Fancy Pants

So the older Makenna gets, the more she turns into a girlie girl.  Now she loves spending her days playing with babies and Barbies (dressing them, feeding them, getting them to go to sleep), playing with her kitchen (“Cooking dinner, Mom!”), watching movies like “High School Musical,” and playing dress up.  I found these pictures on my phone in which Makenna decided we all needed to get a little “fancy pants.”

She LOVES wearing her tutu—she says it makes her a princess!  She was also practicing her “cheesy smile” in this picture! : )

Makenna thought it was great fun to have Max dressed in a purple cape and yellow heels!  Poor little Max…  Luckily it didn’t seem to bother him at all.  Who knows what scars he will carry on into his adult years though…And of course Makenna thought mommy should be in on the act!  What do you think of my fairy slippers?

Oh the joy of having a girl…

As Makenna says, “Exercise, Exercise!”

I have been such a blogging slacker lately!  It’s just that we have been doing the same ole same ole every week—playing with friends, going to the library, playing in the backyard, etc. so I haven’t really taken a lot of pictures!  There have probably been several photo ops that I missed though… I will try to be better!  Last week we went to Oasis Gym for playgroup with our ward and then again with some friends.  They have something called Preschool Power Hour for the under 4 crowd where kids can attend Open Gym for only $5.  Makenna and Max both LOVED it!  They would seriously go every day I think!  Makenna had a blast jumping and running and climbing and Max loved playing with balls and climbing the stairs and playing with other babies…  A couple of times Max even took off walking across the gym floor—for some reason he thinks it’s easier to walk on that floor than our carpet at home! It was such a fun time! (Excuse the quality of the pictures—I just had my cell phone on me to take pictures with!)  

I think this summer, especially as it starts getting super hot, we will be spending a lot of time at the gym!

Book Review

So I was lucky enough to find Tyndale House Publishing.  They will send you a book (for free!) that you can review and post about on your blog.  As I love reading, I thought this would be a great way to get some free books and also share my experiences with others!

I just received my very first book to read and review.  It's called Inspirational Zingers Jumble by Christopher Hudson with Megan Chrans.  This is a puzzle book full of "Jumbles and Zingers." 

I actually had never heard of these puzzles before.  This is how they work:  There are letters mixed up that forms a word (this is called a jumble).  There is also a clue.  Figure out what the word is, unscramble it.  Then some letters from that word are put together to answer a mystery question (called a zinger).  Okay, okay, so that was a little confusing.  Let me clarify-- basically, we are using clues to unscramble words.  : )  That might be an easier way to put it, ha ha!  The book has basic jumbles, double jumbles, mystery person jumbles, word search jumbles, super jumbles, AND criss-cross jumbles!

I started trying the puzzles last night.  I have to admit, I am not the best at figuring out words from clues OR unscrambling scrambled words.  But the first few puzzles were easy enough even I could do it!  I also feel smarter for figuring them out : ).  But the thing I really like is the Zingers are actually scripture verses or inspirational quotes!  So I am doing puzzles AND getting a "thought for the day."  Love it!  Perfect for right before bed time!  I saw online that Tyndale also has these jumble puzzle books for kids!  A great activity for family night!

Easter 2010

Easter was a little different this year because it fell on Conference Weekend.  So we didn’t have the usual “fancy new dress” Sunday.  However, the Sunday before that, Makenna wore this new dress from Grandmom (cousin KD wore the same dress the same week!):

I’m sorry, but I think I have the CUTEST little girl ever! : ) (No picture of Mr. Max because he just wore his normal church clothes!)

On Saturday, we were able to go to an Easter egg hunt at Austin’s school.  I think our kids really had a blast, and they looked so adorable in their new clothes from Grandma Becky!:

They had a couple of those inflatable bouncy houses there and Makenna had so much fun jumping around!

Finally it was time for the actual hunt.  Makenna and Max were together in the 0-3 age division.  Makenna really didn’t want to wait until they said “go” to start gathering eggs!  “Just one Mommy?”

But finally she could go and she had so much fun grabbing eggs and putting them in her basket!  It was a little chaotic with so many people rushing around, but I think she really enjoyed herself.

Max was so funny!  He crawled over, picked up two eggs (one for each fist) and was done!

Afterwards Makenna had fun playing with her toys from her eggs--- especially the bubbles!  This girl is a bubble queen!

 

The kids also got to sit on the Easter bunny’s lap and he gave them their own pinwheel (isn’t that what you call them?).  They weren’t too sure about the whole experience…

  

It was really fun to go to the hunt this year because Makenna was actually old enough to really participate!  It was also good to get to see and play with friends for a while!

I was pretty lame on Easter day and didn’t really do anything too special.  The kids did have fun with their Easter baskets (notice the difference in kids- Max is very solemnly playing with his toys and Makenna is huge grins and very excitedly checking it all out!):

      

(Makenna loves that Mr. Potato head and thinks that it is Ernie from Sesame Street.  This morning she was playing with it and singing the Good Morning song.  I look over at her and she said, “No Mom!  I’m talking to Ernie!”  Well excuse me!)

 

The only candy I let them have was plastic eggs with jelly beans.  Makenna kept yelling, “Beans! Beans!”

I think I have found that I’m definitely loving holidays more as the kids get bigger!  They are so much fun!

Good luck leads to seeing chickens…

So the best thing EVER happened on Thursday.  The kids and I were going to go to the library for Baby Time and Toddler Time (which starts at 9:30).  And as I needed to get some new books, I decided we would go early to the library and give me some time to find books and then let the kids play before the story times started.  Well, Austin didn’t have class until 9:00, so I said, “We’ll just drive you!”  So we showed up at the library at 8:45… and they do not open until 9:00 (I thought they opened at 8:00).  So we stand there until they open the doors and there is immediately a line that forms by a librarian holding some cards.  We wonder over and find out she has Culture Passes AND we were able to get a Culture Pass to the Zoo!  That is like the most in demand Culture Pass out there and WE got it!  Woo hoo!  Lucky, lucky!  (For those of you who don’t know, Glendale has a program where you can check out these Culture Passes at the library and get in to museums, the zoo, etc. for free.  As you can imagine, those are in high demand and very hard to get!).

As today was supposed to be perfect weather (mid 70s) AND Austin didn’t have class, I said, “Let’s go to the zoo!”  And we did : )

The zoo is so much more fun now that Makenna is older and will actually pay attention to things.  And although Max was so over the zoo after about an hour, we still had a great time!

Max and Makenna were ready to get going:

We have gone to the zoo a couple of times now, but we never quite get to see everything before the kids get too tired.  So today we started on the opposite end and saw things we had never seen before!

First off was the elephant.  Makenna has a couple of books with elephants in them, so she was excited to see one up close and in real life:       We next headed down a Children’s Trail (which we had never gone down before).  There we found a little Monkey Island!  I LOVED this!  There was a little island with two monkeys swinging around on ropes.  It was so amazingly fun to watch them!  Seriously I could have stayed there all day!   

Makenna liked them too : )

 

While we were standing there, Austin tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned to see a duck who had waddled right up to Makenna and Max! 

I’m sorry; I hate ducks!  I think they are way scary and I’m always afraid one is going to attack me!  So we left very quickly!

We next passed by a little water area.  How pretty is this?

And we went through a little tunnel.  Makenna thought this was SO much fun!  She wanted to just keep going through the tunnel!

Okay, next they had a little like Old McDonald’s farm (I know, I know—I always go into so much detail!  But I like to share, and I plan on putting these together in a book someday to document our lives!).  This was probably Makenna’s favorite part of the whole zoo.  She hasn’t really been around farm animals before, but of course we talk about them a lot (and have been reading and singing Old McDonald’s Farm a lot lately).  So she was pretty excited to see everything!

First we went to a petting farm where you could pet and brush goats.  Makenna is pretty petrified of animals that are not behind a fence, so she didn’t like this part of the farm.  Max, however, was brave enough to pet one!

This is how Makenna prefers her animals (behind a fence!):

Look how sweet my big kids are:

Makenna also got to “ride” on some old tractors:

  

Next they “rode” some saw horses:

By this time, the kids started getting really hungry and cranky (and Makenna DID NOT want to leave the little kid play area), so we headed over to the food area to get some lunch.  After lunch, Max decided he was DONE, so we had to quickly look at the must-sees (giraffes, lion, tigers, baboons…) and cut our trip short.  But first, Makenna just HAD to ride the carousal:

Then it was to the car we went.  Both kids quickly fell asleep… which meant no nap at home!  Ergh!  But it was still SO much fun!  I love days when Daddy is home! (Oh, and guess which animal was Makenna’s favorite?  The chickens!  Only our daughter would go to the zoo and leave thinking chickens are the coolest animal there!)

Okay, and to round out this post, here are some absolutely adorable pictures of our gorgeous Mr. Max that Austin took while Makenna and I were on the carousal:

 

We love that kid, 20 chins, dimples, cute little teeth and all : )