13+ months

MacKenzie,

I am not sure if we will keep up with this every month, but I promise to do a little update every once in awhile to let you know how you are doing!

In short- you are a wonderful little child! You are so quickly changing into a little girl and not just our baby. You are so independent, very free willed, and extremely stubborn. Everyone is surprised by how you will play for a long amount of time on your own and only come back to me or others on occasion for a quick little snuggle or to show us something you are proud of. We have been having trouble with you exerting your own will a bit more that we would like, but the main problem is you throwing food off the high chair tray. Hopefully with consistent discipline that will be fixed by the time you are old enough to read these posts!

You are an official toddler, we will give you credit for real, continuous steps over the entire Thanksgiving week (I am not picking a day so that all of the families who got to see some of your first 100 steps can feel proud). You are very sure of yourself even if you do look a little like a lumbering Frankenstein monster when you walk. If you fall you either pick yourself up right away or think about it for a minute before crawling to the destination of choice. You have figured out that it is easier to hold things or to carry larger objects when walking which you like...especially to carry around some of the stuffed puppies you like to play with. You love music and sometimes Daddy and I have to sing to you if you are crying in the car...seriously that is one of the only things that will work. Any time you hear music you start to bounce, whether sitting or standing you will bop to the beat of the song playing. We are trying to get you to move your arms when dancing too, although I am not sure you should take dancing advice from either of your parents. You really like to play with your Little People Noah's Ark and Farm set that we got at a garage sale for your birthday. You like to pull Noah out and play with him and you also enjoy the sheep and chicken on the farm set.

Lately you have been really into books and will insist (by saying "buhk" repeatedly) we read to you. You will pull out your basket of books, sort through them, and climb into our laps to read. You like turning the page and will point to different things in each book. Some of your favorites are the Red Tractor book, Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, and the Touch and Feel books. Honestly though, you love them all. After dinner, Daddy always tries to read several books to you while Mommy is rinsing the dishes and resting for a bit. I think it is one of our favorite times of day (all of us). You are enjoying snuggles in general more and more and love to make us laugh and smile. Sometimes you will fake laugh because we are laughing just to be apart of us!

You are working on words and understanding us more and more. You say: book, mama, dada, puppy, duck, all done, right there/there, bow, bear, banana, balloon and a few other words. If we ask you where your hair is you will point to or grab your hair, same for tummy and we are working on nose (but you like to point to our noses). You can point out ball, puppies, your toy car, balloons, and fans if we ask. You use the sign for airplane, more, and milk the most, but understand and sometimes use all done and fan as well.

Today we were excited because you drank from a straw for the first time, you never had the patience to suck the liquid all the way up the straw! You are hit or miss on food these days. There aren't any foods you dislike (except you never eat lettuce...it must be hard to chew though), but you will only eat something if you are in the mood for it. We try to offer you a variety of foods at every meal so you get a lot of fruits, veggies, and protein. You really enjoy yogurt, mac and cheese (just like one of your nick names), pizza, bananas, and green beans. Fruit in general is a winner on most days and you will often eat bread or pasta. Meats you are pickier about but I think it is a texture thing. You have 6 full teeth (4 on top, 2 on bottom) and two bottom teeth poking through. You have hardly fussed about the teeth, but you did get a little cold which was tough, but meant extra snuggle time (including holding you while you slept!!!) for Mommy!

You are sleeping great and you go right to bed when we put you down. This will be very helpful when your younger sibling comes along in 14 weeks or so!

Thank you for being a wonderful part of our lives!
We love you!
Mommy and Daddy

Turkey

You may be thinking to yourself that this is way too late to be posting about Turkey...not so my friend. In fact, in my book, this is the perfect time to be posting about Turkey. I am the proud owner of 5 Fresh and Delicious Jennie-O Turkeys ranging in weight from 10 to 16 pounds and I didn't spend over $5.00 on each turkey.

See, I look at Black Friday differently than most girls. While they are busy trying to get into Macy's, Kohl's, or Target at an insane hour, I am trying to resist going into the grocery stores until they put the fresh turkeys on sale. The frozen turkeys they will let sit around until after Christmas (they are already frozen, why would they need to rush them out the door?), but the fresh turkeys (which the FDA or some other arbitrary regulation organization has mandated must stay above freezing temperatures) have a finite shelf life and thus need to be sold out the doors. So on Black Friday I went out and bought a lovely 16 pounder (her name was Shelly), brought her home, and got ready to roast.

I love turkey and I never seem to have enough leftovers to enjoy my extra sides and to make all of those wonderful turkey dishes that people talk about getting tired of. So I make an extra turkey for exactly that purpose.

I decided to cook Shelly on Sunday when Matt and Mac were resting...here is my method (which worked well for a neutral Turkey who was going to mainly be used in dishes). I think I have posted this before...but I am too tired to look!

Get out roasting pan, turn on over to 400 degrees. Take Shelly out of bag and rinse her off, removing gravy packet (I discarded) and leaving the neck in... While Shelly is draining from her bath, place a rough chopped onion, 4 or 5 whole carrots, and 4 or 5 whole stalks of celery in the bottom of the pan. Pat Shelly dry and place her on top of the veggies. Massage with oil and butter, sprinkle with seasonings of your choice (this time I used salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning). Throw in a beer or two. Roast in the oven for an hour, reduce heat to 325 and finish cooking until Shelly is about 160 degrees (just shy of 4 hours)...remember about carry over cooking. If Shelly was going to be used for eating alone I would have placed her breast down for that first hour, then flipped her over for the remaining part to help all the juices run into the white meat.



Shelly has since been turned into dinner with leftover sides, three turkey potpies (shredded meat, a bag of frozen mixed veggies, cream of chicken soup, and a pie crust) for the freezer, two two-person portions for the freezer, and boiled into a turkey base for soup also for the freezer.

Why the other turkeys you ask? I was at Kroger today and the turkeys kept looking at me like puppies asking me to take them home...so I took three home...then went back for something I forgot and picked up one more...

Three (Randolph, Lorenzo, and Ling-Ling) are in the deep freeze for later use.

Dmitri is in the fridge waiting to join a comrade in the smoker a friend is firing up this weekend...can anyone say smoked turkey quesadillas?!?!?

Best burgers in a loooong time

We had heard from a few friends to try Husky's for burgers. We had passed by the place several times as we have friends that live in the area. Last Tuesday when running errands we drove right by Husky's as we were trying to think of a place to stop and get lunch and decided to give it a whirl. Boy are we glad we did!

The place looks like a typical burger joint where you can grab a beer and watch the game...and it is totally that...plus some really incredible burgers! The customer service was good, the cashier didn't gab my head off, but was friendly, polite, and took care of our order. You have to take time to order too because the selection is impressive. At the top of the menu they have their standard burger choices- choose your bun (we got white sourdough which was a little sweeter than sourdough but still soft and freshly made), choose your meat (beef, Kobe beef, buffalo, veggie burger), choose your cheese, with a Fuddruckers style topping bar to the side of the window. At the bottom of the menu are their suggestions for add ons...we got the California burger...
You also choose your type of fries, you have to see the menu for all of the different combos.

Our food came out in a reasonable amount of time for a fresh burger and it is a huge amount. We gladly shared the 1/2 pound burger and fries. As I said the bun was soft and fresh and had the correct amount of "fall apart-ability" that I think is a great component of a good burger. The hamburger patty (we had buffalo) was tender, flavorful, and juicy, with only a little seasoning which was perfect for the type of burger we had. The toppings (avocado, mushrooms, mont jack cheese) were all copious in amount and the cheese melted perfectly over the burger to adhere all of the toppings to the top part of the burger. I will say that the avocado tasted "packaged", but that is my only complaint with the entire meal. Our fries were well seasoned and perfectly crisp. All in all this is a great place to just go and get a burger.

Scanning other people's plates, the salads and sandwiches offered also looked good and they had some delicious sounding desserts on their menu board. The restaurant was clean and while the price for a burger (about 9 bucks) might seem high, keep in mind that these were seemingly fresh ingredients and the meal included fries and a drink.

Would I suggest you go here? Yes. Will we be there again? Most enthusiastically yes. Am I on my way out the door? Sadly no...but that is only because we are trying to eat well and watch our dining out budget!

Pride!

Just wanted to say...

Matt, MacKenzie, Trike, and I would just like to take the opportunity to say, ahead of time, how proud we are of our Aggies for turning the season around. It is so nice to be ranked again and it has been fun to see some really good games. We will love our boys in maroon (I think technically they will wear white for the away game on Thursday) regardless of the outcome against t.u., but we sure would like to end the regular season with a win.





Gig'em Ags and BTHO t.u.!

Baby Trike is 24+ weeks

Baby Trike is growing well. We are at 24 weeks and three days. I am officially not allowed to travel outside of the country and pretty much on my two week doctor appointment rotation. In a few weeks I will be going in for my glucose test (which I thoroughly enjoyed last time) and then I will be going in every two weeks for appointments. The time is flying by and we don't anticipate (with our busy holiday schedule) of there being any down time between now and the baby coming. I have felt the baby move all over the place and he or she seems to be pretty active at night (around 11 p.m.). He or she seems a bit stronger than MacKenzie was, but that could also be due to a "weaker" uterus since I am pregnant so soon after Mac. My belly seems to be about the same size (I am measuring 25 weeks), but I am only gaining weight in my belly. None of my maternity pants fit from last time and it is getting a bit annoying to be honest!!! I think I will break down and buy a new pair of jeans soon so that I don't have to keep pulling up the other pairs. The baby's heart rate was 146 bpm and my blood pressure and pulse looked great. We need to pre-register at the hospital and work on a flexible birthing plan in the next few weeks to go ahead and get that off our to- do list. When we asked Dr. Norton about any preferences on the birthing plan she said she has approved of everything except burning things and incense. We joked about coming up with the craziest plan possible to submit for her approval. I am doing well, sleeping ok, feeling a few braxton hicks here and there, but couldn't be happier!!!

Halloween

We had a great Halloween this year. I decided not to get MacKenzie a costume but opted for a halloween shirt instead. We really enjoyed our church fall festival and visiting with all of our friends. We were looking forward to it last year, but MacKenzie decided to come the day of the fall festival. Cypress Bible puts on a great fall festival with tons of candy for the kids, jump houses, hot dogs and popcorn, and other fun activities. One thing I will definitely do different next year is to enter into the chili cook off. I felt intimidated this year, but feel like I could make a good running in the cook off!

For the actual Halloween day we went to a friends house for chili and to sit in the driveway handing out candy. The kids had fun visiting a few houses and it was nice enough weather that we all enjoyed fresh air on the driveway. MacKenzie had a taste of chocolate, but nothing to extravagant.

Halloween next year should be interesting...I better start teaching her to say "thank you" right now!



This is a picture of Baby Jonathan making the moves on Mac:

Mac's Bday

We had a blast for MacKenzie's first birthday. We invited family and a few friends over to our house for enchiladas, snacks, and yummy cake! MacKenzie really enjoyed her actual birthday cupcake and her cake that she shared with everyone for her party. It was really nice to have the whole family together as well and all of our friends that came just added to the love. Here are a few pictures from the big day...I am having trouble with uploading the pics so you make your own captions!











I think we might just have pizza for her birthday next year. It was totally worth it to cook all the food, but I was so tired it was hard to enjoy the party later that day.