Puppy Love

My kids are huge animal lovers to the point where if we meet a strange dog and the owner tells me that the dog is friendly, I then warn them that my son may be too friendly for their dog.  Ben has never met a dog he does not love and will not kiss.  Luckily for all of us we've met some nice dogs who don't mind an good hug and some extreme love.

Indy and JonesZ are patient sorts who indulge the many hugs and snuggles they receive from Ben.  Here's JonesZ enjoying a nice Sunday afternoon rest with his favorite kid.  JonesZ was obviously there first and Ben had no qualms about finding a seat right next to him on the edge of the couch. 

 McKenzie also loves dogs but she has a healthy respect for their personal space most of the time.  The one exception is her dog friend Muki, who she has grown up with.  Here's McKenzie and Muki when they were fourteen months old enjoying Seafair from the comfort of Kenzie's stroller.  

McKenzie and Muki having a play date this past weekend.  Both have a bit more hair now.  They say that people sometimes look like their dogs.  This would definitely be true if McKenzie was Muki's owner.  Must be their matching birthdays. 

March Madness

Our starting lineup is looking good going into the playoffs with our star player McKenzie, taking the lead each night in sinking baskets from anywhere in the family room.  She is our current MVP due to her ability to listen to suggestions on her technique as well as her attention span of more then two minutes.  She will shoot over and over to get the required number of baskets to get her treat after dinner.

Here's a great shot of the team taking a break from practice. 

Nothing but net from McKenzie from across the room.  It amazes me that if she misses a shot and we tell her to throw it a little higher or a little straighter that she can actually translate that into action.  She does not get that from me.  Love her wild arms, they make me picture her as a tall lanky teenager playing high school basketball. 

 

 Not to be outdone we have our big man Ben dunking the ball, and the crowd goes wild!

I usually don't post bad pictures of the kids but speaking of madness...the contrast in this picture to Ben's normal self is too funny. Meet Ben's alter ego, Igor, better pass his sister the ball or he'll be racking up some technical fouls in his drool stained shirt.  

Spring Has Sprung!

It's official Spring is here!  The frogs are singing me a chorus as I type this and we've been outside with the kids any chance we get enjoying the sun breaks.  I love this time of year for many reasons but most of all for the end of the long cold wet winter and the promise that sunshine and fun are heading our way.  I took a trip out to Boston last week for work and seeing their trees still bare of any buds made me appreciate the signs of Spring that are springing up around the Northwest.  

We have been making the most of the sunshine and heading out to enjoy it whenever possible.  We took a trip to the park two weekends with our friends Atticus and Gina.  I love that my kids get to grow up spending so much time with the son of one of my best friends.  It's amazing to watch them interact and also so nice to spend some time with Gina. 

Here's Ben on park patrol.  Good boy but why do I have the only children at the park who insist on picking up other peoples nasty trash?  He found this lovely item by the swings and would not move on until the "uck" was gone.

These three just go go go.  I was taking this picture and Ben and Atti started saying "Help... Mama... Help...". I got my shots and then Gina and I assisted them up.  A mom has to have her priorities. 

Boys will be boys and nothing says fun with your friend other than jumping on a large metal plate at a park.

McKenzie, the monkey, wasn't drawn in by the metal plate instead she decided to try her skills out at the monkey bars.  Not long now until she'll be hanging upside down from these. 

The park we went to has a horse arena at one end so we were able to see some horses out enjoying the sunshine too.  Look at that blue sky!  I'm looking forward to many more days spent in the sun with our friends. 

Big Boy Bed

We have had Ben's big boy bed at our house for almost a year now since the Great Bed Shuffle of 2010 with my family. Now that's a story for another time.  We also got him new bedding at Christmas time so we were all set to make the move whenever we wanted.  There was no pressing reason to move him out of his crib so we just left him in there but this weekend we decided to make the move to the big boy bed.

At first it wasn't looking good as he climbed up on his new bed then used the higher ground to immediately climb over the rail and back into his crib.  We knew it might take a bit and had a plan of just having both in his room until he was ready.  Then when it was actually bedtime he climbed into his big boy bed and laid down and said "Ni-night." And he did just that, he stayed up on his bed and was up for a bit scratching on the wall and checking things out but then right to sleep and slept all night in the big boy bed.  Same thing on night two with us knocking on wood for continued success with bedtime.

I do have to say moving out of the crib is bittersweet because it means our baby is growing up. 

You can see he hasn't gotten the hang of pillows or sheets as he didn't even want to get under his covers the first night.  His bed has Super Mario sheets to match his room which is much more fun than his crib. 

The next step in our plan is to combine book reading time with the kids in one bedroom or the other and get them on the same bedtime.   Always something to be working towards.

Masterpiece Monday: Pick Your Battles Play-Doh

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder or in my kids case it is beautiful to whoever created it.  One of the things I've learned from being a mom is you have to pick your battles.  There are things that just aren't worth fighting over such as:
1) The beauty of your kids creations
2) Keeping Play-Doh colors separate

Once you surrender on these two simple points life gets easier and everyone wins.  I tend to keep new Play-Doh hidden away until our old stuff is so try and crumbly that it's more of a mess than fun to play with.  But this weekend I had found a stash upstairs and added it to the collection in our Play-Doh bin.  Within two minutes of discovering the new colors McKenzie mashed it all into her existing grayish mass.  She was quite happy and said she really liked it that way.  I like it that way too since the kids were playing nicely together with their mutual love of gray Play-Doh.  After a bit I got tired of opening container after container for McKenzie so then it was Ben's turn to plead for just one more container please, until they were all open and smashed together forming the lovely art displayed below. 

Share some of the Masterpieces in your life!  Directions here.

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Pick Your Battles Play-Doh

Featured Artist: McKenzie
Medium: Play-Doh and Play-Doh container lids

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This picture features the art and the artist and you can see she is very proud of her creation.  She is getting better about her art skills and forming things out of Play-Doh but what I love most is that her imagination is growing much faster than her art skills and she can see all kinds of wonderful things in this blob of dough.

We go together...

We go together
Like rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong
Remembered forever
As shoobop sha wadda wadda yippity boom de boom
Chang chang changitty chang shoobop
That's the way it should be, wha oooh, yeah... .

- Songwriters: Jim Jacobs & Warren Casey

It's little moments like this that make it all worth it and make me forget all the other times when they aren't sharing or getting along.  These are the memories I'll choose to remember when they are all grown up - the ones where they were having nothing but fun together.