Because We're Just That Crazy......

We've had our house on the market for most of this year, and of course, it hadn't sold. We were going to take it off the market about mid-September due to not wanting to move too close to having the baby. Well, in the final hours of keeping it on the market, we had someone want to put our house under a lease/purchase contract. And because we're just that crazy (or at least my husband is, & I apparently must be to agree to this!) we're moving tomorrow! We'll be renting a house in an area we hope to permanently move, hopefully to the house we're renting (it was for lease or purchase, so they want to sell it) that is in a better school district, has a bigger yard, and is cheaper (we want to reduce our overall debt).

So, 5 weeks before my due date, here we go..... Overall, I

think it's a good move. Not crazy about the timing, but that's probably obvious! We've hired packers & movers (only way I'd agree!), so at least I don't have that aspect to worry about. Just gotta work on getting the new house organized in time!

Mackenzie & I went to the new house this afternoon to wait on the cleaners that are prepping the house for our move & while we waited, we enjoyed one of the best parts of this new house - the big yard! She loves the yard so far. And I love that we're not right on top of the road, so I don't have to worry about her running around! And it's a lot more quiet - very few cars come by. Nice change. AND the back yard is HUGE!!! No pictures of that just yet, we had to wait out front for the cleaners. But more pictures to come :) Say some prayers for sanity tomorrow & in the days to come!

Benefits of a Big Girl Bed

One of the best parts of Mackenzie sleeping in a full bed is that if she happens to wake up wanting Mommy, I can just curl up with her in her bed & barely miss a wink. She happily goes back to sleep & so do I since there's plenty of room for the two of us....... As daddy so kindly documented the other morning when she woke up around 6am and I just stayed in there with her sleeping together til we got up after 8am. Ah.....good times :)

"Baby" Jackson Comes to Visit

Mackenzie's little (who is quickly becoming not so little!) buddy Jackson & his mommy came up to visit us for a playdate this week. It was fun b/c Jackson is now walking all over the place! What was not so fun was attempting to get the two of them to pose together! Jackson has no interest in sitting still for that. Just as Mackenzie is entering the phase of somewhat being willing to take a picture, Jackson is entering the phase of 'yeah right I'll pose for a picture'. Oh well!

Trying to hold Jackson's hand for a photo - he's clearly not into it!

Fine - I'll pose with Mrs. Stephanie!

Finally, he sits down......but by now, Mackenzie is over it!

She's Growing Up.....

A few weeks ago, right after she turned two, we decided to go ahead and move Mackenzie on up to a big girl bed. I was pretty nervous about it, since she is such a good sleeper, and I especially LOVE that she stayed in her crib in the morning & after naps for around 30 minutes playing & talking to herself. I was SOOOO worried that given the freedom to get off her bed that she would quickly give up that 30 minute wake-up period. Brannon wasn't worried at all. He was super confident that she'd handle the transition with ease.....

Turns out, he was right. After the first night, where she didn't want us to leave her & seemed super excited to be in the bed, it took a long time to get her to sleep. Then, the first nap, with the light in the room, she got out a few times, and I had to go put her back in immediately (thank goodness for the video cam!). After almost 2 hours of playing in her bed, I went up and put her in her crib (which we hadn't taken down yet in case this didn't work out!). She was SOOOO upset about not getting to sleep in her big girl bed, it turned out to be a nice punishment. And the next time or two, she had trouble falling asleep/getting out of bed, I would threaten to put

her back in the crib. It did the trick. She LOVES her big girl bed (as she even calls it, which is really cute!). Rarely gets out of it. Plays for 30 minutes or so after naps & in the mornings. It has been a really easy transition. I had to tell Brannon he was right :)

Here's a couple pictures, it took me a while to take some - had to wait til her new bedding arrived & then I just never had a camera in her room at nap/bed time. But alas, I finally got some. Enjoy :) The big girl in her bed.

Big Girl & Busy Day

Today, we had Mackenzie's 2 year appointment. I cannot believe it has been 2 whole years since our first well visit to our pediatrician. It seems like yesterday......

I had scheduled this way in advance, as you have to do it seems, and did not realize she would be on fall break from school. As luck would have it, we are desperately low on groceries and we had to make a trip to Wal-Mart before our doctor's visit. I just don't like going there these days with her (I generally do long grocery trips while she's at MMO). She's actually really good in the store, but the entrance & exit as we pass the wonderful $.25 rides, she flips out if she can't ride them. Today, I tried to use it to my advantage - if she pottied and stayed dry, then she could ride one. Well, she did just that. So, on the way out, I paid (lost) actually $0.50 for the carousel ride. She freaked out no less when it ended than she would've if we hadn't rode one at all I think. So much for it helping! I did snap a few pictures of a her riding - what else would I do with a minute of watching her go 'round & 'round......

Anywhoo, we made it to the

pediatrician. Mackenzie was very excited to see her doctor. She kept saying "where's MY doctor??". To me, to the nurse, to anyone! When we did see the doctor, I enjoyed hearing all the praise from the doctor about her - "she's quite a chatterbox", "she's very verbal", "she's a smart one". I think these things, but hearing it from a professional makes it less of my personal bias & more real :) She did say with how smart she is, she'll be a tough one! I smiled and said, "I know! It's already started!". Oh well, I'll take my smart/more challenging child any day of the week. It is so fun to already have such a communicative little mini-me (okay, mini-brannon) to hang out with!

She's also growing nicely these days. She was 24 lbs 13 oz, and almost 33 inches tall. That puts her about 25% for both weight and height. She's looking like she might be a bit taller than mommy, probably got those genes from daddy too. Not too tall (that's probably not a possibility in our family) but a little taller than me I suspect. Still has a proportionally big head (65%) but maybe that's because she's such a smarty pants!

Potty Training Update

For those of you following my adventure in PT, it has been a while since I last updated you. Although, not a lot has changed I don't think! Basically, she is good at holding it for 1-2 hours, but not at all good at telling me when she has to go (basically doesn't tell me at all). But, given her long holding ability, I can usually manage to get her to go before it becomes an accident. And she still won't go #2 on the potty. So, due to that & my growing tired of dealing with that, we've spent alot of the past few weeks in pull ups. Still trying to keep dry, but no worries if she didn't. Plus, she'd gotten pretty adament about NOT going when I asked, so I think she had realized it was something I wanted that she could control. So, that and wanting to avoid some accidents, I backed off. We also had a busy few weekends with family, so we just enjoyed our families' visits and potty'd when she was willing & if not, in pull ups.

So, that's the past few weeks. I feel like we're too far in it to go back to diapers, but certainly not fully PT'd. So, next week is our fall break from school. More time at home, hopefully, to work on it a little more. I've basically decided that this process from start to finish may take months! We went to the toy store today and bought some big reward toys for going #2. Hoping to inspire some action in that department! We'll see how it goes from here.....

Hangin' with One of My Girls

Yesterday, Mackenzie got to have her friend, Sophia, over for some play time while her mommy had an appointment. Surprisingly, we had no major fights over toys and even had some decent sharing encounters and experiences in the world of taking turns. All this was with mommy pretty close by to encourage good sharing and discourage the other. But still, I count it as a victory! Mackenzie was worn out from her few hours of play time in the morning and lunch with Sophia. She fell right to sleep and slept soundly for a good 3 hours! I say, come over any time Sophia!!! Here's a few pics I snapped during snack time:

Having a little convo .....I love how they are starting to have their own conversations! They seem to understand each other when I cannot figure out what they're saying!!

Realizing I was snapping away during their little discussion!

Distracted by a little television viewing

More Big Girl Advances

I've recently gotten very tired of cleaning out the high chair after every. single. meal. Therefore, I began thinking recently about just having her sit in her travel booster seat at our table. Tonight, began that new step to big girl-hood. She seemed to enjoy sitting at the table with me (daddy was working late, so he'll have to enjoy it tomorrow night!) And I thought it was fun as well. Seemed like we were actually enjoying the meal together - more than it does when she's in the high chair & I'm at thetable. I look forward to many a conversation over dinner in our future - which seems quite possible these days given her expanding vocabulary & chatterbox-ness.

Mackenzie-isms

Now that her vocabulary is exploding, it is fun to hear some of her own little interpretations of words & phrases. Here's a couple examples that I thought of today:

• "Snackers" - her own made up word for a snack consisting of crackers. She'll ask for snackers when she wakes up from her nap!
• "May I have one?" - Well, at first I thought I just have an extremely polite toddler when she is asking for something. But upon further review, I think she might be saying "Me I have one??

I also enjoyed watching her play with a new birthday toy tonight - a little people camper set. She played for a while, in fact wouldn't stop for dinner, so I ate, and then eventually she joined me. It was fun to watch her play with them & talking to herself about what they were doing. The beginnings of many a pretend play with dolls in our future I think!

Celebrating with Friends

Here's a few more pictures from the party & her friends that came by to help us celebrate!

The girls sitting together eating the snacks - so cute & grown up looking!

Harrison feeding the lion

Ryan & mommy Claire

Roman giving "Miss Kenzie" (as he calls her!) a hug :)

The Gardiners & Baby Jackson

All her girl friends from our community group

The Big #2 Birthday Party

So, this weekend was finally the culmination of all of our birthday fun. We had Mackenzie's birthday party with a bunch of her (and our) friends. It was a zoo/jungle animal theme party - perfect for our little monkey! My mom handmade her very adorable little jungle animal dress to fit the occasion! It was a lot of fun! (But also a lot of work..... definitely worth it, but I'm glad to say we have another year before we have to do it again!)

She seemed to really enjoy herself. I wish she could've taken a real nap

beforehand, but the excitement from the impending party was too much for her and she didn't fall asleep until about 2:45 (after first starting to get her down around 1pm!). Then, we had towake her up at 3:15 b/c the party started at 3:30! Oh well, 30 minutes is better than nothing :)

We played feed the monkey & lion -

thanks to the adorable animal paintings that Meemi did (her former kindergarten teaching is going to be so helpful through these years!). Then, we ate & hung out. Then, of course the cake - which she wasn't so sure she wanted to share, and wanted to eat ALOT. She almost broke down when I stopped the eating. Only saved by the promise of opening gifts.

Opening gifts was also interesting. Her friends wanted to check out the gifts. She did NOT want to share her new gifts. Fairly typical, but still hard to manage not having a breakdown in front of everyone while opening her

gifts! She got a lot of great gifts, and we really enjoyed getting to spend time with our friends in celebration of 2 great years with our special little monkey!

Playing "Feed the Lion"

Best family pic of the day......apparently Mackenzie & I were more interested in what was to our left....

Blowing out her candles - with a little help from mommy

"NO Kee-Kee, you may NOT have any of my cake!!"

Unwrapping with a passion!

Birthday Fun Continues.....

We continued the 3 weeks of celebration (I had a really hard time remembering when her actual birthday was with all of the celebrating!) this weekend with her big #2 birthday party. Meemi & Poppee came in to help with the occasion. And of course, we had to open their gifts when they got here! Here she is sporting some new gifts - the nice little black mary jane shoes. It's hard to see, but they have a little silver turtle charm on them (Poppee loves turtles!). I loved these pictures because she is wearing only a diaper with her mary janes. Then, has hello kitty stickers on her chest and hello kitty bandaids on her two knee boo-boos. Then, she was carrying around her new princess purse and even hung it on her tricycle for a ride. It's quite the outfit :) Oh - and she was eating her apple during this as well!

The Twos.....

We're here, at that notorious stage, the (you know what!) twos! Actually, they're not too bad, I guess - my mom assures me......but then again, my child can do no wrong in her eyes! But there does seem to be a large number of tantrums lately, making me, once again, bring the whole punishment plan into question (timeouts, spankings, positive reinforcement, treats/rewards.....).

I still haven't spanked Mackenzie, but I definitely have moments of wondering if I should. Mainly, I find it extremely difficult to punish her when we are out & about. Like today, when we were leaving Chick-fil-A after lunch with our friends. We were talking outside, so I let her stand on her own and told her to stay next to me. Which she did......for a few minutes. Then, when I told her we had to go & hold my hand, she went running in the direction of one my friends. This makes me nervous (very nervous) to have her running away from me where cars are driving. I ran & grabbed her forcefully & said very sternly not to run from mommy and a few other directives. But I wonder if this is enough. There is no good 'timeout' spot in a parking lot. We've already left the playground friends, so I can't isolate her further. It's hard. After being yelled at, and subsequently having to be carried to the car, she began tantruming and thrashing about - hitting mommy. I then, held her hands while walking. While carrying all my baby gear in a big bag. Oh - and I'm like 7 months pregnant. It's hard. Welcome to the twos (well, we hit this technically before two, but who's counting!)

Into the Presents

It's so funny how in one year, kids become so aware of the whole gift opening process! I love watching her open her presents :) After our big, tiring, day at the game (and somehow she did NOT fall asleep on the way home, go figure!) we had dinner & then opened up Granmommy's & Grandaddy's birthday gifts. One of her favorite "gifts" was the singing card they gave her - it was as good as the gifts! Then, another gift was a dress up outfit - a little tulip fairy dress! She wanted to put it right on and proceeded to open the remaining gifts in costume! Too cute. And her big gift from mommy & daddy was her very own tricycle (one with a push handle b/c she definitely can't quite pedal yet with those short legs!) We opened that before Daddy went out of town & she proceeded to ask us to "PUSH??" (Or tell us to "PUSH!!!!" in a bossy tone!) for the whole weekend!! A good birthday for sure (and we still have the party to come.....)

LOVE this expression when she realizes it's singing to her!

"I know how this present thing works now!"

I love this face!!!

What a big girl on her bike!!

Mackenzie's Birthday Weekend

This weekend, my parents came up to help celebrate Mackenzie's birthday. Unfortunately, her daddy had to be out of town (one of his good friends is getting married soon & this was his bachelor party weekend......). So, Granmommy & Grandaddy stepped up to the plate to make sure her birthday weekend was a good one!

We woke up on her birthday & I made her a special little breakfast - a chocolate chip pancake with a '2' made out of chocolate chips. She enjoyed that little treat! Then, we decided to go to the GT opening game (her first!) since the weather had cooled down. It wasn't sold out, so we figured we could just get tickets when we got there. Well, apparently, a lot of fans thought the same thing....... It wasn't sold out & we could get tickets, but the scalpers were all out & the line for the ticket office was LONG. But, we'd come a long way (parked clear across campus) and didn't give up that easily. Grandaddy stood in line while the girls chilled out in the shade.

We were rather high up (don't think I've ever sat

that high!) and didn't get in until the middle of the 2nd quarter! (We got there right at kickoff, but the ticket getting took that long!) It was a good game & she held up very well. I think her favorite part of the game was getting to drink a lot of my diet coke! Grandaddy was in heaven I think. Tech won. His granddaughter went with him to a game. Heaven. (Well, heavenly with the exception of a long ticket & food line).

Her daddy was a little sad he didn't get to take her to her first game. But I had to laugh when we called him to tell him about it. Here's an outtake of our conversation:

Me: She had a great time!

B: Did she see the cheerleaders?

Me: Well, we were really up too high to see them!

B: Did she like the band?

Me: Well, we had to stand in line for food the ENTIRE time during halftime.

B: But she liked it?

Me: Yeah - especially the diet coke. But apparently, you still have plenty of things to show her for the first time at her next game!

Here's a few more pics from the big day: