Surprise parade!

I can't imagine what it must be like to be Mackenzie. Yesterday she was sitting in Grammy's living room reading when suddenly she's told she gets to see Aunt Janet AND a parade all at once! She must think we throw parades just for her. In truth, this parade was to celebrate home coming.

The parade went right past Grammy's house. Mackenzie and Aunt Janet wanted to get the best seats:
It was a great day for a little parade. Far better than the last in which we got rained on!

See how she grows!

Ok, ok, we all know that kids grow at lightening speed. I have heard from countless people " Don't close your eyes, she'll be a teenager!" And I know it's true. It just never gets old for me ( and I hope not for you) to see the difference in Mackenzie in just under 365 days!

Oct 16th 2009

October 15, 2020
In just a year, Mack's gone from size 2T clothes to 4T, She's gained 4.5 inches ( but only about 2 lbs), her feet have grown three sizes and she's grown 4 teeth. She's out grown her crib and moved to a big girl bed, learned to dress herself and has been potty trained for more than 6 months among countless other things learned. This is all just amazing. I love watching it all from my front row seat!

Art Project

Just for you, Grammy ( with the photo version, you won't have to sweep up falling leaf crumbs hehe) :

The leaves are a souvenir from our nature walk last week. We did this same project last year and I love it because it uses hand tracings for the trees. This year Mackenzie was much more involved and she placed darn near every one of those leave crumbles. I love fall for lots of reasons, least of all it's easy projects!

Here's a quick pic of Mackenzie's rainbow and sunshine. She also loves to draw lady bugs and has started to draw people, too!

Fall 2010

If you ask Mackenzie if we took a walk yesterday she'll tell you " No. Not a walk. A NATURE walk." And she's right. We took time out as a family yesterday to walk the trail, taking in the sights of gorgeous fall day. We gathered leaves and acorns to use in art projects and for decorations around the house.

Start the day off right- a sugar pumpkin!


We're getting plenty of use out of our 99 cent bucket! We were really hunting for leaves and acorns but Mack wouldn't pass up a nice stick.

She and I ran home while Mike followed with the stroller. Mack yelled " I'm jogging! I'm jogging!" the whole way:

We miss you!

Mackenzie has been asking about the Colorado gang. If only we could find some way to move the states closer together! Or maybe the desired occupants from each state to one , conveniently central location?

Go ahead, rain on our parade!

We don't mind a little rain! Of course, when it's a A LOT of rain, some of us will cry and whine and complain. And that's just what we did last Saturday during the PumpkinFest parade. We had gone from 90 degree Colorado weather to 40 degree Michigan weather and it was a bit of a shock. Despite how cold it was and how numb our fingers got, Mackenzie still asked to go back to the parade after nap.

Who's that big girl?

Mackenzie has never attempted to climb out of her crib so it didn't make sense to transition her to a regular bed before there was really a need.

While in Colorado, I knew Mack would be sleeping in Brooklyn's twin bed so we talked a lot about sleeping in a big girl bed. The entire time we were in Colorado, she slept both naps and nights in Brooky's bed. She did so well, we decided she was more than ready for a big girl bed of her own.