My mom is here

My mom arrived today. I'm so excited to have her here and I think we're gonna have a lot of fun enjoying some girl time.

Here's me and Makenna waiting for my mom.

For weeks I was trying to come up with a cute way of telling her some big news we have in our house. Today, right before leaving to go get her I got the idea of writing a letter to her as if Makenna had written it to her. I started with something like "Grandma, I'm so excited you are here and we'll be able to spend the next two weeks together. We're gonna have so much fun and blah blah blah." Then I wrote "I have a secret to tell you: in July of next year I'm going to have a little sister or a little brother." And this was her reaction (I just love it).


We didn't do much today as I both my mom and I are very tired. I went to bed at midnight and woke up at 6 am. She has been traveling since yesterday morning to get here today after noon. We just hung out at home. Makenna is loving her and all heard her laughing all day long. It's so sweet. Now we're going to sleep (and it's only 8:30).

Black Friday

I'm going to do the black Friday thing again this year. I'm taking my mom with me so she can a get a feel for the madness that the day after Thanksgiving is. After all, how else would we spend all the calories we ate the night before if not by not getting enough sleep and running into stores like crazy people, filling our carts and waiting in line for hours to pay?
My first spot will be either Kohls or Target. Probably Kohl's since last year my and my sister-in-law didn't get there till 7 in the morning and waited 2 hours to pay (and I'm not exaggerating). Here's my list from Kohl's (hopefully this link will work!

Makenna's new toy

Two weeks ago I put my Halloween decorations away. I tried one box first and it was *gasp* too small. So I went for Makenna's carseat box, which worked (thank goodness or that would have meant I had way too much Halloween stuff).

For some reason I never put the smaller box away and it just sat in my dining room for two weeks until Makenna found it this weekend, started to drag it around the house and wanted to go inside. So we put her in, and she was loving it.

Which brings on the question, why do we spend so much money on toys for kids when they are so happy and satisfied with a box? She has been more interested in this box this weekend than any other toy she has! Anyways, here are the pictures.






Look at how happy she was!

The Swing

Here are a few more pictures from the park. She also loved the swing. Not as much as the slide. But I think her smile tells it all :)

Easy Pumpkin Crumble

Every Tuesday night we have Life Group. We normally meet at our friends Laura and Josh's home. Some night we also have dessert. Tonight Laura made Easy Pumpkin Crumble that she got from the blog Our Best Bites.

It was delicious (and I don't normally like pumpkin anything). This was good my friends. Here is the link to the recipe over at Our Best Bites. I'll be trying to make this myself pretty soon.
Enjoy

Look who's walking

One step at a time...

The Slide

I took 208 pictures at the park! I'm having a hard time picking only a few for the blog, so I picked many. I'll share the pictures of her on the slide today. This was by far her favorite. She was having the best time ever. At first we kind of had to drag her down. She was holding on for her life! After the first time, she would not stop. She was try to go up on the slide. And then she learned to go down on her tummy by herself and she was loving it.









Look at that smile. It makes my day :)

Park part 1

I might be nesting! I didn't intend to, but today became a cleaning day around here. I cleaned stuff that doesn't get cleaned very often around here. I tackled the fireplace, the stairs and the baseboards.

Anyways, Makenna is napping so I decided to sit down for a little bit and thought I'd share five pictures from the park (I finally took Makenna to the park for the first time yesterday!). Tomorrow or Monday I'll post more pictures with more details about them.

We had a moment

Last night I heard Makenna crying at midnight. I had no clue what was going on as she has been sleeping through the night since before she was 5 months old. After I let her cry for an hour, I went in there. I figured that at this point she had thrown all her pacifiers out of her crib and she would not go back to sleep without them.

I picked her up, gave her all her pacifiers, and thought that I would try to rock her for a little bit. Now, you need to know that since she turned one, she doesn't let me rock her to sleep anymore. She just wants to lay in her crib and go to sleep.

But last night, at one in the morning, she was my baby again! I rocked her while she just cuddled against me. She would close her eyes for a little bit and then open again. She was changing pacifiers, and playing with her fingers. She would look up at me and give me the biggest smile. Oh how I miss my baby girl...

After 20 minutes I put her back down and left. She cried for a couple minutes. I too shed a few tears of my own, thinking about how I love this sweet girl and how she's growing up too fast. Then she went to sleep and so did I.

Playing in the dirt

Since Sunday, when the time changed, we've been having some issues around here. Makenna has been waking up around 6:30. In the "old time" she used to sleep till 7:30 - 8. So I tried to keep her up until 10 to get her back to her old nap times, but there are days that she just can't keep her eyes open. So I decided I'm just gonna move her nap back to 9:30 and see how that goes.

The thing is, one day is never the same as the previous or the next around here. We don't have a routine or a schedule. Some days we stay home, others we barely stop home. You get the idea. So, when I say that she used to take her first nap at 10, in reality it used to be anywhere between 9:30 and 11! Some people couldn't do life without a schedule, I could never do life with one. We like the days to be different and not have to do the same thing every day.

Anyways, this morning around 9 she was getting cranky so I decided we could use some time outside. She loves being outside so we stepped into the backyard. I brought my camera along and took pictures while Makenna tasted rocks!