Vacation #1 of 2012

We are in Lincoln city on the beautiful Oregon coast. We're at Melanie's family reunion. Melanie's parents rented a house right on the beach. The view is spectacular!

This one's gonna be trouble!

As we were getting up and ready for (1 o'clock - blah!) church this morning, McKenna started getting into the fridge for her third yogurt of the morning. I told her of course to put it back.  She said she was hungry so I told her that I was going to go in the bathroom and finish getting ready and then I would come and make her some lunch.  She put the yogurt away and I walked down the hall toward the bathroom.  As soon as I turned the corner and disappeared, I heard little feet scurry across the kithcen floor and the fridge door being opened.  I immediately turned around and came back to the kitchen to see McKenna sitting at the table ready to open her yogurt.  Keep your eye on this one folks!

Bronco Basketball

I'm sure you all know that we like to play and watch sports at our house. Back at the end of February I decided it was time to take Allison to a Boise State women's basketball game to show her how much fun it can be for girls to play sports. So I dressed the girls up in their best Bronco outfits and my friend Elaine and I headed downtown with the girls for a good time. Surprisingly, they didn't get too bored and Allison actually watched the game for a big chunk of the first half. She even turned to me at one point and and said, "Mommy, the Broncos just made a basket!" I was so proud! Anyway, here's a few pictures from our night out.

This was the only picture I could get of McKenna actually looking at the camera

Little cheeser Allison, getting excited for the game to start

As usual, McKenna was more interested in the snacks than anything else

Allison cheering on the team. Eventually I had to take the pom poms away because she kept whacking all the people around us.

I show this picture not because Allison's shoes are so wonderful, but to point out the boy in the upper right hand corner. He came to the game with his grandma and sat right in front of us. A little after the start of the second half both he and Allison started to get a little restless. They started talking to each other and goofing around trading toys and just generally being loud. They were joking around when all of a sudden the little boy leaned forward and kissed Allison right on the smacker. He was so proud of himself that he immediately turned to his grandma and told her, "Grandma, I just kissed her!"
So there you are Allison, your first kiss. And I don't even remember your name little boy. All I know is that you stole my little girl's innocence and you will forever live in infamy on this blog.

Sweet!!!

I'm all about freebies whenever I can get them, so I'm posting this to get something cool. Get a free Living Scriptures DVD of your choice by giving some love to their facebook page. Check it out HERE

Yuck!!

So, usually I'm pretty good about wiping down the mess that McKenna creates at meal time. I make sure I wipe down her booster seat to keep it clean. Well, apparently I need to unstrap the seat from the chair it is on a little more often. I wanted to wash the seatbelt straps today so I unhooked all the buckles and lifted her booster up and found this:

Can you say DISGUSTING?!?!?

They Grow Up So Fast

McKenna found the plastic eggs and shoved them down her shirt and TJ held her still so we could get this shot.

Random Stuff

Random pictures from the past month. Enjoy!

TJ enjoying his Boise State snuggie on Christmas morning. And yes folks, he actually loves and uses it often.

McKenna enjoyed handing out presents on Christmas morning and Allison enjoyed playing with McKenna's stuff.

The Christmas morning aftermath.

Awesome gingerbread house the girls and I made.

It was a little rickety and the roof wouldn't stay put so I had to squeeze a sippy cup in there to hold it up until the frosting dried.

At some point during the making of our gingerbread house, McKenna realized that the stuff we were decorating with was candy. This is her shoving another gumdrop in her mouth.

I have no idea. Apparently she was looking for something.

Fun in the snow with our tiny little, doll sized snowman.



Driving their new Jeep that Grandma and Daddy - I mean Santa - spoiled them with. Yes, 20 month old McKenna is driving.

Polar Express

This weekend Allison got a chance to go to the North Pole via the Polar Express. Her Grandma found out about the ride and bought tickets for herself, Allison, and me. We had to drive up to Horseshoe Bend and catch a train. We rode on the train for about an hour and when it stopped, we were at the North Pole! We got to get out and walk around. We got some cookies and milk, saw Santa's workshop and even saw the big guy himself. Allison sat on Santa's lap and told him what she wanted for Christmas. It snowed all day so everything was white. It was so fun and Allison had a blast!

She is anxiously waiting to board the train. Love the cheesy grin!

Allison and Grandma standing in front of the Polar Express.

They had this little blow up decoration at the train station and she kept asking me if she could ride on Rudolph. She settled for a picture by him.

Sitting at the table on the train, waiting for Grandma to come back with HOT CHOCOLATE!

Holding her train ticket

Shaking her jingle bells while the carolers sang with everyone

Here's Santa's workshop. She wanted to go in, but we had to settle for peeking in the windows.

Not a great picture but here she is on Santa's lap

The sign above the door says "I believe in Santa Claus"

Look Who's 4

I am a terrible, horrible blogger. But even worse than that, I stink at taking pictures - or remembering to take pictures anyway. Allison had a birthday - SHOUT HOORAY! I had every intention of taking lots of pictures and really capturing the day for her. Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera with me everywhere we went. I got a couple of pictures with my cell phone, but they're pretty lame. Anyway, Allison turned four and had a crazy, fun, and busy day.

We started by going to Build-A-Bear Workshop where she got to pick out whatever she wanted. She decided on a pink sparkly unicorn that she promptly named Polly. Then Grandma took her to the Disney store and let her pick out some princess toys. My parents took her out to lunch where she was sung to and got some free ice cream. The ice cream part she loved, the singing not so much. She had an expression on her face that said, "what are you doing and when are you going to stop?"

The next stop was to pick up her cousin and 'best friend' Anondi. We hung out at home for awhile so McKenna could get in a nap (party pooper). Then we went to Pojo's so Allison could play games and ride the carousel. She wanted to ride it over and over again, but unfortunately we're not made of money. So after the cash ran out, we headed home for some cake and ice cream. And with the camera already being there, I was at least able to get a couple pictures of the birthday girl with her M&M cake. She insisted that she have them sprinkled on her cake. Crazy kid!

Waiting to blow out the candles as we sing "Happy Birthday"

She blew out all four in one try. Great job Alli!!

Halloween

Quick story before I post pictures of my super cute kids in their Halloween get-ups. About a month ago TJ's mom took Allison to the Disney store to look at princess outfits. It just so happened that they were having a sale on all of their costumes, plus if you got the costume - you got an accessory for really cheap. So, being a sucker for a cute girl, Cindy told Allison she could pick out any costume she wanted. Allison decided on Jasmine and got the outfit, matching shoes and matching tiara.
Fast forward a week. Allison went to Grandma and said, "I need to talk to you about Halloween." She told her Grandma that she wanted Thomas (her 13 yr old cousin) to be her Aladdin. So Grandma got Thomas on the phone and handed it to Allison, where she proceeded to ask him if he would be her Aladdin for Halloween. And like any good 13 year old boy looking for an excuse for one last trick-or-treating hurrah before he's deemed 'too old,' he consented.
A costume was made for Aladdin and he and Jasmine were all set for Halloween. But something was missing. Anyone who's seen the movie knows that Aladdin never goes anywhere without his best bud Abu. So we tossed aside the other costumes we had and ordered a monkey costume online for McKenna to wear.

McKenna DID NOT like the monkey ears.

And Ican't forget Anondi in her giant pumpkin outfit.

Pumpkins

Halloween is just around the corner and of course we all know that means the annual carving of pumpkins. We decided we would do it as a family home evening activity. Allison was especially excited because I found some templates of all her favorite tv characters. We had the pumpkins, the carving tools, and a lot of newspaper spread out on the table. We started out with high hopes of lots of family fun.





Unfortunately, it quickly turned into a chore as one by one we all became a little bored with the task at hand. Allison helped for as long as her short attention span would allow. TJ got a little upset after she left because we were doing this mainly for her. As you can see, McKenna was not happy from the get-go.




So what did we do with this catastrophe of a family activity? WE didn't do anything. Instead, I stuck with it and finished all 5 pumpkins by myself. I'll give credit to Allison for helping me scoop out some of the "goopies" on each one, but the rest of the work was done by me and only me.

I'm not a very good artist, but I think they turned out pretty good. Allison of course wanted her picture taken with the finished product.



Bonus points if you can name all the characters. (I won't be offended if you guess wrong because of my not so awesome art skills.) Oh and remember, Allison picked them out and she is 4. ;-)

So proud

McKenna is now 17 months old and she is starting to pick up little words here and there. She knows a lot of signs, but more and more she's starting to say things with her mouth, mostly just parroting what she hears others say. Well flashback to last week when we were sitting around the tv watching the Boise State football game. During one of the many long runs by a Bronco player, there were 3 of us yelling at the tv, "Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!" When all of a sudden I look over at little McKenna and she puts two little fist up in the air and with all the cuteness she could muster, she yelled "Go!" It was so stinkin' cute. But if that wasn't enough, later in the evening after hearing us talking and cheering throughout the game she again raised her little fists and said, "Go Bawcos" (go broncos). I'm glad she understands at a young age that we cheer for the Broncos in our house!

Cute little girl in her pink Bronco jersey