Choo-Choo Train!

McKenzie loves the sunshine and is definitely happier at the end of the day when it's not dark at 5:00. Often when she looks out the window during the day she says 'look sunshine' even when it's overcast. To her if it's not dark the sun is shining! We have some great spring like weather this past month and have been taking full advantage of it when we can. Last Saturday we jumped in the car and headed to The Country Village, which is located about 3 miles from our house. It's a funky little shopping area that has lots of interesting products, people, and free roaming chickens.

McKenzie trying to get close to the chickens - she just loves all animals!


We love to go there to visit their great toy store where you can buy toys that are just fun and not fancy. We have gotten the kids a great marble toy there and this weekend we bought them one of those big cardboard block sets. Matt and I both remembered them fondly from our own childhoods while we were in the store. Unfortunately, the part we didn't remember was how big they are and how many there are. One more thing to put away at the end of the day. I will say the kids do really enjoy them and have been playing with them.

The big man and his shadow riding a horse.


McKenzie looking at lots of ducks in the pond.  Oddly there was one random seagull floating away pretending to be a duck.


One of the best things about The Country Village is all the kid friendly areas - they have a playground in the back with several big play toys including a old merry go round with metal horses and a pirate ship. But the best thing of all is the choo-choo train! It's a bunch of different types of train cars that are pulled by a tractor and take you on a loop around the shops. Very exciting if you're a kid and sort of fun as a parent to see your kids that happy.


Here we are taking off in the caboose - the kids look like they are ready for a wild adventure. What you can't see thankfully is I'm also in that caboose. There's just enough headroom in that top bump up for me to ride. Daddy was "too big" according to Kenzie.

He's A Man, Baby.

It is truly amazing the difference between boys and girls. Now that Ben is officially a toddler and not a baby anymore he's really starting to show his 'man' traits. He has always had an extreme fondness of remote controls and just wants to hold them pushing wildly at the buttons.  But now I'm starting to see more and more of the man in him. This past week he has developed a car noise and will drive anything that has wheels while making a low growling noise. It's really cute. I don't know how kids learn the things they do, it's an amazing process watching them grow and learn.

Ben hasn't learned all things manly yet - that boy loves to dance! If he hears a little tune playing he can't help but stop and do some clapping and foot stomping. He looks like an old time cowboy at a barn party listening to someone play the fiddle.

Here's Ben and his trusty dog, JonesZ. Ben has his car in one hand and is practicing one of his other favorite man things - escape. JonesZ, having no thumbs of his own must rely on Ben for his means of escape.


Defeat. While Ben can reach a door knob, he luckily cannot open them yet, especially with a child lock. Ben can however open door with handles and is quite proficient at this. Aunt Kacey now has to keep her front door dead bolt locked at all times to prevent escape. Ben and JonesZ are plotting for another day.


Just like Superman with kryptonite, Ben does have one area of weakness in his tough guy image... Hippie. Hippie is Ben's flat friend, a distant relative of McKenzie's Flat Monkey. From an early age this has been Ben's lovie. He never really took to binkies like McKenzie did, instead he's always been a bit of a thumb sucker. Now whenever he see Hippie he instantly sucks his thumb and must have Hippie to cuddle with. It's very cute but I can hear myself down the road 'thumb out of your mouth Ben....' at least with the binkie we had some control. Oh well, that's another battle for anther day. For now I'll just enjoy the cuteness.




I can also hear Ben later in life reading this and saying 'Awe, Mom you make me sound like such a baby.' He's definitely a man, baby.

U R Sweet

So is McKenzie with her Valentines Day heart shaped Eggos. I love the classic candy heart phrases like 'U R Sweet', but you don't see those too much anymore. Now the candy heart sayings are things like 'Text Me' and 'BFF'. I can only imagine what they will say when McKenzie and Ben are old enough to read.

Some things are timeless though like swings at the park. Who doesn't love to swing? The swing situation is our main criteria for picking what park we go to. We have to have swings.

Here's the kids last weekend - doing their thing in the swings!


McKenzie having Daddy give her a BIG push!


Ben, breaking in his birthday boots at the park. In the background you can see Matt sitting on a bench. McKenzie brought some bubbles to the park and when Matt started blowing them kids came from all over like he was the pied piper. Bubbles are the next best thing to swings.





I've been busy in all my spare time (ha... ha...) working on some new scrapbook pages.  I had to test out all the new exciting things I got for Christmas.

This is a page I've been wanting to make for a while. McKenzie's second birthday party at the Woodland Park Zoo. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, especially the zoo animals I cut out on the Cricut, which is my new favorite thing. 


Here's Ben eating McKenzie's shoes when we went to the pool last summer. U R Cute!

Obsession

I got a new application on my iPhone the other day, Toddler Flashcards, which is a great little application for toddlers with vibrant pictures of animals, foods, etc accompanied by audio of the names of what you are looking at. McKenzie enjoys it - perhaps a bit too much. No, she's not entirely obsessed with the application, her obsession was with a picture of a popsicle in the application.

She talked about that popsicle all afternoon on Saturday, even going so far as to bite at the screen on my phone. So on Sunday we got some popsicles at the store to calm the constant chatter about the popsicle in the phone. McKenzie's pronunciation of popsicle, which is a bit off of the actual word in true Kenzie fashion, is even more distorted by the level of excitement surrounding the topic.

Ah... the joys of childhood, nothing like a good popsicle in February!


Here's Ben getting his first taste of goodness.  He really enjoyed his popsicle but as usual declined to actually use his own hands to eat it. Oh well, much neater this way.


All done... look what a wonderful thing was inside!


I can hardly wait for the ice cream man this year. I'd better keep some cash handy once the kids start to identify the ice cream man music with popsicles. The ice cream man that comes to our neighborhood is not the same one from my childhood. You know the one in the properly branded truck with the back half a freezer, with the real ice cream music playing from that cone speaker on his roof. No, the ice cream man of today is driving a mini van, with a Coleman cooler, blaring a remixed ice cream songs from his CD player. The reality that the ice cream man himself had changed as well came a few years ago when we heard the neighbor girl yell to her mom, "Mom, Mom, the ice cream man... can we get some??? This time he's not smoking." The only thing that remains the same is the ice cream. You can still get a firecracker popsicle or the classic ice cream bar no matter what kind of song he's playing.

Should have knocked on wood.

Shortly after my last post boasting about how Ben made it through his first year without more than a cold he developed a pretty bad fever which was around on and off for the next two days. Poor little guy.  It's so hard when babies are sick because they don't know you're just supposed to veg out and watch movies when you don't feel good. His luck is turning though - knocking on wood as I type this - he enjoyed his first fortune cookie this weekend and his fortune already came true! It read, "Someone will give you something." Wow, I can't believe it actually happened for him, but it's true he has received many things from various people since opening that cookie. Things like his bottle before bed, many clean diapers, a hug from Kenzie make up his list that goes on and on. I think that may have come from the 'My First Fortune' pack or something.



We survived Ben's first birthday party, which was a nice laid back affair complete with the traditional Mom's homemade birthday cake and cupcake battalion. For Kenzie's first birthday she had a dog cake complete with 'pup cakes'. Ben had a Mario Bro's theme to his party since that's what we did his room in. I made him a 1 Up Cake and matching mushroom cupcakes using the mold for the Big Top Cupcake. It's amazing how many different looks you can give a cupcake. Unlike McKenzie, Ben was not a fan of the cupcake - he much preferred the doughnut on his actual birthday.

It's hard to believe it's been a year already since Ben joined our family... time really does fly. Note to self for any readers who have yet to have their children: try not to have your children born within a week of your own birthday. It's fun to celebrate but it's just too much in one week! We did celebrate my birthday as well, Grandma and Grandpa C watched the kiddos and Matt and I went out for a much needed date night. We enjoyed a nice meal and some shopping in Bellevue. Then on my actual birthday I went and got a facial - a great way to end a long event filled week! Here's me and my sweet Benny.


Here's Ben checking out his 1 UP cake!


Ben and his second cousin Olivia who is four months older than him. He sure did like her hair! Can't wait to see these two playing together as they grow up!


Ben and Atticus enjoy some lunch. Atticus is 20 months, so he's 11 months younger than Kenzie and 9 months older than Ben. Here comes trouble! Look at these two... sitting so innocent in their chairs.


Then they reach over and do some sort of secret handshake... trouble I tell you!


Miss McKenzie and Ben enjoying a snack with Grandma Z! She's going to have to keep some Chex mix on hand for their next visit.


The wild bunch - Nathan - 6, Kayla -4, Ben 1, McKenzie 2 and Grandma C - not as old as Grandpa : )