The Big One!

Ben - One Year Old

McKenzie - One Year Old

Today Ben turned one! Time really does fly when you're having fun. Ben has almost nothing but fun. He really is such a happy guy, always ready for a little snuggle or to play some peek-a-boo. We'll be celebrating his birthday with the family this weekend so we'll have a full birthday update then.

Tonight we had a small celebration complete with cake, balloons and a present. That checked off as an official "Happy Birthday Party" according to McKenzie's birthday party requirements. McKenzie actually thinks whenever there is cake, it's a Happy Birthday. Our friend Kim comes over for dinner now and then and the last time she came over she brought a cake for dessert - instant birthday party! A few weeks ago I called Kim and invited her for dinner because I was making one of her favorite dishes and when I told McKenzie her first response was, "Happy Birthday party?"  This prompted me to call Kim back and invite her for a real birthday party. So tonight we celebrated in style, Kim brought balloons for the kids and some fancy doughnuts from Frostology, which is a tasty doughnut shop near our house that creates some unique items such as maple bars with bacon on them. While we did not sample any bacon tonight we did have some wonderful flavors to help celebrate Ben's birthday.

Here's Ben with his birthday doughnut! Don't worry I blew out the candle before he touched it but it was close!



He didn't hold back at all when he was allowed to grab the doughnut!


At some point he became too sugar overloaded to even use his hands anymore.



This past weekend McKenzie was sick and so we had her quarantined from Ben which didn't make either of them too happy.  The fantastic news is Ben made it his entire first year with nothing more than a couple of minor colds! That's an amazing accomplishment in this germ filled world. I was so relieved when today came and he was still healthy as can be.

Here's McKenize happy as can be since she has not only a balloon but a bowl full of mixed berries.  That girl is part fruit fly! She loves eating all the fruit she can get her hands on.


Here's Ben modeling a Northwest baby outfit - boots and a rain coat.  He looks like he's a fisherman at sea waiting for a 20 foot swell to crash down on him.

Come Aboard. We're expecting you....

No, we didn't take a trip on The Love Boat but we did venture out this past weekend with the kids to eat at a restaurant. This is not something high on our list of things we do. My friend, Kelli, has posted a few times about taking her kids who are similar ages as Kenzie and Ben to Red Robin. Our experience was much like The Love Boat theme song. They were definitely expecting us, kids in tow! They had a great kids menu, crayons for coloring and even balloons! We will definitely be returning next time we want to go out to eat.

Here are McKenzie and her Daddy and the pink balloon. Oh, how she loved that balloon! She also insisted in leaving the restaurant with her plastic milk cup, colored menu and the two crayons she received. Our girl is such a hoarder.


This was Ben's first time venturing out at a meal time without baby food. By this age McKenzie was eating anything she could get her hands on but Ben acts like I'm poisoning him if I slip him some 'real' food and prefers the baby food mush. I try to reason with him and tell him the baby food is poison but he loves the stuff. Looking forward to next week and switching off of formula to real milk - then we can really be on the go! Now if I could only get him to actually hold his own bottle all the time. That's another difference in the kids, McKenzie was off the bottle at one and onto the sippy cup with no issues. Ben is just not interested in tipping his head back to properly drink out of either a bottle or sippy cup so it's hard for him to get anything.  Then he gets bored and gives up for more exciting things like climbing the bookshelves. Maybe if I made eating more of a challenge he'd help out more.


Here's Ben using the tiny cup his orange wedges came in as a phone. It's amazing how quickly they pick things like that up!


One of the reasons Matt and I don't eat out with the kids often is our difference in opinion on the mess kids make. Matt feels we should pick up all the little bits of food from the floor and surrounding area and I, on the other hand, am okay to pick up the really big stuff and leave a big tip. Going to Red Robin and seeing that there were tons of other messy kids there and they were prepared to deal with a bit of a mess let us find a happy medium in our opinions and we left the place neat but not as neat as we found it.

We also made it to the park again this past weekend.  It is so amazing to have sunny days in January here in Seattle! We have some really nice neighborhood parks that are a quick drive from our house. When the weather is nice one of our favorite things to do is grab take out sandwiches or something else easy and have dinner at one of the parks. This kills two birds with one stone - we eat and the kids get some energy out. I'm really looking forward to the nicer weather now that Ben is really mobile and can enjoy the park too.

Yes, Ben is going to be that kid...the one going up the slide right from the start!


Looking forward to the weekend and hopefully more sunshine!

New Kid On The Block

All those who were young in the early 80's are hearing "Hangin' Tough" playing in their heads. This entry is about Kenzie hanging tough - today Kenzie was the new kid - she had her first day of preschool today at The Goddard School. We have been preparing her to start preschool for a few weeks - ever since our Santa campaign died down. She is going to go to school for two full days a week to start. I was a little nervous about the first day but she really made us proud today!

I can remember the first time McKenzie socialized with another baby and the feeling of joy that she was connecting and interacting. I had that feeling again today when I went to pick her up from school and she was doing fantastic. Kenzie was just fitting in and behaving well in a group of kids her own age. She did great on so many levels - going potty by herself, eating the lunch I packed her, taking a nap at nap time, which I was a bit worried about given her love of solitude when sleeping.

Being the crazy Mom I am, I emailed the center director to check in on her about mid day and she wrote back saying, "She is having a lot of fun with the exception of falling in a huge puddle outside...". That's our girl - luckily she had a change of clothes!

Here's Kenzie with her backpack on and her new princess lunch box heading into school this morning!


I asked her what her favorite part of the day was and she said 'playing' and that she wanted to play more at school. Yeah for school!

In preparation for starting school and Ben's upcoming 1st Birthday (yahoo!) I took both kids to get their hair cut on Saturday. McKenzie got a small trim and some sweeping bangs cut in to try to help with the hair in her face issue and so far it's working great.


Our sweet Benny's hair was going from Rock Star to mullet with it's overgrown back and tufty ear flaps so he too needed a professional hair cut. We stayed long on top but cleaned the sides and back. Boy did he grow up right before my eyes! Can't believe he'll be one in a few week. Here he is posing on the couch at the hair studio with his new cut!



We had a great time last weekend, the sun was out and we made it to our favorite neighborhood parks twice. I finally wised up and had Ben wear his shoes and let him explore the great outdoors. His first mobile taste of real freedom - he loved it! We'll be having quite a fun spring and summer at the local parks once the weather warms up.

I squeezed in some scrapbooking time on Friday night. I've been dying to test all the new equipment I got for Christmas. So far this year I've been finishing up all the odds and ends I have left over from my scrap retreat pages so it felt great to get to start on something new. Here's the result of a couple of free hours to scrap! It's McKenzie's second birthday, zoo party page is next on my list!


One last note to readers and those who comment: for Christmas I had my 2008 blog entries made into a bound book for Matt. I wanted to make sure that I was able to capture all of this family information that I record here for the kids down the road. I used tool from Blog2Print that pulled my entire blog into a book automatically including the comments from readers. So if you comment, know it will be preserved in an offline version at some point. I thought that was a neat option so the kids could see other peoples input into the blog. If you are someone who reads and doesn't comment, join in and share!

Multi Purpose Party!

The Zaremba and Long familes celebrated the New Year in Chelan at Grandma and Grandpa C's house. While we were there we had quite the celebration. We rang in the New Year at 8:30 with the kids - Nathan, Kayla, Kenzie and Ben. None of them can read clocks so it was just as exciting as if we'd done it at midnight. We celebrated Grandpa C's 60th birthday, January 3rd, at the same time and had a 'Big Top Cupcake' that the girls helped make that afternoon. Quite fun and tasty! Good thing I got my own big top mold for Christmas. Here's Grandpa C and the crew with the cake.



Here's the TMI part of this entry. The other part of our celebration was for Kenzie going #2 in the potty! We have been working on potty training since Christmas and she's doing great. We were really amazed when we were driving over to Chelan and she had on a diaper for the three hour ride and told us she had to potty and then actually went when we stopped. She is also doing really good overnight and at naps - can't wait to be entirely done with diapers for her. Our only hang up is with telling us when she has to do #2 but we're trying and we know she can do it!

Here's Ben cruising around causing trouble. Good thing Grandma and Grandpa C move fast because Ben keeps you on your toes. He is so into climbing onto anything and everything. This weekend at home Matt looked away for a second and then went to find Ben and he was in the bathroom standing on top of the toilet seat trying to climb onto the tank. I had him upstairs while I was folding laundry and then heard him laughing and found him up on our bed clapping and thinking he was so funny. He had climbed up this little foot stool I have next to the bed. That has been put away. It's always amazing to try to figure out how Ben got the places you find him - he's got an amazing knack for figuring things out.




The other really exciting thing that happened while we were in Chelan was SNOW! There was a tiny bit when we arrived, mostly just piled up in little snow drifts here and there but then on New Years Eve it really started coming down and didn't stop until we had about 8 inches of new snow! Enough for sledding, snow angels and a snowman - such fun for the kids. Here's me with Ben and Kenzie out in the snow. Everyone loved it!



Chelan is such a beautiful place - here's a great shot of Aunt Kacey and the kids sledding down the driveway with the lake in the background.


My very own little snow angel. She just kept on going and going in that snow until she got 'brrr'!

Eleven Months!

Our little Ben is growing up fast - he's now 11 months old and growing fast! He's steady on his feet and starting to give Kenzie something to chase. Can't wait until they are running laps together round our house. Ben does the laps now but at a pretty slow pace. This morning Ben and Kenzie were having a nice stroll through the downstairs with both of Kenzie's doll strollers. Unfortunately Ben kept trying to lean his weight on his stroller so I couldn't get a good picture.

Ben - Eleven months!

McKenzie at 11 months - she definitely had more teeth than Ben at this age! He's still sporting two on the bottom and four partials on top.



Hair update: On Christmas morning Matt took Ben in the shower and washed his hair with the baby shampoo I had in there and when he came out his hair was as flat as could be. We have tested using that shampoo and using other different shampoos since Christmas and the verdict is his hair is still wild but somehow this Huggies Calming Touch shampoo and body wash has a calming touch on Ben's hair! Good to know if we want some downtime from the hair.

Check out the 'calm' hair vs the full glory!

Wrapping Up The Year!

I can hardly believe another Christmas has come and gone. Time flies when you're rushing from one fun thing to another. We wore the kids out with all our activities. We started on Christmas Eve with Grandma and Grandpa C, Aunt Kacey, Uncle Eric, Nathan and Kayla coming over for Christmas brunch then we packed up the kids and headed to Matt's Uncle Dick's house to see that whole side of the family then we did Christmas morning at home with just us and then headed out to Grandma and Grandpa Z's for more fun with Aunt Anne, Aunt Jennifer, Uncle Chris and cousin Claire. Overall it was a great holiday and it was so fun to see McKenzie really understand what was going on.

Here's McKenzie intent on opening a present. Immediately after getting wrapping paper off each gift she would say 'Daddy, I want opie' (open)


Here's Ben sitting in a tiny chair that Aunt Gail and Uncle Dick gave to cousin Claire. For some reason Ben loved it and was very proud of himself for sitting in it.


The Christmas tree after Santa had come. Santa even took time to draw the kids a picture on their new easel! What a guy!


Ben's first experience with the wonder of Christmas - it's so much nicer to have a baby at the beginning of the year so they are able to really interact during their first Christmas.



Here's both kids tearing into the presents!


We are very blessed to be able to have a great Christmas with our friends and family and to have wonderful gifts under our tree. We worked hard this year with McKenzie to have her give to others. She had a great time giving away some toys we purchased because she got to get on a bus to donate the toys!

The tree and decorations are down and all the gifts have found homes within our home. Maybe next year I'll unpack the kids toys before Christmas and then put them in big Tupperware bins and wrap those under the tree! Save myself some of the mess on Christmas. I feel bad for the garbage man this week.

Santa's Little Helper

I've been working a second job lately as Santa's public relations rep. We've been building up to today's Santa visit since well before Thanksgiving. I decided early on that I had a chance to avoid the crying Santa picture if I didn't just spring the guy on McKenzie but built him up as the wonderful guy he is. These poor kids don't get to spend much time with the guy until Mom and Dad plop them down on his lap and then run for the sidelines. So back at Thanksgiving we launched an aggressive Santa is great campaign and it seems to have paid off!

For days now McKenzie has been ready to tell Santa what she wants for Christmas. She was super excited and shouting it out at strangers when she got out of the car. She was so excited when she saw him for the first time as we were waiting in line. Then she did really good on his lap and did tell him her Christmas wish. "A Barbie. A pink one." Santa heard her loud and clear!

Here are our Santa pictures from the past few years.

2007 - McKenzie's First Christmas, six months old. Santa and Kenzie both have rosy cheeks!



2008 - McKenzie, 1 1/2 years old, not talking to this guy.


2009 - McKenzie 2 1/2, Ben's First Christmas 10 months old.


I do wish McKenzie wasn't so far behind Ben but they both do look cute. McKenzie sure looks serious about her business with Santa! Maybe it's Ben's puffy hair causing this problem, it's got a life of its own! The other thing we really noticed in this picture is how different their skin tones still are. When Ben was born we really noticed he had a lot more color than McKenzie who is as fair as can be. Ben's coloring has really stuck with him as he's grown. It will be interesting to see this as they get older.

Hope I make the 'nice' list this year for helping Santa with his public relations!