Yellow River Game Ranch 2012

Each year, for Jeff's birthday, we go as a family to the Yellow River Game Ranch and do dinner at Provinos. Jeff chose this as his bday celebration the first year we had Rhyan and we've enjoyed it each year since. This year marks our third. Its been fun to see Rhyan grow in the pics compared to the years past. And last year, Mack was in my belly! Whew, glad he's not living there anymore ;-)

We've had a busy life lately (havent we all). With Jeff in his masters degree and coaching baseball and teaching, he's got very little time for much else. So we ended up celebrating his big 3-2 a week and a half early this year. Yes, that means we had to PAY for his provinos dinner... oh well!

The weather was PERFECT! And Rhyan remembered last years trip (or so it seemed... she kept asking if she'd get to pet bunnies which she did last year) so that made it lots of fun b/c she was VERY excited!

Check out her excitement here!!!

 

Mack, on the other hand, was a little more interested in eating his stroller :-)

Rhyan and the "Burro"

 

Ok, highly inappropriate, BUT... Jeff's only comment was "boy Burro, you know how to make a guy feel small" LOL. Gratefully, he quit showing off after a minute or so!

She was so proud to feed everything, but unlike last year where she had NO fear, she was a bit hesitant and had to be encouraged/helped by her Daddy with a few of the animals.

Second inappropriate pic :-) This donkey was peeing a HUGE puddle. I have a knack for catching these kinds of moments HA!

Last year, Jeff was semi-obsessed with getting a squirrel to eat out of his hand. We're there looking at ALL kinds of animals that we never see and he's obsessed with a common squirrel! The obsession continued this year and we spent lots of time trying to "entice" them....

SUCCESS! They only like peanuts :-) Btw, Rhyan was chasing squirrels everywhere saying "i wanna pet it! it not want a cracker. it like a nut. 'mere squirrel. onna pets you!"

And i guess since the squirrel didnt eat the cracker, she figured she should.

Oh look! Mack found a pocket for his finger!! (i promise the finger went from the mouth to the nose, not the other way around... not that anyone cares)

The deer were a real disappointment this year. Last year, Rhyan loved petting the deer (well, after she quit being scared). This year, we only saw a few and they were all mangy looking like this one!

The kids did GREAT at the ranch! So we headed on over to provinos for some yummy dinner. I wanted to get a family pic like last year, but i snapped this ONE cute one of mack and my batteries died in my camera. I thought jeff was gonna break out in the halleujah chorus. I'm telling you, one day he'll be glad I took so many pictures.

The kids were not, however, very good at dinner. Rhyan still needs to be confined to a high chair, in my opinion just to keep her from moving around and thinking she has freedom. But since Mack is in one, that leaves her with a booster or a normal seat. So she was a booger. And Mack, while happy as could be, was showing off his vocal cords via screaming. Jeff was embarassed. I was trying to hold him to keep him distracted and quiet. It wasnt really enjoyable :-)

Luckily, to go boxes are easy to come by!

But really, this is just life with two. Sometimes things go great, sometimes you think "why do i ever go out of the house with the kids" HA. 

We love you, Daddy! We hope you had a great birthday. Thanks for sharing it with us (part 1 anyways)

Fun with Friends!!!

Rhyan has not known life without Taylor and Shelby. They started staying with her at Tracy's house when Rhyan was a newbie and they spent the first 2.5 years of her life together there three days a week. They are her best friends!

This year (2012), Taylor and Shelby started staying with their grandma and so Rhyan doesnt get to play with them as much anymore. BUT! They live in our neighborhood! So their grandma (Connie) has been bringing them to play occasionally! The girls are LOVING it!

It didnt take long this day for them to end up wet... and mostly naked! But really, is there anything much cuter than a partially naked toddler?!

An attempt at a group shot. FAIL!

Taylor can write her own name!!

BEST of friends :-)

MAN! I love these girls!

Mckinnon: 10 months

Mack! You are only my second child and I am already having a hard time writing down and keeping up with all of your milestones! Maybe thats because you add things so often :-)

This month, I had a HARD time getting any pics in the chair because Mack is EVERYWHERE! I'm going to try again here, soon, but on the day of his 10month I was alone w/ the kids that evening (jeff was probably at a baseball game?) so i couldnt get it done alone safely! HA!

Rhyan and Mack continue to LOVE each other. Rhyan has a hard time with the fact that we love mack, but she for sure loves him. She plays with him and makes him laugh and he looks for her all the time, now!

Mack loves to crawl! He is crawling EVERYWHERE and we call him the "bulldog" b/c when he crawls super fast, he looks like one! Its hilarious. His head bobs back and forth and his whole body moves with the crawl side to side. Cracks us up!

I bought him some sunglasses for outdoors. He loves them! (obviously)

This is SO typical. Spud is eating and Mack is 5 feet away but looking at him, which Spud feels is growl-worthy. He is a grumpy old dog!

The curls continue!!!

Rhyan has decided recently that instead of doing her puzzles on her table, she likes to do them on the floor. She's such a little drama queen :-) Of COURSE she knows Mack is gonna want to "help". This day she was "hiding" her puzzle as she told Mack "go away, mackers! no no! dont touch my puzzles! you gonna eat it! no mack! go see mommy! mommy wants you come see her!"

But, as any good sister, she is also teaching him how to do bad things like climb the stairs :-/

At 10 months mack is:
-CRAWLING! (started a few days after he turned 9 months)
-trying so hard to pull up
-still sleeping 7pm-7am
-cutting down on his morning nap. He naps 9:15 or so till 11 but usually wakes a few min before.
-loves spud!
-eats most any table food we have in very small bites. sometimes he's not content with his babyfood if we are eating dinner with him.
-loves to swing outside
-says MAMA!!!!! halleujah :-)
-is in all 12 month clothes
-size 4 diapers for day, 5 for night w/ a "pad"
-eats 4 bottles a day, 6oz each time (7,11,3,7)
-is really SO fun to be around now! He's not usually cranky in the evenings anymore and in general is a much happier baby. We think its because of his mobility that he's more content!

Mack, we are enjoying you and your sweet personality so much!

Here are a few pics from our slightly unsafe attempt at a solo shoot!

Rhyan's 1st play

At the end of Feb. (yes, i'm that behind), my sweet friend, Terrilyn, invited Rhyan to see her daughters in a play. It was at the new dawn theater and was a preschool performance of Snow White's Birthday Surprise. It was $5 a ticket so i couldnt pass it up :-)

What a GREAT first experience in a theater! Rhyan looooves Marley and Mackenzie (Terrilyns beautiful daughters... btw, Terrilyn is my friend who does all the kids pics! she's sweet AND talented... you can check out their website at www.orpheusandaphrodite.com). They were 2 of the 7 dwarfs... and they were ADORABLE!

The premise of the play... the evil stepmother isnt dead... she's planning her next attack. The prince wants to plan for snow white a surprise bday party and the evil stepmother guises herself as the best party planner. She puts a spell on the dwarfs hoping they'll ruin the birthday party by acting silly and then poisons snow white's birthday cupcake... only to have the "mirror mirror on teh wall" magically released from his spell (b/c of a group hug by the dwarfs) and therefore able to reveal the evil stepmothers wicked plan to "off" snow white.

It was cute. The play included audience participation... VERY geared towards preschoolers. Rhyan got to go on stage once and participate but was pretty shy about it. She really is a "sit back and take it all in" kind a girl.
Gran met us there. Ronni goes to several plays from time to time (in fact, shes taking myself and my SIL, Liz to see motherhood the musical this coming sunday as our early bday present!) so i thought she'd get a kick out of being a part of Rhyans first theater experience since its something she enjoys, herself!
After the play was over and we went out to catch a pic, Mackenzie (in orange) told Rhyan "i'm so proud of you for coming on stage, Rhyan. You were SO brave!". I'm telling you, Mackenzie is quite possibly the most kind hearted, encouraging, loving little girl i've ever known. Her big Sis, Marley is equally as precious... but Mackenzies "words of affirmation" love language resides quite well with myself and Rhyan :-)
We had a GREAT time. Rhyan talked about it the whole way home! We went by discover mills to get some tennis shoes for Rhyan and mack on the way home (where she suckered me into paying way too much for light up shoes... they ARE adorable, though!) and she talked about how fun the play was the entire time we walked around. Hopefully, she'll love the arts as much as her Mommy and Gran!

Small Group

We started having small group's in our church (in homes) last fall. We loaded ours up with all the "cool" folks: our youth pastor and his fiance (kyle and haley), Rhyan's sunday school teacher's Josh and Ashlyn, our pastor and his wife (jeff and brenda) and ourselves. We meet at our house each Sunday. We are the "younger older" couple in our group :-) What a place to be....

Anyhoo, our group is a little crazy. First off, these soon to be mr and mrs seem to LOVE our kids. And our kids LOVE our small group (rhyan usually goes to my mom's or grandmothers house for our small group, but since mack goes to bed at 7pm he stays with us). He gets lots of attention and soaks it up. He's such a little flirt :-)

One recent evening we had taco night. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to put taco shells in the toaster oven, but i thought it'd be okay if we kept a good eye on them. However, we totally forgot about them and by the time we remembered them they were charcoal.

We opened the door of the toaster oven and the oxygen lit the things on FIRE. The girls were all screaming and Jeff's wise words were quite simple: "be quiet! mack is sleeping!" HA!
I mean, who cares that this could catch the house on fire... dont wake mack! :-) Such a goob!

But luckily for us, Mack is a hard sleeper :-) So he was fine. And just to end on a high note, heres a cute pic of Kyle and our little Mack man. Mack is the first baby Kyle has held (i think?!) CUTE!

My punishment

I wrecked my van.

Its tragic, actually. Because as much as i HATED the idea of getting a van, i now readily admit that i love mine. Its a 2007 Honda Odyssey Touring model and its loaded.

So i had a fender bender a few weeks ago. A guy slammed on his brakes at a light (which had just turned yellow.. he sped up like he was gonna go and I was going to join him but then changed his mind and i was too close) and i hit him. He was a cheeky fellow (watching too much thomas around here, lately) from Bosnia and it was nice to make his acquaintance, although I'd much preferred to have cleaned his teeth or met him in a supermarket line.

My bumper had a broken place but you had to look for it to see the indiscretion. So we decided to leave it be. It made me sad, but it cost almost $1000 to replace a bumper and it wasnt worth it for something cosmetic.

Or so we thought.

And then this weekend my car started acting funny. Turns out, the radiator was busted in my little fender bender. :-(

So now, my beloved van is at nash collision center in Lawrenceville.

And my punishment has been... driving Jeffs 1997 Chevrolet s-10 truck.

He's had it since 1998 when he went off to college. It was SUPER nice then. 14 years ago. And while i'm grateful for it, it has undoubtedly taken some abuse over the years as it has moved from one of our primary vehicles to our "backup" or more appropriately, our "work truck".

It's a stick shift.

It has NO air conditioning.

And the windshield wipers are possessed. As in, they turn on by themselves and wont turn off.

So sometimes I'm driving down the road with the windows down, burning up, with the windshield wipers on low. Just cause I'm cool like that.

I like to think of it as having a little Jesus in the car with me. Reminding me that He's there. In the wipers of all places? Odd place to hang out, Lord :-) But ok!

Yeah, so i'm trying to make myself feel better.

OH, and there is only one knob left to control the heater/AC (that doesnt work) and the temp. So you have to pull it off one control and put it on the other to turn each one...

AND, it has crank windows. As in you have to roll them up and down yourself.

Its hard work driving that thing. Its a workout in itself. At least, thats how i'm justifying NOT working out this week :-)

And i'm pretty sure I've lost a pound of water weight from sweating on the way home from work.

I want my van back.

However, when it broke down on me this evening and we had to have it TOWED (leaving us with ONE vehicle) i was sad.

I'd even take my beater back at this point. I wont even speak ill of it anymore if it will just heal itself or at least be cheap!

But Jeff reminds me that driving the truck was my punishment but that in retrospect, maybe it was wrong of him to punish the truck by making me drive it all week. HE thinks i broke it, like i break everything else.

He might need to watch himself... i may break him next :-)