Miracle on 189th Street

That strange white sun is the miracle. It doesn't look like much but it truly is a miracle.  It's a Good Nite Lite though I feel it would be better named a Good Morning Lite because that's what it has delivered.

Both kids have always been good sleepers, they go down for naps and to bed without too much of a big production and when they sleep, they really sleep. With the introduction of the big girl bed when Ben was born we had some rocky times getting McKenzie to go to stop playing in her room and go to sleep. We had overcome that issue and were sleeping good but then in January when McKenzie was potty trained and we moved to no diapers at night we opened the flood gates. Not with accidents in the bed, she's great about that but with the excuse of going potty for getting out of bed or waking up super early and getting into our bed to "have some milk and watch a show."  This routine consisted of her waking me up, me getting up, taking her downstairs to let the dogs out and get her milk then me turning on cartoons and half sleeping for a bit more. Not a good start to my day. Something had to change and so I turned to my good friend the Google and discovered the world of kids sleep issues and the things you can do to influence those issues.

When I originally found the Good Nite Light, looking at their website I imagined is as a large clock like item that would hang from the wall. When the box arrived it was much smaller than I had imagined and then I opened the outer box to find a much smaller box inside and then opened that to find a plug in night light. Plugging things in where kids can reach them is not the best plan when you are trying to use said item to 'influence' them. So we rigged up an extension cord and the light hangs off McKenzie's dresser where she can see it. The basic premise is we pick a bedtime and set the clock for the blue moon light to come on then it stays blue until the time we pick for wake up and then it turns yellow like the sun and McKenzie is able to come out of her room.

It took a little getting used to but now not only is McKenzie staying in her room until the sun comes out she is actually sleeping in longer so it's already the sun when she wakes up. For little kids who can't tell time it gives them control over knowing what they are suppose to do. When it's blue you stay in bed and sleep and when it's yellow you can wake up and get out of bed.

Ben will definitely be getting one of these if we ever let him move to a big boy bed.  One plus of it being a small item is it will definitely be traveling with us so we can sleep in away from home too.

Farmtastic!

For McKenzie's third birthday party we hosted a morning at Willows Edge Farm, which is a fantastic farm not far from our house. We had quite a crowd with all of the family and some of McKenzie's friends joining us to ride a horse, feed chickens, check out the pigs and of course some cake.  The farm was a perfect location to host a birthday, they had a playground for the kids, lots of room to run, easy access for little ones to view the animals and of course riding horses.

The birthday girl - all smiles as she heads in for her turn on the horse.


They had Norwegian Fjord horses on the farm, they were beautiful and were great with the kids


Here's Daddy being the party mule, hauling around Ben and cousin Claire. Poor Benny is going to look back at the first part of his life and think we never let him participate in anything. I promise he was loose on the farm for a bit but he wouldn't stop shaking the horse corral so we had to corral him again.



McKenzie practicing for the part of Maria in the Sound of Music. I can just hear her singing 'I have confidence in confidence itself...' Look at Grandpa Z in the background trying to figure out where all that energy is headed.


Trying hard to introduce herself to the pigs - Corinne, the owner of the farm, finally had to turn off the electric fence since McKenzie wouldn't stop almost touching it in her efforts to see those piggies.


Kenzie and some of her friends from school checking out the baby horse. They were very concerned about where its Mommy was.


How many kids does it take to drive a tractor? A lot less than the number of parents it takes to get all the kids looking the same direction for a picture.


Everyone's favorite part of a party the cake.  Woody and Jesse made and appearance since we were visiting the farm.


Our sweet birthday girl in her cowboy hat. She is so lucky to have so many wonderful people in her life to help her celebrate her special day.  Special thanks to Willows Creek Farm for opening their doors to the public in this way and sharing the farm experience with us. It was a fantastic party.

Got A Lot of Questions and Big Ideas

Each day with kids is an adventure, you never know what you'll discover around the next corner. You can go to a place you've been a million times and your child will find something new to ask about. McKenzie has a lot of questions and big ideas and she's not afraid to talk about them.

Matt and I have made a point of being very honest and real with the kids so they aren't unnecessarily afraid of things or feel like they can't wonder about things. I do admit to telling McKenzie one small lie recently. There was a spider on the bathtub wall when the kids were in the tub so I didn't have a lot of options for getting rid of this spider. Normally I would pick him up in a paper towel and tell McKenzie I put him outside.  This time I had no other option of getting rid of the spider besides the toilet I tossed him in with the toilet paper I picked him up with. McKenzie asked where he went and I said that I had put him outside by flushing him down the toilet. She immediately smiled a big smile and said "into the ocean like Nemo?" My reply was "yes, exactly like Nemo honey."  I suppose she'll forgive me someday when she figures it out.

Recently my parents had one of their friends in Chelan pass away and McKenzie heard me talking to Grandma C on the phone and asked me "why die...?" "who die...?" and a whole assortment of questions on this topic. I explained that Grandma's friend was older and had gotten really sick and that his body had something broken in it and could work anymore. Over the next few days there was a lot more discussion about the topic but the most interesting one was at Aunt Kacey's house. McKenzie had thrown something and was in time out. Usually when she gets put in time out she yells that she has to go potty, she's going to be sick over and over. Last week she made a giant leap from sick to yelling "I'm going to die.... I'm going to die...". It's so interesting to me that I can follow her logic of how she comes up with the things she says and it is perfectly logical given the context she has but is so illogical with reality. Needless to say Aunt Kacey was very surprised by Kenzie that day.

While McKenzie is exploring her world more verbally these days Ben is still really into the physical exploring. He amazes me daily with the lengths he will go to reach new heights, be it stacking multiple items, balancing on a ball or something with wheels, you name it he's tried it. When he gets his mind set on something he goes for it.  Here he is at North Creek Park and he was determine to make it across those steps on his own.


Here are some recent pictures of our trip to a Log Boom Park, in Kenmore, where Matt and I both remember feeding ducks as kids. Here is McKenzie showing the ducks her overhand tossing skills making sure all the ducks got a snack.


Watch out for this guy on football field once he gains another 160 lbs.  Ben is ready to go tackle something even if it was just the slide.


McKenzie and her Daddy looking out at beautiful Lake Washington in the trees.

Not four anymore, I'm three!

The birthday girl and her Daddy - so happy!

Finally, oh finally the big day arrived! We have been talking and talking about June 9th for quite some time now, "That's my happy birthday!" McKenzie will tell you. Last Wednesday our sweet McKenzie turned three on a nice rainy Seattle day. It was a school day so she insisted on wearing her party dress complete with leggings, a sweatshirt, socks and her rhinestone studded tennis shoes which created a birthday fashion statement that only a three year old in the Northwest can pull off.

McKenzie somehow became confused about being two and then turning three. She has been telling anyone who she talks to about her birthday that she's not four anymore, she's three.  So cute but not really accurate but as I've learned you pick your battles and that was not one I was willing to bother with. Cousins Nathan and Kayla tried very hard to explain the whole situation to McKenzie over and over but she was holding her ground as much as they were. Sometimes you just have to agree to disagree.

McKenzie woke up early as usual on her birthday and I was in the process of herding her back to bed for a while when out of the blue Matt sat up and said, "Happy Birthday McKenzie!" and then proceeded to fall back asleep.  This sent her into a frenzy that there was no backing out of so up we were. Meanwhile JonesZ had woken up with a hurt foot so I was trying to figure out what was going on with him and McKenzie in all her excitement ran downstairs alone and discovered the balloon and flowers we had left out for her. I could hear her yelling all the way upstairs. What a great surprise!


It is so exciting to have your birthday at school.  McKenzie loved bringing cupcakes in to share with her friends. Life has really changed since I was a kid. Back then your mom would make your favorite cupcakes or whatever snack you wanted and bring it into school for your class. These days you have to bring in store bought treats that don't contain peanuts and are all exactly the same. My Secret Mommy shame is I like being 'forced' to just buy cupcakes at the store and be done instead of having to stay up all night icing a million cupcakes.


After school we took McKenzie out to Red Robin for dinner because they know how to do it right. First balloons and french fries, then they sing you happy birthday and bring you an ice cream sundae.



When we got home we opened presents and McKenzie got her yearly measurement in the laundry room. I had Matt mount a nice piece of wood on the wall in the laundry room after McKenzie was born so we could measure the kids growing up and take the board with us if we ever move. McKenzie loves to check out how much she has to grow to be as tall as Mom and Dad. She is growing and growing.


Here's to another wonderful year with our sweet girl.  I can't believe she's three already.

Scraplifting

There is no feeling in the world like stealing a little time away from the busy world of working and being a mom. This past weekend I got to take some time for me and get away with the ladies from Matt's family for a scrapbooking weekend at Pacific Beach. Matt's Uncle Bob and Aunt Nancy have a fantastic house located there that they are always so generous with. We had seven ladies scrapping and had plenty of room to spread out and lots of good conversations to while we worked.

When I told McKenzie on Friday morning that Daddy would pick her up at school she instantly said "Where Mommy going???"  She's so in tune with the little things it's scary sometimes. Despite Mommy being missing Matt and the kids had a great weekend at home. The weather cleared up on Saturday and they were able to get out to the park to burn some energy.

My technique of scrapbooking is sometimes called 'scraplifting' because I more often than not take my ideas straight out of a magazine and just reproduce the look and feel of a page with my own pictures, papers and flair. I've tried doing it freestyle but I always end up wasting too much time per page and putting too much content on a page so I enjoy borrowing ideas from others. I was able to make 14 pages during the weekend which is huge progress for me. I have nine of them all the way completed and the other five I've got some little details to finish up still. Here are the ones I completed.

Busy Bees!

While the kids are always busy, it's me who's been busy lately trying to learn a new camera, learn new photo editing software and trying to decide which cute pictures of the kids to take on my upcoming scrapbook weekend. I guess these are all good problems to have. I am loving the new camera but we've been taking pictures like mad testing all sorts of things and this has resulted in way more pictures than normal especially because I've also been taking pictures with our other camera.

Here are a few of my favorites from the past two weeks.

Here's Ben at Matt's cousin Cassandra's yearly Crawfish Boil. Ben wasn't too sure what to do with the crawfish . He looks like he's say 'Stand back... don't anybody come near me or I'll use this thing!'


Cutest bubbie bath boy ever. I love that the new camera has such a great flash, it captures appropriate shadows for depth in pictures but not extra ones like my other camera.


Ben and his dear friend Indy.  Wonder why he thinks he can ride the dogs.


Maybe this is why. We met up with Gina and Atticus at the Everett Children's Museum last Sunday and the three stooges had a great time!


And the last thing that has been keeping me busy... Ben the climber. The sit 'n' spin is the last of our large plastic toys and now it too has been hidden away. Gotta figure out how to keep this boys feet on solid ground.