242 - 5 nights of dinner

My boss bought me the Eat Clean Diet Cookbook and the Eat Clean Diet for Families and Kids book today as a belated birthday present. I am excited to try some of the dishes inside as she has let me taste a few that she has made over the last few months and they were really good.

Tomorrow's dinner should look something like this.

Thursday's dinner should resemble this.
Friday.
Saturday

Sunday

I'll keep you posted on how they taste and how closely they resemble the pictures.

I hope to incorporate many more healthy and really balanced meals into our lives. This is mainly as I find it very difficult to cook on the nights that Mike is working and for the sake of McKenzie and I, I feel that if I have a plan I may actually follow through.

241 - baby fish

When I got home from work tonight I was talking to my mom on the phone and noticed we had baby fish in our tank.

I counted 6 babies in with our 5 adult fish.
Proud Mama?

I figured I had better take picures....not sure how long they will be staying with us.

My Mommy ... by McKenzie

240 - Baking

2 1/2 hours of baking

10 minutes of eating

Yum in my tum!

239 - Art studio

We went over for a playdate with Maks today. We set up a little art studio for Maks and McKenzie.

Their works of art. McKenzie's are the two smaller canvasses on top and Maks' is the larger canvass on the bottom.
Even artists need to refuel. Fresh carrots from the garden. Yum!

238 - Leapster

Went to the second hand store tonight after I picked McKenzie up from dayhome.

Couldn't find any play pants for her or sweatshirts which is why I went, BUT, I found this My First Leapster for her for $10.

McKenzie played with it all the way home, while I cooked dinner and only stopped to eat.

237 - Park

It was a fun night at the park tonight and we are all...

It was so windy tonight that McKenzie had to hold her hat on her head on the way over.
She had fun "racing" Daddy on the bridge over, and over, and over, and over again.
Hi Mommy!

I can see you!

Shortly after this the wind got so strong that it started to push her around, literally. We decided that was our cue to head home. Shows you how much it was ticking her off as she didn't even fight us when we said it was time to go.

Artsy fartsy shot.

236 - Hair, hair, frog???

Loving that McKenzie's hair is getting curlier every day.

Hair raising experience
Random froggy picture

230 ~ 235 - Catching up

August 24 - After

Our ceramic figurines were finished so I picked them up today.

Here are McKenzie's horses.

And my bowl - outside
inside

August 22 - Hail storm

We had Another wicked storm blow through this evening. Harley was so scared and whining and when I explained to McKenzie why he was crying she walked over and petted him and said, "It's okay Harley, it's just thunder." So cute.

August 21

Tonight we went to our dogs' breeder to see Harley's newest puppies. McKenzie thought they were, "So Cute!"

After seeing the puppies we stopped at Toys R Us and walked around looking at all the neat toys. It's a good thing I don't have a lot of money or McKenzie would be REALLY spoiled.

August 20 - Walmart Cutie

McKenzie was having fun finding interesting places to put her sticker from the Walmart greeter.

August 19 - Goofball

McKenzie decided to have seconds of rice for dinner and decided that the serving spoon would be fun to use.

August 18 - Baseball

McKenzie working on her batting technique.

That's quite the swing she's got.

Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure. George E Woodbury

234 pictures in and I forgot to take a picture yesterday. Nothing happened, there was no reason that distracted me, I just forgot. My laptop has been getting fixed and so I have not posted in a week but I have been taking pictures, faithfully, every day and yesterday...nothing. It was an okay day nothing much going on. Mike worked and McKenzie and I had a nice evening crafting and playing. I thought about what to take a picture of. I planned a few in my mind. Then I put McKenzie to bed, had a bath and went to bed myself. Can't go back and redo yesterday, nor would I want to, so onward it is on a slightly less than 365 challenge. My apologies, loyal readers.

229 - Painting party

No matter how much I tell McKenzie to stop growing so we can save some money on clothes she just keeps sprouting up. So, since she won't cooperate, I went to Old Navy today, as they have a sale on and picked up some new fall/winter clothes.

Trying out her new pockets. Now it is not that she doesn't look super cute but I was a little bummed that it was soooo cold today that I actually dressed her in her new hat and jacket to go out painting tonight.
My painting buddies.

Working hard.

Mommy's bowl before firing.

McKenzie's ponies before firing.

I'll post the after pictures when I pick them up next week.

228 - Playdate at the park

We met Maks and Kari at the Catholic school playground for a playdate tonight.

McKenzie the daredevil gives me heart failure when she walks across this "bridge".

Maks and McKenzie playing on the bench.
Maks inspecting the "cave".

Tonight, McKenzie was playing over on the far side of the playground and there were two boys over there.

One looked to be a few years older than her and the other around 11 or 12 I think. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the younger of the two ran over toward McKenzie and yelled something at her but I was not entirely sure they were not playing.

McKenzie, shortly, came walking over to me holding her tummy and with her lip out. She had tears in her eyes and told me that her tummy hurt and he had hit her. I clarified that the boy had hit her tummy and she said yes.

I picked her up and walked over to the boys. The older boy was dialling a cell phone and the younger boy was hiding from me.

I asked the older boy if the little guy was his brother and if his brother had hit McKenzie. He confirmed both.

I went to talk to the boy and heard the older boy talking to his mom telling her that "he's not behaving; he hit a girl and then yelled sorry at her (guess that is what I had seen)"

I tried to talk to the boy but he was in the middle of a tantrum and continued to have one while his brother tried to get him on his bike to go home since he was being bad.

I am very proud that I tried to talk to them instead of following my mom instinct to protect McKenzie and retaliate on that little guy. It was much harder than I thought to "be the adult". Luckily she was not seriously hurt.

Maks was so cute. When McKenzie went over to him and told him the boy hurt her tummy he gave her a hug and kissed her tummy better. What a guy!!!!

227 - Ashlynn's 6th birthday

My friend Daphne's little girl Ashlynn turns 6 on the 17th so they had a little party for her today. She will have her party with her friends in September. Mike was at work so McKenzie and I hung out there this afternoon. Here's Ashlynn opening the doll we gave her.

McKenzie was loving this trampoline. Owen is 9 months older than McKenzie but he is on the smaller side and McKenzie is on the bigger side so they have always been around the same size.
Loving the trampoline some more.

Her favourite thing to do was jump up and fall down.

Hugging the birthday girl goodbye.

Huggin Owen goodbye...ooh la la

Ryan, Ashlynn's other brother, tried to hug her but then got distracted by her granola bar and I could not get the shot.