I was 21 and he was 23! We dated for a year before getting engaged and were engaged for a year and a half. I think if we had it to do all over again, we would not be engaged for that long. We were waiting for Brandon to graduate so that only one of us would still be in school when we were married. (Who knew that 5 1/2 years out of 10, one of us would always be in school!)

Anyways, back to the picture - we went to Jamaica for our honeymoon to one of those all inclusive places. It was very nice and after the whole Tropical Storm Allison thing, it was nice to get away from everything. This is one of the restaurants we went to and one of the few pictures we have of the 2 of us together. (that's pretty much the story of our life - not too many picture of the 2 of us together) I remember being slightly scared when we left Houston because it was my first trip out of the state/country that I wasn't with my parents or other adults. Apparently at 21 (and married) I still didn't feel like an adult! ;)

It's fun to look at old pictures and see what you remember...the people, the atmosphere, the crazy things you buy (a basket full of sea shells!), the clothes...all of it is awesome. I think everyone should do this! Join me next Friday?

PS - Mackenzie just looked at the picture and asked, "is that you with long hair?" Yep...I'm not sure my hair has been that long since!

Christmas Miscellaney

2011-12-22T08:23:00.000-06:00

We've been busy these past 2 weeks doing several different Christmas activities. We made a reindeer hat the other day and Mackenzie insisted that we make a reindeer puppet to match our Turkey puppet.

I used a circle punch for the eyes, so she wanted to use the punch for the puppet as well. I guess this reindeer is a special polka dotted species of reindeer!

I had several different printouts for Mackenzie to work on periodically, so I copied an idea from my favorite website and put all of the sheets in sheet protectors and in a binder. This way she can use a dry erase maker and color/fraw as many times as she wants to!

We've also been doing the patterning ans size sort activities like we did in November, but this time we have two separate sets - one gingerbread people and the other the Nativity seen. Again, both printouts from my favorite website!

This past week we explored food crafts - yum! First we made the Christmas trees from sugar ice cream cones and green icing. It was messy, but very delicious! Of course you can't really go wrong with sugar!

Saturday we built our gingerbread house. At one point Brandon asked if I was making it or if Mackenzie was making it. My reply, "I ice, she decorates." I know I'm pretty particular when it comes to things like this, but I did ask her if she wanted to ice it ans she said no - I tried to let go. ;)

The house is complete!

The icing in the kits isn't that great - or maybe dispensing it from the plastic bag is the problem! Maybe next year I'll use my own icing with actual decorating tips. Remind me in a year to re-read this post prior to making the house!

The backside was really boring, so I added two M's for "Momma" and "Mackenzie".

I have a few more crafts I still want to do and time is running out! Hopefully we'll get to them, but if not, we'll do them next year!
Merry Christmas!

Funny stuff!

2011-12-21T08:00:00.000-06:00

It's time for my monthly update of Mackenzie's funny and cute stories! There are so many every day, but these are the ones I remember now.

1. We were catching up on our Advent Jesse tree the other day and I don't recall exactly what I asked her, but she told me, "God is in my heart" and put her hand on her chest. So adorable! Then on another advent devotional the symbol was a tree stump with a new branch. The stump represents Jesse and his family and the new branch represents Jesus. When I asked her if she knew what a tree stump was, she said "yes, a stump makes a house." When I said not really, she quickly informed me that it made Shrek's house! Why, yes I guess it does!

2. While walking around with just her pajama pants on she informed me that she was "daddy, but not furry." I laughed out loud and had to resist the urge not to call Brandon right then!

3. Some words are just hard to pronounce! Vanilla, Chocolate and Pretend were last week's challenge words. I only had to get her to repeat the words exactly as I said once and she said them correctly from then out, but they were previously pronounced like this:
va-illa
choc-lick
ba-tend
I'm glad she says them correctly now, but it was cute to hear her say "would you like va-illa or choc-lick cookie?"

4. Mackenzie talks gibberish a lot! She does it on purpose and knows she's making up words. When you ask her what it means, her response is always, "it means what can you do." I guess that's her way of saying that she's going to make up words all she wants and we can't do anything about it! ;)

5. Mackenzie walked up to me the other day and said she was a conductor. I couldn't tell she was doing anything other than stand there, but then I noticed she was pointing her big toes straight up. I didn't understand how this made her a conductor because I was thinking of a musical conductor. When I asked her why her toes were up she told me it was like Dinosaur train, a PBS cartoon. Below is a picture of "Mr. Conductor" - look at his big toes! Talk about attention to detail.

I'm loving being home 24/7 with her to hear all that she says - it makes my day, every day!

Tuesday with Tiny

2011-12-20T08:31:00.000-06:00

It's time to find out where Tiny, Our Elf on the Shelf, has been this past week. After missing another Friday night, Brandon decided to help me hide/position Tiny a couple of nights this past week.

Day 14 - he had trouble with the toilet paper!

Day 15 - hanging from the light fixture

Day 16 - making new friends with Emily and Abby and wishing he had more clothes to choose from!

Day 17 - I think Tiny sensed that I stayed up too late working on Christmas Cards and didn't want to disturb me to help him hide the night before! ;)

Day 18 - fishing in the bowl?

Day 19 - Mackenzie wanted nothing to do with Tiny's green milk!

Day 20 - taking a ride around the kitchen.

Tiny will only be here for 4 more mornings, so stay tuned for next week's final installment of Tuesday with Tiny!

Matching hats

2011-12-19T13:55:00.001-06:00

My aunt made the girls matching hats!

Eventually, I'll get their picture together! The yarn matches Mackenzie's scarf/gloves that Rhonda made her last winter. She'll be all decked out and ready to go...the next time another cold front blows through. I'm pretty sure hats and scarves are not appropriate in 71 degree weather!

Moving and Dancing!

2011-12-14T09:00:00.000-06:00

Mackenzie has been dancing a lot lately. Last week I got video of her "free style" dancing.

And yesterday morning, Meredith started pulling herself forward whenever I sat her down on the couch. We are now officially out of the phase where I can leave her alone on the couch!

Tuesday with Tiny

2011-12-12T20:55:00.000-06:00

It's time for another installment of Tuesday with Tiny. Let's see where this little rascal has been this week!

Day 7 - getting into trouble with the stickers.

Day 8 - taking it easy on the couch.

Day 9 - drawing a Christmas tree on the easel.

Day 10 - ~~I forgot~~...He was a little worn out from all of the traveling back and forth, so he stayed put on the counter and didn't hide.

Day 11 - playing on the computer.

Day 12 - deciding what movie to watch.

Day 13 - taking a nap in our weird hallway niche. At least it's being used for something! ;)

Girls' Christmas

2011-12-12T20:51:00.001-06:00

This past weekend my Aunt and cousin came in from Utah for a visit and to celebrate our "Girls' Christmas". For several years, me, my mom, my grandmother, aunt and cousin have had a small get together to exchange gifts before Christmas. Now, we've obviously added Mackenzie and Meredith to the tradition. We had a great time visiting, exchanging gifts, eating and of course, laughing. We do A LOT of laughing when we are all together!

I didn't take too many photos since I was too busy having fun, so it makes it look like it wasn't much fun, but it was.

Meredith received several handmade items (more on that later in the week), her first Christmas ornament, and other cute gifts. Mackenzie received a goodie bag full of craft activities to do leading up to Christmas, a cute elephant purse and many other wonderful gifts. I, too, received great gifts including a cookbook, notepads and kitchen stuff.

By far, this is one of Mackenzie's favorite gifts and it was just something my mom gave to her, not really as a Christmas gift, but just because. It's called a Merry-oke. It's a microphone that plays Christmas songs that you can sing along to (karaoke style). It also has a button that makes you sound like an elf when you talk into it. She really loves this microphone, but we are having to teach her that she doesn't have to yell into a microphone since it already amplifies her voice. She understands that concept...sometimes. ;)

After our gift exchange we ate yummy baked potato soup on my new Christmas dishes! Aren't they cute?

I have matching red, over sized cups that we used as bowls, too!

So, with less than 2 weeks to Christmas, all of my parties are officially over and now I can finish up my Christmas gifts! I only have a few handmade projects left! Woo Hoo!

Surprise Ball

2011-12-07T09:00:00.000-06:00

I'm always looking for new ways to give money as gifts. I've done the wadded up dollar bills, I've made origami boxes out of dollar bills, we've given money in a plastic maze toy that requires you to solve it first. This year, I came across the "Surprise Ball". Typically it holds tiny trinkets in the layers of paper, but I decided this was perfect to hide money in.

Supplies needed:
1. trinkets or in my case money - Brandon got $2 bills and dollar coins for us to wrap up.
2. crepe paper - I had plenty of left over streamers from Mackenzie's 3 birthday parties.
3. scissors - the crepe paper needs to be cut in strips
4. tape - I only used this for the first and final strips

First, cut the crepe paper into strips - I made them about two feet long. Then cut the strips lengthwise to make thinner strips. I was going to skip this step originally, but it doesn't wrap well into a small ball when it's that wide. I made sure I had a strip of each color for every coin or bill I had, plus extra for the outside finished product.

Start with a center item - I put 5 of the coins together to create the center of the ball.

Then continue wrapping the strips of paper to form the ball. I had six different colors, so after one round of all the colors, I would add a coin or bill.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Once complete, decorate the outside however you like it. I kept mine simple since they were going to 7 and 14 year old boys!

This is the start of unwrapping the surprise ball.

I think they thought it was fun even if it did take a while to unwrap. Since money fell out every 6 strips of paper, it helped them stay interested in opening the ball.

The finished pile of scraps!

This was fairly easy to do, so I will definitely be doing this again in the future.

Tuesday with Tiny

2011-12-06T09:01:00.001-06:00

I thought for the month of December we'd follow Tiny, our resident "elf on the shelf." Brandon thinks I'm obsessed because every night I set Tiny in his new position and maybe I am, but I don't care! This year, because of pinterest, I've been more creative with his hiding spots. Although, I guess he's not really hiding since he's usually at her level out in the open. So with out further ado, let's see what Tiny's been up to since his arrival last week.


Day 1 - He arrives!

Day 2 - Tiny trying to get into the pantry. Too bad it's one of the few doors in the house with a safety lock!

Day 3 - Sitting in Mackenzie's chair reading The Night before Christmas.

Day 4 - playing video games on the couch.

Day 5 - Taking a shower (or maybe "took" a shower).

Day 6 - Chatting with the princesses in the doll house.

Stay tuned next week to see what else Tiny does!

Let the Christmases begin!

2011-12-05T08:15:00.001-06:00

This past weekend we celebrated Christmas at my parents' house with my brother and stepsisters and all of the grandchildren. Again, since we all have other places we go on Christmas Day, it's easier for all of us to get together on another day to celebrate Christmas. We had a lot of fun, as usual. The kids loved all of their gifts. One of Mackenzie's favorites was this puppy dog that barks and wags his tail.

We've also played this game several times.

The rubber ducks move around the "board" and one at a time you pick up a duck and see if the shape on the bottom matches the one you are looking for. She really likes it and has already learned to follow the duck she needs if she saw that you just had it and put it back. Meredith received quite a few clothes! Yay, now she won't have to wear hand-me-downs all the time! ;)

The guys gifts from my parents were gift cards and the girls gifts were chinchilla scarfs from my parents' trip to Alaska this past year. All of us girls put them on and didn't take them off for a while. They are sooo soft!

It's hanging in the coat closet with my coats and I'm hoping to get to use it soon since it's finally cold again. I think it's funny that I have 3 coats, 5 scarfs, 4 pairs of gloves and 2 hats for the winter! Um...yeah...it's cold in Houston for about 2 months and even then, the coldest it gets is in the 30's during the day time. I have more hats than I do swim suits! You would think it would be the other way around!

anyways, back to Christmas...the older grandchildren got money I think from everyone. My sister and brother had fun hiding the money in a special way and I did too (more on that later this week). There was also a bit of rough housing with my nephew James, but it's pretty much what happened at the last two family functions.

Our final activity was Christmas bingo using M&M's as markers. I'm pretty sure more M&M's were eaten than used to play!

So that was our first Christmas function. Next up is the "Girls Christmas" this weekend with my mom, Granny and Aunt and cousin from Utah. Yay!

Thanksgiving Part II

2011-12-04T15:26:00.000-06:00

It occurred to me the other day that I never posted about Thanksgiving Day. Shame on me! So even though it's December and the Christmas tree is up, I'm going to backtrack a little.

We had Thanksgiving at our house this year. Since it's only my grandparents, parents, brother and sister-in-law, and my father-in-law we were able to host everyone. It was nice not to have to travel anywhere and since most of the family showed up an hour before lunch, they helped with the remaining food and decorating the tables! I love the women in my family!

I think it's funny that Brandon, my dad and my brother were the ones who volunteered to sit with Mackenzie at the kitchen table. Mackenzie said she didn't like turkey, so we told her the meat was chicken and she ate it. When I was taking pictures, my brother was already giving her a hard time and generally trying to mess with her. It's what he does best and she loves it even though she may act like she doesn't.

The rest of us sat in the dining room and ate the wonderful meal of turkey (aka chicken), dressing, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, dirty corn, deviled eggs and bread!

For dessert we had all of these:

There were only 10 of us and we had 2 pies (I made Derby pie and a Cranberry Cheesecake pie), cranberry bark, pumpkin spice cookies and little chocolate acorns!

It was a great Thanksgiving - one of my favorite things - we kept all of the left overs! Since my parents and brother/sister-in-law were heading out of town, they left the food with us! It was soooo yummy! We finished most of it off pretty quickly, but I used the remainder of the turkey to make P-dubs Turkey Tetrazinni - soooo good. Again, we told Mackenzie this was chicken spaghetti and she ate it all week for dinner. Maybe next year we'll tell her it's turkey! ;)

3 months

2011-12-03T08:00:00.000-06:00

Another month has passed and Meredith is now 3 months old!

At three months, Meredith...
...is eating (5) 6 or 7oz bottles a day.
...is laughing a little more every day.
...sleeps in her crib for most of the night and sometimes all night!
...has really found her voice and is talking/yelling more. She even started squealing in the last 2 days.
...still has blue eyes, so maybe they'll stay blue.
...has done well in church and all of the other places we've gone. Maybe going out to eat at a restaurant will be in our near future! ;)

Below is the past 3 month photos in a line and also the comparison 3 month photo of Mackenzie and Meredith.

Flashback Friday: Washington DC

2011-12-02T09:00:00.000-06:00

This is me (right) and 2 of my friends in Washington DC in January 1997 for the presidential inauguration. Looking back at this picture makes me laugh because we were 17 (I was actually still 16) and we were sitting alone on the streets of Washington DC! We went with our school and I'd say 90% of the time we were with chaperons, but since this was inauguration day, we had a free day to do what ever we wanted to. We rode the subway to the Capital and found a curb to sit and wait 2 or 3 hours before the inauguration began.

I don't recall ever feeling nervous or worried about what might happen to the 4 of us teenagers walking the streets alone. I don't know if it's because we were young and oblivious to what might happen or it was just 15 years ago and it was "a different world, back then". Who knows, but I am very glad my parents allowed me to go because I learned a lot that week we were there. It wasn't just politics that I learned about (we had political classes for 4 out of the 7 days), I was given a lesson in responsibility and independence that helped me to make me who I am today.

I hope that I can do the same for my girls and remember to have an open mind when they come to me in High School and ask to go to places like Washington DC and Singapore, like my parents did.

Look who came to town!

2011-12-01T12:11:00.001-06:00

When I saw the idea on Pinterest, I knew it needed to become a family tradition - the North Pole Breakfast!

Tiny, our elf on the shelf arrived last night and brought us "snow donuts" and chocolate milk!

Since he doesn't talk to us, he left us a note...

and a coloring book.

This was Mackenzie's first taste of powdered donuts and her first reaction was to spit it out, but I made her chew and swallow. Once she saw me eat them, she took another bite and has eaten 4 total this morning!

While we ate our breakfast, I read the elf on the shelf book to remind her what he does. I'm really excited about the places he'll be hiding this year...again, thanks to pinterest.

By the way, in case you didn't know...only 24 days until Christmas!

Laughing

2011-11-30T12:56:00.001-06:00

Meredith is starting to laugh and I, of course, think it is so cute! The video is probably more for the grandmothers and aunts, but every one else might like it too.

Girls' portraits

2011-11-28T13:53:00.001-06:00

Today I took the girls to have their pictures taken. I was going for pictures in their matching Christmas dresses, but I also took a change of clothes for some casual pictures. Meredith had a break down between the two sittings, but we were able to calm her down long enough to get some good photos. I was able to review the pictures right there and by the time we finished eating at Chick-fil-A, the pictures were ready to be picked up.

They took 104 pictures and most of them were pretty good, so it took me a little bit to narrow down the selection. These are my favorite:

The last time I had pictures taken of Mackenzie that weren't my own was when she was 1 year old. Hopefully, I'll have pictures taken more often than every 2 years. And maybe next time, Brandon and I will be in the pictures too! ;)

Friday Flashback: Me and chubbs

2011-11-25T09:00:00.000-06:00

This is me holding our family dog, Chubbs when he was a baby. I think I'm 19 years old and I'm 99% sure this is the first time I had ever held a dog! It's also probably one of the few times I;ve ever held any animal - including Chubbs. Notice that I'm still not really holding him in my lap. ;) Animals just aren't my thing - sorry to all of the animal lovers I know. If I've come to your house and didn't really act excited to see your pet, it's not that I don't like your pet, it's just that I don't really like pets in general. I'll pet them and I'll think they are cute, but I can guarantee that I won't pick them up. Again, it's just not my thing.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T09:00:00.000-06:00

On this day to give thanks, I am so thankful for my wonderful husband, the little girl with the contagious smile above and this little girl with the adorable smile below.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Good Friend

2011-11-23T09:00:00.000-06:00

I am still friends with my last college roommate. In the 10 years since we were roommates, we've occasionally gone to the same church, been to each other's homes a few times and generally kept in touch. Teresa and I have a lot in common - not only did we get married in the same summer, our oldest daughters are 3 months apart and our youngest daughters are one week apart! We apparently keep right on schedule with each other. In some ways we are similar and in others we are not, but I think that's what makes the friendship work. I don't recall us ever fighting in the year that we lived together (which is saying something when young girls live together!) and although we haven't talked to each other constantly in the last 10 years, we've always been able to pick right back up in our friendship.

After not talking too much while we were pregnant this past year, we finally "re-connected" after Meredith and Macy were born. You should have seen the looks we got when we both took the girls to whataburger a month ago after library hour! We had to take turns holding the crying babies and ordering our food and preparing the drinks for Mackenzie and Lyla. We learned that we might not do that with just the two of us anytime soon! That is actually what triggered the play dates at each other's houses! This past week, the girls came to our house and Mackenzie and Lyla had so much fun playing outside in the beautiful weather. Teresa and I also had fun just sitting and talking while the little girls slept in our arms. They have a pool and we have a playground, so between the two houses, we should never be lacking an activity to do all year round for the girls!

It's so nice to be able to talk to a friend who is going through the exact same stage in life as you are. Are you sleeping through the night? How do you punish the older child? What do you do at nap time? How are you losing the baby weight? It's great to have a few hours to talk to a friend who knows a lot about you and that you feel at ease with. I'm looking forward to many more play dates!

Thanksgiving...Part 1

2011-11-22T09:00:00.000-06:00

Saturday we had thanksgiving with my step sisters and my grandma. Because all of us always have another "half" of the family to see on the holidays, we always celebrate on another day.

The food was awesome - turkey, dressing, potatoes, mac n' cheese, brocolli casserole, dirty corn, green bean bundles and there were probably a couple of other items that I didn't eat since I don't really care for vegetables. But, I'm sure they were good as well! ;) As is tradition, we divided the girls and guys. My 7 year old nephew tried to sit with us girls, but my sisters (including his mom) and I kicked him out. Is that bad? ;)

Dessert was also great - cheesecake, mississippi mud, and these little turkeys that took me way too long to make!

Actually, they didn't take that long , it's just one of those treats that takes so much longer to make than it does to disassemble and eat. Plus, oreos get soft after they've sat out, so they aren't as good as they could be. Oh, well...they were cute!

It was fun to have so many little kids around - 4 kids, age 3 and under! Next year will be even more fun when Meredith is walking around with Mackenzie and the twins.

One Thanksgiving down, one more to go! Yum!

Because I can't resist

2011-11-21T13:55:00.001-06:00

I just can't resist doing comparison photos of the girls! Since they are both girls and were born in the same season and are doing and wearing the same things except 3 years apart, it just seems natural to me to put the photos side by side.

It's bumbo seat time! I couldn't get Meredith to look at the photo, so this comparison is mainly for size. Meredith is much bigger and cannot even fit in the pajamas Mackenzie is wearing!

Remember this post about the bunny outfit? Now both girls can complain when they are older! ;)

I love taking pictures at tummy time because at least it looks like they are doing something different than just laying on their backs like in all the other pictures. But, apparently I had to go all the way to Mackenzie's 6 month to find a tummy time photo!

In the picture above, I think their nose looks the same and maybe the shape of their eyes, but I still don't see a lot of similarities even though several people have told me they do. Is it just me that doesn't see it?

Friday Flasback: bumbo seat

2011-11-18T10:55:00.001-06:00

The Friday Flashbacks are back! Please try to control your excitement! ;)

I had another image I was going to use today, but yesterday we pulled out the bumbo seat for Meredith to sit in and Mackenzie decided she needed to sit in it also. I couldn't help but do a side by side of her 3 years ago (almost exactly).

Mackenzie now loves the bumbo seat again! Yesterday she sat in it while watching tv in her playroom and then this morning she put it on the couch and was sitting in it. You wouldn't think that would be one of the things Meredith would have to share with Mackenzie!

Crafts & Pre-school

2011-11-17T12:13:00.001-06:00

This morning closely resembled a preschool vision I've had since I decided to stay home. We didn't do everything I want to do on a daily basis, but it was still a good morning and hopefully this will be the beginning of a new schedule. At the beginning of the month, I made a list of all the fall/Thanksgiving crafts I wanted to do this month (about 2 a week) and up until this morning, we had only done 2! So, this morning we started with 2 crafts! First we made a turkey puppet that I saw online somewhere. I like that the "feathers" are her hand prints, so I'll need to keep it as a keepsake for her hand at age 3. Since cutting out the hand prints was time consuming, I had her count the hands as I cut them out and match which hand went with each hand print. Then she got to do her favorite part - glue!

Next, we made a turkey hat. At first, she didn't like that I wrapped a piece of construction paper around her head, but she got over it when she realized what we were making. I pulled out craft feathers to glue on the construction paper feathers, but I forgot to give them to her. Again, I found this online also and I think it turned out real cute.

Shortly after that, I pulled out some of my printouts I found at my favorite website 1+1+1=1. She has an entire Thanksgiving pack and I selected a few of the activities to do with Mackenzie. First, we put the "Mayflower" in order from biggest to smallest. Since this was my first time to sort by size with her, we started with all of the pictures on the floor and I would ask her to put the "biggest" mayflower on the coffee table. After she did that, then I would ask her again to put the "biggest" mayflower on the table. This continued until all 6 were on the table in size order. We did this several times and discussed that the images went from biggest to smallest. I think tomorrow or next week we might just see if she can do it on her own without me asking her 6 times, although she liked the repetitive question. She waited for me to ask the question and even told me to ask the question one time when I was waiting to see if she would do it on her own.

After size sorting we worked on patterning (from the same Thanksgiving pack). We did AB patterns starting with the pilgrim and then again with the indian. When she did so well with those, I decided to try AAB patterns and she did great again! We'll definitely be doing this again and with other things in the house. I downloaded a patterning app for the ipad last week, so maybe I can show it to her and she'll be able to practice with even more images.

This afternoon, after nap time, maybe we'll paint. I've had 2 corn cobs waiting to be shucked and used for painting sitting in my fridge for the last week! I'm thinking we also might use the husks to make little dolls...I might be a little over ambitious. It might be a pumpkin carving all over again!

Story Time and Ladies Bible Class

2011-11-16T16:01:00.001-06:00

Yesterday as soon as the rain stopped, I loaded up the girls and we went to "Story time" at a nearby library. We went a few weeks ago with friends of ours who have gone every week for over a year and their oldest daughter loves it. You may recall that Mackenzie did not. Since that particular story time was for children 18 months to 3 years, I thought Mackenzie (and I) would like the one for 3-6 year olds much better. I have to say that it was a little less noisy, but I just wasn't feeling it. The librarian was good and the books were good, but Mackenzie and I just kind of sat there vaguely listening. We do, however. like the library and came home with another 10 books! We now have 2 library cards for 2 different libraries in our area! My goal is to never check out books from the different libraries at the same time. The other library, which is actually closer, has a library hour tomorrow that I'm considering going to, to see what it's like. I guess I'll decide tomorrow whether we'll go or not. It all depends on how are morning goes! I'm also not sure if we should go again to get Mackenzie more into it or if we call it quits and say that story time just isn't our thing.

In other news, we've made it to Ladies bible class the last 2 weeks and have really enjoyed getting out of the house and visiting with other ladies. Afterwards, several of us ladies (and kids) go out to lunch. Last week there were 9 ladies and 14 kids (6 under 8 months) all at Chick-fil-A. This week there were 7 ladies and 17 kids (5 under 7 month) at CiCi's Pizza! It's madness, but I love it! Everyone helps everyone out and we all get to visit and have adult conversation. It's so nice. ;)

A little behind

2011-11-15T09:00:00.000-06:00

When I bought Meredith's baby book, I realized I was a little behind in updating Mackenzie's baby book. I was missing quite a few pictures and hadn't updated the second birthday page. Now that she's 3, I figure I really need to update it! About a month ago I made a list of all the pictures and or information I needed for both baby books and ordered my prints of my pictures.

Now that my pictures are here (they actually arrived several weeks ago), I can update the girls baby books.

There's a catch...I need two free hands! Maybe I can work on it this afternoon at nap time or tonight while everyone is asleep. I have a feeling the 9-11pm hours will be my most productive hours during the day!

Cleaning and excuses

2011-11-14T12:00:00.000-06:00

When I worked, I always had an excuse for why I didn't get around to cleaning on the weekend. Too much laundry, too much cooking, too tired and just plain not enough time. I always told myself, that if/when I stayed home I would be able to keep the house sooo clean! I know some of you are laughing right now. ;)

I just doesn't happen like I thought it would. Granted, I have a 2 month old to care for and about 1.2 to 3/4 of my day is spent holding her. This limits your abilities to do a lot of thing. Even in the sling, I still can't iron, cook, clean tubs, change sheets...

However, there are times when I do have hands free and/or both girls are taking naps and I still don't use my time wisely and clean. Hmm...I don't think my old excuse were ever a problem...I think I'm the problem! Looks like I better go clean. :(

Outside fun, dirt, "freak out"

2011-11-13T15:23:00.001-06:00

Last week, Mackenzie and I played in the backyard one morning. Actually, Mackenzie played and I sat most of the time, in a chair holding Meredith while she slept. We stayed outside for about an hour and a half and she was so dirty, we went straight in for a bath at 10:30 in the morning! I learned the following 3 things that day:

1. Never underestimate the amount of dirt that can build up in a plastic tunnel. She was fairly clean until she went into the tunnel.

2. She listens and understands everything I say. I was pushing her in the swing and we were talking about bugs and animals, when she informed me that, "she doesn't freak out at spiders and butterflies." I may have told her once or twice (or one hundred times) not to "freak out". Some parents say, "relax", I say "don't freak out." Potato, potato. ;)

3. She loves to pose for the camera. In the following pictures she made me take a picture for each pose. She wouldn't change positions until she heard the camera click. I'm kind of OK with that since she actually let me take quite a few pictures in a row before asking to see the pictures on the camera.

Meanwhile, Meredith just hung out in the sling while I took pictures! So nice!

Backyard help

2011-11-11T09:00:00.000-06:00

After a 13 months in our house and a horrible drought, our backyard plants are not looking too great. I figure maybe if I start thinking about what kind of plants I'd like to have, then I'll be prepared for the Spring. These are my current flower beds:

Around the house...

At the fence:

The flower beds in the back corner actually have a few flowers:

I'm not sure exactly what kind of flowers/plants I want, but I will say that I need durable plants that don't need a lot of work and care. I'd like to say that now that I'll be home, I could tend to the plants, but why pretend...I won't do that even if I had the perfect weather and all the time in the world! That's just not something I like to do, so no matter the optimum conditions, I know I won't work in the yard. The good thing, I think, is that the plants along the house all face north so they shouldn't be getting in harsh sun light, which hopefully leaves a lot of options for plant selection.

Any recommendations?

45 days!

2011-11-10T15:52:00.001-06:00

Did you know that there only 45 days until Christmas?! I'm trying to plan for Thanksgiving, but all I keep thinking about is what I'm doing for the Christmas and the entire month of december! We kick off the my family Christmas with my step sisters on December 3rd. Luckily we only buy for the kids, so I only have to get 4 gifts ready for that one, but still it only gets busier from there!

North Pole Breakfast - Pinterest idea for the Elf on the Shr=elf's arrival
Hiding places for the Elf
Ladies Bible Class Lunch and ornament exchange
Christmas crafts with Mackenzie
Girls' Christmas - all the girls on my mom's side of the family at our house to exchange gifts
Brandon's work Christmas party
Brandon's family Christmas - our house
Christmas Day - church and then lunch/gift exchange

Those are just the activities that I know about right now. It doesn't include decorating the house, buying gifts, making gifts, delivering goodie baskets, taking pictures of the girls and making Christmas cards! It's going to be a crazy 45 days, but I know I'm going to LOVE every minute of it! I love Christmastime and this year I will actually have more time to do all that I want to do!

gibberish

2011-11-09T12:54:00.000-06:00

I have heard that some twins at a young age will have their own language that no one understands. Mackenzie is obviously not a twin, but for the last 2 days she's been chanting/singing gibberish. we have no idea what she is saying or what it's meaning is. It's definitely something she does when she's feeling goofy because almost every time she has sung it, she was dancing around the living room too. Although, as I type this, she's saying it to herself in her playroom while she draws! When I ask her about it, she says it's a game. I'm pretty sure it's just something she made up, since she normally speaks clearly enough for most people to understand. I was able to get on video, if you care to listen.

So Glad

2011-11-08T09:00:00.000-06:00

If I hadn't decided to stay home with the girls, I would be returning to work in 2 short weeks! I cannot imagine having to go back to work soooo soon. I know if I was returning, I would have a different mind set because I would have been counting down a long time ago, but to have to go back when Meredith is only 12 weeks would not be fun! I remember taking Mackenzie to school for the first time and I'm just so glad I won't have to feel those emotions for several more years with Meredith! ;)

So, instead of returning to the office to work, I went for a visit last week. The 3 of us visited with all of my former co-workers and had a good visit. They were even nice enough to entertain Mackenzie with highlighters, paper and other office supplies while I chatted with my former principal. We stayed for an hour and half and Mackenzie came home with yellow and pink highlighted hands, a belly full of candy and a bag full of random stuff from the office! And I came home having had an hour and a half of adult conversation! ;)

Of course, I had to dress Mackenzie and Meredith up in order to show them off! ;)

Now, here are additional picture of Meredith. The headbands are growing on me!

Visiting Granny & Papa

2011-11-07T12:55:00.001-06:00

Saturday, Meredith rode in her first of many trips to my grandparents house. It's the longest drive she's been in to date - 1 hour one way. With the exception of the first 5 minutes and last 10 minutes, she did great. Those times were when we were not on the freeway and she does not like to be in her car seat if the car is not moving constantly. Rural roads are not our friends right now. ;)

We all had a great time. Of course, Mackenzie had to feed the fish, again.

Meredith enjoyed being held by Granny and Papa.

And I enjoyed having 2 arms free! I never really had that when Mackenzie was little (under 18 months). Mackenzie was super, super shy even with my own family, so I started going to visit them once a month when she was about 18 month to help with familiarity and lessen the "warm up" time with everyone. The visits and the fact that she's older has definitely helped since she has no problem running to them and saying hello - no more warm up time! Meredith is already so much better with people and can be held and settled fairly easily by others. I know it seems like that would be a given since she's only 2 months old, but Mackenzie had issues with other people even at 2 and 3 months old, so this is great for me.

I'm so excited that I'm home with the girls, now and we can go visit Granny and Papa whenever we want and not just on weekends. Here's to many more trips to Granny & Papa's!

Like Father, Like Daughter

2011-11-06T17:26:00.002-06:00

Today after church, Brandon turned on "This Old House" on TV to watch while we ate lunch and to our surprise Mackenzie was glued to the TV and almost watched the entire episode. At one point, they were installing pink batt insulation and when we asked her if she liked "Daddy's show" she said, "yes, they are building. Building a pink house." Later, when they were installing foam insulation around the windows, she said, "I do that when I am big and build a pink house."

Maybe for Christmas she needs a toy tool set rather than another set of dolls or dress up clothes! ;)

333+123

2011-11-05T08:00:00.000-05:00

A few months after Mackenzie was born, I started sorting all of my photos of Mackenzie (and now Meredith) by the month they were taken, so that I can find them easier. At the end of every month I upload my favorite pictures from the month to Kodak Gallery online and order prints. I do this so that if I ever lose my pictures on the computer, I will at least of hard copies of my favorites, plus the digital images are stored online.

Since I decided to take at least one picture every day for my 365 project, I took a lot of pictures in the month of October! I reviewed my October pictures on Thursday so I could upload to the internet and was surprised to find that I had taken 333 photos! Plus, I had a separate folder for Mackenzie's birthday party and it had 123 photos! Wow - no wonder Mackenzie started telling me not to take her picture! ;) It's a good thing we have digital cameras now and all of these photos don't cost me a thing! Of course if I was using film, I probably wouldn't be so haphazard with my photo taking.

I looked back at my other folders and most months I have anywhere from 75 to 125 photos with the occasional lower or high count. There are only a couple of months in the last 3 years that I've even come close to 333 + 123. I'm not sure if this large number of photos is good or bad, but I'm going to continue my 365 project, so if I have 400+ pictures this month, then so be it!

Does anyone else take that many photos? Do you still print hard copies?

Deep Cleaning Schedule

2011-11-04T08:00:00.000-05:00

I found this "Deep Cleaning" schedule on Pinterest a couple of weeks ago and really like the idea.

I like most of the topics, but I think I need to combine/change some of the areas in order to encompass all areas of my house. I also rearranged the timeline, because I think some tasks are better suited in other months due to the holidays.

Jan:   Laundry/Pantry (reorganize after holiday cooking/baking/entertaining is finished)
Feb: Blinds/Curtains
Mar: Ceiling fans (before they come back on for the summer) & Light fixtures
Apr: Windows (while it's still cool outside)
May: Baseboards/moulding
Jun:   carpet & floors
Jul:    Furniture/Built-ins/Bookshelves
Aug: Bedrooms (clear out before girls' birthdays and holidays)
Sep:   Air Vents
Oct:   Closets (prepare for storage of Christmas gifts)
Nov: Kitchen/Butler's Pantry (prepare for holiday cooking/baking)
Dec: Bathrooms (prepare for holiday parties/guests)

So, what do you think? Do any of you have a schedule like this? Does it work? Do you think it needs to happen more often? Do you think certain areas should be in other months?

I actually cleaned out my closet and one of the hall closets last week, so I did a partial deep cleaning. But, now I better move on to the kitchen. After moving all of the baby bottles/utensils back into the kitchen when Meredith was born, I have some major reorganizing that needs to happen! I'd like to say if I do just a cabinet a day it won't take so long, but we all know that you can't just organize one cabinet without doing the rest that day! Inevitably, there is always something that should move to another area and then when you put it in that cabinet, you look at it and find something else that needs to move to another cabinet, and it just keeps repeating until you wind up with all of your cabinet doors open and everything out on the floor and counter tops! I think I'm going to have to tackle this project when Brandon is home on the weekends or during nap times if I can get both girls to sleep at the same time and in another room just in case I make a lot of noise like dropping all of the Tupperware from the upper cabinet. ;)

DVD's at 3am

2011-11-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

When my mom stayed here at the house the first week we were home with Meredith, she mostly stayed up with her and fed her the midnight and 3 am feedings. When I would see how they were doing in the morning, I would almost always find Meredith laying on the bed next to my mom half covered with the duvet. My mom would swaddle her and then pull the duvet to about her waist/chest to provide the extra weight and comfort Meredith needed to sleep soundly. Meredith still sleeps this way with me in the guest bedroom.

When my mom went back home after a week, I essentially moved into the guest bedroom at night. Our guest bedroom is away from the other bedrooms in the house and has it's own bathroom, so I can "camp out" in there at night with Meredith and not disturb Brandon and Mackenzie as much as I would if in the master bedroom or living room. We set up the pack n play off to the side so that I could have a changing table, so it's perfect for all things baby during the night. Another selling point for this room is the tv with built in dvd player. My mom also pointed out that I should watch dvd's or cable while feeding Meredith in the middle of the night, since it was taking about 1 to 1 1/2 hours to feed her in the beginning. In the 7 weeks I've been sleeping in the bedroom with her, I have watched all 10 seasons of friends, a couple of Doris Day movies, Pride and Prejudice and season 1 of the Cosby Show! Since we don't have cable, we had gotten out of the habit of watching a lot of TV and so I've really enjoyed watching movies and tv shows in the middle of the night.

As much as I like watching theses shows, I'm looking forward to not having to watch them at 2 and 3 in the morning. Actually, for the last week, Meredith has been going to sleep around 10:00 or 10:30 and not waking up for her next bottle until 5:00 or 6:00am! She will stir a little at 1 or 2, but doesn't wake up crying and wanting to be fed. I can usually just pat her a little or give her the pacifier and she goes back to sleep. I think tonight I'm going to see what happens if I don't do anything when she stirs and see if she can put herself back to sleep. For all I know, I'm waking her up by sleeping next to her and snoring or rolling over. If she can put herself back to sleep, then I'm moving back to my own bed and she can move to hers! Here's to a full night's sleep and no late night tv watching!

Trick or Treat

2011-11-02T08:00:00.000-05:00

I feel like Monday/Halloween was kind of a crazy day, but when I think about what we did, it wasn't really that bad. Meredith was cranky most of the morning with the exception of when I carved the pumpkin. It's like she knew I wouldn't be able to hold her, so she slept in her swing. Meredith also had her 2 month appointment at 1:30 in the afternoon, so we didn't get back to the house until about 2:30. That means Mackenzie didn't take her nap until about 3:00 and she slept until 6:00 when Brandon got home. I think the doctor's visit might have been the part that felt crazy. It's not that it was a bad visit, it's just that I'm still getting used to getting out with 2 kids. I feel like it takes a lot of preparation and coordination to get out of the door with everything.

Anyways, the trick or treaters started showing up shortly after 6 while we were eating dinner. Once we all ate, Brandon took Mackenzie out to trick or treat while I stayed home with Meredith. Since she had her shots earlier that day, she had been cranky all afternoon and had finally fallen asleep during dinner. I passed out candy while sitting on the front porch (and didn't get eaten by too many mosquitos) until Brandon and Mackenzie came home. Meredith continued to sleep all though the evening even with the door bell constantly ringing right over her head. Because she was sleeping, I didn't get any pictures of her in her costume until yesterday when she was feeling much better.

Mackenzie got enough candy just trick or treating on our block. Since her and Brandon love all the candy that is pure sugar, I've been stealing the chocolate!I let Mackenzie eat quite a few pieces of candy when she got home and because she had such a late and long nap she didn't go to bed until 9:00 or 9:15. Before bed we read all of the Halloween/pumpkin books we could find - about 7 - so she had a much longer reading time before bed than usual. I'm thinking I'm going to put those books on a higher shelf and save them for next year so that they can be a little more special when she only gets to read them one month out of the year.

So, the girls Halloween pictures below are from different days, but oh well. Back in September we took Mackenzie to the store for her to choose her costume for Halloween and she chose cookie monster!

Meredith is wearing Mackenzie's first costume that she hated! Fortunately, Meredith didn't mind it so much in the 5 minutes she wore it while I took pictures!

Carving a pumpkin with a 3 year old

2011-11-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

Originally we were going to carve a pumpkin on Friday. Then we were going to do it on Saturday. Then Sunday. Finally, we carved the pumpkin on Monday morning. Nothing like waiting until the last minute!

I got everything ready and then had Mackenzie sit at the table while I drew the face on the pumpkin. At this point she was really excited about carving the pumpkin.

When I cut the top off, she was a little less interested.

When I asked her if she wanted to put her hand in the pumpkin, I got this response.

She didn't want to get her hand dirty. Instead she got down from her chair and played on the iPad! Oh, well...I tried. So, it ended up being only me carving the pumpkin. I think it turned out ok.

Although the carving didn't work out, she did enjoy painting the 6 other small pumpkins we bought.

Maybe next year she'll participate in cleaning out the pumpkin. Then again, we might just stick to painting!

2 months

2011-10-31T15:34:00.001-05:00

Meredith is 2 months old and so we had her 2 month check up at the doctor today. Her stats are as follows:

Weight - 12 lb 4.5 oz - 84%
Height - 24" - 95%
Head circumference - 15.98" - 89%

So she is still a big girl and grew another inch since last month's check up! Here's hoping she will be able to stick with Mackenzie's clothes through out the seasons.

At two months, Meredith...
...is eating (5) 5 or 6 oz bottles a day.
...is starting to get her hair back after losing the baby hair last month.
...smiles when Brandon and I talk to her.
...has slept for 7-8 hours straight the past 4 nights!
...likes the musical star on her play mat.
...still has dark blue eyes, but they appear to be getting a little lighter and possibly hazel in color.
...is a pretty good traveler in her car seat during the outings we've recently had.

Here is the comparison of the girls at 2 months. I think next month will be easier to compare because I stopped using the boppy pillow to prop up Mackenzie.

Responsibility and Chore Chart

2011-10-30T12:00:00.000-05:00

I had been planning to create a daily chart for Mackenzie in order to help both of us get up and ready every day. Since I've been home with Meredith, we've probably had more "pajama days" than I've ever had in my life. I feel bad when the day gets away from me and not only did I not get dressed for the day, but neither did Mackenzie. I thought a daily chart might help us along with other daily "chores" Mackenzie needed to start doing. Fortunately for us, friends of ours stopped by on Monday and brought Mackenzie her birthday present:

A chore chart! You can change out the chores/responsibilities as needed, so we'll be able to use it for years. The only chores she has are making her bed and putting away her toys. All others are just daily things we need to do. As you can see, Thursday was still a pajama day, but one a week can't hurt! ;) And we are still working on the "not whining", but that will probably take years! ;) Actually, it's not so much whining as it is throwing fits when she hears something she doesn't like. I think its just her age, but we still need to rein in the fits and attitude. "no whining" was the best description on the chart.

Activity Mats

2011-10-29T09:00:00.000-05:00

For Mackenzie's birthday, she received activity mats for us to use inside when we can't go out. Yesterday I pulled them out for fun to see what she/we could do. There are 15 total mats and have activities like jumping jacks, balancing, toe touches, hopping and crab crawl.

We tried all of the activities and she knew how to do most of them but had a little difficulty with the crab walk, jumping jacks and balancing (standing on one foot). I think she had difficulty because she kept trying to match the picture which looked like the boy had his foot really high behind him.

She also tried to match the feet on the skipping rather than actually skipping. ;) I think next time, I'll place them throughout the house and we'll just follow them all around the house to get even more exercise!

Halloween Cards

2011-10-28T12:38:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week my mom sent Halloween cards to me, Mackenzie and Meredith. Meredith's card has a pumpkin on the front. Mackenzie's has a one-eyed monster and mine has witch feet. Mackenzie loves all 3 of them so I put them in her playroom on her shelf for her to look at whenever she wanted. This morning she made me laugh when she said the following while pointing to each card:

"Meredith is a pumpkin,"

"Mackenzie is a monster,"

"And momma is a girl."

I informed her that those were witch shoes, but I didn't really like it when she said, "Oh, momma is a witch." :(

Books to read

2011-10-26T13:51:00.002-05:00

I've said this before - I like to read. I don't always have time to read (especially now), but I do like to read. I also like to collect books - specifically free books on the nook and iPad. Combine those with the books I've bought over the years and never read and I've got quite a collection of books waiting to be read.

A couple of weeks ago, in an effort to get organized while stuck here in the house, I made a list of every book on my shelves and on my nook that I hadn't read. If that's not dorky enough, I then categorized them by genre and then numbered them in the order that I wanted to read them, being sure to alternate between hard copy and nook book. Did I mention I did this in an excel spread sheet and also printed the final list? yeah, I know...I'm crazy.

With that said, I have 74 books waiting to be read! The genres include non-fiction, classics, history, christian (fiction and non-fiction), and biographies. The first few on my list are:

1. Mere Christianity - I was already half way through this book when I made the list, but since I stopped reading it after Meredith was born, I put it on the list so I would finish it.

2. Elizabeth: the life of Elizabeth Taylor - I've had this book for several years and had just forgotten to read it.

3. Gap Creek - this book was a freebie for my nook. My mom read it probably 8 years ago and really liked it, so I have high hopes.

The reality of me actually going down the list in the "correct order" is probably non-existent. In fact, I've already gone out of order. I skipped finishing Mere Christianity because it there is too much thinking required when reading the book. With a 3 year old and 2 month old, I need something light and easy to read and pick up where ever I left off. I started reading Gap Creek the week after I made the list, but haven't read very much more since. It's not that I don't like it, it's just I haven't had a lot of free time where I felt like reading. Maybe soon.

My goal for the remainder of the year - to read all 3 of the above books. My goal of 3 books in 2 months is quite a change from January and February when I read 7 books in those two months. But then again, my life has had quite a change since January and February!

New favorite

2011-10-25T18:38:00.003-05:00

For those of you not following my 365 blog, yesterday I took some of my new favorite pictures of the girls - one of which I posted on 365. It started as just taking individual pictures of the girls in their new clothes, but then Mackenzie wanted to sit in the chair with Meredith. I ended up laughing almost the entire time I was taking pictures! I love Meredith's facial expression!

Play time at the Playground

2011-10-24T09:00:00.000-05:00

Last week when we had much cooler weather, we went to one of the neighborhood playgrounds in the morning. The first morning, we met another mother and her 3 year old daughter, so it was nice to have some adult interaction for a change! ;) While I tried to get Meredith to sleep in her stroller, the other mother pushed Mackenzie and her daughter on the swings. The next morning we went back but no one else was at the playground.
Mackenzie likes to swing...

but when Meredith got fussy, I had to show her how to swing on her own. She's slowly getting the hang of it.

She finally conquered her fear of climbing the "fish bone". She's always been a little scared because of the holes in the bottom of the bridge. She was so excited when she finally climbed over and got to the big slide.

This is how Meredith hangs out at the park. It was sooooo cold that morning, that I actually put the little "no scratch" mittens on Meredith's hands just in case.

And then of course, as if it had never been cold at all, Saturday morning was HOT! We walked to the playground, but it was way too hot for me and Meredith, so we walked the half mile to the other larger playground that is covered. So much better!

Mackenzie's never been a climber, so I was proud that she wanted to climb this thing to get to the other slides. I had to stand behind her and show her where to put her feet and her hands, but she did this over and over again.

This might be our new playground we go to when it's hot and we'll save the other one for when it's cold and we want sunshine!

Cooking...again.

2011-10-23T16:17:00.002-05:00

Today was the first time since Meredith was born that I have cooked a meal for us! When my mom was here for the first week we were home from the hospital, she made a ton of food and put it in the freezer. We're talking (9) 8x8 foil pans, plus p-dub's meat loaf - a LOT of food! Combine that, with the food people brought us, leftovers from the birthday parties and the occasional pizza order on the weekend, I haven't had to cook a full meal in 2 months! I've heated the food out of the freezer and made sides (read: heated green beans in the microwave) here and there, but haven't actually prepared and cooked a full meal - until today. It's been awesome!

The last few weeks I've been collecting recipes to try so that we don't go right back into our usual staple meals. I figure since I'm at home now, I can actually make meals that might only last us one or 2 nights rather than the full week casserole I usually made when I was working. Today's meal I would actually call a weekend meal because it was a fun, not so healthy, main dish that I don't know what you could add as a side besides dessert. It's called bubble up pizza and it's basically a pizza that you eat with a fork. You mix together biscuits (cut into pieces), pizza sauce, mozzarella and whatever pizza toppings you like and bake it for 30 minutes. I added italian sausage sauteed with bell pepper and onion, pepperoni and mushrooms. I thought it was yummy, but then again, I could eat pizza everyday.

This is by no means a meal I will make every month, but occasionally it might be nice to have and it's definitely cheaper than ordering a large pizza for delivery! The rest of the week I'll be cooking new recipes as well, so we'll see how that goes. Meredith sat contently in her bouncy seat the entire time I prepared the pizza dish, so hopefully tomorrow afternoon she'll do the same while I prepare dinner!

Circus Photo-op

2011-10-22T09:00:00.000-05:00

One of the activities I bought for Mackenzie's birthday party was a circus photo prop. I hung it by the door, but kind of forgot to take the kids pictures until the end.

I think it might be more for older kids, but it was really funny to watch Karleigh and Mackenzie try it. ;)

Photo Comparison - Bath Time

2011-10-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

I took a picture of Meredith the other day in her bathtub and then remembered I had a similar picture of Mackenzie. I couldn't resist doing a photo comparison.

I even looked at the date of Mackenzie's photo and realized she was 8 weeks old at the time, so they are really close in age in the two pictures. I think maybe their noses look similar, but their eyes and mouth still look different to me.

Play rooms

2011-10-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

Apparently, it's not enough for Mackenzie to have a playroom...

..and a bedroom to play in.

She has also taken over Meredith's room!

I guess in a year they'll both be playing in all three rooms! Now if I can just keep the toys from migrating into the living room!

Lion King

2011-10-19T15:05:00.000-05:00

When I was 15, Disney's The Lion King came out on VHS. I had already seen it in theaters and LOVED it, so I asked for the video for my birthday. Along with the video, I got all kinds of other Lion King stuff from my friends and family.

The few sentences above seem cute and somewhat normal for a 15 year old, or at least a 15 year old in 1995, but the picture below tells a different story!

Wow! Did I say LOVED? I meant I was OBSESSED with The Lion King! So, not only did my parents let us take our pictures like this, but we actually bought prints too! Or maybe just this one wallet, I'm not sure.

Anyways, I was super excited when The Lion King came out in theaters last month and then was re-released on DVD! I told Brandon I was going to wait until Christmas for the DVD, but I could resist and I ended up buying the DVD on its release day. Mackenzie already loves it and we've watched it probably 5 or 6 times and we've only had it since last Wednesday! Mackenzie was even repeating some of the words the other day and trying to sing along to the songs! I'm so proud, but I promise not to take pictures in Lion King paraphernalia!

Welcome to the Circus

2011-10-17T22:03:00.000-05:00

This is going to be a long post...just fyi.

We had Mackenzie's birthday party this past weekend and I chose a circus theme. I got so excited about making banners I might have gone a little overboard! I made 5 total! The Happy Birthday banner is over the play room entry.

decorations on the table are cracker jacks and animal crackers

Once everyone arrived we went outside to "see the circus". I made all of the backdrops with leftover cardboard boxes and wrapping paper remains. First, the children walked the "tight rope" aka a 2x4. Actually, this was a little harder than I thought it might be because it was on the grass which made it move a little bit. Another mom and I had to hold the 2x4 down with our feet while the kids walked across.

Next up, the Bean Bag Toss

I already had the bean bags, but we did have to buy what turned out to be a fairly expensive hula hoop. It lights up and everything! Unfortunately, since Mackenzie doesn't know how to hula hoop and I'm not sure that I could do it anymore, it might not get much use for a little while. Mackenzie and I might have to keep playing bean bag toss!

The ball toss was next. I taped some clear plastic cups to wrapped cardboard and had the kids toss ping pong balls into the cups. The age range was 19 months to 4 years and I think it worked for all of them. I think it also worked really well on the lawn chair and was the perfect height for them.

The Clothespin drop was another game we played. It's a little harder, but I think they still had fun. Mackenzie and I will probably continue to play this game and also use the clothespins for other fine motor skills.

One of the funniest games was the pin the nose on the clown.

What's funny about all of the clown nose locations is that only two of them were put on by kids using the mask. The others were all added by kids actually looking at the board! Mackenzie wanted nothing to do with the mask, so she stuck the nose in the proper place. Then another girl put it right next to Mackenzie's. The two on the clown's head were put on blindfolded, but all other were visible! ;)

A repeat of last years game was another hit. You can't go wrong with rubber ducks in water!

After all of the fun outside, we made it inside for circus food - hot dogs and nachos! Yum! And of course for dessert we had cake and cupcakes. The cupcakes actually ended up being a take home since everyone ate the cake. I made the cupcake toppers with a banner punch from Stampin' Up and the Big Top Birthday stickers.

I decorated the cake using an idea I found on Pinterest and I think it came out really well. I'm going to have to look at their other ideas to see what else you can do. This trick just used a butter knife to create the lines/ridges. It was so easy!

I didn't believe my friend when she said Mackenzie blew out the candle with her nose, but based on this picture, I think she did! ;)

The rainbow cake was very cool. I might have to try it again one day, but make thinner layers and add a couple more colors. And last, but not least, you cannot leave the circus empty handed, so everyone took home a goodie bag that my mom made as well as a box of cracker jacks and animal crackers.

My Spare Time - 365

2011-10-16T08:00:00.000-05:00

I've decided to try the 365 picture challenge - you know where you take a picture everyday? I don't plan on blogging about every picture - but I will put a caption underneath. I've already been doing this for 5 days and we'll see how far I get before I forget about it! ;) My goal is to do at least 200 photos in the next 365 days. Maybe this will help the "second child syndrome" of no photos of Meredith! ;)

The link to that blog is at the top of the right sidebar - labeled My Spare Time - 365. I hope you like it!

Mackenzie and Meredith Dolls

2011-10-15T08:00:00.000-05:00

One of my mom's coworkers sent us these oh so cute baby dolls for the girls:

Do you see the names on the dolls' clothes? I love these dolls - they are soooo cute! Thank you Tanya!

Halloween & Pumpkin activities

2011-10-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

In an effort to provide new activities for me and Mackenzie to do while at home, I printed some pumpkin and halloween stuff from online.

I found these matching pumpkin letters, memory game, what's missing sheets and 3 part puzzles from lawteedah:

I backed the letters and memory cards with cardstock and laminated them so that we can play with them a lot without messing them up. The what's missing sheets are fun too and I laminated these so that we can use a dry erase marker to circle the differences and maybe next year she can draw the differences.

I found these counting cards and work sheets from 2 teaching mommies:

I also found other activities and coloring sheets on 1+1+1=1.

I'm loving that I have time to do these things with Mackenzie. Over the next 2 weeks, I have quite a few additional crafts to do with Mackenzie that I didn't mention above. I love the internet and all of the wonderful people that post freebies for our kids!

Favorite place to sleep

2011-10-13T08:00:00.000-05:00

When I was pregnant with Mackenzie I bought a sling in hopes that I could carry her around every where and have 2 free hands. Yeah, that didn't work out for me. Since Mackenzie was breach, she never curled up in a little ball or stretched out her legs like babies need to do to be in the sling. So the sling went back to the closet for 3 long years.

Enter Meredith - she loves it! She can be crying/screaming and I'll put her in the sling and within a minute or two she's asleep.

I wear her anywhere from 3 to 5 hours a day. Tuesday she slept in the sling while I vacuumed the house and yesterday she slept while we walked to the mailboxes and playground (about 45 minutes). I'm so glad she likes it because it allows me to do so much more in the day. Here's hoping she likes to sleep or hang out in it for along time!

Tummy Time

2011-10-12T09:00:00.000-05:00

I've started to give Meredith "tummy time" and as long as it's a couple of hours after her bottle, she does pretty well.

I am totally surprised at how much she tries to pull her legs up under her. I don't really remember Mackenzie doing that too much, but then again it was 3 years ago, so she might have done the same thing and I just don't remember.

With all of Meredith's squirming around, she manages to rotate on the blanket. I went in the other room to talk with Mackenzie the other day and when I came back 2 minutes later she had rotated about 45 degrees.

Meredith's Room

2011-10-11T08:00:00.000-05:00

I didn't realize I had never posted pictures of Meredith's room, so without further ado...

The shelves are a little high, but that is because we were covering up holes in the wall from the previous owner. They could also use a few more owl collectibles, but I did find my owl music box from when I was a child and put it on one of the shelves. This past weekend I hung the picture frames (without pictures) and growth chart. And of course the room wouldn't be complete without the storage bin to collect all of the clothes that she out grows, in which it already has some newborn items.

Here's a closer look at the bedding:

There it is...another pink room! Now if Meredith could just get some more owls to go with it!

Playing in the Rain

2011-10-10T09:00:00.000-05:00

We finally got some much needed rain yesterday and decided to let Mackenzie play in the backyard for a little bit while it rained.

She really enjoyed herself and didn't really want to come inside, but since it was a little cool outside because of the rain, we didn't let her stay out there for very long. If only it rained more often, I would probably let her do it more often. On the other hand, since she had never played in the rain before, she absolutely loved it. She was moving the whole time, laughing and screaming with joy. I loved watching her!

2011-10-09T14:20:00.000-05:00

Other than the few blogs I read and facebook, I don't really look at much else on the internet. I've never been the u-tube type or anything of that nature, so I don't "surf" the internet - I just stick to the sights I know or specific searches. The most surfing I might do is on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. A year ago, Brandon told me about stumbleupon.com and it's about as close to random surfing the internet as I get, until...I tried Pinterest!

Yep, I'm addicted.I've already found so many great ideas I want to do for the girls...

for the house...

for gifts...

for dessert...

you name it, it's there.

I'm so excited to keep pinning and hopefully, after I get past Mackenzie's birthday party, I can try a few of the crafts I found.

Building...again

2011-10-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

With the cooler weather we've been having, Brandon got back to his wood working honey-do list and made these shelves for Mackenzie's room.

They are a little different from my original drawing, but I think they are much better. I still need to hang Mackenzie's name below the shelves and the photo board I have, but that's easy.

Now Brandon can move onto Mackenzie's night stand and then the huge project for the office - whoop!

Baking

2011-10-07T09:00:00.000-05:00

I'm preparing for Mackenzie's birthday party in 1 week, so I've been baking and freezing cakes and cupcakes.

I also made blue cakes the day before, but they were already in the freezer. I saw this cake and I'm simplifying it for the "circus theme".

I'm only going to have 4 layers, but I'm really excited about it! The colors I chose: red, yellow, green and blue, are meant to coordinate with these colors/patterns.

I'll be sure to post pictures after the party.

Our Garden, smells in my nose & weiners

2011-10-06T14:33:00.002-05:00

Today is a day for Mackenzie stories so that i will always remember her at age 3.

1. Mackenzie calls this our garden.

As in, "lets go play in our garden." and after seeing the lawn guy in the backyard, "momma, who's in our garden?" Our first pre-school home school unit/theme might need to be gardens so that she knows what an actual garden is!

2. When Mackenzie smells something - good or bad - she says,"it smells in my nose." One time when I asked her what she smelled, she said, "like you." I had just taken a shower, so i hope she smelled soap!

3. Mackenzie loves hot dogs. And when I say hot dogs I mean no bun, just the wiener, however I always call them hot dogs. When I was in the hospital with Meredith, Brandon's mom asked Mackenzie if she wanted a wiener and of course she had no idea what Cindy was talking about. Then a couple of weeks ago, Brandon decided to buy some fat free turkey dogs.wieners for Mackenzie. He called it a wiener when he gave it to her and she took one bite and spit it out saying she didn't like it. Since then, we've bought "regular" dogs and when I asked her if she wanted a hot dog the other day she said, "yes, but I don't want a wiener." So apparently their are hot dogs and there are wieners and they are not the same thing!

4. I've been punishing Mackenzie when she pees in her pull-up. I always ask her why she did it and i usually have to ask her a couple of times to get an answer, which almost always is "I don't know." Yesterday Meredith was sitting in her chair and she spit up a little. Mackenzie told me she spit up and then I heard her ask Meredith several times, "why did you spit up Meredith?" I'm pretty sure Mackenzie didn't get the answer she was looking for, just like I never do! ;)