43 - Skating!

It was a beautiful day today and I was off early so we decided to take McKenzie for her first attempt at skating.

She took to it like a duck to water. Apparently she inherited her father's athletic ability. The kid has more natural balance at 2 than I have ever had. The first thing she did was try to shake off Daddy. Here she is actually totally on her own.
We finally convinced her that holding hands was a good idea.
Skating diva.

We did have one little "bobble".

But all she said was "that funny" and kept going.

Afterward we walked around the park for a bit and when the swings were free we went for a ride.

Hi Daddy.

Weeeeeee.

42 - Forgive my indulgence

If you are bored of looking at pictures of McKenzie playing then just sign off now cause below are a few more. I love watching her play pretend and discover and learn things. I am constantly in awe of her and the way the human mind develops and learns.

Playing pretend with her houses...she is developing quite the subdivision.

Daddy and Mommy having a conversation.
Here she is trying to figure out how to get the beads in the block into the bucket inside.

Still trying to figure it out.

41 - playing

I enjoy how McKenzie takes all these little animals out of their bucket and positions them in different little groupings. It reminds me of a "party" atmosphere where everyone is mingling and moving around.

Here she is adding the eyes onto the moose we were making.
Then off to draw for a bit. Tiptoe!

She is workingon her squiggles. She does scribbles, squiggles and circles now.

40 - Your inner Einstein

Did you ever feel like you were channeling your inner Einstein ... but in the hair way not the smart way?!?

Thank goodness for hairdressers.

39 - Nice normal day

That's what I could think of to photograph today.

Not much going on here. Slow day at work, Mike made dinner, a little play time with McKenzie and then I ran out for groceries, tucked little miss in when I got home and watched Castle. Now it's off to bed and repeat.

38 - Dress Up Fun

You too...

...can be a princess.

All it takes is some princessey loot.

And a very determined 2 year old.

Mike declined to have pictures taken of the full effect. McKenzie seemed to think he made a lovely princess because she kept dressing him up over and over and over and over...

37 - Playdate

I called Kari yesterday afternoon to see if she and Maks would like to come out to Okotoks with us this morning to check out Playtopia. They were up for it! Yeah - Playdate!

Here we are all strapped into the Nagmobile and ready to go.

(if you don't know why I call the van the nagmobile check out the license plate I got assigned by registries next time I see you)

The facility is great. Very clean and well set up and only about 15-20 minutes from home. Would likely take that long to get to one here in the city when you contend with lights and traffic etc.

McKenzie wanted to start out in the ball pit. She quite liked sitting in all the balls.
She would pick one up, name it's colour, and then throw it.

She only hit someone once and she did apologize.

Next it was off to try to climb up the slides. By the time we left there were a lot more kids there so I think she was a little annoyed that they wanted to slide down them so she couldn't climb up them.

Maks mastered the toddler slide. McKenzie wanted no part of the slide though she did like climbing up the colourful steps you can see to the side of the slide.

I love how 2 year olds "play together".

Just before we left the bouncy house was not busy so we let them have a go. They seemed to quite enjoy it once they got the hang of it.

Wee!

Bouncy house fun!

Slide king!

36 - Walmart

Being that it was Friday and because Mike and McKenzie had cabin fever we decided to go to Ricky's for dinner tonight. It was very yummy if not Weight Watchers approved.

After dinner we went and ran around Walmart. We were trying to find another Pocoyo DVD for McKenzie. We did find a Toopy and Binoo video which she was happy about but when we couldn't find Pocoyo she was very disappointed and made sure everyone knew it by stopping every few feet, looking sad and giving a BIG sigh!

When we first came in she noticed this set up but as we were leaving she stopped to watch Michael and danced along to his video. She was getting right into it.
Sorry about the quality of the photos but these were taken with my cell since I did not plan ahead and bring a camera with us.

Happy 29th Ry!

It's all downhill from here...

35 - A visiting we go...

McKenzie has been asking Mike for the last few days if they can "Go see Bubba?" Tonight I called and Heather and Gord nicely said we could come by for a visit.

Hmmmm, Bubba there are a lot of toys here. What should we play with first?

We had a lovely visit. Mommy and Heather got to talk seeds and spring and nice weather. Was a little jarring to walk home in the frosty winter weather.

Here is McKenzie saying goodbye to Heather.

Here she is saying goodbye to Gord...can't see her...she is that blob running away in the lower left. She was scared he would tickle her I think. He did get 5, 10, 15 prior to the camera coming out and she was giggling when she ran away so I think they are still friends.

When we got home we said hi and night night to Daddy then off to sit on the potty. I gave her a very quick pedicure and then McKenzie asked if she could try. Why not? So I gave her the brush. She started painting her finger nails...

...and here she is holding them up and she is actually blowing too to dry them off. Too cute. For a kid with a mom that does not actually paint her nails she is catching on very quick.

Must have learned it from Grandma!

34 - Crying all day long

If you need a good cry tomorrow or Friday just tune into Country 105. I cried all day today. They have their radio-thon on at the Alberta Children's Hospital. I cry for 3 days straight when it is on. Some of the stories are so inspirational and some are so hard to hear. More so now that we have McKenzie. I came home tonight and gave her lots of hugs and kisses.

Any votes on this "tableau"? I set this up this way after I took the Christmas decorations down but I am still not sure I like how it looks. Too much going on?

SHELBY - reminder to self to catch up with you soon and drop this off. We have the BEST BABYSITTER IN THE WORLD and she is willing to work for $$ or gift cards. LOVE HER!

33 - Pet store

Our fish tank has been growing quite a bit of algae the last few days so tonight, after dinner, we headed to the pet store to see what we could do.

When we got there I asked if I could take some pictures of McKenzie interacting with the animals. At first they said no due to theft reasons. Still trying to wrap my head around the whole theft reason thing but thanked them and went over to McKenzie and Mike. The girl I had originally asked went above her supervisor and asked the manager who said it would be alright. Nice Gal!

Here's McKenzie checking out some rodents.

She thought the birds were pretty neat too!

She got a huge kick out of the gerbils. I told her that we can visit him any time she likes but one is NEVER coming into our house. Inspecting the newest members of the family.

We got an algae killer insert for the tank which the girl said would be better than an algae eating fish as we don't have to "use up" one of our fish for it. So we decided we have kept the three we have alive for over a month so we may as well try some more.

If anyone out there would like to submit names (psst Kaeden) for the original three fish, I now think they stand a chance at making it and that it would be okay to name them (touching wood).

32 - Wheh - one month down!

Can't believe I posted every day in January. Some days much easier than others. To celebrate I made my new recipe for Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies. Yum!

I made them from a recipe I found online today for lowfat cookies. If you are a weight watchers follower like me, they are 1 point per cookie which is pretty good. 65 calories and I think it was 2.3 grams of fat each. They are delicious.

Here is McKenzie having a taste.
Two year old approved! (this is McKenzie trying to give a thumbs up)

I can post the recipe if anyone wants it though I did email it around to a few people. Warning if you are going to make them. The recipe says it makes 30 and I made my first sheet the normal size I make cookies and only ended up with 23. They are very rich though so I think it would be good to make them smaller and actually get the full 30.

After cookies, McKenzie wanted to watch some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the computer. We tape the show for her so she can watch it on the TV and she does but sometimes she still specifically wants to watch it on the computer...even though we have all seen the episodes they have on the computer 10 times each!

Happy Groundhog Day Eve!