Tiptoes and Music

Today, MacKenzie is happily bouncing around on her tiptoes! She has been playing her pink recorder, moving her fingers up and down like she is really playing! One note, in many different lengths streams out from the recorder...music to this mama's ears! She looks like a little naked sprite, dancing and swaying, reaching high up on her toes, and bending low to the ground while she plays. Blissful! Her eyes sparkle, and she is so joyful when she is singing, dancing, and playing music.

MacKenzie put on a pair of her "big girl panties" diaper cover/bloomers all by herself this morning! She was so proud of herself. I was very proud too!

She also proved that she could open a container of yogurt all by herself and spoon it (very successfully, I may add!) into her mouth, unaided by her mother! I guess she was just too hungry to wait for me to get to the breakfast table! We are having an unorthodox day...just doing whatever we feel like...no schedules or chores...just enjoying being together and doing silly stuff. I think we all should do that more often.

Baby on Wheels!

Well, the day has come. My baby is mobile on wheels! She got a bicycle with training wheels for Easter, and we finally got a helmet for her. She rode her bike for the first time on Sunday. Daddy was in charge, and Mommy and Grammy stood by and watched her on her first ride down the block. I didn't know whether to cry or shout "hooray"! I did fine until she wobbled...Daddy caught her...she didn't have far to go because the training wheels do their job quite well. I just know that concrete is VERY hard. I didn't want there to be blood on her first day in the saddle!

MacKenzie has a great vocabulary now. She tries to say everything we say. Her favorite thing to do is take a bath, and she is VERY vocal about it! She says so many words verbally and in ASL that I can't even keep up with it. We are saying sentences with ASL to her, and she is doing great with that. She uses two signs together a lot now. Her best one..."more please"!
MacKenzie has found a love of all sorts of food. Well, except strawberry shortcake! She's turned her nose up at that twice now. That's ok by me...all the more for me! She loves hummus, green beans, asparagus, pizza, cheeseburgers, tea, blueberries, onions, black olives, tomatoes, and a lot more. She will dip any food into ANY kind of sauce! Catsup, mustard, Ranch dressing, you name it!
We have been gardening a bit this year. MacKenzie likes to dig in the dirt and she loves to move rocks around! She loves rocks! She tried to get in the pond on Mothers' Day, in her pretty shoes and dress (she got her foot all wet), so we decided to take out the pond for a while. In its place (hopefully) will be a raised bed for sunflowers and other pretties.


My mom has moved in to our house now, and MacKenzie loves spending time with her. We end each night in Grammy's bedroom, watching Fraggle Rock and other favorites. MacKenzie asks for Fraggle Rock by name...it sounds a bit like "wah-wah"!

She also asks to wear her fairy wings a lot. She puts them on and says "whee!" and spins in circles and pretends to fly all over the house. Too cute! We have been to two fairie festivals this year already, and she has had some serious fun. Two of her favorite friends, Sydney and Katie, played with her at the Maryland Fairie Festival for HOURS! MacKenzie even got to dance to the music of one of our favorite performers, Jenna Greene. It was beautiful! I am still trying to find out if anyone got video of it...it was adorable!

I am looking forward to this summer...I wonder what adventures it will bring?

Opinions!

Well, MacKenzie now has lots of opinions, now that she can nod yes and no! Today I asked her if she wanted eggs for lunch, because that's what I always do..."ok, it's time for lunch...do you want some eggies?" Needless to say, we didn't have eggs today! I changed my tactics and said "ok, I'm going to make some soup for lunch!" We had a lovely lunch, and now, Momma has learned her lesson.

MacKenzie is now tall enough to hold my hand and the handrail and walk down the steps like a big girl! She is 15 months old, and is wearing 2T clothing. Whew! It's hard to keep up with her growth spurts! She grew 2 inches between 12 & 15 months. She only has one pair of pink shoes that fits her perfectly...her boots are WAY too big and fall off when you pick her up, and her lavender fairy Robeez are still a little too big. She can wear both of them, but they are not ideal. Maybe shoe shopping is in our future this weekend!

Where Does The Time Go?

Wow...has it been over a month since I have blogged? Where did that time go?

Oh, that's right...the holidays happened!

Shortly after the last blog, Mom moved in to our house temporarily. She was having some work done at the house, and it turns out that she needed to have surgery at the same time. All is well now, but it was a crazy December!

MacKenzie is loving having her Grammy here at the house with her. I like it too...Mom is very helpful with her. She watches her sometimes while I get stuff done around the house. It's very convenient!

We had a great Christmas with Mom here. We had Christmas morning in her room (the living room + her bed and stuff!). MacKenzie got lots of stuff from Santa, and family across the country in several directions!

Santa brought MacKenzie a snow suit and a ball pit...and lots of little goodies too.

We got to spend time with family and friends, which was great. Boy, can those girls run around! Ava got a Thomas riding train from Santa, and MacKenzie got to ride on it. The girls are getting so big!!!!! They can ride all by themselves.

We even made cookies with Ava...guess how long it took MacKenzie to sneeze all over a whole tray of cookies?

MacKenzie got the chance to wear her snowsuit once already. How cute was she, falling all over the place in her powder blue marshmallow snowsuit?!? She even went down her sliding board into the snow. So much winter fun!

MacKenzie's vocabulary is growing. Both signing and verbally. She repeats ANYTHING! She's said Grammy, Jack (Uncle Jack will be so happy!) horse, hot, juice, teeth, ball; she even said "Daddy, I love you" the other day! Now if I could just get her to call me Mommy instead of Daddy! She does call me Mom, but often says Daddy instead. She can sign mom & dad, mouse, cracker, please, bear, and her favorite is monkey!

MacKenzie gets her teeth brushed now. We do the first part, and then she finishes up with the brushing by herself. Such a smart young lady!

She builds with her Megablocks, but she really prefers to pull them apart after Mommy puts them together. Ava has introduced her to Care Bears, and now we don't go very far without one. Ava also introduced her to Strawberry Shortcake...those movies are so very sweet! (Almost too sweet!)

MacKenzie eats with a fork and spoon. Sometimes more effectively than others! She hardly ever lets us help her eat her dinner, after she has gotten her utensils moving. Luckily for Mommy, she lets me help her over breakfast, as long as Sesame Street is on to keep her distracted. Otherwise, she surely wouldn't get enough to eat...the utensils are just not quite effective yet!

We are looking forward to Ava's second birthday in a couple of weeks. I can't believe that it has already been two years since I became pregnant with MacKenzie...time has been speeding by so fast...I hope I don't miss anything!