Happy 1st Birthday, "MuhTenzie"!

My niece, McKenzie, celebrated her 1st birthday on June 28th. We had a good time with all of her BIG presents. I think Brant and Kari either need to add on to their house or move into a bigger house just to hold all of her toys. :) McKenzie, we're so excited that we got to celebrate this special day with you. I know the ME and Ben had a great time, too!

Is McKenzie thinking "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to?"
If you've haven't dealt with battery-operated kids' toys in the past few years, they all require a screwdriver now! But don't worry...ME can help you, thanks to Handy Manny's "School for Tools" show.

Doesn't every little girl deserve a pony? How about two...no three?

LaLa helping ME sign McKenzie's birthday dog.

A proud family

Our musical entertainment for the night. Do you have an event coming up that you need a personal pianist? Call me! :)

It's Steffie Graf...no it's Anna Kournikova...no it's Mary Elizabeth?!?!

On June 5th, Drew and Verna took the kids to a tennis court for Mary Elizabeth's first tennis lesson while I went to a job fair. Drew's been looking forward to sharing his love of tennis with ME since she was born. Santa even got ME a tennis racket for her 2nd Christmas with some advice from Drew. From what I hear, I don't think we'll be celebrating any Grand Slams anytime soon. ;) At least some memories were made, right?

Who cares if she can't play? She at least has style!

A great looking doubles pair!

She's so lucky to have her own tennis pro!

Drew said that ME did way better with the water breaks!
Isn't this the cutest ball boy you've ever seen?

I don't think the ball boy was too impressed with the game.

Another water break.

Daddy is old...really old!

Explanation for the title: I asked Mary Elizabeth how old her daddy was and she responded with "Daddy is old...really old!" Everytime I try to tell her that he's 30, she corrects me with the same response.

Drew turned 30 on June 23rd. He H-A-T-E-S surprises and making a big deal of his birthday, so I was considerate and did nothing for his birthday. Ha! Instead, I asked his assistants to mess with him for me. Plus, they sent an email with a photo shopped picture of Drew to some of his close co-workers for more fun.

I think they did a nice job to his office. What do you think?

Back at home...Mary Elizabeth had been telling me that Drew wanted her to make him some blue "tooties" (cookies). So I helped ME decorate some sugar cookies with blue icing.

She had to taste them, too, to make sure they were suitable for her daddy. ;)

Benjamin was sleeping during present time, but ME had no problem opening Drew's gift.

After Drew got home, we had birthday dinner at his mom's house with a few of his relatives.

Would you like your own personal cake created by Mary Elizabeth? Have your people call her people. :)

Mary Elizabeth's World

Since I don't post monthly updates on ME anymore, I feel like I'm leaving so much stuff out about her and her milestones. So here are some things about her that I don't want to forget. Sorry it's long!

• Her vocabulary is blowing me away! It's like all of a sudden, a light bulb went off and she's figured out how to use most of her words correctly in big, long sentences. I love that we can have full convos now! Especially now that she's starting to use her imagination and make-believe. It's just fun to see her stop and really think about using the correct words. However, she still replaces the /t/ sound for the /k/ sound ("tootie" for "cookie", and /fw/ for /s/ ("fwim" for "swim"). I'm not worried about that yet because it's just too cute right now.
  
• She loves to paint and "tolor"! And she can name tons of colors! I guess I'm impressed with this because according to the milestone chart on http://www.babycenter.com/, she should only be able to name about one color and a few adjectives by now. If you don't know what color you're wearing in the morning, feel free to ask ME! Just FYI, though, white went from her saying "lice" to now "light".

First day of summer break=paint!

• I did "boot camp" potty training June 9-11 with ME by not leaving the house and using stickers, money, phone calls, and candy for rewards and then lots of cheering and carpet cleaner. Let's just say, I think I got more stickers than she did during those three days. So I was ready to give in and put her back in pull ups when we went in public, but as soon as I decided that, I think she telepathically (sp?) realized my thoughts. She's had very few accidents since then! The cutest thing was when she told me that she had to get me stickers for my "tee-tee" and she said "I'm so proud of you, Mommy!"

This is her "tee-tee paper" that she gets to put stickers on after every success. I wanted it to be organized and dated, but she disagreed. I love it!


• She's such a great big sis! She loves to hold Benjamin and try to make him walk or rock him. She's a great help in trying to keep him out of the dog food or staying out of things that he doesn't need to get in. And she's great (most of the time) with sharing toys with him. I've had some wonderful Kodak moments to take of them recently with her huggin' and lovin' on him while looking out the window; but, of course, I loose the moment by the time I get my camera ready. Ugh!
  
  
  

  

She's showing Benjamin how to play in the water.This is ME stopping in the middle of potty-training to check on her "brudder" who just woke up and was crying.

• She still loves Dora! My poor students had to hear me reference Dora way too many times in class this year. But I'm OK with her watching Dora, because she's expanded her imagination because of it and learned a lot of Spanish! I just wish she'd learn how to count in English first!


• She's fearless! This really worries Drew because he's scared of heights! But jumping off from tall things and swimming in the water don't bother her one bit!

This brings me back to my lifeguard and teaching swim lessons days. Here she is trying to "fwim and tick". I'm just thankful Drew was very close to catch her!

• She loves to help me with whatever I'm doing! She likes to cook and help me clean. Yes, she's still grossed out by dirt, too! She got to help me clean her water table before the summer started. Who knew you could look so cool while cleaning?
  ME loves to "sweep sweep". She thought Ben needed to help me out, too. This isn't child labor is it? Here she is helping me stretch the dough for Molly's favorite dessert of mine before my girl's getaway a few weeks ago. Don't you love our matching aprons that my mom made me for Mother's Day?

As you can see, Mary Elizabeth keeps us entertained daily. She, along with Benjamin, has completely changed our lives in a matter of just two and half years. I wouldn't trade a bit of it for the world either!

Father's Day and Pharoahs?

First of all, Happy Father's Day to all the daddies out there! I may be biased, but I am so thankful to have the most wonderful daddy (and mom, too). After having taught in the area of town that I have for the past 5 years and seeing a lack of fatherhood in most of my student's lives, I feel so blessed to have such an awesome daddy. He is such a hard worker and has one of the biggest hearts for a man. I love that I have such supportive parents and that my dad was always able to make it to my dance recitals, spelling bees, school parties and then help me with any of my projects that required an artistic skill. Don't get me wrong, my mom is just as wonderful, but I know that there are so many that don't even know their dads. I love that my dad has never been ashamed to tell me that he loves me, that he cried when he and my mom left me for college and when I told him that I was pregnant both times. It takes a real man to show his tears! I truly am blessed to have such a loving daddy and am so happy that he loves Mary Elizabeth, Benjamin, and my niece McKenzie just as much, if not more!

Sadly, I don't have any pictures of the kids with Drew, or of me with my dad from today because it seemed like we all had different sleep schedules. We (me and the kids) started the day early and let Drew sleep in. After he woke up, he did some yard work, then we went to the Pharaohs exhibit at the Arts Center. This was a great idea, but here's a piece of advice if you take your kids...make sure they've had a nap!!! ME fell asleep just as we exited off the highway! I just prayed the whole time that we were in the exhibit that we weren't going home with a mummy because of our little girl running into it. Ha! Benjamin really just liked seeing his shadow in the display cases and wanted so badly to just crawl around. Even though the kids weren't quite cooperating, I just love that Drew tries to make art an important part of their life! Maybe the next time we go see an exhibit, though, it will be more kid-oriented.

If you haven't made time to go see the exhibit, you should! The mummies are surprisingly cool!

Ben plus eight

My pumpkin is now eight-months-old and has lots of stuff to add to his list.

• He already has 3 teeth! This blows my mind, considering ME didn't even get one until almost nine months!
• He finally started crawling on June 5 (luckily, the day after he quit going to his nanny, who was also keeping my mobile niece)! I'm so proud of him for figuring this out because he was soooo determined weeks before and would get so frustrated. I just don't know if I'm ready for 2 mobile kids to keep up with this summer...I've already lost 3 pounds since I've been out of school since last Tuesday!
• He moved up to stage 2 in baby foods. So far, I think he's just anti-baby carrots. But who can blame him? Have you smelled these nasty jarred foods? I think I'm moving on to making his food for him this summer. He's tried a few real foods (blueberries, cherrios, and puffs) and has done all right with them, so I'm anxious to see if he won't be nearly as picky as ME has been.
• He still talks and smiles all the time! Really just as long as you don't leave him alone in a room...I think he's going to be my social bug.
• Not only does he have an infectious smile, he now has an infectious giggle! I know he'll hate me for comparing him to a girl when he's older but it's the only way for me to describe his giggle in words. It like a group of teenage girls giggling. It truly is great medicine for the soul!
• He's very nosy and will practically do a back bend while you're holding him just so he can see what's going on. Or if there is a stick, or any tiny piece of trash that can't see, I promise he will find it for you to put in his mouth.
• And he loves sticking out his tongue (really while talking). I think he's going to be able to touch the tip of his nose with his tongue, just like me. :)
  

Memorial Day Weekend=Girls' Getaway

Over Memorial Day Weekend, I got to go to Hot Springs with some of my girlfriends for one last get together with our friend Molly, who just moved to Florida with her family, and to celebrate Kerri's birthday. Even though we just went for 1 day/1 night, we had a great time hanging out, talking, eating, talking, and of course more eating!

It seems like I've gone to Hot Springs every year with these girls since I found out I was pregnant with ME. And in keeping with the trip's tradition, we first had lunch at Rolando's (basically pure Argentin-Mexican deliciousness). I was excited to actually get to enjoy a margarita this time, too!

After lunch, we went to a nail salon to get pedis. Surprisingly, there were enough employees do everyone's toes all at the same time! Luckily, for them, though, I just got my eyebrows waxed since I already "got my toes did" the week before.

Don't we look like a bridal party getting ready for someone's wedding?

After this, we...

ate this, then we...

watched this. What did y'all think about SATC Part 2? I think I'm moving to the Middle East in my next life.

After all that eating, pampering, eating, and relaxing, we went back to our condo to celebrate Kerri's birthday with this pure heaven.