almost two!

Makenzie's second birthday is sunday. It's so hard to believe that she's almost two years old. I love her so much! She has started praying and singing lately. I'll say, "Dear God, thank you for..." and she fills it in with, "Mommy, Daddy, Jack-bear, my bed, my blanket, ME, my Mary, my pacifier, my house..." It is so sweet to hear her talking to God.

She has also started singing with me. She sings "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," "It's Raining, It's Pouring," and "This Little Light of Mine." I'll post pics after her birthday. btw, Minnine Mouse is not easy to find. I promised Makenzie a Minnie Mouse cake and have not been able to find one. I wish I was skilled in cake decorating so I could've made her one myself. I think she's gonna have to settle for a cupcake with a Minnie Mouse figurine on it.

Snow Day!

Woke up this morning to the neighborhood covered in snow and lots of it still coming down. The flakes have gotten bigger as the day as progressed. It looks so beautiful outside. I took Makenzie out in it after bundling her up as much as I could. She was really excited about it when she was inside, but not so much when she was out in it. We attempted a snow man and I made a snow angel...but neither turned out so great. It was a lot of fun to be out of the house and playing in the snow. I wouldn't want snow around all the time, but once or twice during the winter would be fine.

Jack enjoying the snow. He's looking for his tennis ball.

All bundled up and ready to play!

After we came in it was time to eat! And then take a nap. We all wish Eric could've been home with us to play in the snow. He would've built an awesome snow man!

I GOT IT!!!

Thanks to our tax refund, God, and my wonderful husband, I was able to purchase my first(and probably only) DSLR. I bought the Nikon D5000. It came with two lenses: a standard wide angle and a slightly telephoto zoom. I'm very excited about this purchase. I look forward to learning more about photography and unlocking this amazing camera's capabilities. Luckily for me I bought it at Wolf Camera who offers free digital photography classes! I can also take friends if anyone is interested. As soon as I get some great pics I will post them.
Also, friends and family: If you want to have some portraits taken I could use the practice. No charge(except for the CD). I'll burn you a CD of the prints and they'll be yours to do with as you wish.

Random ranting

Why is it so hard to get out of the house on time? I get up "early" and get myself completely ready and then I get Makenzie up. Well, today I got Makenzie up at the time we should've been leaving the house! So I'm rushing her to get dressed, I feed her "breakfast" in the car, and then I'm exhausted by the time we make it to where we're going. Thankfully the place we were going today was a women's bible study at church. So I left there feeling much better than I did when I arrived. Now I expect that after an early morning wake up call and playing with other kids all morning Makenzie would be ready for a long nap. However, I put her down at two o'clock after eating lunch...and she's still awake an hour later. So much for that three hour nap I was hoping for to get the house clean before my parents come over tomorrow. Plus, the plumber just called to say he'd be here in the morning to install the new toilet. Why clean your house when a workman is going to be in and out all morning? I'll blog complete details about the bathroom renovation once the project is complete. Let's just say that what was supposed to take a weekend is now going on two weeks plus! (and the stove is going out!) Back to my original question about getting out of the house on time. I was grateful to hear that most of the women in my bible study have the same problem, even those that don't have little ones!
Another interesting thing I found out at bible study is that most of the women in our group had really bad childhoods in regards to their hair. You know those years where you just want to mark yourself out of the yearbook because of an awful hairstyle? Or in my case a whole decade and more of bad hairstyles. I didn't start having "good" hair until I was in college. It made me feel better that I wasn't the only one. I hope that some how my rant brings some joy to others in knowing that we're all in this together and not as different as we may sometimes think.

Paint Project

Last week I painted a picture frame at the MOPS meeting. I also picked up a blank one for Makenzie and I to do together at home. So here are the pictures of how that turned out. She did a really good job. Unfortunately I don't think the project lasted long enough for her. She would of kept piling on the paint if I would've let her. I never thought I would be letting my two year old paint by herself, but she did a really great job.