I Cried But They Didn't

Sounds a bit like a bad country song doesn't it? Maybe I'll have to write that song because that's what happened Monday on my first day back to work. I only cried a little bit so I am considering the transition to be a success. The kids have both been doing great over at Aunt Kacey's during the day. McKenzie is especially enjoying being back with Kayla and Nathan and having some fun playing.


Ben turned three months old on Sunday, wow how times flies. He's growing up so fast, the next thing I know he'll be asking to drive the car. Here's his three month picture.




And here's McKenzie's three month picture. They are starting to look a bit different I think. Maybe it's just Ben's hair or McKenzie's big cheeks.



As one last fun adventure while I was on leave the kids and I headed over to Chelan last Thursday to Grandma and Grandpa C's house for a visit. My Aunt Diane, Aunt Wendy, Aunt Bonnie and Grammy were over visiting too. There were plenty laps ready for loving babies. We worked on the Thanksgiving table cloth and got almost all of it done. What will I do with my evenings in November? Thanks to all who worked on it, it's a lot more fun to work on it with others. Here's all the ladies in Chelan when we were learning how to use the features on our cameras.



On Saturday I left the kids with Grandma and Grandpa C and headed downtown to Memories by the Lake, the local scrapbooking store and I got to spend the entire day working on my books. My friends Gina and Jess joined me for the day and we had a great time working on our pages and catching up kid-free. I'll take pictures of my new pages sometime soon and post those. It's been a dream of mine to scrapbook in a store so I could just get up and go buy things when I needed them. This was even better than I imagined. I learned a lot of new techniques and got some really great ideas for future pages.

When we got home on Sunday I took Ben on his first stroller ride in the big kid seat. He did really well and didn't fuss a bit on the two mile walk we took. He fell asleep in the stroller about half way through the walk and then kept sleeping there for quite a while when we got home. Being able to put him in the back of the stroller means McKenzie gets the upgrade to the front seat so she see everything that's going on.




Here's McKenzie helping me in the yard while Ben was sleeping in his stroller in the garage. She was playing with her bubbles while I continued to fight off those dandelions.

Prospectives

This time of year it seems like my entire yard is dotted with dandelions mocking me in their race to dry out and spread their 'wishes' before I can find the time to remove them. I see them as a nuisance and a weed. I relish the removal of each flowering plant from my yard because I know it's one less flower that can spread its seeds across my yard.



My sweet McKenzie sees them as beautiful flowers, made all the more lovable by the fact she is allowed to pick them to her hearts content. Having kids really lets you see the wonder in everything and the pure joy that can be had even from the smallest thing.




Another little happiness that I have for now is that McKenzie thinks dandelions that have gone to seed, ready to be blown around as wishes are "icky." Hopefully I can get all the dandelions removed from the yard before she discovers a love of blowing wishes. For now when McKenzie picks the dandelions we throw them into the creek and watch them float away, waving bye-bye to her "pretties"... sorry to those who live downstream.

Tonight's Post Is Brought To You By The Letter B

McKenzie has fallen in love with her first letter and it is none other than the letter 'B'. She sees B's everywhere, the number 6 is often mistaken for the letter 'B' and it is also just so fun to say. She can pick 'B' out on a keyboard, from her fridge magnets, in magazines. She never fails to tell me about it. Here she is in a video featuring the letter 'B'

It's exciting to see her learning things. She is also very into colors right now. We spend a good deal of time at each meal with her quizzing me about what color things are. I do find it hard sometimes to make snap decisions about what color somethings are. I'm trying to keep things simple for her by sticking to the basic colors of the rainbow instead of branching out to the 64 pack of Crayolas with names I give for the colors. There are so many colors that are close to two colors. Hopefully I don't mess up her colors for life.

This post was also going to be brought to you by the number 9, because last week Ben did sleep for 9 hours straight at night but that only happened once. So we'll hold off on getting too excited about that yet. He is going all night without a feeding but he does love to wake me up for a little cuddle time. Here's a recent picture of him playing with Daddy's new toy, a netbook. It's a tiny laptop that everyone here at our house is in love with.

Ben's going to be the next E-Trade baby, I just know it. But he would never waste his money on renting a clown, because they are scary.


In case the picture with Ben does not give you prospective on how tiny this laptop is here is a picture of it on top of Matt's other laptop which I do admit is maybe the largest laptop in the world.

Seattle Egg Hunting

Why aren't their more covered areas in Washington? Why don't all houses have huge covered outdoor areas? Other regions adapt their homes to fit their environments like having basements where it's really hot and houses on stilts for areas that flood but for some reason we never caught on and demanded covered areas here in Washington. My next house will have a huge outdoor living space where I can have an Easter egg hunt if needed. Luckily for us Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Chris's new house has a huge basement where we could hunt for eggs since it was so wet outside this Sunday.

We had a great Easter or should I say "Gre-Easter"? The Greek food was delicious, going to be hard to top that next year but I bet we'll think of something. Here's a picture of a very tired McKenzie taking a break from hunting eggs.




We got up early and Skyped with Grandma and Grandpa C and Aunt Kacey, Uncle Eric, Nathan and Kayla who were over in Chelan visiting for the weekend. McKenzie loves to see people on the computer when she's talking to them and she also loves that you see a little picture of herself. She will play peek-a-boo and fluff her hair a little when she's using Skype. If anyone has a webcam option on their computer and wants to chat with McKenzie let me know and we'll be happy to Skype with you. After that we had breakfast and McKenzie checked out what the Easter bunny brought for her. Ben was just relaxing and easing into the day.

Here's their baskets and Ben relaxing!

Our Very Own Monkey

No we didn't get a monkey but McKenzie has become one somehow. She has always been a climber with a reckless determination to get to her goal. I was actually surprised she never climbed out of her crib before we moved her out of it. Now she thinks it's funny to climb in to see baby Ben. Luckily she can't get in if the side is raised. That's one more thing for me to remember.

Here she is caught in the act of scaling the crib. And then in the second picture laying next to Ben which has become a favorite thing for her to do. Diaper changes are a breeze if I let her lay next to baby.





I also got a nice side profile of Ben's Mohawk hairdo so you can see it in it's full glory. It is extreme hair, crazy spikey in the front and then flat as can be in the back. It will be interesting to see how this hair grows out but in the meantime I love it.




Here's another cute picture of Ben modeling some socks that one of Matt's coworkers made for him. Very cute!

Baby Monkey!

About a month ago Gina and I made plans to go to the zoo on Sunday rain or shine. Lucky for us it turned out to be super sunny! We were also joined by Aunt Jennifer, Uncle Chris, cousin Claire and every family with a child under ten for what turned out to be a great day. It's always nice to be outside in Seattle when the sun is out, even the zoo animals agreed! A lot of times you go to the zoo and end up looking at habitats instead of animals which for the age of kids we're dealing with it's the end of the world. But this trip to the zoo all the animals were out on parade.

I had both kids in the stroller and I put Ben in the 'newborn bed' on the stroller (see picture below) and then McKenzie got to ride in the front seat. This worked out great because it gave McKenzie a great view of the animals and Ben was out of the sun. This Phil and Ted Sport stroller is still my favorite purchase since having Ben. It has really enabled me to get out and about with the kids and keep them both comfortable and safe. Ben did get a little time to view the animals with the help of the Baby Bjorn which he can now go in facing out due to his excellent neck strength.

With all sorts of animals to see McKenzie's favorite was not a huge surprise. There was a baby gorilla that was putting on quite a show. McKenzie could not get enough of the "baby monkey." Uncle Chris took her up close to get a good look at the gorillas and she did not want to leave. The gorilla put his hand on the glass at one point and McKenzie put her hand on the other side of the glass, it was too cute but I was too slow with the camera.

Here's Uncle Chris and McKenzie at the gorilla exhibit.




McKenzie proved once again she is one smart little girl. She decided she didn't want to wear her sun glasses when we arrived at the zoo so she tucked them under her leg to keep them from falling out of the stroller. I saw this and told her that was a smart thing to do so she wouldn't lose them. She really took this to heart because later on when I gave her a ham and cheese sandwich I noticed she suddenly was only eating the cheese and so I looked around on the ground for the rest of her sandwich. Then I noticed that she had tucked the ham under one of her legs and the roll under the other. Sweet, not going to lose that sandwich either.

Here's McKenzie with Atticus - you can see she has her sandwich before she stashed it.


It was a great trip to the zoo - we're looking forward to many more trips this year to see that baby monkey."

Here's Ben in the newborn bed on the stroller taking full advantage of it being a bed.