Railroad queen

I think I've posted before of Mike's undying love of model railroad building. It's something his dad loved doing and was a "thing" in the Long household growing up. I am so proud to say that the train loving gene has successfully been passed down to Mackenzie.

Together, the two of them have been working on painting their own trains. Mike bought some "naked" ( unfinished) trains a few years ago and has been saving them for the day that Mack would be able to enjoy putting them together and painting them. They started the trains together last month and it's something Mackenzie can't get enough of. The two workers are nearly silent as they both work hard on their end of the project. I will post pics when the trains are done.

But the love goes being painting trains, going to train shows together and going reeeeeaaally slow near railroad track in hopes of getting " stuck" at a crossing. Every month, Mike and Mack read Mike's "Model Railroader " magazine together. Mack has a genuine interest in it and it makes me melt to hear them in their railroad babble.

Rock that hair!

Mack had CA-RAZY hair the other morning. I had braided it the day before and, instead of unbraiding it before bed, I just took the elastic band out and left the braid in. " WOW! " was all I could say when I went in to get her out of bed. So instead of taming the mane, we rocked it!

"Mom"

At music class the kids and parents wear those sticker name tags. On our way into class, we stop , pick a color of marker for printing our names and then wear the tags through out class. Last week at class, I asked Mack if she wanted to write her own name on her tag and she did, but the class ahead of us got out so we had to hurry. I told Mack I'd just write hers so we could move out of the path of the exiting class. While I wrote her name, she grabbed a pen and wrote mine. I proudly sported a name tag bearing the word " Mom" for the class.

Did you know?

For those of you with blogs, did you know you can print your blog in book form? If that sounds like something you're interested in, I'd suggest doing so before you are in your third year blogging and 300+ blogs deep! Other wise, you may find yourself investing a large sum of " Encyclopedia Britanica" style money into archiving your family's daily grind. Of course, many of you would argue that I am a bit more long winded than the average blogger ( realizing that I'm writing a blog about printing my blog, your point is well taken) . In any event, just passing along the info :)

Don't you get it?

Another episode of "Daddy asks a silly question!"

Daddy: Wow! You just ate all of your sandwich and part of mine. Where are you putting all of that?
Mack: In my belly.

Mackenzie must wonder who took care of us before she came along. We seem to miss the obvious stuff.

Wheeeeee-eeeee ! Sledding fun

OK , so the title is misleading. Meant to portray the imagine of my snow bunny and me happily skidding down a large ( but not too large) hill, heads back in mid-laugh stance, the title is a far cry from what really happened. What it should say is " AGGGGGGGHHHH!!" OR , if you prefer " Mommy! I wanna go home!"

Our friends, Jeanette and Ben , met us at McHattie park, the home of a great big hill. After two snow storms and a snow day from school, the hill was packed snow but felt more like a big down hill skating rink. After a partial run ( which ended with me , face first in the snow) I decided against " the real thing" , happy to assume that the rest of the hill is much colder and much faster. Mack slid down on her buns which was "kinda fun" but after a single venture down the less steep side of the hill with Ben, she was truly done sledding.

Mack and Ben found a deflated inner tube to test out. This was just prior to their accidental dismount:
The kids on the trek up the hill:
Mack atop Mount McHattie:
Ben and Mack played in the park, plummeting off the slide into snow drifts until Mack's toes ( and belly) screamed for warm air and warm food. Thankfully, McHattie park is next to Wendy's. Warm chili was just the thing we needed to thaw out!

Snowy Wednesday

Though we didn't get as much as predicted, we did wake up to about 7 inches of snow this Wednesday morning. I didn't even get past " Would you like to play in the sno--" before Mack had her snow boots on and was waiting at the door for me.


It was a light fluffy snow, not very good for snow man building:

But great for snow angels ( our favorite)
And of course, EATING!