Working for the Weekends...

This past weekend we were busy enjoying lots of good food and company. On Friday night we headed out to Monroe to go to 'The Fair' aka the Evergreen State Fair. The weather was great not too hot and not raining! We tried to take McKenzie on a ride but only found out she was too small to go on the rides after we bought tickets so we gave them away to another family with bigger kids. Next year she can go on the rides. We also took McKenzie to the petting farm where she met some new animals she hadn't seen before like sheep, pigs, chickens, a baby cow and a little shetland pony. She liked all the animals and called them all 'da-ga' but she is now saying 'Hi' very clearly and waving at people and things so she said 'Hi' to the animals. We then enjoyed the best thing about the fair... the food! We were stuffed when we left but happy with our fair experience!

Here's McKenzie with what looks like a headless chicken...




On Saturday we worked in the yard and almost finished the new paver path we are putting in beside the driveway! Progress feels so good but we'd love to be finished with this project... only a few more feet. Matt also moved a half yard of dirt into the backyard to his new clearing he's working on over the creek. It's going to look great next year! On Saturday night we went out to Monroe again for Grandma Z's birthday dinner. We're getting to the point where dinners out aren't so enjoyable for Matt and me since we have to eat really fast before McKenzie wants to get out and explore. She did good overall but we did have to take turns outside walking with her. Here's some new pictures of the yard and McKenzie helping her Daddy work : )










On Sunday we worked outside a bit more and then we had Aunt Jennifer, Uncle Chris, cousin Claire, and Matt's cousin Cassandra and her husband Chris over for a Northwest style BBQ. It wasn't so much about making NW food as it was the forced eating inside due to the extreme rain. We had a great time and McKenzie got to babysit Claire! Well, maybe I should have written that 'baby sit' as in a baby sitting on McKenzie. The girls did really good - especially since we took Claire's binky away and gave McKenzie hers : )

The Things Parents Will Do For Their Children...

I finished another page in McKenzie's scrapbook tonight! I've only been planning this page out since last October so at this rate I may finish up the pages for McKenzie's first year about the time she goes to college.

Anyway, the smaller picture of McKenzie among to pumpkins is what inspired this page. Matt took this picture last October when we were getting our pumpkins for Halloween. I had seen some pumpkin layouts in a scrapbooking magazine and so I was determine to get the perfect picture for creating a pumpkin page. Unfortunately, time flew by in October since I had just gone back to work, the days started getting shorter, it was super rainy and life just got busy so we never followed through on my big plan to visit the pumpkin farm. So in desperation I decided I just needed a picture of McKenzie with pumpkins in the background. No one really had to know that we weren't at the pumpkin farm. So I decided I would just take her to the grocery store and put her in the bin of pumpkins out front and take her picture. Sad I know, but I needed that picture. Anyway, when we headed out we ended up deciding to go to Central Market rather than my old standby Fred Meyers. Lucky for us Central Market had the whole front of the store decorated with hay bales, pumpkins, corn stalks, scarecrows and a big tractor so it wasn't even weird that we were having a photo shoot. The picture Matt captured of McKenzie has been one of our favorites - it really shows off what a happy girls she is!





I still have some glare and it's a little crooked but I think I'm getting better on my technique! Tonight I put the page on top of the washer again (it's white and big) and then I also stood on McKenzie's rocking chair (don't tell her I did that - we're not allowed to stand on that chair) to get higher so I could try to get straighter. One of these days I'll get it figured out.

Here's a bigger copy of the picture with the pumpkins and another of McKenzie and me on the tractor.




This year I'm still dreaming of making it to the pumpkin patch. I'll keep you posted! [no pun intended]

Accidents Can Happen In A Second...

Tonight was bath night, one of McKenzie's favorite times. We have our routine that we follow each time. We go upstairs, I pretend to act surprised when McKenzie turns right towards the bathroom instead of left to go the landing to play, we go into the bathroom turn on the water and then go over to the laundry room to get ready for the bath. I take off McKenzie's clothes and use the stain stick as needed, then lay out her pajamas and a clean diaper and then we head back to the bathroom for the bath.

Tonight was no different. As usual she got bored waiting for me to finish things once she got her clothes off and she headed over to the baby gate that separates the landing at the top of the stairs, our guest bedroom and McKenzie's bathroom from the rest of the upstairs. She was playing there with the dogs and then I opened the gate and she headed for the bathroom and I took off her diaper and put her in the tub. I swear I never even looked away for a second but then next thing I knew there floating face down in the tub was Flat Monkey...




Flat Monkey has never joined McKenzie in the tub before and I'm not even sure how he got in there. I've never even wondered if monkeys can swim before tonight... guess I'll have to Google it... amazing someone else had that same question. Even after that 'education' from the internet the only thing I know for sure is Flat Monkey can't swim but he's none the worse for the dunk in the tub.

Here's the bathing beauty herself enjoying a relaxing soak after a long day of playing.

More Scrapping!

When you have a subject as cute as McKenzie there is tons of material to scrap just not enough time to do it in! I did complete the latest pages I've been working on last night thanks to a new scrapbooking product I discovered last week in Chelan at the local scrapbooking store. It's a glue stick pen! The Zig 2 Way Glue Pen has changed my scrapbooking life. I was able to finish up a page that involved lots of little pieces in less than a half hour. It took me forever to cut all the pieces out and get the sizes just right for the pages. Then I stalled out on actually finishing the pages for a while because I didn't know how to glue them together without a ton of work. I went into the scrapbook store in Chelan and explained my issue and I was steered in the direction of the 2 Way Glue Pen.

What are the 2 ways you might be asking yourself? The glue is blue when it is wet - and you can stick it when it's wet or wait until it drys clear and then stick it. Amazing!

This is a two page layout of McKenzie's first year - each picture was taken on the 9th of the month to show her growing as the year went on. I may add a title of some sort to the page to finish it up but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out thanks to my new 2 Way Glue Pen!

Here's my finished pages - I had lots of advice on taking pictures of paper from my blog readers and I tried to implement some of the advice but still need some work to make the pictures turn out better. I'll keep working on the suggestions!

Summer Vacation!!!

We were off on vacation last week so I took a vacation from blogging as well. On Friday night we packed up and headed over to Grandma and Grandpa C's house in Chelan. We were joined by Aunt Kacey, Uncle Eric, Nathan, and Kayla and cousin Don.

We did our annual Slide Waters trip on Saturday - it turned out to be their 25th Anniversary celebration! I wasn't there at their grand opening but I do remember going there every summer for most of life. This was McKenzie's second trip to Slide Waters - she enjoyed it much more than the first time we went.

Here's McKenzie during last years trip - she was too busy to enjoy the water. It's amazing the difference a year can make.

This year we wished she would have slept! She loved the slides and the kiddie pool.



Here she's sliding down a real water slide with cousin Don.

Matt and Don headed home on Sunday and McKenzie and I stayed in Chelan until Wednesday then the lack of sleep got to us and so we headed home. That's the challenge of a baby who sleeps so good at home in her crib - when she sleeps other places she doesn't sleep as well. Especially if she wakes up and sees me sleeping right across the room. Then she thinks it's time to play even if it's three in the morning.

We didn't have the camera for the rest of our trip since it accidentally went home with Matt but we had a great time at the lake, the pool and even on Grandpa's boat.

I'm looking forward to my next trip over which will be for our annual wine club trip with the girls in October. This year we're hoping to do a catered dinner at Karma Vineyard in their back room which we discovered last year.

Our own tiny person...

Matt and I always knew our child would be special - what parent doesn't think that? But sometimes when McKenzie does things we just look at each other and say 'Wow, she's actually a tiny person all on her own'. That feeling is pretty special.

McKenzie is such a character it's hard to fully capture how happy, silly, crazy, and amazing she is in something like a blog. She learns new things everyday and still amazes us with the things she does. Here's some recent examples of McKenzie being her own person.

Here she is playing on of her favorite games 'socks for hands'. She often brings me socks to put on her hands then will leave them on for a while and do things with socked hands - it makes her quite happy!




This is McKenzie doing a young Dru Barrymore impression from her role as Gertie in the movie E.T. - it's the hairdo ;) McKenzie probably would keep an alien in her room if she found one.



This past Sunday was Seafair and we went down to our friends Rachel and TJ's place in Seattle to enjoy the Blue Angels, hydro races and a BBQ. McKenzie is sharing her ride with Kim's dog Muki, one of her many dog friends.



And if you weren't convinced by now that McKenzie is her own tiny person here she is today over at Aunt Kacey's playing in the swimming pool : )

Makes Me Have A New Appreciation...

I bet you think I'm going to write a sappy blog about how much I appreciate my parents now that I am a parent and don't get me wrong I do appreciate them more than ever, but if anyone knows me they know I am a lover of good products. What I have a great appreciation for these days is Spray 'n Wash Stain Stick. I've always had stain stick around the house 'just in case' but really, I found it pretty useless for years. I can recall the very few times I felt the need to pull out the stain stick before McKenzie, now it's a daily occurrence. It's part of our nightly routine that includes having some milk, brushing McKenzie's teeth and washing her face, changing her diaper and putting on her pajamas then the all important step of stain sticking whatever she was wearing that day.

I do try to use bibs as often as possible but it's never enough to keep her completely clean. So far it's been rare that I haven't been able to get something out of an outfit if I remember the stain stick. That's the challenge of having a baby who is eating all kinds of solid foods but isn't quite old enough to understanding when you ask her to be neat. Here's a trip down memory lane of some of the stains we have gotten out....

Four Months - Just starting out...

Eight Months - Self feeding dry finger food!

Eleven Months - Eating anything and everything!

Almost Fourteen Months - Branching out to have actual bowls and spoons!

Scrapping When The Sun Don't Shine...

Another thing that our recent lack of sunshine has inspired is me to get out my scrapbook that I'm making as McKenzie's baby book and to get working! I started making the book before she was born and had a couple of bursts of scrapping energy last fall and winter but haven't touched it much this year. I need to get going on it since it's intended to be her baby book and time is flying by. I'm already working on my next set of pages which will be a two page flower garden featuring 12 smiling faces of McKenzie - one for each month of her first year.

Here's a page I finished this past week - it is about our first family trip that we took to Portland last year when McKenzie was about a month and a half old. Matt won an overnight stay and tickets to a Fergie concert where we got to meet her before the concert! We had a great time on the trip and meeting Fergie. Here's a big picture of us with Fergie which is also featured on my page along with my finished page for McKenzie's book.








I need some tips on how to take pictures of scrapbook pages... my page looks like it's not square and I have terrible glare on it... maybe daytime and take it from the top not looking at it from in front... who knows?

Rainy Days + Cooped Up Kids = Jump Planet!

We were first introduced to Jump Planet for our nephew Nathan's 5th birthday this year.
We have talked about going back ever since. Jump Planet is a huge warehouse filled with those giant plastic jumpy toys. Kids and even adults can just run around and jump on all of the toys and slides. Being inside a giant warehouse it really is a great concept especially here in Washington.

For those of you who are local readers you know the kind of weather we've been having lately. It has been very much like the image people have of Seattle in their heads. Rain, mist, gray clouds... you get the picture. Anyway, my sister has been cooped up in the house during they day with the kids on and off for a couple of weeks now and everyone was starting to get a little stir crazy. So on Wednesday Kacey decided to take the kids to Jump Planet and I was able to join them on my lunch break. We had a great time. McKenzie did pretty good jumping on the toys but mostly she was bounced about by the other kids as she tried to walk. She loved going down the big slides with me and she 'got so happy' as Nathan told us each time he watch us slide down.

Here's a picture from our original trip for Nathan's birthday back in March - McKenzie could crawl then but couldn't walk yet!

Kayla, McKenzie and Nathan taking a break from jumping. McKenzie has a pretty good sized boo-boo on her eye from an earlier in the week.

Nathan peeking over the end of the slide

Kayla sliding down the big slide!

Needless to say all the kids got a lot of energy out and took great naps that afternoon! I was pretty beat myself from hauling McKenzie up to the top of the slide over and over. Too bad we can't go to Jump Planet every day : )