Mackenzie: 8 Month Update

Mackenzie is 8 months old. It just hit me, that she is really close to turning 1! The next 4 months are going to fly by, and I wish time would slow down. 

This girl is such a joy to have in our home. She lights up whenever you look at her, and her smile is contagious. Kenzie is so easy-going, and always so happy. She's almost too happy...especially at 6 am when she decides its time to play. 

We have gotten in a good routine with solid foods, and Kenzie has eaten everything we've given to her. Marley was SUPER tough, and gagged all the time when we tried to feed her, so its nice that Kenzie is doing so well. If she would just get some more teeth, we could try even more things. 

Speaking of teeth, right now Kenzie just has one. Its cute when she smiles, and flashes her one little tooth! Its on the bottom, and the second one should come in any day now. 

She is SO close to crawling. Right now she kind of lunges and has started digging her toes into the carpet to push herself. All she's missing, is putting the motions together. 

Here's how other things are going right now...

Mackenzie likes

Waking up early

Kicking her feet VERY loudly in the crib

Scooting/pivoting around on the floor

Sitting up in the boppy and playing with toys

Sesame Street

Curious George

Going backwards in the walker

Falling asleep when daddy holds her

Ripping her bibs off and playing with them

Putting herself to sleep

Going shopping

Giggling at her sister

Spitting up in the carseat

Being outside, even though its cold

Mackenzie Doesn't Like

Homemade baby food  

Her shirt being covered in drool

Eye drops (She had an eye infection last week)

When Mommy takes too long to make a bottle

Sitting still while getting dressed

We're so excited to share the upcoming holiday season with our sweet girl! It will be fun picking out her Christmas stocking, and taking her to see the temple lights.

Kenzie will totally enjoy getting to visit with our families next week, and getting lots of attention. She will have a great first Thanksgiving, and we're thankful she's part of our family. 

Its hard to believe that at this time last year, she was still in my tummy and things were very different. Being a family of 4 now is so much fun!

Kenzie's First Halloween

Our sweet little Kenzie had a great first Halloween! We went to a church party the week before, and she looked so cute in her costume. The fangs on her bat costume drove her a little crazy, because they were right at eye level. 

Marley also had a super cute costume. She went as a witch, a "candy corn" witch to be exact.

It was very hard to get her to stand still for a good picture.

The day of Halloween we drove down to Spanish Fork so the girls could trick or treat with their cousins. We went out in my sisters new neighborhood, and it was really nice. It wasn't super busy, and the kids had a great time (once the toddlers stopped freaking out and realized what was going on).

After the ward party, I kind of realized that Kenzie's costume wasn't very girly. A lot of people thought she was a boy while we were trick or treating. After awhile I started joking that "Kenzie went as a boy" for Halloween, because on top of her costume not being girly she was also riding in my nephew's blue stroller and wore his blanket once she fell asleep. It didn't bother me though, she was the cutest little bat there ever was! 

We headed back to my sisters house and let the kids play and burn off some energy. They sure have lots of fun when we all get together! 

Kenzie woke up and tried to sneak some of her sisters candy. 

Marley Stories: October

Another month has gone by with our silly toddler! Here are some funny things that happened over the last month... 

I noticed a spider on the wall the other day, and asked Jason to kill it. Mr. Spider decided to camp out on one of our picture frames, so Jason took the whole frame outside and avoid spider guts everywhere. When he came back inside, Marley pumped her fists in the air and said, "We did it!!" 

Early one morning, Kenzie was playing on the floor in the living room while I got Marley out of bed and changed her diaper. Then Kenzie made some noises and this conversation followed...

 Marley: "Listen. I hear Kenzie."

Me: "I hear Kenzie too."

Marley (sighs): "Yeah, She's crazy." 

We try to skype with my parents once a week, and Marley LOVES it. I turned on my laptop the other day to work on something and Marley walks up, furrows her brow, and asks: "Where's Grandma? And Papa?"

I finished putting some butt paste on Marley during a diaper change and she goes, "All better! Thanks Mommy." 

I was in the other room when I heard Marley say "Try this Kenzie, it's yummy!" I run in, thinking I'm going to find Marley shoving cereal in Kenzie's mouth. Instead I find Marley giving her sister a Lego ice cream cone.  

Early one morning, I carried Kenzie into Marley's room to change her diaper. (I already knew Marley was awake, because I had heard her talking.) After I changed Kenzie's diaper, Marley asked if Kenzie could come sit on her bed. So I laid Kenzie on her tummy inside the crib and left to get my camera. As I was walking back I heard Marley say, "Here Kenzie. Try this bear." (And then she handed Kenzie her teddy bear.) Then she shoved a blanket in Kenzie's face and said "Try this blanket!" (See Photo Below)

While I don't really find this cute, it needs to be documented. We are in the heart of "terrible twos" and as a result, Marley is pretty whiny and defiant at times. When she doesn't want to do something she says "I'm not..." followed by what you're trying to get her to do. 
Examples: 
I'm not take a nap.
I'm not change a bum.
I'm not go inside.
I'm not pretzels.
I'm not George. (as in the monkey)
I'm not brush your teeth.
Etc. 

Marley is big on opposites. Mostly "fast" and "slow." Lately she has really started to hate it when I wipe her face after eating, so to make her not so mad I would whisper and say I was being soft. Then she would get a big grin on her face and whisper it back to me. Well one day after whispering "soft" to me she exclaimed "HOT!" I was confused, thinking to myself that wet wipes weren't hot. Then I realized that she thought the 
opposite of soft was "hot" aka "hard." 

One of Marley's favorite movies right now is Cars. We took it with us along the drive to California last month, and while she was watching it in the car I overheard something funny. During the beginning when Mater and Lightning are introducing themselves to each other, I heard her say "And I'm Marley!!" Silly kid. I've since noticed that she does this while watching any show where someone introduces themselves.  

Trip to California

Back in October we were able to head out to California to visit our families. My parents and little brother live out there, and Jason also has a brother and sister there too. Since Jason gets a week off for fall break, we figured it would be a good time for a trip. 

We also planned this trip so that we could be able to see my "little" brother Nathan march bagpipes for his senior year of high school. Marching band is something I did all 4 years of high school, so it has a special place in my heart. I really wanted to see Nathan march one more time before he graduates, and it was so fun! 

We drove out on a Saturday and got into Fairfield around 8pm. Considering we were traveling with 2 little ones, things went better than they could have. (And that was including 2 blowouts, and a 40 minute scream fest as we left the sierras.)

Marley was so sweet to her sister in the car. Whenever Kenzie started fussing, Marley would talk to her and try to make her laugh by making silly faces or singing a song. She is really the sweetest big sister. So we treated her to some cinnamon twists...

The next day was Sunday, and we got to go to the ward I (sort of) grew up in. (I grew up in 5th ward, then got moved to 1st ward in high school, then 5th ward was dissolved and 1st ward is now mostly full of 5th ward people.) It was great seeing lots of familiar faces! 

After church we had a big family dinner with all my aunts and uncles and cousins that live in the area. Some of them I hadn't seen in over 2 years, so it was really lots of fun! And I got to play lots of Scum with my cousins, which made the whole trip worth it. 

Monday we headed to Apple Hill, which is such a fun place! It was a bit of a drive, but so worth it when we got to have caramel apples, fritters, and pie! I also got some salt dough ornaments from a stand that we've been buying from for over 20 years. I love family traditions! After a long day in the car, we came back to grandma's house and played with Uncle Nathan's old trains. 

Tuesday we went to visit some Fairfield staples. We took a tour of the Jelly Belly factory, and then had lunch at Joe's Buffet. I also got to go through some boxes of old stuff from the garage, and it was fun reliving old memories...but I mostly threw away crap I couldn't believe I had saved all these years.

Wednesday we drove in to the city to visit Jason's siblings Heather and Mason. It was quite a drive to get to where they live, filled with lots of traffic, but we had lots of fun visiting them. We don't get to see them very often, so its always a treat! They took us to lunch at our favorite place, BJ's, and we had our ultimate favorite dessert...Pazookies!! We hung out for a bit, then had to say goodbye so we could beat traffic. 

Once we got back to Fairfield, my mom and brother watched the girls for us so Jason and I could go out to dinner just the two of us. That hasn't happened in a LONG time, and after so much time in the car with the kids we REALLY needed a break! We went to Chevy's to enjoy some flautas, and they were delicious! 

Thursday we had a slow day and mostly relaxed at my parents house. We brought lunch to my mom at her school and ate with her during her release time. When her kids came back from lunch we went with mom inside her classroom so they could meet Marley and Kenzie. They were all really happy to meet the girls, and thought they were really cute. Marley brought the house down when she decided to sing the ABC's for everyone and all the 4th graders clapped and cheered. It made Marley so happy, she sang it to them one more time.

Friday we met up with a dear friend for lunch at Round Table for the buffet. I was so happy we got to meet up with Zuleyma! We were such good friends in high school, it was great to catch up. It was also great to have some of our favorite pizza too. 

Saturday was the Del Oro band review. We got to see Nathan march his bagpipes, and Marley had so much fun watching every band go by. She kept exclaiming, "INSTRUMENTS!!" The weather was kind of cold and rainy, so we didn't stick around for awards and drove home early. We stopped for In-n-Out in Davis (it always tastes better in California!) and then took the girls home for naps. 

We had such a great visit with my family, it was sad to leave! Both the girls had SO much fun getting to spend time with everyone. 

We can't wait to have them all come out here for Christmas!!