Party On Wheels!

For some reason we have missed every birthday party that Kenzie and Ben's friend Atti has had during his three long years of life.  Knowing our love of birthday parties we just couldn't let him get off without celebrating with us too.  Atti had never been to one of our favorite places, The Country Village, so we decided that was where we needed to take him to celebrate turning three!

The kids played on the playground, chased ducks, rode the train, fed chickens and geese, danced on a stage, ran wild through the boardwalk and generally drove their mothers crazy.  It's good to have friends who can relate to the ups and downs with kids so you know they aren't judging you when your child gets a sliver in their hand and screams for the entire five minute walk to the car.

Here's Atti and McKenzie throwing the duck and geese their food when it was clearly within their reach already and they were choosing not to eat anymore.  Gotta love little helpers!

A rare moment of peace while the kids were reading a brochure on a drift wood chair. Love how seriously they are all taking it.  I think maybe they were actually plotting an escape route or something.

 The birthday boy riding on one of the merry go rounds that are spread thoughout the village.   I can't believe he's three already.  Time really does fly!  

We ended the outing with Atti opening his birthday present in the back of my car since the sliver had caused us to wrap up the fun.  What a good friend Atti is to let his friends open his birthday present! 

In the end a good time was had by all and the sliver only stayed in for another two days after McKenzie decided she was going to keep it.  Luckily for us she finally let Aunt Kacey take it out.

Mama's Masterpieces!

Two weeks ago I got to spend an amazing weekend filled with good company, wonderful meals, relaxing strolls on the beach and best of all free time to do one of my favorite hobbies, scrapbooking!  Here are some of my latest pages since I rarely if ever take my books out to show people all my hard work it's nice to have the ability to share what I've created!  I was able to create 14 pages and I even slept in both mornings so I consider it to be a successful scrap weekend. 

** Yes I know "splish" is spelled wrong... I got a bit crazy at the end and there is no spell check in scrapbooking!  Next scrap night I'll fix it.

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

McKenzie Mary, Quite Contrary...

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row."

Our McKenzie Mary being quite contrary after I asked her to smile!

In an effort to be a little greener, live a little healthier, and give the kids a hands on learning experience we have planted our first ever vegetable and flower garden this year.  In the past I have grown tomatoes but they were located in an area that didn't get enough sun so we never really got to fully enjoy more than a few each season.  This year Matt build a raised garden that will get full sun for most of the day and will give us just enough space for a nice little garden.  We have planted the following items:

• Seven tomato plants - mostly cherry variety
• Broccoli
• Carrots
• Radishes
• Peas
• Beans
• Lettuce
• Cucumber
• Pumpkins
• Chives
• Oregano
• Basil
• Thyme
• Dwarf sunflowers
• Sweet Peas
• Mixed flowers

Probably more than our little garden can really sustain but we're learning and so far we've had a lot of fun working on our garden.  Due to the late Spring (so late I'm not really sure it's actually arrived yet)  we used starts from the local nursery instead of seeds for most of the items we planted.

McKenzie knows all about what it takes to make plants grow - dirt, sunshine and rain.  We're definitely getting enough rain to make the garden grow - hopefully they can live on the little sunshine we have been getting.  I'll update on the garden as it grows!

Ben is not so much into gardening as he is into jumping. I spent my time planting the garden split between actually planting and making sure he didn't break his bones while jumping off our patio wall into the yard.  Boys will be boys!

Hand Prints on My Heart

"My dirty little fingerprints
I've left on every wall,
And on the drawers and table tops,
I've really marked them all.
But here is one that won't rub off,
I'm giving it to you,
Because I'm thankful for a mother just like you!"

That was the poem that accompanied McKenzie's and Ben's hand print art that they made for my Mother's Day gifts this year.  I loved receiving these special pieces of art because they both were so excited to give them to me.  McKenzie really got Mother's Day this year and was very excited about a special day for me.  She gave me her hand print art dozens of times throughout the day which was very cute.  Ben actually seemed to know that this piece of art was special and he would open up his card and say, "my hand" while patting first his chest and then his hand.  Then he would hold his little hand up to the card and show me it was in fact his hand.

Before I was a mother I thought little hand prints were cute but never all that special and now I know how fleeting these tiny hand prints are and how fast the kids are growing up and how special capturing these little moments really is.

Our Mother's Day activities this year were pretty much a repeat of last year and if we never do anything different I'll be one happy Mom.  On Saturday night we went to the Mariner's game with Aunt Kacey, Uncle Eric, Nathan, Kayla and their Grandma Jill.  We actually made it to the seventh inning stretch which is a new record for the kids.  We treat events like this as if we're just going out to dinner and there happens to be something exciting going on as well.  There is no point in even paying attention to the game with two small kids on the stands. 

Ben was a very excited fan at the baseball game and loved yelling about anything and everything.  He also enjoyed the music which must have been playing just for him to dance.

It was when this face came out that we knew it was time to wrap up the evening and head home.

On Sunday I got to sleep in which is a rare treat and then I came downstairs just as the french toast was leaving the skillet.  We then surveyed the weather and decided to try for our morning plans despite the clouds.  We headed down to the Mukilteo ferry and walked on for the short journey over to Whidbey Island.  After a short play at the park near the ferry terminal we took our damp kiddos back across the sound to Ivar's for their fantastic Mother's Day brunch menu.

One of the things I love most about Mother's Day is that we actually for some reason remember to ask people to take pictures of us.  Despite the cloudy day sunglasses would have helped us out!

Note to self, next year take your family picture not facing into the wind.

Our future discus champion winding up to send something back to the sea.

McKenzie was very focused on picking up all the shells on the beach.

Perhaps Ben will also be training for the long jump or the javelin throw. He loved throwing whatever he could manage to pick up into the water.  Too bad his Mom didn't pack extra socks or his rain boots. 
 

Despite the spotty weather we managed to have a great time!  Nothing is going to shadow the smiles on these three.

This one might classify us for the 'Akward Family Photos' site.  I'm not sure what's up with all our different facial expressions but it's a keeper!

Go Big Or Go Home

We made the most of our Easter weekend and had more fun than any one should really be allowed to have.  Our weekend was so jam packed with activities that the kids were at a whole new level of crazy by the time Sunday evening rolled around.

Friday's light itinerary included playing in the backyard.  This was followed by a play date with Gina and Atticus at the Mountlake Terrace pool where they had open swim and then an Easter Egg Hunt in the pool.  The kids loved all the pool toys that were out during the open swim.  The favorite was floating mats that stretched across the pool that they could walk on and then jump into the water.  I could not keep them off it even though it required McKenzie to jump 2 plus feet from the edge of the pool to get onto the mat. My children are destined for extreme sports and I'll be along for the ride, holding my breath all the way. 

Here's McKenzie preparing to gather the eggs from the pool.   Such a fun activity for the kids!

Ben preparing for his favorite pool activity - jump!

After swimming we all came back to our house and met up with more friends, Rachel, Keaton and Katie and Cody for a pizza and cookie making party.  In total we had five kids three and under with four of them boys!  We sure did have some fun but I also learned some lessons like don't bother picking up before a play date and to have premade food so I could concentrate on the fun.  We started off with some treats for our friends just in case there was any doubt that we weren't going to get enough sweets over the weekend. 

Here's the crew minus Keaton who McKenzie insisted on holding as much as possible.  Cody is 2, Atticus will be 3 in May, McKenzie will be 4 in June and Ben is 2.  Ben is only 25 days younger than Cody and might possibly be 25 pounds lighter.  These two are complete opposites in size but very similar in their sweet personalities.

McKenzie and her favorite little guy Keaton.  She was holding him and told Rachel that she could babysit.  She is 3 going on 16, I guess!

Photo Courtesy of Gina

Ben was so excited to have friends over to play in his room that he got a bit out of control and turned into "The Dumper"and his friends barely made it out alive after he dumped two huge bins of Legos and GeoTraxs on them. 

Photo Courtesy of Gina

Once we finally settled down from our fun night the kids had a great night of sleep and actually slept in a little on Saturday morning.  We then went to McKenzie's ballet class and then out to enjoy a wonderful sunny day at our favorite park, North Creek Park or as Kenzie calls it "Pink Park."

McKenzie practicing pumping by herself on the swing.  This is such a happy day for a Mom when your child starts to do things on their own.  Especially if you have to run across the playground to catch your other child who is trying to jump off of various parts of the playground equipment.

Ben climbing everything he could find then yelling for me to "Look" and 'asking "Jump?"

After lunch and naps we headed out again to meet up with our friend Kim and her dog Muki to play some ball.  These two can't get enough of Muki and luckily for them she's handles all the attention very well.   

 

Another good night of sleep after all that fun in the sun and then it was Easter morning!  The Easter Bunny hid eggs all over our house starting on the stairs.  Here's the kids opening and eating their eggs as they found them.  

  

McKenzie finding the Easter Baskets.  I couldn't believe it took them so long to find them.  They were sitting on the dining room table.

After we found the baskets we got dressed and headed out for Yakima to visit Great Grandpa Z with the rest of the family. Here's McKenzie, cousin Claire and Ben ready for the egg hunt!

Too cute McKenzie with her basket of eggs.

Little man trying to shake an egg out of a tree since he couldn't reach.  He tried everything to get that egg out, shaking, climbing, jumping finally his sister came and got it down for him - so sweet!

Ben and McKenzie taking a break from the hunt.  McKenzie is yelling, "We love Easter!"  We do love it and can't wait for next year when we have even more fun than this year.

Double Take

When you have two of anything it's hard not to notice the how different they are especially when you are comparing two people.  For all the million things that are different about McKenzie and Ben there are a million things that are the same.  One of the things they do share is their love of trains in any shape or size.  There is nothing better to them than spending a sunny Sunday afternoon at the Country Village riding the train.

If nothing else as they grow older I can always show them this moment in time when they were completely on the same page at the same time just being together.

Getting Ready for the Bunny!

In our typical fashion we are gearing up for Easter with our practice egg hunts, our explosion of stuffed bunnies, chickens and lambs and of course dying eggs!  This year Ben actually got to participate in the egg dying process.  His contribution was shouting 'blue' over and over again while dipping his fingers into the blue vinegar egg dye cup then licking them repeatedly.  Lovely doesn't even come close to describing it.  McKenzie on other other hand was quite the seasoned veteran at dying and we only lost three eggs in tragic accidents with the floor.

We are very much looking forward to the Easter Bunny's visit and have lots of Easter fun planned!

 

Our beautiful eggs which we want so badly to look at and hold every day.  We'll see how many make it to Easter.