Pucker up!

Mike and I had a double date with Clay and Katja. We had a great time together and plan to do it again soon. As the date ended, Aunt Katja handed me a little bag of "treats" for Mack. In it was this tiny lip gloss and when she opened it, you'd think she had won the lotto. Since she loved it so much, the gloss was gone by the end of the day. Not only that, she has carried the empty tube around for weeks and pretends to reapply her gloss every so often. Great find, Austin Family!

Brian and Annie

We've made a couple of trips to Fort Morgan ( about an hour north of here) to visit with one of my best friends, Annie. You can see why Mackenzie loves her almost as much as I do. The two of them found ten worms in that little spot:
Mike is very interested in joining in on the hunting world and Brian is an avid hunter so the two of them had lots to chat about:

Annie's step daughter, Makenzie ( Kizzie) , has been waiting for quite sometime to meet " baby Mackenzie" It's been such a long wait that "Baby Mackenzie" isn't a baby anymore. The two of them are kindred spirits- both love to get dirty and are chatter boxes. They played together very well. Here they are playing " Ring around the Nose" game together- or at least that's how it started out. They're quite a cute pair, aren't they?

To make Fort Morgan an even more appealing destination, Brian and Annie have two hunting dogs, Chip and Abby. Here's a pic of Abby keeping cool:

Why?

Mackenzie has reached that special phase where every statement any one makes is quickly met with " Why?" . I actually love this stage because it's the marking of an inquisitive brain. I spend my days talking more than Mack does ( hard to do) because I am always answering her questions. And while I consider myself to be of average intelligence, usually the fifth " why" removed from the original question leaves me stumped and my only response is " I don't know." Mack is never satisfied with this answer and my " I don't know" is met with it " No, Mommy. Don't say I don't know. Tell me WHY!" Did I mention how bossy my three year old can sometimes be?

Today at 7 am , she wanted to know the inner- workings of the fax machine. Suffice it to say (and despite my best explanations), neither one of us really knows why the fax machine works.

My Flower girl

One of my best and oldest friends got married last night and Mack and I were both honored to be in the wedding. It was an evening wedding which took place right at Mack's usual bed time. Despite a few hiccups ( the biggest occurring just before heading down aisle), we both had a lot of fun!

Cass rode to the wedding with Mack and me. Here she is lookin' like a movie star:


Mack and her date, Malachi:

Doesn't everyone cry at weddings?


Mack loved these Petunias. I think she smelled nearly all of them:

This was such a gorgeous setting, I could have spent DAYS photographing in all the different gardens:

Mackenzie entertaining herself:


Mackenzie and Jocelyn, the other flower girl ( two years old) had so much fun together.

Mackenzie was a little party animal at the reception! She "danced" ( or mimicked an epileptic episode, not sure which) the entire time. She is already looking forward to her next wedding commitment in Sept. :

Baited!

Since leaving Michigan a month ago, Mack has been looking every where she can think for worm friends. After seeing how excited she gets to hunt for them and then the little bit of disappointment when she doesn't find them in the northern Colorado sand and clay , Grams had a brilliant idea. She stopped by the local bait shop and picked up a container of worms. Mack played to her hearts content and then we made a worm house for them, complete with newspaper bedding and coffee grounds to "munch" on.

Mackenzie loves worms so much that she memorized the words to the worm book we found at the library. More pics to come once our worm house is complete!

Girls night out

Jennifer, Samantha and I fooled Cass into believing that she and I were having a quiet cup of coffee after she got off work. In reality, we had other plans. Samantha and Jennifer showed up at our coffee spot where we all set off to see Bridesmaids ( in honor of Cass's upcoming wedding) and have a bite to eat. To our dismay, the internet moving listings were wrong and Bridesmaids wasn't showing. We made up for it but having a margarita on the patio at a local restaurant. It's so fun to get together for non-stop laughter and silliness.

Cam and Uncle Clay

Clay and Cameron were in the area today so we ( Mx3) met them at our mutual favorite restaurant " Santiago's" for lunch. Cam is such a goof ball, he makes the perfect buddy for Mack. She giggled nonstop at his antics and was so bummed when she learned Uncle Clay and Cam weren't coming home with us: