Mac at 15 months

MacKenzie,

You turned 15 months earlier this week and you never cease to amaze us with how much you grow and learn each day. I feel like I can hardly keep up with you because you are so curious, observant, and too freaking smart for your own good! I feel truly blessed for each day that I get to help guide you through all of your explorations.

Let's start with feeding and sleeping...
We discovered (or felt) that we were over snacking you, so we have cut down on the snacks a bit in an attempt to get you to eat more at meal time. We will give you snacks, we just try to limit their amount and vary them with lots of fruit or yogurt (rather than cereal, crackers, or goldfish). You seem to eat best in the morning still so I make sure to scramble you an egg with some sausage most mornings to make sure you get a good amount of protein each day. This way I don't have to stress as much about what you eat the rest of the day because you are usually willing to eat veggies (especially peas, broccoli crowns, and green beans) and you love fruit (including, but not limited to, bananas, strawberries, grapes, melon, and pineapple). You still love bread and pasta and will request it (with the appropriate sign and by saying breah, breah) if we have something that looks like bread on our plate. I cannot really blame you, carbs are yummy and delicious to Mommy and Daddy too! We are beginning to work on you using a spoon, but you are usually too excited about meal time for that. I think it will be a good task to keep you busy when Baby Trike comes...I can imagine it will be a little messy, but I think a spoon and a small bowl of yogurt will keep you occupied for a while during a nursing session with the new baby. You have been drinking milk three times a day still, but you don't have to drink it right before bed (it is not a part of your bed time routine) which is good. As far as sleep goes, you usually go down around 8:30 and wake up anywhere between 7:30 and 8:30. You are a great sleeper. Usually after dinner we give you milk, then you play or we read you books, then most nights you get a bath from Daddy, then we read and say prayers as a family, then we put you in your crib with two blankies and you fall right asleep. You have woken up a few times recently with what seems to be a nightmare, but it hasn't become a big issue. You have pretty much dropped your morning nap (sometimes you will doze if we are in the car) and have stretched out your afternoon nap to (usually) being two or more hours.

For play time:
You love to read most of all. We will spend hours with you climbing up and down the couch handing us one book at a time while we read and point out different parts of the books. You love your big sister book, anything with animals and puppies, and the 5 little monkeys book that your Great Aunt LIz bought you for Christmas. You also love the nursery rhyme book, but you get a little distracted in that one. You will "read" along with the 5 little monkeys telling us that the monkeys bumped their heads (point to your head), that they called the doctor (you will say doc-doc), and then you will speak jibberish and shake your hand when we read "no more monkeys jumping on the bed". You can point out stars, the sun, trees, birds, cows, pigs, sheep, lions, puppies (of course), flowers, birds, babies, ball, balloons, and penguins (among others) when asked in your books. You know the sounds that all of those animals plus elephants, cars, and cats make. We are trying to teach you that farmers say "Howdy" but that one might take a bit longer. You like to pretend to feed us with your play food and dishes from your kitchen. And you have started playing with your toy cars (both the big ride in and little matchbox cars) more and more. You are really starting to love playing outdoors and will spend a long time in the backyard just walking around. We know you want to climb more (you love going all the way up the stairs by yourself) and we are are on the lookout for a climber for you to play on. You love bubbles (especially when Mommy shakes the wand up and down) and like when you get to play in water. Your favorite still is to play with all of your stuffed animals, especially the puppies, and it is not uncommon for us to have to pack multiple puppies to take with us. You are walking well and love to put on all sorts of shoes to walk around in. You also still love music and will dance along with the music. Your dancing is starting to become more like real dancing rather than just bobbing your body up and down, lately you have started rocking in a circle too. Kiki recently taught you about marching so we sometimes catch you marching instead of walking and today you learned about kicking the ball so I am sure we will see you kicking things more and more.

For special things this month:
In another blog I talked about doing more MacKenzie mode activities (I want to try for two each month at this point) and I have succeeded for this month! We went to library time (which you tried to escape from) and today we went to toddler time at the skating rink. You didn't skate, but had a blast with all of the push toys, play balls, and simply walking around for almost two hours straight. You tried to climb in the dj booth and the skate rental booth several times, maybe you are looking for a job already?!? As mentioned above we are playing outside more and more when the weather is nice (it has been hit or miss so it is harder to go on consistent walks with you). You spent the night with your PawPaw and Mimi while Mommy and Daddy worked a catering event and another time they took you on your first trip to an actual ice cream store! We also visited all of Daddy's family in College Station over MLK weekend. This past week we went with Kiki and Popi to visit his Daddy...it was funny because although you had never met them or been to their house you walked right in and started exploring as if you had been there a thousand times before.

Vocabulary:
A list of words that you can say: Mama, Dada, doc-doc (doctor), puppy, dzeesus (Jesus), all done, peez (please), pay (play), beah (bear), mah-mlo (marshmallow), bow, pretty (usually in reference to flowers), tar (star), duck
A list of words that you sign: milk, thirsty, bird, plane, fish, help, wait, food/hungry, please, more, all done, play, read, book, change, bath, bear, thank you (sometimes you will do this sign...I think it is a difficult concept), cheese, bread, banana, fan, star, sun, water, sleepy, and you will sign yes, but I am not sure if you understand the word completely
Additional words you recognize/will point to: blanket, pillow, baby (point to mommy's tummy), eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hair, tummy, foot, car, Mama, Dada, Kiki, Popi, Mimi, PawPaw, Auntie J, Auntie Karlin, Henry, Avah, tree

And I am sure there are more, but it is hard to think of so many things that you know.

You are learning more and more each day and I love all that you are, that you do, and that you represent. Know that our love for you grows with each moment. Mommy will post some pictures soon.

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

Resolutions

Some of my resolutions I am doing great on...I have been eating more fruits and veggies as promised and working on the whole grains. In conjunction with that, I am trying to "clean out" the pantry and freezer so I can have a better sense of what we have and we are trying to buy only what we need. I took MacKenzie to story time at the library a few weeks ago and she thoroughly enjoyed herself, but for all the "wrong" reasons. Instead of standing and dancing by Mommy like all the other kids, she decided to run around waving at all the other mommies, tried to distract the other kids, then spotted the door out and tried to escape. O-well, she smiled and laughed the whole time which was the point of the trip. We will try again soon. I have not been walking as planned because we have had some nasty weather recently. Two weeks ago it rained almost every day, last week it was really cold every day, and I woke up this morning to more rain. Maybe God is using the weather to tell me to take it easy.

Just wanted to keep everyone posted on that...I know you are all so interested!!!

6 and a half weeks to go...

We are coming down to the wire with Baby Trike! I am getting a bit more tired, feeling more like a turtle on it's back when rolling out of bed, feel like my legs are going to fall out of their socket at any point in time, feel my pelvic bones shift with every sneeze or laugh, but could not be any happier. Baby Trike is much more active than Big Sister T-Rex. We can visually see a lot more movement too. My belly will dance from side to side when we are sitting or laying in bed. My weight gain is right on track with where I would like it to be and at our doctor appointment last week the ultrasound said the baby was about 5 pounds with an approximate due date of Feb 20. We know that could change a lot, but they predicted MacKenzie's exact due date and was within 5 ounces of her final weight last time so we will see what happens this time around. We have the crib almost all ready, the pack and play downstairs completely set up, and mine and baby's bag is as packed as it can be ahead of time. MacKenzie is adjusting well to the idea of being a big sibling we think... She interacted really well with a baby the other day, points to my belly when we ask where baby is, and loves for us to read her big sister book to her. We are taking all of these as good signs. We are wondering even more about who this baby is, we are curious whether it will look and act like me, Matt, MacKenzie, or some other combination of the two of us. We still don't know the gender, but feel 60/40 in favor of boy (as opposed to last time when we felt 60/40 girl). We figure that this time around we will be surprised no matter what...if it is a girl we will be shocked because we are leaning towards boy... If it is a boy we will be shocked because we don't know what to do with a little boy... Either way we will be immensely happy...


The pictures are of my belly at 32 weeks and of MacKenzie on the swings at the nearby park!

Food resolutions...

I have a few foodie specific resolutions that I would like to list here this year...

First, I would like to master some really great, from scratch bread recipes. I make bread in my bread maker occassionally, but I want a hand made (my mixer can help) beautiful couple of loaves that I can be proud of. I would specifically like to find a really great (soft, chewy, and oil infused) foccaccia recipe, an amazingly simple (hole filled, chewy on the inside, crusty on the outside) baguette recipe, and a basic (but can be dressed up a hundred different ways) loaf bread recipe. I am completely intimidated by yeast, but this year is the year to correct that.

Second, I would like to make some great soups this year. I am not holding myself to a certain number per month, but I would like to try 12 soup recipes before 2012. Matt specifically asked for a soup that could be fetched by a goat (movie reference), but I think we will stick with a handful of creamy, handful of veggie filled, and a handful of stew like soups.

Third, I have a ton of restaurants "backlogged" (or as Matt said...backblogged) that need to be out there for the world to know about. So I would like to get some large posts out that include our food in NYC, Quebec, Our England trip, my favorite places for Mexican, Sandwiches, Italian ect...

Additionally, I would like to use my cookbooks more. I have some really amazing cookbooks that I have collected over the years, but find that I usually just type a recipe into google and have it do all the hard work. Instead I would like to pull out the cookbooks and let the inspiration wash over me.

Reflection 2010/ Resolution 2011

I think I failed pretty misearably at my resolutions for last year. I have worked out less this year than in the past years prior, I eat healthy in spurts, the house feels less organized, and who knows what else I am doing "wrong"... :0)

None of it matters though because our little family is happy and healthy and we are all growing. So here we are on to resolutions for the next year...

In regards to MacKenzie- I would like to take her on more educational outings and activities geared towards her learning. I have recently read that goals/resolutions need to be specific in nature so I would like to take her out at least twice a month for things that are specifically MacKenzie focused. She does great running errands with me and I know those are good for her learning as well, but with the new baby coming I would like to get her involved in some "big girl" activities too. We will be checking out some of the classes at the library, maybe going to the zoo very soon, going to The Children's Museum, and I would like to see how she does at a bounce place (kinesthetic learning is important too). Does anyone know of any spring time pick your own fruits and veggie places? I would like to check that out as well.

In regards to Matt- we are working on his "job situation". I would like to continue giving him several hours each week to work on job applications and networking opportunities and just providing general support for him. We have a bit of a deadline we have set for ourselves because we have discussed the idea that if he does not have a new position by the end of March, we might send me back to work and give him time to take off to get his MBA. So this resolution/goal is very flexible.

In regards to me- I still would like to exercise more/eat healthy. One of our more recent goals is working on portion control so I would like to work on that. This one is kind of hard to set a specific for, in regards to eating out, I would like us to share dinners more frequently. In regards to eating at home, I would like to eat a piece of fruit or a veggie with each meal (I do great at dinner, but not at breakfast and lunch) and I would like to eat whole grains more often (any ideas on how to measure this). For exercise (the non-chasing a toddler around kind) I would like to take MacKenzie on a walk three times a week (at least) until the baby comes. After the baby comes we can re-evaluate walks vs. work out videos when feeling up to it again.

In regards to our home- we really are working on organizing, mainly because we have to. The extra bed room can no longer be a dumping ground because it will soon be resided in. After we get that organized we will have to tackle the garage. I would like to have everything in an organized box/put away before the baby comes, but if it takes all year then so be it. I would also like to work on a more consistent tidy/cleaning routine. Any good ideas for "scheduling" your cleaning days? We are also (in conjunction with the job search) working on our budget/paying off debt/saving. I have a budget in mind that I would really like to stick to with hopes of having "extra" money at the end of each month.

So we will see how this goes. It really does help that nesting hormones have kicked in even more right with the new year so I think as long as I don't push myself too hard a lot of the organizing (which is always the hardest for me) can get done.