Mackenzie

Magnetic
Acrobatic
Charming
Kind
Energetic
Nosey
Zealous
Ingenious
Endearing

Some big shoes to fill

I snapped this picture of Mackenzie wearing daddy's shoes. She made it pretty far before she ditched them!

Girls just wanna have fun!

Olivia came to play! She and Mackenzie had a blast. Erin and I think it's so funny because the two of them just lay on the floor and laugh at each other! Here are the girls in all their giggle glory:

Adding a little Elmo to the mix:
They've got their shades- they are just one driver licence and debit card from a shoe shopping spree:
This takes me back to my preschool days. Instrument time was...loud. Olivia said " Let's not shake anymore" and I agreed:

Fun with hair!

How to "do" a toddler's hair:

Step one: Find said toddler
Step two: Find comb
Step three: Recapture toddler after finding comb
Step four: Find good distraction toy
Step five: Wet toddler's hair
Step six: Find another distraction toy
Step seven: Rewet hair
Step eight: Use comb to part hair
Step nine: Use tiny elastics to hold hair in place.
Step ten: Repeat step nine until desired effect has been reached.

Potty chair

While I have NO intentions of potty training Mackenzie until she's completely ready ( she will tell me when she has to go, but other than that, she's a happy camper in diapers) , I found the perfect potty chair on sale at Target and couldn't pass it up. When I put it in the cart, I told Mackenzie that this was her potty chair for when she decided she wanted to put her potty in the toilet instead of her diaper ( I sound like a character straight out of Sesame street!). From that point until we got home, she kept asking for her potty chair. You can imagine how excited she was when she actually got to explore it. At least once a day, she drags it out of the bathroom to climb on. She even put her baby doll on the potty ( and told her " YUCK!" when she did) The pictures were too cute not to post:
This one is fuzzy but her expression is hilarious:
Here's another picture of her in her new booster seat. Her high chair converted to a booster seat and she's been using it that way for a few months but she discovered that she could stand up in that chair ( since it didn't fit underneath the table with it's arms). This one slides neatly under the table. A bonus ( for now) is that she can buckle herself into it.

Lovin' the Dollar Tree

My neices and nephews are onto something! The Dollar store is filled with treasures. Here's one Mike picked up a few days ago:

Toledo Zoo

We all ( Grammy, Aunt Janet, Mike , Mack and I) loaded into the car for Mackenzie's first trip to the zoo!Mike set Priscilla ( Grammy's Garmin who hasn't officially been named, but she seems like a Priscilla) toward Toledo. It was a hot and sticky day but Mackenzie still enjoyed the animals that she saw. I think we were all a little relieved when she was ready to go home after lunch. Here are a few pictures of our trip:

Mike , ready to go:
Mapping out a plan of action:
Mackenzie scopin' out the Polar bear:
Mike's right when he says that tigers and lions are just like giant house cats ( that eat people). Watching them is like watching a kitten play. The tigers were Mackenzie's favorite:

There was a neat " In your Neighborhood" exhibit which has things like small salt water fish aquariums, a bee hive that you could see into, an ant farm and cats ( to name a few). Mackenzie liked this part best. She could bounce and play in the "water"
You can see that we were all wilting by lunch time and ready to go home!
This picture was taken mere minutes after buckling seat belts. Her face is still red and her hair matted to her head with sweat:

Lady bug!

Mackenzie got her first glimpse of a lady bug yesterday. She ( The bug) was crawling in the grass we were playing in. It was hard to get good pics since the lady bug flew off so quickly, but here's a picture of Mackenzie trying to kiss her and a few others of Mackenzie playing in the grass:

Thankfully Lady had crawled to the back of my hand before the attempted kissing occurred...had she not, she may not have liked where she ended up:
I asked her where the sunshine was:

Videos!

Mackenzie has been so busy! She's learned to count from 1- 10 ( with prompting) and has learned several random letters. Here are a few videos of her accomplishments!

The first video is of Mackenzie trying to sing "Jesus loves me". This is a vast improvement since before she would sings " Cheese nana Me, I know it! bubble me so!"



Here she is practicing her numbers:



And lastly, here she is with her letters.

Stepping stone

For her birthday, we got Grammy one of those stepping stones that you can add hand or foot prints too. It came with stones that you can add for decoration. It took us THIS long ( her birthday was in May) but we finally got it done! I have to hop over for a picture of the completed project , but here it is "in process":



Grammy even let Mackenzie help decorate ( even when she wanted to put stones inside her hand and foot prints)!
Grammy treated us to ice cream after words but Mackenzie earned a double treat ( notice the pearl necklace- she's a lady of high class):

Bronner's

Bronner's , the world's largest Christmas store, is the perfect place for Mackenzie. It's full of huge santa's, elves, reindeer, snowmen and of course...CHRISTMAS LIGHTS! We rode along with Grandma Mary as she made her yearly trek ( about an hour) to Frankemuth. It was hard to know what Mackenzie loved more- all the Christmas lights or the shocking pink tinsel Christmas tree ( which we though we may have to pry her from). Here are a few pictures of our adventure:

We waited until it was just about nap time to leave, crossing our fingers that Mackenzie would sleep the whole way and she did!
And she woke up just in time for lunch at the Frankenmuth brewery:
Rain coats were a must that day but it didn't stop us from having fun!
Enjoying the view from daddy's shoulders!
An attempt at a mother/daughter photo. You can see that Mackenzie is ready to dart for those lights!
Got it!
And a candy cane on the way out!

Are molars really necessary?

Mackenzie is getting in all four molars at once! I'm starting to question the value of said teeth....
Notice how this picture is taken..that's because I can't get more than 12 inches away from Mackenzie before she cries! Poor girl...on a positive note, the dentist will have something more to count at our next visit!

Letters

Mackenzie REALLY wants to be able to sing the alphabet. Each time we sing it ( about 30 times a day since she loves it so much) she hums along, adding random letters in as she thinks of them. With her growing love of letters, we got her some bathtub letters and fridge magnets. That , along with some of her other toys, has really helped her to recognize letters. Here's a short video of her and her two favorite letters, T and O:

Fun with RED and....Olives?

Since I've added 6 other blogs today, I'm trying to keep it short by condensing posts!

Today was "RED" day in our house! Here's Mackenzie coloring with RED:
Markers, too? Brave mommy!
Finished product:
While I know that Mackenzie likely won't pick up on colors right away, she likes to color and this is my way of adding a little " meat" to the coloring sessions. You never know what is soaking in! She already knows all the names to the colors although she very rarely matches the correct color to whatever she's lookin' at! Yellow (" Lell-o-o-o" in Mackenzinese) is her favorite.


At lunch, I gave Mackenzie some olives and stuck them on her fingers ( just like Auntie Nikki!). She thought this was awesome and would have eaten the whole can. We stuck to just five:

A tisket a tasket

Mackenzie in a basket!
And darn proud of herself, too!

Dilly Beans!

Aunt Meg sent us home with a jar of her pickled "Dilly Beans" . They are fresh green beans that have been pickled just like a cucumber. Mackenzie cannot get enough of them! If she sees the fridge open, she sneaks in and snags two: one for each hand!

Sharing one with Cookie Monster:
She's eaten most of the jar all by herself and we're nearing the end. Time for a trip to Northville!

For you, Mom!

Nikki and I picked these out at the farmer's market last week and they are still looking great. Sunflower's are my mom's favorites. When ever I see them, I think of her:

Fun with stickers

We have a big art kit that Mackenzie plays with. She likes to scribble on big pieces of paper ( thanks Will!) and will sit for MINUTES ( which , in toddlerville, is like HOURS!) . Recently, she started wanting to put stickers on her papers. Those stickers have become pretty well traveled as I have found them in various places all over the house ( she even snuck one in her DINNER last night!) . Mackenzie realized that, not only could she stick them on things, but also PEOPLE! This spells trouble...
Cheese!
I made it look like so much fun, Mackenzie joined the club:

Lady bug migration

Check out what I found in the baby proofed door knob on the front door:

Yep! Those are the lady bug hair clips I've been looking for. My guess is that Mackenzie was using them as " keys".

Nicole

Having lived in Michigan for 4.5 years now, I have, in a way, forgotten what it's like to have my mom and sisters close by. Even with all the wonderful, truly loving people I am blessed to have in my life in Michigan, there's nothing like a sister to turn to( I count my mom as a sister, too..she's so youthful!) . Who better to understand my weird quirks than someone who has them, too! Having Nikki here for a weekend reminded me how much I miss having them close by.

Nicole's trip to Michigan was short and sweet but it was so much fun! I was sad to see her go but not TOO sad, since I'll be seeing her , and all of my other Colorado family, in a few weeks! Here's a recap of our weekend in picture form!

By the way, Nikki, Mackenzie is still looking for " Auntie Ninni"

We tried really hard to take a good picture of us. This is the best we could do:
Here's a sample of how the rest looked because we couldn't stop laughing long enough to snap the picture:
Mack took to Nikki right away. Even if Nikki went to the bathroom, Mackenzie was looking for her, shouting " NIIIII! Where are ye?" . Here's Mackenzie showing her some of her favorite things:

Beloved GiGi:
Her kitchen:
Her Crib:
We took Nicole to the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market, our favorite Saturday morning hang out:
And to Zingerman's to pick up stuff for dinner:

Here's Mike at the MudPuddles, a toy store, just moments before our bag of overly ripe cherries spilled all over the floor ( and Mackenzie offered free, fuzzy samples to anyone standing near by)
Nikki getting pay backs on me: Load the kids up on sugar then hop on a plane!
Mackenzie feel asleep on the way to drop Nikki off. She was sad when she woke up to Nikki kissing her good-bye:
We miss you , Nikki! Can't wait to see you in.....45 days!