Christmas

Mackenzie and I made cookies this year to give away. She was a big help! She got to stir and pour.
Her favorite part was rolling out the dough.

Then she got to cut out the cookies.
Here she is hard at work....

Before we left for Spokane we made reindeer food. Just some oats and glitter then you

shake...shake....
shake!
We also made a gingerbread house. I covered the graham crackers with frosting and gave her the plate of goodies to use to decorate.
She liked putting on the pieces of candy.






But she liked eating the candy even more.

The drive to Spokane was surprisingly smooth. Mackenzie watched DVDs and Logan played with toys. Everytime someone started whining I gave them a new toy or a snack. This was our last stop with about two hours left. Logan and Mackenzie decided to take over the drive.

This scene went downhill quickly when we tried to put them back into their car seats!
We slept in Christmas morning then went to see what Santa brought. Robert's mom had bought a talking, singing Elmo for Mackenzie. At first she wanted nothing to do with it but Logan thought it was very interesting.
Mackenzie ripped through all of her presents.
and tried to help Logan with his. He didn't mind, he was more interested in the paper anyway.


Mackenzie, who is still learning about sharing, claimed all of the gifts while Logan played with the paper.

but he kept his nuks away from her.
and she eventually warmed up to Elmo.
Opening presents is tiring.
Mackenzie sat in this rocking chair the entire time we were there. It used to be Robert's grandma's chair so it was neat to see how attached she was to it.
All dressed up...giving them stockings was the only way I could keep them in one place!
We are holding up Elmo to get them to smile...

The whole family before we ate ham, sweet potatoes, and green beans! Yum!
Logan had a fun first Christmas!

A couple days later Mackenzie woke up and said, "Open Christmas presents now!" I had to let her down easy and tell her that Christmas was over until next year. We also drove around looking at Christmas lights. Mackenzie is still trying to find lights everywhere. She screams, "LIGHTS" when she sees any.

Whose idea was it to go to a parade when it's 18 degrees outside?

After the parade there was free pictures with Santa at the community center. So we took our hot chocolate over there. Warmed up, cleaned up, and de-jacketed. Fortunatly it was pretty empty so we could take our time. We walked up and about 10 feet away from Santa Mackenzie stopped. That was close enough for her. He had some jingle bells but she didn't care. Then he held up a candy cane. She took three steps then stopped. Not worth it. I took her hand and led her the rest of the way. Mackenzie took the candy cane and walked away. Santa told me to pick her up and sit on his lap with her in my lap. Okay. They took a picture of that and she went back to her spot. I put Logan in his lap and Logan was just fascinated by him. I think it was the beard. He just stared. After that I was able to get Mackenzie on his lap. She still wasn't sure but she wasn't screaming. We got a pretty good picture out of it.

Eight Months Old

Logan is an expert crawler and is pulling himself up on his knees now. He loves his sister and follows her around. He can wave and make the sign for milk. He is still a stubborn sleeper and wakes up several times a night. He is getting more and more vocal. He has a wonderful smile and flirts with everyone he sees but hates to be left with babysitters.

New Clothes and Thanksgiving

Logan was the youngest of four boys who were born to teacher at my school last year. A few weeks ago all of the other three teachers gave us clothes for him. Then a few days later a friend who I met through our old daycare gave us three bags of clothes for Mackenzie. I feel very blessed for this gift and it makes one less thing for us to worry about for awhile. Here is Mackenzie modeling one of her new outfits.

Isn't she sweet...

We were invited to one of my friends house for Thanksgiving. She had us, her in-laws and her mother. There were some other children there and stairs. Even after Mackenzie fell she still trying playing on the stairs so Robert spent a lot of time following her up and down them.

We had turkey, green beans, carrots, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, rolls, cranberry sauce, and JELLIED SALAD!! Mackenzie ate her cranberry sauce.

And a little more.

Then got distracted by something else.I had Logan sitting next to me and I had his baby food ready to feed him when I was finished. As I was eating I felt something on my arm. Logan had reached over and stolen a handful of my mashed potatoes.

Of course he wanted nothing to do with the baby food after that.

And he was quite a mess when all was finished.

But that's what Thanksgiving is for.