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Thursday, June 30, 2011

Weeeee!!

Pretty sure this is the children's equivilant to doing drugs! McKenna asks no less than once an hour to go "Weeee!" I think she may have a problem.





Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Summer Fun - South Coast Botanic Gardens

Just like last year, we have a bunch of great play dates with our church buddies planned for the summer. I can't wait! Austin had so much fun at each one last year and I'm looking forward to seeing both my kids getting to experience new things this year too!

On the other hand, last year's plethora of play dates is what got me so far behind on my blog for so long, so I'm determined to stay caught up! I'm shooting for posting within a week of each event, but they will definitely be up before the next play date!

So all that to intro our first play date - South Coast Botanic Gardens. (Here's my post from when we last year. I can't believe how different my kids look!) We had a small group, but we had so much fun! It was a great way to kick off the summer!

We started out at the Koi Pond (which was designed by someone at our church!) Austin always loves fishies!

Look! Shish!
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Then it was over to the Children's Garden. It's a cute miniature garden with miniature buildings and an adorable bridge!

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This year they had a cute water pump and water cans. Of course Austin loved scooping and pouring out water over and over!

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Next we visited the rose garden - Momma's favorite!

Oh, what I wouldn't give for a rose garden like this! As long as someone else had to keep it up!!


A couple of the pretties!
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Austin knows just what to do with flowers!
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Checking out the fountain. I think they are either trying to figure out how to get all the money out, or trying to decide if jumping in is worth getting in trouble!


I love this pic! I tried to get a shot of Austin up on a rock, but he wasn't digging the height. He was more than willing to take a picture with his Auntie Becca though!
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Then we headed back up to the large gazebo lawn for some running around time and lunch. McKenna was horribly bored up until this point. She's still not steady enough to walk on all the paths and last thing I wanted was for her to faceplant into a rose bush! But the grass area was the perfect, almost boundaryless, area for the kids to play in!

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McKenna's a little young to be chasing boys around but she sure had fun doing it! She kept poking Sammy. We are gonna have to watch this girl like a hawk!


Becca even caught her mid-poke!
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I love that Austin will look at my camera and say cheese! He's becoming so cooperative!! =D
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And as usual, I took pics of all our buddies! My friends have such cute kiddos!

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I caught some cute momma dogpile moments too!
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Stay tuned in the weeks to come. We have lots of fun outings planned. Should be a good summer!

Monday, June 27, 2011

One and a Quarter

My word for last month was Wow! And I really can't think of anything new to say for this month too! It was such a full month for my little girl again!


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Just as I suspected, McKenna quickly moved from just walking to running. She runs, or attempts to do so, pretty much all the time. I like to describe it as a little marionette running. Her legs and arms flail about as if almost unattached to her body! She gets more stable each day, but she still falls quite a bit. She wants to be allowed to get down and walk/run all the time too. And as hard as she tries to keep up with Austin, her little legs just don't move quick enough.

Lots of new words! Elmo, Please, Donald Duck, Grandpa, Grandma, Papa, binkie, blankey, bath time, paper (which is what she calls crayons), amen, Tigger, Pooh Bear and probably about 10 more that I made note of during the day but can't remember now that I'm actually sitting down to write! She's repeating words back very quickly. I think I told her Elmo twice and she had it down. Austin didn't start mimicking words back until he was almost 2!

She's still not big on signing but she's starting to do it a little more. Eat is probably her most clear and most used. And just a few days ago you could almost visibly see the light bulb turn on above her head with "please". She says please and signs it at the same time, which kinda makes signing it unnecessary I suppose! I also love that I have yet another kid that tells me she would like to take a nap by signing sleep! Thank you Lord! And if she keeps up signing "change" when she needs a new diaper, she may be potty trained before Austin!

McKenna has evolved from being obsessed with Little Einsteins to TV in general. She loves all the cartoons they watch and gets equally but differently excited about each of them! Jake and the Neverland Pirates - she waves a little fist in the air and says "oooh hooo hooo!" (Yo ho ho!). Little Einsteins - she throws her arms up in the air and shouts "blast off" (which is fairly clear!). Mickey Mouse Club is my favorite to see her react to - She about hyperventilates and shrieks "Dona Duh! Dona Duh!" She couldn't care less about Mickey Mouse, but dang, does she love Donald Duck!

For once I was right about teeth! Sure enough #5 popped through. Promptly followed by #6 & #7 and #8 is so close to popping through that by looking at it you would think it was, but you can't quite feel a sharp edge yet. I'm thinking (and hoping) that these teeth were the reason food was rough this month too.

Books, books, books! She sure loves her books! She will dig determinedly through the book box, chucking books left & right, looking for a specific book and then read it with very serious focus! She gets really excited about ones with animals in it and the "Five Little Monkeys" book. I LOVE reading that one to her! She bounces when they jump, she bonks herself on the head, she holds her hand up like a phone and when you ask her what the doctor says, she shakes one little finger at you and says "No no no no!" It cracks me up!

She's a biter! Poor Austin has been bit pretty hard a few times (one of which was on a bare chest in the bathtub!) Unfortunately, he more or less deserves it every time! She only does it when he takes her toys or growls right in her face. Obviously we are trying to teach her that biting is wrong, but I can't help but feel like I'm taking away her only recourse at the moment! She tries to bite me too when she doesn't like what I'm telling her.

She loves to pray! I mentioned above that "amen" was one of her new words. She will appropriately fold her hands when we start to pray. But she really really likes to say Amen, so she doesn't wait for the end of the prayer. She just says it the whole time!

I cannot get enough of this little girl's hugs and kisses! She gives the best! While we're playing on the floor, she will come running to me and throw herself into my arms And if I'm holding her she knows just how to put her head down and snuggle right in. She melts me!


Sunday, June 26, 2011

How Does Your Garden Grow? Part 2 - Itty Bitty Plants!

Part 1 is here

Monday we were at my parents' house for my Mom's birthday, (Happy Birthday, Momma!) and we discovered that the precious green tomato had turned red and was ready for Austin to go pick it! You would think there was a pile of new toys out there for as excited as he was!

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After the ceremonial tomato picking, we headed up to garden boxes to check on the rest of our farm. We have cute little plants where just seeds were before...

Itty bitty sunflower plant
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Itty bitty carrots
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Itty bitty watermelon
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And the plants that were already plant-type plants when we planted them were looking good. We even had a itty bitty green bell pepper!
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Hoping next week will yield more impressive and not as itty bitty results!

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Book Buddies

I love how much my kids love books! About 1/2 the time they'll let me read to them, (McKenna's high pitched "booh" request kills me!) but they really love to read to themselves. Austin has most of his books memorized and will tell you what's happening on the pages. And McKenna's day isn't complete unless she has perused just about every book in the bin!

I hope they always love books this much!

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Friday, June 24, 2011

Such a Sweet Face!

Have I mentioned how much I love this face?

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Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Oh the Silliness!

While we were at dinner celebrating Father's Day for Brian Saturday night, I started taking pictures of Austin. And he delighted me with all sorts of silly faces! I couldn't pick just a few. They were all just too good!

Oh, how I love this boy! He brings me so much joy and makes us laugh everyday!

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(this one is my new favorite!)