Out with the Old, In with the New!

Two weekends ago we did a garage sale with Aunt Renee, Uncle Nick and their friend Steve. We had a lot of odds and ends and baby things to get rid of. It felt so good to get some stuff out of the house.  There was even some items from the estate of Margaret E. Couchee (my Grandma Couchee), items never before available to the public. Those went fast.  Overall, it was a great day and McKenzie was a trooper. She helped us organize things all day.

Here she is modeling some chairs that were for sale.


Helping Uncle Nick water the grass.


It's truly amazing what people will buy at a garage sale just reminded me how many different types of people there are in the world.  The money we made from the garage sale went to fund part of my newest acquisition - a new camera. While we love our current camera because it's small, indestructible, and takes great pictures I really want a camera with faster shutter speed to capture those little moments with the kids. So after a lot of research and some advise from friends we decided on a Nikon D40. So far I'm loving it, though I've been spending way more time reading the manual online than blogging. I'll get the hang of it soon and be cranking out some great pics to post on there.

Here are a couple of my favorite shots so far. I love that it captures the depth in the pictures so well and has an amazing flash that helps with indoor pictures. Looking forward to taking photos to the next level.

The Mother of All Days!

One of the things I enjoy most about being a mom is having fun adventures with the kids. This Mothers Day was no exception. It was a beautiful day on Sunday and we decided take the promised ferry ride to make up for our boat mishap the weekend before. The closest ferry to our house is the Mukilteo run which goes to Whidbey Island. It's a great ferry ride for kids since the entire ride lasts less than 15 minutes.  It is just enough time to check out the boat and not enough time to get bored. We decided to just walk on instead of driving our car back and forth.



Walking on was a great call on our part. There was a park right on the other side that had a great beach and a huge sand hill complete with trucks, shovels and other toys for the kids to play with. We were on Whidbey for about an hour and then we caught the ferry back to Mukilteo.


Here's Ben on the sand pile - it looks like he is holding the 'Stop' sign in this picture


Ahh the feeling of warm sand between your toes, notice this guy doesn't seem to care that there is a lot more than sand between his toes. Love those little feet!


I love being a Mom! Especially to these two.


On the ferry ride back one of the other passengers was feeding seagulls right out of his hand. It was pretty exciting and a bit scary how close they got to us.


When we got back to Mukilteo we had lunch at Ivar's Landing on their back porch out over the water.  It was such a nice setting, the staff was so accommodating and the food was excellent. It was a fantastic way to wrap up a busy morning.

Here's our very own Ivar's Diver modeling her menu.


Benny enjoying the view and shaking the table has hard as he could.


Both kids fell asleep in the car on the way home and usually we can get them up to their rooms for naps without issue but that wasn't the case this time. Both kids decided their ten minutes in the car was enough so they had some alone time and then we finally gave up and went on with the day. We spent more time in the backyard and then both kids were asleep before their normal bedtimes which was a perfect end to the Mother of all days! I see a Mother's Day tradition of the Whidbey ferry and Ivar's in my future.

Don't worry blog fans I won't post anymore this week.  We had a very fun filled weekend and I didn't want to get behind so I just had to get all these out there!

Stealing Home

Or stealing the show is more like it. On Saturday we went to the Mariners game with the kids, Aunt Kacey, Uncle Eric, Nathan, Kayla, their Grandma Jill and Grandma and Grandpa C. Our seats were way up at the top of the stadium but that was fine because we didn't spend much time watching the game. Instead we were watching Benny who was putting on quite a show. We were also watching him to make sure he didn't nose dive out of the nose bleed section. Luckily it was little league night and there were lots of other pint sized fans around so we didn't disrupt the game too much.

Here's a small part of the Benny show

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It was an amazingly sunny day on Saturday and before the game started we were able to go and walk the around the field. We'd never been down on the field before.  It was a lot of fun for us and the kids. Along the way we waved at fans. McKenzie got a piece of gum from one of the baseball players. She promptly chewed it up and swallowed it. Time to break out the horror stories of gum staying in your stomach for seven years. I bet there is even a website devoted to that... yep and Snopes has disproved it. All too soon McKenzie will be able to look this stuff up herself.

Here's McKenzie, with her favorite guy Nathan.

Grandma C getting her fill of the grand kids.  We left for home shortly after this before we caused too much trouble.  Sometimes love hurts.

We spent Saturday morning out in the yard playing and doing a little bit of yard work. The kids just love to be outside and we are so lucky to have such a big yard for them to play in. It's going to be so much fun when they are old enough to enjoy all it's features.

Here's McKenzie helping her Daddy mow the lawn and hauling the grass away.  Such a big helper!

Ben enjoying the swing in the willow tree. It's our safety spot for him in the yard when we need to get something done that occupies both of us, otherwise he's climbing something before we know it.


Our sweet dogs, Indy and JonesZ, enjoying some shade up by the hammock. What a great way to spend a sunny Saturday!

Score One For The Dentist

Unlike most people McKenzie loved her first visit to the dentist. She got to sit in the big chair, wear cool sunglasses, watch a show and have her teeth tickled. They also counted her teeth and just as we suspected there are just twenty in there and that's the right number to have. They told her great job for brushing her teeth and said that she had plenty of space between her baby teeth to leave room for her adult teeth to come in.

She also got to pick out a prize after her visit. She choose a bracelet... or six if we have to get all technical. Luckily they didn't mind that she helped herself to a handful instead of one. I also got my teeth cleaned while we were there and made a mental note that next time separate appointments are necessary. Nothing like balancing a squirmy child who insists on also looking into my open mouth while the hygienist tried to clean my teeth.



After the dentist we went out to a special lunch just the two of us and McKenzie insisted on eating 'on the road' so we could watch cars go by. That meant eating outside on the sidewalk. I convinced her to sit at an outdoor table instead of on the curb like she wanted. You never know what kind of big idea is going to pop into her head.

Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining

This post was suppose to be about our boat trip to Tillicum Village last weekend with Grandma and Grandpa Z, Aunt Jennifer, Uncle Chris, Aunt Anne and cousin Claire. We actually went to Seattle, we parked the car, we got our picture taken with a Native American (aka an Indian), we got onto the boat and then Ben got sick. So before the boat departed for the four hour tour we got off the boat in a hurry. Matt and I were both in agreement that being unable leave later was not going to work for us. We thought that Ben might have the flu that McKenzie had earlier in the week but it seemed to be a combo of shots earlier in the week and maybe teeth number seven and eight making an appearance. We have reports from the rest of the family that stayed that the trip was great and we're sad to have missed it. Here's McKenzie and Claire a few minutes before we exited the boat.



McKenzie was such a trooper.  She didn't throw a fit when we got off the boat she was just extremely sad. This trip was more than just a boat ride.  It was spending time with cousin Claire and Grandma and Grandpa and we also brought Grandpa Z his birthday present.  To McKenzie it was a happy birthday party.  We decided we needed to make it up to her somehow and made plans to try to take ferry on Sunday from Mukilteo to Whidbey Island.

Then Ben was up literally half the night and therefore so was I, on Sunday morning we formed a new plan that included lots of rest time for Ben. We had been waiting to take McKenzie to her first movie until Toy Story 3 came out after her birthday. She had been talking about it so much that Aunt Kacey actually asked me if McKenzie had been to the movies with her Daddy and eaten popcorn. Matt and McKenzie went to see 'How To Train Your Dragon' in 3D! She loved it and did pretty good about staying in her seat and watching the show. Her favorite part was eating the yummies that Daddy got her. Matt got this great picture of her - love it! At first he couldn't believe it when I gave him the camera when they were leaving but you have to capture these little moments as they are priceless.


Despite our weekend plans being changed drasticallywe still have a great weekend.  McKenzie is already talking about going to the movies again. Ben is doing much better after getting some good rest on Sunday and some Mommy time.



Ben has a new assortment of skills to entertain us these days including blowing kisses, saying 'Thank You', 'Uh-Oh' and other cute things.  But his favorite activity is climbing on anything, everything, things you would never consider something you could climb on. He will use a person, the dog, a ball, a stack of books he moved from across the room one by one to get a little leverage to get higher. And once he has reached his goal he does a little dance and laughs.  Meanwhile we are frantically running towards him to save him. Let's hope this is just a small daredevil phase we can laugh about later .