Sisters Forever

Overheard last week in the playroom......Mackenzie singing "Sisters forever!  Sisters forever!......"  Love. It.  Not that we don't have our fair share of screaming from the playroom as well.  But when I catch glimpses of their love for each other, it warms my heart. 

Snuggly Sleepy Sisters

I took this picture a couple weeks ago, and as I looked at it tonight while trying to catch up on my blog, it made me think of a quote I heard once, "The days are long, but the years are short" when describing raising children.  The days can be pretty long when spent with a one & three year old, but boy do the years fly by when you look back.  I hope I remember how much fun it was to have mornings like this where we didn't have anywhere to be so my little one could stay in her pajamas (although I'm pretty sure she's removing her socks in the picture because she wants to put on shoes!) and so my other one can pick out whatever outfit she wants as soon as she climbs out of bed (because princesses don't wear pajamas apparently!).  So thankful for these two sleepy bed head sisters!

Pete and Repeat

Oh, how the little one does everything the big one does (or at least she tries to!). Fortunately, most of the time the big one likes it. I caught them sitting like this watching one of their shows before ballet last week :) Had to capture it on film (or do we say on memory card these days?!?).

Little Sister

Some days it's hard being the little sister.....the things you have to put up with!

Good Days

This is such a good season for me & my girls. Mackenzie is getting so mature, and days of irrational tantrums get closer and closer to being a thing of the past (enter a little sassy-ness....but focusing on the good stuff right now!). And Keelyn, what can I say.....seriously such a sweet fun age. I am reminded each day of why we decided to try for #2 when Mackenzie was this age - it's just such a good age. (This time I'm not fooled though into trying again, mind you!) And now, I get to enjoy this phase with a big sister to love it too! Thinking back to last year at this time, my life was just so much harder. They were so much more dependent on me, and it was quite exhausting. And though I'm saddened that the fact that we are having so much fun is largely due to their growing independence, I'm going to soak up these good days before they too, slip away from me......

Sisters

Sometimes, sharing and playing with your sister is so hard to do. Other times, it comes so naturally!

Outside Girl

There are so many things I just love learning every day about my little one year old. I love this age when their little personalities are just blooming! And her little personality is so sweet - I could just eat her up! A couple things we're learning about her:

1. This girl is an outside girl. She LOVES to go outside. If you're going outside, you better take her with you or expect a meltdown to occur! She says, 'ow-side' (or simply 'side' for short) many, many times a day. It's so nice that the winter is so mild this year so she can actually go 'side' so much - and even with out a coat on many days :)
2. She loves her sissy. OH how she loves her. When we get her up in the morning, she almost immediately starts asking 'Sissy?, Sissy?'. (Mackenz is a better sleeper, so I always have to tell her she's still sleeping!). But when she hears Sissy on the monitor, it starts up again...."Sissy! Sissy!" and is so excited to greet her. She also asks for her immediately upon waking from her nap. I just love it. And on days when Mackenz is at school and Keelyn is with me, when I'm ready to go, I just say, "Let's go get Sissy" and Keelyn excitedly heads for the door (of course, saying 'Sissy! Sissy!'). I just LOVE it.

3. She can SING! A couple weeks ago, she started singing something that sounded like the ABC's. Something like "A, B, E, E, E, Eh, G". But it was to the right tune, more or less. I got Brannon to listen too and he was impressed. I still thought it was something only a mother/father could interpret. Wrong! I picked her up last week from MOPS and the teachers asked me if I taught her to sing the ABCs?? They said she kept singing it! I said, I sing it to her some and she has some toys that play it, but I hadn't purposely taught it to her. She's gonna be a musical girl, I think! She now tries to sing all the way to 'P'. Love it. Need to get it on video, but knowing my children's camera shyness, it may or may not happen! (Here she is listening intently to a Valentines card that sang a princess song!)

V-day Then & Now

Always fun to post the difference a year makes.....they grow too fast......

V-day 2011

V-day 2012

My Two Girls

Today, I put Keelyn in one of the outfits that was also Mackenzie's (which I guess is alot of her outfits, HA!). Anyways, after uploading today's photos, I remembered I had some good ones of Mackenzie in the same outfit. So, I went searching through my old photos on my computer and found them. It was fun comparing them at about the same age. They really look quite different. I usually say Mackenzie looks like a McKay and Keelyn looks like a Ramsey (my family). Sometimes they favor each other, but when I look at this, they look very different!

Mackenzie (left) at 17 months & Keelyn (right) at almost 15 months

Sisterly Love

While I'm on Blogger, for the first time in I don't know how long, I can hardly stop posting with just one! So, here's a couple quick pics depicting some sisterly love. This age is seriously so fun to watch this budding lifelong friendship develop. Now that Keelyn is walking & starting to talk - so much fun for Mackenzie. Favorite pastimes include putting baby dolls in their strollers and going "shopping" around the house together (with Keelyn just toddling behind Mackenzie :) ). Oh - and Keelyn only has maybe 10 words or so right now (need to count them I guess) - but her most recent word is "sissy". She says it with a big smile on her face. Melts. My. Heart.

Protective Big Sister

I was just thinking back to our visit with G & G as I looked over the photos to put on this blog. There were some of us hanging out in their living room & I remembered a really cool thing that happened while we were there..... My parents have a floor outlet in their living room. If it has nothing plugged in, it has covers so they can't be touched. This one normally has a lamp plugged in it. I'm a little vague on the details of whether it had been unplugged or what not, but my mom & I were talking and apparently Keelyn was starting to play with the plug when Mackenzie started yelling, "NO NO KEELYN!!! NO NO!!!!". I turned around expecting her to be giving her little sister a hard time for wanting something she had.....when I realized that she was trying to prevent her from touching the plug. My mom & I immediately started praising her. Amazing that this little 3 year old was watching out for her little sissy! Love. It. She is such a good big sister!

On another random note, along these same lines.... Keelyn has a favorite past time of playing in toilet water. (Lovely, I know!). So, we try to keep the potty seat down! Mackenzie is super good at this. After she flushes (most times) she slams the toilet seat down. And if Keelyn starts to head toward the bathroom she alerts me and runs in there to make sure the toilet seat is down. I just love her!

Playtime Photo Fun

Still sorting through photos from last month, and wanted to include these on the blog. There's not a lot to tell, so hope it's not too boring for everyone, but I want to include these on here because one day (when I have time.....when will that be, BTW???) I want to print this all out :) So here's a few shots from one of our last playtimes in the "red house" (as we called it). I guess one fun thing to notice about this playtime photo shoot is you may notice that Mackenzie is wearing two dresses! She was wearing one from what I put on her that morning. That afternoon, she went and pulled out the second dress from her dirty clothes hamper. She brought it to me to change, and I didn't really want to change her, much less into yesterday's dirty dress. So, she decided to put it on herself since I wouldn't help. And she did. I did help her tie the bows after she put it on because at that point, who cares?!?! I thought it was pretty funny. She really does have a STRONG opinion about her clothes and she felt very strongly at that moment that she needed to be in the blue/green turtle dress...... Life is never boring with a 2 (almost 3!) year old :)


A little building with blocks





















Keelyn playing in her typical way - toy in mouth.
Mackenzie was serenading us with her singing into the microphone.














Keelyn's turn with the microphone.....and into the mouth it goes!





















Skylar trying to join in on the fun





















Our budding musician - this time playing her recorder





















Pure joy! I love that it takes so little to bring this much joy to her face. A recorder & some company :) That's it. Being a toddler must be great.





















Happy baby

Standing Tall

Getting caught up......a few weeks back shortly before we moved, I dressed Keelyn up in one of my old dresses. My mom saved a lot of my old dresses, but sadly with so much going on, I (a) have not taken nearly as many pictures as I'd like and (b) have not taken too many of her in these dresses. Hopefully as life settles down, I can get back to snapping away :)

This was right after she started crawling. She had started standing next to her pull up toys if you placed her in front of them (hadn't quite learned to pull up herself). And her sister was starting to enjoy the new mobility of her sister. Makes me think about how in the near future, the little one will be following the big one all over the place!







Continuing to work on her crawling skills!














Love these baby blues :)














Princess Mackenzie & her sidekick

Busy, busy, busy.....

Can't believe how long it's been since I last posted. Wow. What is that like 3 weeks ago??? Well, all I know is we have been seriously busy! Brannon has been traveling for work much more than normal, we are completely remodeling the foreclosure that we bought, and then there's just life with 2 small children. I also had to escape the single parenting I was having to do while Brannon traveled, and come down to my parents & in-laws for a couple weeks, so we've been on the road the last couple weeks. So, I'll cut myself some slack on posting! I'm pretty sure my last post was shortly before Brannon started all of his travel! I definitely feel for anyone raising children alone, it's exhausting not having a little help!

Anyways, the girls continue to grow and keep me busy. We definitely have a strong-willed, emotional little diva of a 2 year old (almost 3, but that's a whole other post......) and a particular, sensitive princess of a baby. They keep me so busy, I hardly get a moment's rest it seems, even when Daddy is in town. Just when I think I'm getting to an easier phase with the two of them, one of them switches something up on me, and there we go again!

Somehow, someway, I occasionally manage to photograph these two cuties. They sure are developing a great relationship (in between excessive squeezing & high pitched squeals!) As exhausting as it is.....I'm glad I'm along for the ride :)

Waking Up is Hard to Do

Yes, waking up is hard to do, but it's getting much easier, since my little one has slept through the night for two nights in a row!! From about 8:30pm to 7:00am. I'm pleased (to say the least). She's actually been doing really well sleeping for that period since about 5 or 5 1/2 months, but I was scared to give up that dream feed at 11pm. But the doctor told me to do it at her recent appointment, and I started over the weekend (just in case!) and she did on Saturday night & last night. I could get used to this!

She still wakes up before her sister, but I usually just bring her back to bed with me and sleep a little more while she does her morning feeding. Then, we get up & moving and when her sister wakes up around 8:30, it's our routine to go get her sissy up together. I love that time. Mackenzie seems to really enjoy having her little sister there to wake her up. Sweet sisters :)

Belly Laughs and Best Friends

Something happened while I blinked my eyes..... Keelyn now finds her big sister quite hilarious & is thoroughly enthralled with watching her. It's like she was a bit timid/scared of Mackenzie's antics one week, then Mackenzie went to visit grandparents, and she came back and Keelyn thinks she is the funniest thing ever. I can get Keelyn to smile, but only Mackenzie can get a good hardy laugh out of her. And does it quite frequently! I have to admit, Mackenzie is a bit more humorous to watch than normal ol' mommy! Here's a good video I caught of some of her first laughs at big sissy - while watching Mackenzie dance to her new favorite song ("It's a Beautiful Day" by U2 - which I downloaded for her after she kept telling me it was a BEEE-YOU-tiful day mommy, whenever the sun is shining!). It's one of my favorite moments with the two of them. Although the laughs were much stronger before camera appeared, as it always goes, and Keelyn gets mesmerized by the camera about midway through.....but you get the idea :)

Two Cuties

Mackenzie still LOVES to hold her baby sister. We have a book called "I'm a Big Sister Now" and it talks about how the big sister can hold the baby & make the baby 'warm & cozy". So, Mackenzie will ask to hold her and then tell me that she's making Keelyn cozy! It's very cute :) It can still be a rough ride at times for Keelyn, but she is learning to tolerate pretty well! And occasionally, Mackenzie tries to pick her up or move her instead of sitting still & holding her. That's okay, we're still learning :)

I love this look from Keelyn. Her eyes seem to be saying, "Mommy, are you sure about this???"

There's a smile!

FINALLY! Picture Frame Worthy.....

I was given a cute 'Big Sis, Little Sis' picture frame from a friend when Keelyn was born. And I finally have a picture I think is worthy of going in the frame :)

"Sister, Sisters....

There were never such delightful sisters".....my mom used to sing this song all the time to me & my sister growing up & now it is popping in my head as I look over these photos I took of the girls in the matching sister shirts. I finally got a somewhat decent shot of them in both of their shirts.....I have had them since Keelyn was 3 weeks old! Good thing Keelyn doesn't grow fast, giving me more time to get around to posing them in the outfits on a rare day when they are both game for a few photos!

This one might be a bit better, but Mackenzie was covering up her words on her shirt :P Cute anyways!

Happy Baby, Happy Sisters

With Keelyn getting a bit bigger, and a good bit less fussy, she is now enjoying being held by her big sister a bit more. For about a month, after she got out of the really sleepy phase, but not into her happier baby phase, she was not a big fan of being held by a two year old! She's a little particular with everyone, about how she should be held! But as she grows, her flexibilty is growing a little, and I can now get some decent shots of the girls! Prepare yourself for many future sister photos!!