Clean up, clean up! Everybody, every where!

Mary puts LOTS of work into making her yard so beautiful so naturally, it takes lots of work to get it ready for winter. This year, Mike , Meg and Mary got teamed up to get this job done. Mack and I were there, but we weren't as helpful. We took pictures instead! Here are the fruits of our fall photo shoot:

Shy girl: ( She calls this boa " boo-ha"

She's sure gonna miss this swing over the winter:

"Pie-cone!"
"Tickle tickle!" Incidentally, the name of this grass is " Karley Rose"
Inside and warming up with a kitty!
Then Daddy made brownies to go with our Pizza dinner! Aunt Janet even came to eat with us!
Mackenzie doing " Eye winker" with Aunt Meg.
This is how her hair looks at the end of the day:
And this blooper picture is too funny not to share:

"Eye-styes"

Before Mackenzie was born, we were given a set of Baby Einstein videos. They are targeted for babies 3-12 months. . Mackenzie never really cared for them as a baby but is totally in love with them now! Any time she comes any where near our bedroom ( where the DVDs are kept) she comes running yelling " EYE-STYES!" She's allowed to watch one half hour video per day ( sometimes two ) When she's watching them, she's in total relaxation mode: body propped up on pillows, hands behind the head, feet crossed at the ankles:


I think she enjoys them so much because the video content is all stuff that she knows. For instance, her very favorite video is the one that covers shapes and each time a shape comes on the screen, she shouts out the name of that shape. What makes the videos really neat is that there is very little speaking ,instead the DVD's are set to classical music.

While the mom's are away....

the husbands will get together and have a pizza party with their daughters!

Erin and I had a mom's night out last night so Mike and Will ordered a few pizza's and had a daddy/daughter play date session! No pictures of the event were taken but I would LOVE to have been a fly on the wall at that party. I bet those girls had a blast! I would have asked Mike, but he was fast asleep by the time I got home ....at 9 pm!

Crazy bath hair!

The Trauma/Burn ICU celebrates 50 years

Mike works at the U of M Trauma/Burn ICU ( T/B ICU) and the unit celebrated it's 50th year treating burns today! Mike took Mackenzie and me to meet his co-workers and to see the unit. It was really neat to see how the UM T/B ICU has evolved into one of the best of it's kind in the U.S. . Actually seeing where Mike works makes me even more proud of him and the skilled work he does.


Pretty flowers!
Daddy first, trauma nurse second!

Music with Marie!

We attended our first music class today! The leader's name is Marie and we really like her. She's great at getting the kids to listen to directions and keeping them entertained. Since it was our first class( we missed the first three classes while in CO/sick)Marie said not to be surprised if Mackenzie is hard to keep focused on the actual music class. There are tons of free play toys and play equipment around and she said it takes a few weeks for kids to get into the music part of things. Despite that, Mackenzie stayed with the group for the class and participated with all the songs!

( ^the class is held at an indoor soccer field)

As much as she enjoyed the instruments, etc, she really wanted to check out all those toys!

We were both so proud of her. She could climb up and over the rungs of this toy:
This toy was doubly fun: It's a swing and it has a buckle!
Another of her favs:

Spook-tacular art work

Even though Mackenzie really likes to color and enjoys using the glue stick and tearing tissue paper, hand print projects are still the way to go: