Happy!

Happy! It's a word we used to hear often but hadn't been able to get Kenzie to say lately. Until today when "happy" was the word of the day to help celebrate cousin Kayla's fourth birthday and Benny turning five months! This also starts our three straight days of eating cake. Today for cousin Kayla's birthday, tomorrow for cousin Claire's birthday and Sunday for my cousin Brandon's wedding.

We stayed over at Kacey and Eric's tonight at dinner time for Kayla's birthday party. Was it ever exciting - with pink bug cakes and balloons you couldn't go wrong! Well, McKenzie literally dance her diaper off. It should be fun to see her do some serious dancing at Brandon's wedding.

Here's Ben's five month picture and he is "happy" as always! Still rockin' the hair. On a side note his hair can be made to lay down but then he becomes his alter ego 'comb-over' Ben. Not a very popular guy at all... so rock on hair!




Here's McKenzie's five month picture - she's probably happy cause she only had a diaper on!



Ben is now eating one real meal a day. So far he's had apples and sweet pototoes. Sweet potatoes produced much nicer facial expressions than apples. He is working on sitting up and can really get moving with rolling and scooting when he wants to. He continues to be happy and healthly which is all anybody could ask for. Kenzie continues to love her baby brother and cooks wonderful things for him in her kitchen but she won't let him use the toy knives as they are "ouchy."

Question: What's More Fun Than A Barrel Of Monkeys?

Answer: Not much except getting a barrel of monkeys from your Grandma while at the zoo for your birthday party!

Needless to day we had a great time at the zoo last weekend for McKenzie's second birthday. It was a perfect sunny Seattle day - not too hot, just right for the animals to be out and about. We saw all of McKenzie's favorites including the monkeys, more monkeys, the penguins and the elephants.

Here's McKenzie, Daddy, Grandma Z, Aunt Jennifer and Claire riding on the carousel at the zoo. Both girls thought that was pretty fun . McKenzie being the dare devil that she is was standing on her horse for part of the ride. If she doesn't run off and join the circus I'll be amazed.




McKenzie looking at the big kitty!




Kenzie is trying to tell this long haired monkey not to roll around in the straw because he was getting "ucky'"but that monkey just didn't care. Look at her finger scolding that monkey.



Here's McKenzie and Grandma C looking at the flamingos. It's always fun to see a pink bird!



Kenzie enjoying a birthday cupcake - yummy!


Yes, I'm behind in my blog. I'll either catch up soon or just move on! Stay tuned either way!

ROI

In today's economy everyone is looking for a little return on their investments (ROI). Well, I have found the answer. If you have small children and are seeking a little bit of freedom from constantly entertaining them. Invest heavily in large play toys for them.

Grandma and Grandpa C and Aunt Kacey and Uncle Eric and Daddy and I chipped in and bought McKenzie her own little kitchen for her birthday. Boy does she love this thing. She has spent countless minutes playing independently with her kitchen cooking. Any safe independent playtime for McKenzie means time for me to get something else done like feeding or bathing Benny or tackling my giant laundry pile. We gave her the kitchen on her birthday and she was so excited but the real excitement came the next morning. When she woke up and I went to get her out of her room she pushed past me frantic to see if her kitchen was still on the landing or if she had just dreamed it. She ran over and started making me some breakfast and then didn't even want to take a shower when I took one which is a first as well. The other really funny thing is that she mostly just uses the microwave. I have noticed this fact in all the play kitchens I've observed her in. She will put food in, push the buttons and then say "beep" and take the food out. Looks like Mom might need to start using the oven a bit more!

So far the kitchen has been worth its' weight in gold. Lucky for us since this thing weights a ton!



Benny has a some exciting news of his own. Last weekend I tried giving Ben some rice cereal. He just wasn't too sure about that so I gave up. Last night at dinner time he was really making a fuss in his highchair and was intently watching us eat so I decide to try again. He did a lot better this time and ate every last bite. Then he slept through the night for the second time ever! I am hoping and praying that this small change of adding rice cereal at dinner time will be what it takes to get him (and me) sleeping all night. Here's to hoping for a second night tonight.

Here's Ben eating, followed by a rerun picture of McKenzie during one of her first eating adventures.



My favorite part is the food hand print on Kenzie's forehead! What was she thinking?

Two On Tuesday!

Quite a fitting day for a second birthday! McKenzie had a great birthday complete with cake, balloons, presents and best of all "colors" on her toes! I actually painted her toes the night before, she has been wanting "colors" on her toes ever since I got my toes painted for our Hawaii trip.

I'm not sure exactly sure what I was thinking when I decided to do this. Has anyone ever tried to paint a house during a tornado? That is probably the best way I can describe trying to paint McKenzie's toes. Luckily I picked a really light color of pink with sparkles in it so you couldn't tell as much that one, I'm not cut out for pedicure work, two she touched all the toes almost immediately after I applied the nail polish, three she ran off barefoot into the yard as soon as I finished the last little toe. The toes nails had enough of the sparkles on them to satisfy her desire for "colors" and make one of her birthday wishes come true. She also got some new sandals for her birthday which allowed her to show off the "colors." The funniest part was we Skyped with Grandma and Grandpa C so they could wish her a happy birthday and she got the computer and sat down and put her feet right up to the camera to show them her toes. I wish I had a video of that. Nothing like looking at someones feet over the Internet.

And just so you don't feel you are missing anything here are the famous toes!



Before we left for Aunt Kacey's house McKenzie discovered the birthday cake that I baked for her. We had a really hard time leaving after that. I'm lucky that McKenzie's favorite friend, "flat monkey" is fairly easy to create out of frosting! Not a bad likeness if I do say so myself . If nothing else he is Flat : )


Here's the birthday girl sneaking a peak at the cake!



Here's McKenzie having her cake and eating it too!



Another highlight of her birthday was the bouquet of balloons her Daddy got for her! I think we could have just had the balloons and it would have been a great birthday. She carried those balloons around all evening. Luckily they were tied to a weight so we didn't lose them or McKenzie.



Overall, it was a great birthday for McKenzie and it's not over yet since we still have our zoo party on Saturday.

Here's a picture of Mom and Dad getting ready for the party with our animal hats on! McKenzie thought these were pretty funny.





This is Grandma C editing The Zaremba Family blog so that Colleen can print the blog as a Christmas gift for Matt. I'm mostly re-wording the text so that it is easier to read, taking out a million "..." and reducing the number of exclamation marks.

As you read above, Colleen wished she has a video of Kenzie showing Grandpa and me her “colors” on her toes. These are the three pictures that we took on the other end of Skype. This is a BIG plug for Skype. It really lets us sit her in Chelan and visit with our grands as often as we want.

Big Ben

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about taking Ben to the doctors for his neck rash and his cradle cap. I'm happy to report that the athlete's foot cream and Selsun Blue have worked wonders and he's on the mend. At that doctors appointment they weighted Ben at 13 lbs, 8 oz. Since that was a few days before he was four months I came home and compared him to McKenzie's four month check up. She weighted in at 14 lbs, 9 oz at four months. I told Matt that Ben didn't have a chance of catching up before his real four month appointment the next week. Turns out this guy likes a challenge!

Aunt Kacey and I had noticed he was super hungry even before the first appointment so we started giving him a little formula added to his bottles to keep him happy through the day and all was good. Fast forward one week to his actual four month appointment and the guy weighted in at 14 lbs, 11 oz. Over a pound in a week! Let's hope he does not keep growing at this rate or I'll be on the talk show circuit with the worlds heaviest toddler. Anyway, it goes without saying that Ben is doing great growing like a weed. The funny thing was after the doctor appointment he hasn't been crazy hungry, so I sort of feel like he just wanted to bulk up for that appointment.

Aunt Kacey's prediction is that Ben might have started as the smallest of the four cousins at 6 lbs, 5 oz but he will be the biggest someday!

Here's a picture I took of the kids yesterday along with one of my favorites from shortly after he was born. Ben sure has grown! McKenzie still loves her baby brother and always has a kiss for him.

Party Animal!

McKenzie's Turning Two
And Heading To The Zoo!
How About You?

That's right my little girl is going to be TWO next Tuesday! How did that happen? If anyone is interested we're going to the zoo for a low key birthday on June 13th at 10AM with lunch and cake on the zoo grounds at noon. Just let me know if you're going to come out so we can figure out where to meet!

Here's McKenzie's birthday picture from last year. Wow what a difference a year makes. And no for the record I didn't just happen to catch her wearing this jaunty little birthday hat at just the right moment. Last year I bought the silly thing and then realized it was way too small for any human head so I just took a picture of it and then printed it out and stuck it on a picture of McKenzie's head. It turned out to be a hit so I figured why not just keep it going year after year and keep putting it on a new picture of McKenzie each year. Won't she love that when she's sixteen? That's what Mom's are for I guess!



More on the upcoming birthday soon!