Baby girl!

I wanted to share a few pictures of MacKenzie so the readers could keep up with how she was doing. In the first picture you will see her in a blue bear hoodie. We are firm believers that girls are perfectly able to wear blue so we did not shy away from it when we were shopping for gender neutral items. That being said, we thought it would be easier when we took her out if she was wearing pink so we could avoid the...boy or girl question. This however, is not the case. I am not sure if people do not pay attention or if they are just stupid, but MacKenzie has been dressed in all pink (onesie, pants, socks, and bow) and people still ask boy? or girl? !!! I can understand when she is wearing blue, but it is not common in our society for little boys to wear pink. No matter how progressive you are...it usually does not happen.

Anyways, we love this soft and cute hoodie that my mom got her. And we love how concerned and thoughtful she looks. She loves to look around and observe things in her life!

Ok, so the following is not the best picture of my baby girl, but there is a cool story about the picture. We bought MacKenzie this Valentine's Day onesie so she could wear it for some time before Valentine's Day (she will continue wearing it until she outgrows it). For Christmas (post onesie purchase), my cousin Emily bought her the doll in the picture. If you look closely, her onesie matches (design and everything) the dress on the doll! So cool!

I am not the best photographer, but I would like to get better. I have a good camera, so sometimes I get lucky. It helps when you have good things to shoot. In trying to practice I got some cute pictures of MacKenzie. There is that expressive little face again. Her eyes are still blue right now, but they seem so dark in this picture.

And you have to include the obligatory baby fat roll pictures!

My Top three Foodie websites

I wanted to share some of my favorite foodie websites...

The Pioneer Woman is a new favorite of mine. She is clever and spends a lot of time updating her blog on a regular basis. She has a wide variety of recipes and takes time to show pictures of the porocess of each recipe.

I am really getting into the idea of making my own baby food for the T-Rex. One site that has been helpful is about making Wholesome baby food. It has a lot of recipes and schedules for when to start different foods.

I also of course love the Food Network website. It is sometimes tedious to wade through all of their recipes, but have a lot of luck with their recipes. It helps if you know what you are looking for (if you saw an episode and wanted a specific recipe), but you can also search other ways (by ingredient, chef, meal time, ect).

Enjoy!

Health Care Bill

Texans:

How did your representative vote on the Health Care Bill?

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6924302.html

The best balloon ever...

Whenever MacKenzie was born we received many gifts at the hospital. Apparently people felt bad that we had all gender neutral items and nobody would know that our baby was a little girl so many of the items we received were pink! We also got some beautiful flowers and a lone balloon pictured here:

As far as helium balloons go, it was not anything special. It was a standard, bought at the grocery store, given to me and MacKenzie by my mother, "It's a Girl!" balloon. We stared gleefully at it as we relished in the fact that we finally knew who this little creature was that had been growing inside of me! We took the balloon home with all of the other gifts we received fully expecting that we would soon be putting the balloon in the trash. It was after all, a balloon. They give you temporary joy and then are thrown away. We put the balloon in our entryway and passed it occasionally as our lives began to shape as a family. Days passed, then weeks, then months and the balloon still held on. It did not float as high as it once did, but floated it did. We kept expecting it to fully fall to the ground, but stayed higher than our entry way mirror which meant it was definitely floating (rather than "suspending"). We began to wonder about this balloon, but it was nice to see that reminder of our post-partum days! It was also convenient when we had a baby shower at our home for a friend who was expecting a little girl! Eventually though, the balloon's time with us was over and it fell softly to the ground, knowing that it had as full of a life as a balloon has ever had. That ballon was the best balloon we ever had...it lived for 15 weeks...thank you for your time with us little helium filled balloon.

R.I.P. Helium filled Ballon 10.24.2009-02.07.2010

MacKenzie's Friends

While I am sad that I cannot spend every moment of every day with MacKenzie, I have some great gals that help out and watch her while Matt and I are at work. Not only are they great gals, but Matt and I are happy that their parenting skills are proven with little ones of their own. Matt and I also appreciate the fact that MacKenzie gets child interaction at both houses without the worries and fears of big, mega-family, disease filled day care. We think it is good that she can hang out with bigger kids and on Mondays and Tuesdays someone that is just her size! So we call these kids her friends and love that they interact with her too!

Kira reading to baby MacKenzie

Natalie, Kira, and MacKenzie

Baby Jonathan, Jade, and MacKenzie

MacKenzie making the moves on Baby Jonathan!

MacKenzie's new friend Naomi (she had a "sub" sitter one day)

These gals are so amazing that they even sometimes venture out of the house with three kids! We thank them so much for helping us out and appreciate the love that they show to our Baby Mac!!! We hope that the family friendships continue for years to come!

20 weeks!

MacKenzie,

I cannot believe you are already 20 weeks old! You have grown up so much in the past four weeks and you are so much fun to hang out with and do things with after Mommy and Daddy get home from work. You are usually sleeping through the night which Mommy and Daddy are very grateful for. There are a few days here and there that you have a rough night, but it isn't regular enough that we have stopped telling people what a wonderful sleeper you are. We appreciate that about you. You still like to be swaddled and you lay on your side to sleep, but in the morning we usually walk by your crib and see that you have moved on to your back or your other side. You are slowly giving up the pacifier by yourself. We rarely use it anymore and you usually get mad at us if we try to give it to you. You would much rather suck on your own hands (all of the hand, not just the thumb) or someone else's hands. We have noticed you are bringing more items to your mouth to try sucking and chewing on them. The doctor said you are thinking of teething, but nothing is pushing through yet.

You are a champion eater. You eat for the sitters about every 3 hours, but if Mommy is around, you like to eat every 2 hours. You are getting much more efficient at eating and smile at Mommy if she is talking while you eat. Mommy has had no problems keeping up with you, but you eat for a long time after she picks you up from your sitters. Mommy likes the excuse to veg for a bit while you nurse to your hearts content. After you are done you usually doze for a bit and wake up ready to play. We enjoy playing on the blanket and you roll back and forth while I read or grab your feet (which is a fairly recent discovery). You love when we pull you up to a standing position and to plop back on the bed or our laps. You also like talking to Mommy while you play. I say that you are telling me about all of the wonderful things you do each day! Your naps are a bit sporadic, but you definitely enjoy a two hour nap around 12:30. One of your favorite things is bath time with Daddy...you just stare at the baby in the mirror and when Daddy puts your hooded towel you look around knowing how cute you are!

You went to nursery for the first time last Sunday and they said you were perfect. Many people love to interact with you because you smile and laugh so easily at them. We take you everywhere with us (especially out to eat, Kroger, and Target) and enjoy your company! We cannot get over what a good baby you are...thank you for that!

MacKenzie we love you even more this Saturday than we did 20 weeks ago. You are the best baby and better than we could have ever imagined. We are so glad we are making you happy and helping you grow big and strong!

Love,

Mommy and Daddy

(at the doctor)

Doctor visit

I have tons of new pictures and videos to post, but they will have to wait until I get a chance to upload them all. For now I wanted to give a quick summary of her four month check up. She was 27.5 inches long (91st percentile), 16 pounds 10 ounces (75th percentile), and her head measured in the 30th or so percentile. The doctor was pleased with her growth, especially her height to weight ratio. She has some good rolls on her, but she is mostly long. She is meeting all of her developmental checkpoints, but I was confused about the rolling over questions. She is a pro at rolling over from back to tummy, but they asked if she was rolling over from front to back. She hasn't really been doing that too much (if at all). The nurse seemed more concerned about it than the doctor. The doctor said that while it is something that we need to work on, it is common in bigger babies because they cannot get their arms all the way underneath them (and instead sort of just lay on top of their folded up arm). She showed us some ways to work on it, but was happy otherwise. The doctor also said that we can start her on solids whenever I want. She was happy with MacKenzie's growth on just breast milk, but understood how hard I was working as it was. After speaking to a number of friends I have decided that we will probably go ahead and wait until about the 6 month mark to start solids. We have given her little tastes here and there, but we aren't putting it high on our list of priorities. MacKenzie did well with her shots, she cried for a few minutes after the shots, but was happy by the time we got to the car. That night was a little rough, but she did well considering the havoc we are inflicting on her little body.

Oops!

I was going to post this here, but I accidently posted it on the family blog...o-well!

Shipley's

I love Shipley's donuts. There simply is no better place. I love so many of their treats. Their sausage kolaches have a substantial amount of meat while being surrounded by a warm and chewy dough. Their cinnamon sugar cake donuts are perfectly crisp on the outside and soft on the inside with extra cinnamon mixed into the dough itself (and not just on the outside). But the sole reason to love Shipley's better than any other place is for the glazed donut. Where else can you get such an amazingly light and fluffy donut that is so packed with sugar but feels like nothing but air? The glazed donuts are best warm and I have often equated them to a cloud. The sugar glaze is the perfect amount of flaky resistance as you take each bite. There is little better when it comes to breakfast foods than getting a fresh out of the fryer, still warm and gooey, glazed donut. Matt and I are so dedicated to Shipley's that our donut agreement is as follows. We can ONLY eat Shipley's donuts (except for when we are in Round Rock, but that is another post). This might not sound very healthy or like a very good agreement until you fully understand the situation. There is no Shipley's on either of our ways to work which eliminates most of the on the way to work temptation. The closest Shipley's is at least a 15 minute drive which means we have to truly evaluate if we want Shipley's on the weekends. And more often than not, when other people bring donuts (to work or church), it is not Shipley's. Thus 9 times out of 10 (at the very least) we pass on donuts. The entire time we would be eating the other donuts we would only be wishing they were Shipley's anyways. This has created a unique and positive donut eating situation for us. This means that the 1 out of 10 (if that) times that there is Shipley's or when we actually do make the effort to go, we do not feel guilty because we passed so many other times. Then we are fully able to enjoy Shipley's for what it is...the best donut place on earth!