The Best Intentions...

I love seeing McKenzie learn new things and expand her world. We have a big glass jar that we put our change in and lately we have been letting McKenzie help us with this job. She loves the idea of putting the money in the jar but hates the idea of letting go of the coin since that will mean she can't play with it anymore. Another thing she loves is to take food out of the cupboard next to the fridge while I'm cooking and help me cook. Last night was no except she had her favorite item from the cupboard - the box of granola bars. She loves these because she can take the bars out of the box and them put them back in. Unfortunately this also means that Matt gets more granola in his lunch than actual granola bars since they have a hard life before they make it into his lunch. I saw her with the granola bars before dinner then I found the empty box in the dining room but didn't think much of it and put it back in the cupboard. After McKenzie had gone to bed Matt and I were cleaning up the kitchen and Matt started laughing over by the money jar.

There in the jar were two granola bars just sitting on top of the money... I guess she either thought she was suppose to be helping us save shiny things or maybe she was just excited they could fit through the opening in the jar. I then got to spend about fifteen minutes with a coat hanger pretending I was playing one of those claw games at the arcade. I did finally get the granola bars out and now will add the money jar to my list of things to pay attention to when McKenzie is on the loose!

Baby Z is a He

We had our 20 week ultrasound this afternoon and found out that McKenzie is getting a little brother! As we entered the room, the ultrasound tech asked us if we wanted to know and of course we said yes. So she started the ultrasound, showed us the heart, moved the picture around and then asked nonchalantly if we thought we knew what it was. I looked at the ultrasound and clearly could see it was a boy so I said 'a boy'. Matt hadn't picked up what we were looking at yet and said he didn't know, thinking she was asking us if we had any guesses. Then she said it really is a boy! We are really happy with the opportunity to have a girl and a boy so this is fantastic news.

Now we need to come up with a good name. Last time we went into the ultrasound knowing we'd name the baby McKenzie if it was a girl but we had no boy name. This time around we also had a girl name picked out but still no boy name. We'll work on it and then maybe we'll play the name game again. With McKenzie we didn't tell the name but gave out clues to family and friends to see who could guess her name. We got some really interesting guesses on that one. I made a scrapbook page before she was born about her name and the name game guesses. I'll have to take a picture of it and post that.

Maybe I'll have to change my poll on this blog to be a name suggestion poll. We had a few last minute votes last night or today so the final tally on boy vs girl predictions was 8 boy votes / 2 girl votes. I think someone voted girl at the last minute just to say they were right since no one else had voted girl.

Speaking of McKenzie's name, I have relatives who live in Victoria, BC where there is an street named McKenzie that Esther's (check out her blog in my links) daughter Karyn lives on. There are lots of signs around that say McKenzie. So I asked Esther to take some picture of the signs for me to use in McKenzie's scrapbook. Here are some of the great McKenzie signs that Esther captured.

Daddy's Little Helper...

This past weekend Matt rented a little bobcat with our neighbor to do some work in the yard. The plan was to move some rocks to the backyard but the bucket was too small to hold many of the rocks so instead we decided to pull out the stump of the cherry tree we cut down from the front yard. The bobcat did a great job much better than our backup plan of tying it to Matt's truck. But unfortunately we didn't think about where our internet line was running and that also got removed in the process. We were able to get that reinstalled on Monday but life without the internet is not fun!

Here's McKenzie helping her Daddy on the bobcat. She wanted to ride on it the whole time but we only let her on it for a brief photo shoot.


Tomorrows the big ultrasound to find out who baby #2 will be! So far everyone on the poll voted boy so we'll see if you're right. Either way we'll be happy to find out that everything looks good and that the baby is healthy! Halfway there....

Plastic Shanty Town Expansion

Today was another beautiful day in Seattle! That isn't really a typical start to any sentence around here but the weather has been good for the past week or so. McKenzie and I were headed to the store to pick up some things before lunch when we saw a big sign right down the street that said 'Man Sale' so of course we took a detour. It was a garage sale being run by two men and they had a lot of assorted garage items that men might like. They also had a plastic playhouse for the yard. I stopped and asked them how much it was and then called Matt to make sure he could live with a plastic playhouse in the yard. Then I called my mom and asked what she had paid for a similar house she had purchased for Nathan and Kayla in Chelan. Then we went back to the 'Man Sale' and bought McKenzie the house.

McKenzie's Uncle Chris likes to describe all large plastic items that accompany babies as belonging in a plastic shanty town. Which if you see some peoples houses and yard is a very true statement. At our house we try to control the plastic sprawl to a few select areas. The upstairs landing is officially McKenzie's turf - that's where all the inside toys live along with her books. Outside we have gotten away with only one toy so far - a water table that McKenzie got for her birthday.

Matt was mowing the lawn at home so when he was done we drove back to the 'Man Sale' and picked up the house. When we got home we lifted it out of the truck and McKenzie ran over and went in. Then we loaded it onto our yard cart (one of our best purchases ever - look back a few entries for a picture of McKenzie in the cart) and McKenzie followed us around the house crying because she thought we were taking her house away from her.

We put the house on the patio near the back door where we can't see it from the door or windows and McKenzie spent the afternoon happily playing in her new house. It does need a good once over with the pressure washer but that's the beauty of plastic - just clean it up and it's as good as new.

Here's McKenize playing in her house.




Now about garage sales - I know I have mentioned them in two blogs but I'm not one to ever stop at a garage sale. Typically, I just do the Mill Creek sales twice a year and even then I only drive by and look at large items. I do have to give these guys credit today they were very creative with their advertising - 'Man Sale' hooked me in - I just had to see what it was about and I'm glad I did!

Practice Makes Perfect!

Today McKenzie turned fifteen months old - time is really flying by. This past weekend was filled with fun. On Saturday afternoon Matt and I attended a wedding and McKenzie went over to my Uncle Nick and Aunt Renee's house, making that McKenzie's Great Aunt Renee or is that suppose to be written The Great Aunt Renee? Either way she is a great Aunt and I'm hoping she really had as much fun as McKenzie did. I think that Uncle Nick and Aunt Renee were a little relieved when we came to pick McKenzie up. I'm sure they are not quite used to the constant motion that is McKenzie.

On Sunday my friend Gina and her little boy Atticus, who is four months old, came over for a visit. McKenzie had just awoken from her nap and was she ever happy to find a baby to play with! These past few weeks we've been learning about being nice and gentle which to McKenzie often times translates into kisses. She sure was gentle with baby Atticus the poor boy was strapped into his carseat and unable to escape from McKenzie's love. We finally had to make her stop giving Atticus loves when we noticed his face was completely wet from her kisses.

Here's McKenzie practicing to be a big sister : )





On Sunday afternoon we went to McKenzie's second cousin Mason's first birthday party which turned out to be quite the family reunion. We forgot the camera since I had it out recording the kissing earlier so no pictures from the event but it was a lot of fun to see the family and to get the kids together.

Here's McKenzie and Mason last Christmas - she is six months old and he is three months old!

Can't get much fresher than this!

We have no idea whose child McKenzie is - she loves tomatoes! I do love them myself now but as a child I did not like them and Matt would still not choose to eat them. I have been wanting to plant a garden in the backyard since we moved in and decided to finally get started this year and try out growing tomatoes.

I have six different kinds I'm growing - all the plants are from the Central Market:

• Sungold - Produces very sweet orange colored cherry tomato * My favorite so far, I check almost everyday to see if there are new tomatoes available for a snack! My sister has the same variety and neither of us knew the fruit was suppose to be orange so we kept waiting for it to turn red - finally I read the tag and realized it was suppose to be orange - yum!
  
• Black - Very dark red 2-3" tomatoes, one of the sweetest. * This plant has one green tomato so far
• Brandywine - Large, deeply lobed, purplish red fruit loaded with old-fashioned sweet tomato taste. * This plant is huge - at least double any of the others - it has more flowers and tiny green starts than I can count!
• Early Girl - Medium globe shaped fruit, ripens early in the season * This one has several greens starting to turn and it had one really great fully red tomato which I picked for dinner tonight... more to come on that!
  
• Roma - Heirloom with plum-shaped fleshy fruit. Think and juicy nearly seedless. * This plant has about five tomatoes in various shades of green, yellow, orange and soon to be red
• Sweet 100 - Produces huge multi cluster branches of sweet cherry tomatoes, plant will typically produce more than 100 tomatoes during a season. *This plant isn't producing in great quantity yet but it does look like it's gearing up. Compared to the Sungold I would not label the fruit as sweet.

As I mentioned before I picked a nice ripe tomato off of the Early Girl plant for dinner and then McKenzie saw it... wanted to see it... then hold it... and before I could stop her eat it... then she was too cute munching on a whole tomato so I went for the camera like any responsible parent would do : )




She ate about half the tomato before deciding to share with the dogs. This is not her first 'off the vine' experience... my sister caught her one day nibbling away on two very hard, very green tomatoes from the plants in her backyard. I guess she know fresh food when she sees it!

Terrific Two!

With the addition of a new baby cousin we're seeing a lot more of the Z Team family these days. This past weekend we had Auntie Anne and some of her friends from WSU over for the Seattle Cougar game and we also went out to Monroe for dinner with Matt parents, Aunt Jennifer, Uncle Chris and baby Claire.

Here are a couple of pictures of the terrific two with Grandma and Grandpa Z. The girls are a little over a year apart and by this time next year they are going to be keeping us on our toes!