109/120 - Ice Cream and updates

Mike's dad and two of his aunts came over for dinner this evening. I forgot to take any pictures. Ooops.
Afterward, we decided to have an ice cream cone. McKenzie joined us for her first solo ice cream cone.

Yeah, look what I have.

Yum Yum. She took right to it.

A little further into the process. She finished the whole thing, cone and all, all by herself.

While everyone was here we set up a tent I had won a few years ago. We had never set it up but thought perhaps we could use this as her "playhouse" until we can afford to build her a proper one. She had a lot of fun going into it and coming back out.

Special request. Mike is working on rebuilding our fence and my mom asked to see pictures of the progress. So this is the side closest to the dog area. You can see the new gate by the mailboxes.

This is the part we are still working on. By we, of course, I mean Mike.

And his other "pet" project. First coat of paint on and one more to go.

108/120 - So when I reach 120 do I stop or keep going?

Just a question I was wondering about since I am about 12 posts away from my yearly goal; should I stop at 120 or keep going?

As if I could stop.

As my friend DeeAnn commented last night on her blog, I am all about the positive feedback. I love it when anyone comments on posts. Don't feel you have to post a comment but if all you strong silent types wanted to; it would be great...I'm just saying!

Here's McKenzie relaxing after a hard day at work...scratch that...here's McKenzie after a day of making us work hard...yeah that's more like it.

Jane Fonda eat your heart out! McKenzie was totally working the headband when I came home this afternoon. She was busy playing and I asked her to smile...this is what I got!

She really wanted to sit on my lap and play with the computer. I did not want her to so tried to distract her. Here she is ... trance like watching...

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. My friend Daphne said her little guy Owen (2.5yrs old) loves this show. We saw it on TV the other day and McKenzie seemed to enjoy it so I looked up their web site and you can watch episodes online.

Apparently this episode was getting really good.

After that it was outside while Daddy BBQd Lamb steaks for dinner and McKenzie helped to pick fresh tomatoes from the plant. She LOVES helping Daddy do this. It is their little thing to do every day or so and she loves these tomatoes about all others. THANK YOU so much to Heather for the plants. The plants look half dead but the tomatoes are great.

107/120 - Oh! Am I in your way?

GET

OUTTA

MY WAY!

Bonus post

My cousin Duane and his daughter Stephanie came over for dinner tonight. His son, Daniel was at a friends and his wife Carol was at work so it was just the 5 of us. Stephanie was also a baldy type baby til she was around 2 or so ... look at all that hair now ... there is hope yet for my little girl.

For those of you that follow the blog you know that McKenzie thinks Duane is the best guy EVER. Tonight was no exception.

106/120 - Finger Painting!

The other day I was in Superstore and saw that they had Crayola finger paints. Washable and Non-toxic. Since McKenzie has embraced crayons, pencil crayons and felts I thought it was time to try painting.

She really took to it. She kept laughing and smiling. She only tried to eat it once and I quickly stopped that.

Her works of art!
She used fingers, thumbs, her whole hand and I even gave her an old pastry brush and an unused plastic cap to try out.

The artist relaxing after a busy morning creating.

105/120 - A day late and a $ short

What happens when you don't get enough pictures of someone on their blog??

You make a play-date and take your own!

Maks, Kari and Lawrence joined McKenzie and I at the new Indigo on 130th street last night. I knew it was open as I saw that DeeAnn had been there the night before, so we showed up a Day Late and I was many $$ short to buy all the things I wanted.

To be more precise...McKenzie and I only really saw the Indigo kids section.
We walked in the door, I was just looking around when I heard "WHAT'S THAT?!?!?" and she was off and running for the back of the store. When we got there I think McKenzie had a blast. For those that haven't spent an entire hour in the kids section, they have a lot of toys, books and fun chairs set up everywhere for the kids to play with. McKenzie didn't know where to start and ran from one thing to another played for a few minutes and was off again.

Come back here chalk ... I wasn't done drawing yet!

Maks really took to this shopping cart and wheeled it all over the kids section and even out into the other parts of the store. McKenzie did not go into the other parts of the store. It looked nice as we were racing by to the kids section and the till area was nice other than that I can not say for sure.

Playing with the train table.

Maks also enjoyed the train table.

Playing together...sort of.

This giant teacup was a huge hit. Maks and McKenzie both kept going in and out. It is stationary but they got the biggest kick out of it. McKenzie kept herself busy for about 10 min with a game she invented. She would go around the side, reach up and toss that purple ball into the teacup and then race around to the opening to get the ball out of the teacup. If anyone got in her way she gave a quick elbow. If anyone tried to take her ball she gave them a quick elbow...hmm maybe basketball is in her future?!?

It was a fun night. Best part was that it really tired her out. Thanks for coming along Maks and family.

104/120 - Happy Birthday to Daddy

Yesterday was Mike's birthday. I had to work but it sounds like he had a nice day with McKenzie. We had a nice BBQ steak dinner and stuffed potatoes for dinner with fresh corn on the cob...YUM. After dinner he opened his presents and then we walked over to the fountain. I was under strict instructions to take no pictures...oops.

McKenzie kept wanting to go into the water but kept running away from it. We ended up playing over in the playground area. The little girl in the background of the fountain is Mary and she came over and played with McKenzie and tried to show her how to run in the fountain and got her to climb on the jungle gym and pushed her on the swing. McKenzie thought she was a blast.

Mike does not love cake. He much prefers pie so for his birthday I made him a chocolate cream and cool whip pie. Tonight when I got home from work this is the vision I walked in the door to.
McKenzie quite liked the pie. Mike took this picture of her eating it and the below video.

this and that

My multi-tasking daughter. Watching TV, holding Lambie, her juice, and a candle she found the other day and carts around the house all while farting like a trucker (no offence to any truckers out there).

Yeah...Laundry room has walls and a floor and the washing machine and dryer are hooked up so I can do laundry again.
If you ever find yourself dreading laundry just unplug your washing machine and dryer for a week or so and watch the laundry pile up knowing you can't do laundry... you will soon be SOOOO happy to have it back you will run to the laundry room...okay maybe not run but still I was happy to have it set back up.

Not a real wood floor for those of you out there thinking we are nuts to put wood floors in a basement laundry room. It is a vinyl flooring that comes in laminate like planks that you snap/stick together. Mike put it down yesterday evening. Looks really good.

Wicker wonderland!

My friend Heather was cleaning out her spare room upstairs (at 11pm last night but that's another story) and ended up giving McKenzie this wonderful little wicker chair. It is so cute and she loves it. When she woke up from her nap I gave her a little snack and she took the snack and walked right over to it and sat down.

I moved it more into the living room for her as she was cranning her neck to see the TV. She was so quiet so I checked on her a little later and saw her sitting like this.
Apparently it is a very comfy chair too!

103/120 - Basement update

Basement is really coming along now. Drywall is done. Mudding and taping is done.

Popcorn ceiling is done.

Painting is started...well priming anyway. Not 100% sure about this colour as this is the primer and the colour we selected is a 1/4 tone darker. We will see.

102/120 - Some of McKenzie's favourite things at Grandma and Grandpa's house

For the most part, McKenzie is having a blast at my parents' house. Here are a few of her "new" things to do while here.

She loves this Nerf ball that my mom has in a little toy box she has set up for McKenzie. Mostly it is the books and toys that my brother Ryan and I still had left over. McKenzie just loves throwing and kicking this ball and the other day decided to try sitting on it. She does pretty good most of the time.

But she still needs to work on those core muscles!
Since my parents have their hot tub turned right down for the summer and it is like a warm bath temperature we thought we would see how McKenzie liked it. As you can see, at first she was not convinced this was a good thing to do.

She started to loosen up a bit the longer we were in it.

And finally decided it was not so bad after all.

My mom has been doing some canning and there are a ton of fresh fruits and vegetables. With fresh fruit and vegetables come hungry bugs. The fruit flies have been really bad. The other day my mom was looking out the window with McKenzie and went to kill a fruit fly that was on the window. McKenzie thought this was the funniest thing she had seen in quite some time.

She loves to try and kill the fruit flies with Grandma now and will pull a chair over to the window and try to get up on it until someone comes and lifts her up and helps her kill these bugs.

She is very good at spotting them. Home tomorrow. I know McKenzie is going to miss it here so much. I can't wait to see Mike but I will miss it too.

Images of Dad

My mom had these pics that she took. Here's my Dad on his tractor. I have many fond memories of "driving" this tractor on his knee with my brother complaining loudly on the other knee about my "driving" skills.

These were the images of my dad from my childhood...dad on his tractor in the hay field and his welding truck.