Early Birds

This is last Saturday morning a little after 7:15. This means if I was already taking pictures I'd been up a while. These two just wake up like little alarm clocks - malfunctioning alarm clocks if I got to vote. But it's hard not to perk up fast when you've got these two wanting you to wake up. Here's a shot from less than a minute later. They just don't sit still. They are either sleeping or they are moving.


We had a busy day on Saturday with another one of McKenzie's classmates birthday parties. For this one we went to a cookie decorating party and then a train ride at the country village. It was a lot of fun and a great way to spend a Saturday. McKenzie loved decorating the cookie. Explaining to me over and over that sprinkles were tiny candy. She was very serious about getting all that candy to stick to her cookie.


There was also a lady doing face painting.  McKenzie requested a 'nail' - which I made sure to interpret correctly for her as a 'snail' so she didn't get a scary face painting. She also got a little too close to her balloons causing some alarming hair.



Here's Benny telling everyone how he felt about being left out of the train ride. Once the train departed and I let him run loose he was happy as can be.


McKenzie's teacher, Ms. Lauren, came to help celebrate Siena's birthday and she rode on the merry go round with the kids.  What a good sport!

Remix McKenzie Style

McKenzie has been really into singing lately, she sings the Alphabet Song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Happy Birthday.  Lately she's been asking me to sing the rain songs to which I either sing Rain, Rain Go Away or It's Raining, It's Pouring. Here are the lyrics for both the songs and then McKenzie's recently released remix of the two. I think she has a real future in the music industry.  We're working on a little video footage of this for our viewing audience. Stay tuned.

Rain, rain, go away
Come again some other day
We want to go outside and play
Come again some other day


It's raining, it's pouringThe old man is snoringHe went to bed and he bumped his headAnd couldn't get up in the morning

McKenzie's Remix
It's rain, rain go away rain, rain, it's pouring
one peoples didn't get up in the morning

Snakes and snails...

and puppy dog tails... isn't that what little boys are suppose to be made of? Not at our house. While McKenzie enjoys sugar and spice and all that's nice she's definitely into backyard creatures. As long as the nature stays outside the house she can love it all she wants.



This past Sunday was a beautiful day and we spent most of it outside enjoying the sun. Matt found five frogs while he was mowing the lawn. McKenzie discovered a snail, which is pronounced in Kenzie speak as 'nail'. She was amazed by that little snail and how it could stick to the side of a rock. Luckily, she headed in for a nap and the poor thing was able to scoot off somewhere for a rest.

That afternoon we went to Flower World, an amazing nursery close to our house to pick up some plants and we ran into McKenzie's friend Riley while we were waiting to check out. I told McKenzie to tell Riley what she had found in the backyard and she screamed at the top of her lungs "A Snake!"  This to most of the people around us seemed more like an announcement of an actual snake than a confused term of a child. I quickly corrected her that she meant 'snail' but the damage was done. Guess we can just think of it as adding excitement to other peoples day.

Here's our boy and his puppy dog with no tail. Ben had discovered the dogs in the past few weeks He gets very excited to see them and wants to ride on them. Our sweet pups are very patient with him and just lay there while he 'pets' them. Ben's pronunciation of dog is currently 'da', we haven't been adding the 'ga' on for him like we did with Kenzie since that resulted in months of 'da-ga'.


On Saturday it was rainy so we took the kids to Funtasia, a family fun park near our house. Neither Matt or I had been there since high school.  Not much has changed but it was a fun family outing which had a few of our favorites, like pizza, lots of buttons to push and a ball pit. Here's our race car driving Ben showing us how it's done.


Two weekends ago I escaped for an afternoon out for tea with some of my favorite ladies to help celebrate my friend Misty's upcoming wedding. What a fun day out with the girls! My mom came over from Chelan for the event and was able to borrow a collection of vintage hats for us to wear.  Playing dress up never grows old.  Looking forward to growing older with these ladies.



Now for a little look alike game. When we were over visiting Grandma and Grandpa C in Chelan, Grandma C showed McKenzie some old photos of me when I was her age. She looked at the pictures and said "that's me!"  And I do have to admit I can see the resemblance but it might just be the hair.

I'm on the right and Kacey is on the left.  I had to have pockets added to my pants because Kacey had pockets.


Now here's Matt at about the same age. I see a lot of resemblance in the amount of teeth in that beautiful smile. The Look A Like Meter did vote for me but I'm not sure still.

Hippity Hoppity!

Happy H-Easter! Yes, that's spelled correctly.  For the past few years we've celebrated Easter with different themes. First there was F-Easter, aka Fiesta Easter, then last year was GR-Easter, Greek Easter and this year we had H-Easter, Hawaiian Easter. It adds a fun theme to an already fun holiday and it lets us test out some new recipes. This year Grandma and Grandpa Z hosted Easter since their yard was the driest given the wet spring we've been having. It was perfect for an egg hunt.

McKenzie and Claire seem to be discussing egg hunting etiquette here. They both were great egg hunters and found all the eggs.


Ben again was not so interested in hunting for eggs. He was more interested in exploring the yard and then he found Aunt Anne's car keys and was determined to find somewhere to use them.

Grandma Z's Barbie Jeep was the highlight of the day especially since McKenzie has figured out how to push the gas and steer at the same time. Ben had a great time chasing the girls around, though at one point he was hanging off the bumper for a bit. Didn't phase him in the least.


Here are the baskets that the Easter Bunny left for the kids.  Next year I'll be sending the Easter Bunny a note letting him know that Ben will be a big boy and needs a full basket too.


Here are the kids dressed up hunting for the eggs that the bunny left throughout the downstairs. Note to self... take a picture first while they are still looking cute or else you'll have no good pics of them dressed up.


McKenzie dying Easter eggs. I need to get this kid into some sort of toothpaste advertisement, that's a lot of teeth. Yes, we've counted there are really no extras, but let's just say we've counted more than once to be sure.


Ben, prepping for Easter, getting his hair cut. Matt took the kids in for their haircuts this time .  Being a crazy Mom I actually wrote out a note with how I wanted the kids hair cut and made him take it to the salon. I know how easily haircuts can go wrong so I didn't want to take any chance on misinterpretation.  "Clean up around the sides but leave it longer on top" could easily lead to a mushroom top cut for Ben and "Sweeping bangs with long layers in the back" could turn out Farrah Fawcett, Charlie's Angel's cut.  I needed it to be clear.

Only Fools Rush In...

but I can't help falling in love with you....  Much like falling in love there are other primal instincts built into us at birth that just know when to kick in. This past weekend the kids and I went over to Chelan to visit Grandma and Grandpa C. When we went to the park on Saturday to meet up with Gina and Atticus, who were also in town, the kids felt the call of the wild and abandoned the playground to chase after the local ducks.



Here's the little man just going, going, going after those ducks. It's so fun to see him running.  He's almost able to keep up with Kenzie already.


Speaking of falling in love, I fell in love with this picture when I saw it on my Mom's camera.  Such a great shot of McKenzie and Atti .  I wonder what Atti's secret was?


Here's Grandma C and McKenzie after they climbed the big ladder to the top of a dock. Notice how low Lake Chelan is right now.  That dock is just a little above water level in the summer time.


We had great weather during our visit, lots of sunshine even if it was windy. We even saw two rainbows out Grandma's kitchen window. On Sunday morning we took advantage of the sun to have an Easter Egg hunt.  We are in Spring Training for the big day next weekend.  This year McKenzie actually knows that Easter is coming and is excited for the bunny to leave her eggs.


Ben on the other hand thought the eggs were fun for a few minutes but again back to that primal instinct thing... he's a man baby.


He also has an obsession with water.  He just loves to stick his hand into liquids of any type and move it about be it a bucket, your cup of tea, a toilet, a puddle... you name it he's in it.



Here Ben is worrying Grandpa .  He wasn't worried about Ben turning the water on but was worrying about him breaking the whole faucet off!



On Sunday Aunt Diane and Aunt Wendy joined us until Tuesday and we finished the Thanksgiving table cloth.  This is such a huge relief to me and my November evenings.  Thank you to both of them and Grandma C and a special thanks to McKenzie who helped us sort out the embroidery thread. The patience she had for sitting there working on this project gave me a little glimpse into the future and doing crafts with her.  I can't wait.



Take my hand, take my whole life too for I can't help falling in love with you.