Kenzi is potty training!!

OK, so Kenzi is potty training. And in order to give her incentive we made a chart and she got fun stickers to put on the chart. And she is doing great at going potty on the toilet, she has gotten to the point that she will now go potty every time she sits on the potty. Well she filled her chart in about two weeks and it had 20 boxes, with every fifth one being a "prezzi". So the 20th one said HOCKEY! To catch everybody up... Kenzi LOVES hockey. Carter has a book about hockey that she wants read to her every night. She know Mario Lemieux, Zamboni, and even the Stanley Cup! Well, Carter started checking on tickets for hockey and the season is quickly coming to an end for both the professional team and the AAA team in Frisco. The only day we could actually see a game before the end of the season and going out of town was a Stars vs Kings game. the tickets were a lot more than we had anticipated spending. So Carter said he was going to talk to Mackenzie. So the conversation starts with Daddy saying "Kenzi you can either go to a hockey game or you can take the TRAIN to the Zoo and see the animals". (Other side note: Kenzi asks to ride the train, an airplane, and a horse every day! Also, whenever she gets asked what she is going to dream about she says a Giraffe.) Kenzi takes a moment, puts her finger to her chin and looks Carter straight in the eye and says "Take the train to see hockey!" Of course Carter tries again and she comes up the same answer. To which Carter goes "OK, so we will take the train and go to the Zoo then. That sounds good honey." Kenzi: "NO, take train to see HOCKEY!" So... way to go Kenzi on potty training! Now we have progressed to Kenzi gets a sticker when she tells Mommy and Daddy when she needs to go potty. We will see how long this takes! Later! Kari

Snow Day in Texas

Yes, I meant Snow Day in Texas!! While we do not get snow often we do get a little bit. Kenzi liked playing in it. She kept telling me it was cold. Of course it does not always look this beautiful, but we loved it this day! And ofcourse it was to warm to keep it around long. It was pretty much gone by the end of the day! Enjoy the pictures! Kari

Eagle's Wings Gym

On friday Mackenzie and her friend Abby went to the Eagle's Wings gym here in town. They have open gyn on friday morning where the children can try the gym equipment with parental participation. OF course Mackenzie instantly went for the trampoline and the yellow one is extra bouncy. Not much work required. She also loved running around the whole gym. They had some sort of spring board that ran about the length of the gym. Which was easy to run on! Mackenzie amused my by trying the balance beam, rings, and rope above the foam pit but was not interested in trying those things again. Though she had no problem playing in the foam pit she just did not want to have to swing on the rope to get in it. Mommy had to throw her in! It was fun to watch her have such a great time. And needless to say she got good sleep that night! Later, Kari

Cinderella

So while Gram Mac was visiting Kenzie got dress up clothes. And when she put them on Daddy could not resist taking some pictures!

The newest member of the family!

We have been talking awhile about getting another dog. So, the day after my birthday, we took a trip to the local animal shelter to see if there were any dogs that needed a home. We knew that we were shopping so we brought Dax and Kenzi. Of course we could not really leave Kenzi home by herself yet, as CPS might have a problem with that. Anyway, we looked at two dogs. Both got a long great with Dax and Kenzi. And Dax did not seem to have her guard up when the other two dogs approached Kenzi. We settled on Georgia. Well she came with the name Ginger which we thought was interesting due to the fact that Dax came with name Sesame. And it was uncanny the way Georgia looked so much like Dax did when Dax was a puppy. Georgia is now almost 4 months old. She is a shepherd mix and we don't know what she is mixed with. She has adjusted pretty well to our home and having a sibbling and a two year old running after her. She does really well with Mackenzie considering Mackenzie likes to pull on her legs and collar and give her BIG hugs! We think that Georgia will get to be about 70 to 80 pounds. Right now she is around 27. She is a great addition to our family and everyone seems to be adjusting well. It is fun remebering what it is like having a puppy around the house again. We have to child proof! Later!

Lego Land!

So while Mackenzie and I were in Southern California, we went to Lego Land. We were able to have Uncle JT come with. Lego Land is rather impressive. And it is definitely for the younger crowd. Mackenzie was able to go to a Driving school in which she drove her very own car. The funny part was that when the ride started she got distracted by the other children driving on this open circular track, that the guy running the ride had to help her quite a bit. He would tell her to press the green button at her foot and then proceed to press the button with his hand to help her along. After a few times of the guy doing that, Mackenzie bent down and pressed the button with her hand and what do you know she was moving. Of course looking down at the button the whole time and narrowly missing another parked car! IT was so funny that I was laughing hysterically, with my mom and even a few other spectators! Mackenzie had so much fun. We will definitely need to go back when we can spend some time there. Little girl needed a nap!! Thanks mom for making it so fun!

Trampoline Show

Ok, So here are pictures of MAckenzie playing on the trmapoline at her Gramma & Grampa G's house. She loves jumping on the trampoline so much that she had to do it everyday, sometimes twice a day. So my requirement everyday was the beach, her's was the trampoline. She especially liked it when her Uncles, JT & Alex would come out and jump, she would get like a foot of clearance. And I know this might be a surprise to my cousin Sheri given that she would not jump at Paris' birthday party, but here is proof! Later! Kari

New Year's Eve

OK, so I promised a New Year's Eve story. Carter and I were able to find a young woman who was doing a Parent's Night out. For my local friends if you need her name and number you know how to reach me. Anyway, She had activities planned and at 10 pm they went outside and banged on pots and pans and "celebrated" New Year's! What I thought was so cute was that they made the pillow case and the hands are of every kid that showed up. Her name is also stamped on the bottom. Well that is only half the story. Carter and I had some freedom so Carter knowing that I like to have fun on holidays had got us tickets to see Petty Theft at the House of Blues in Dallas. They are a cover band for... wait for it...Tom Petty! ;0) Anyway, when we get there the guy asks if we are drinking to give us a band and when Carter and I both said "No"he repeated very shocked. "Well I guess you go ahead and go in?!?!?!?!" So we walk in and the show has not started and would not start for another hour, unbeknownst to us. Anyway we find a corner to take a seat on the floor. A guy comes between Carter and the wall and wants to put his jacket in the corner. Needless to say, her had a drink in the other hand, a cosmopolitan at least that is what we smelled after he spilled it all over Carter and myself. The guy had no idea what was going on until I grabbed his drink and nicely, but firmly "Sir, you are spilling your drink on us!" Well we watched the band for about 45 minutes before we decided that we needed to go home and clean ourselves up. We rang in the new year on DART getting back to our car. It was actually a lot of fun and Kenzi seemed to have a good time too! So Happy New Year a few days late and hopefully it is a great year for everybody!!! Love ya!

Home again

Ok, so we are now back in Texas with 30 to 40 degree weather. I have friends that told me that I do not need to play catch up (So grammas and Grampas can thank Neal & Keri), but I really can't decide which pictures to use, so I think that I will take my time and post what I can when I can. This picture is of Mackenzie and I at Huntington Beach on January 14th. It was in the 70s and brisk but still warmer than Texas. (Carter later told me that they had snow flurries!) We walked down to the water and Gramma Kim wanted to see if Mackenzie would go in the water. Needless to say Gramma got one shoe off, Kenzi put one foot down and instantly picked it up again. She refused to put it back down. She was cool with going into the water as long as she was being held and not getting wet in any way! She really liked walking on the beach everyday. She would tell JT on the way to school, that we were going to the beach! We had fun and there will be more pictures to follow!

Slacker ME!

Ok, so I have been a complete slacker as far as Mackenzie's blog. I am VERY sorry!! I will repent. However, I am in Southern California right now until the 19th and I will probably not be able to post pictures until I get back. I will definitely try though! We are doing well. We had a nice quiet Christmas at home in our first house! It was so great to be lazy and stay in pajamas all day! Our New Year's was fun. However I actually have a picture to go with that story, but let's just say that we rang in the New Year on the DART train! It was fun! So since I am completely hitting a mind blank, I will close for now and know that I am not letting this go. I think that this is a great way for people to stay connected to Mackenzie. Besides, she is ADORABLE! Even if you are not the proud parents or grand parents you have to agree! Ta-Ta for now! Kari

Early Christmas in Florida!

So when we showed up in Florida, at 5 am Friday morning, Santa had already made a visit to Gram Mac & Gramp's house. It took Mackenzie about three days to open all the presents. She wanted to play with everything once she opened it. She really liked the bike and rode it often while we were there. She is still trying to get the steering thing down, but we know it will come together for her soon. She got a present from her Great grandmother, or Great Goog as she is affectionately known. She opened the present and exclaimed "Barbie"! We really did have a great visit with Gram Mac, Gramps, Great Goog, Uncle Len, & Aunt Joy! Kari

New Smyrna Beach, Florida

Hello, once again, these pictures are of Florida. More specifically, New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Since we have moved to Texas I, in partciaular, have been missing the beach. So my one request was to see the beach with Mackenzie before we went home. Of course it was the coldest day of all the days we were there at 59 degrees. Gram Mac was frozen through in five minutes. But in the five minutes we were there, we saw Sand pipers, Sea gulls, water that came to the steps that go down to the beach (high tide) and surfers. The surfers were trying so hard to swim outward, but were pretty moving side ways by the time we left.

Tractor, Tractor, and more Tractors!!!

Ok, so we went to Florida for a visit with Gram Mac, Gramps & family! The visit has so many pictures and we did so much that it will be broken up into segments. So this is the "Tractor" segment. Gramps has a John Deer ride on lawn mower or a "tractor". Mackenzie loves tractors. Every time we go to Home Depot or Lowe's Mackenzie has to sit on all the tractors that are out. Lord help us if they are having a sale and they are all lined up!!! So when she saw that Gramps had a tractor, she got so excited. Of course Gramps was more than willing to indulge Mackenzie and take her for a few rides. She also saw vintage tractors such as a 1934 John Deer tractor, which I believe is the one that Carter and Mackenzie crossed the ropes to take a picture. Needless to say, Mackenzie loved riding the tractor. She even climbed up on Gramps' tractor when he wasn't looking and proceeded to try and turn the key in the ignition. She evens sets it in gear to go. Thankfully she is not strong enough to turn the key yet! At the very least she is curteous enough to put the levers back before jumping off. Kari

Sad News...

First and Foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to my Heavenly Father for the strength that he gives me to endure my trials. He is the reason that I am able to have an eternal perspective and have hope where I might not otherwise. Given that I have bad news. We lost our baby. We saw the heart beat a couple of weeks ago and I started spotting last week. After having blood work done the sonorgram revealed that the baby had developed to 9 weeks and six days but there was no heartbeat. Of course, I had to get it removed yesterday and I am feeling a lot better today. We of course are very sad for our loss, as we were all excited to have this baby. We know that we will be ok and that we will try again when the time is right. We appreciate your love and prayers. Thank you for being so supportive to our family and we love you! Kari

Happy Halloween from West Virginia!

Ok, So I got these pictures from Aunt Karen in Wheeling, West Virginia. I was cleaning out my email and thought there is no way I could just file this email away without sharing the pictures. I think that this is pretty amazing. Here are the details...

"Every Halloween season, this house in West Virginia is transformed into the Great Pumpkin House. The owner and hundreds of other volunteers carve thousands of pumpkins for display at his home every Halloween. This year there are 3,063 pumpkins on display. The pumpkins will be on display between October 28th - November 4th. "

Happy Halloween 2007

Ok, so there is so much to talk about. I first thought to make more than one post, but then I got lazy. So there are a few pictures in this montage. Last night we carved our pumpkin. Kenzie was into for the first ten minutes and then let Daddy finish it. We went to our ward trunk-or-treat tonight and met up with some friends. Thomas the tank engine is Kenzie's friend, Ben. The fairy is Kenzie's friend, Ella and the Goat is Baby Sophie. It totally brings to mind the Cake song, Sheep go to Heaven, but Goats go to .... But I have to say we loved this little Goat and she will not going to ... if her parents have anything to say about it. Honestly, the beard is what sent me into a laughing frenzy. We then went trick-or-treating around our neighborhood after trunk-or-treat. We were able to meet some of our neighbors which is good. And everyone thought that Kenzie made an adorable Super Girl. We hope that everyone had a GREAT Halloween! Thanks for the response to my posts I love hearing from people and you are so sweet!

Happy Halloween! Kari

Trunk-or-Treat with the Allen 5th Ward

We were invited to go to the Allen 5th Ward Trunk-or-Treat. It was so great to see so many of our friends. Mackenzie as you can tell was adorable and there were many of her super hero friends friends! Superman is her friend Braden. Batman is her friend Eli. Batgirl is one of her babysitters, Shannette, and the Wheaties box is Mackenzie's other babysitter, Morgan. Kenzi is standing in a line with her Daddy for the costume contest. She got a Halloween pencil! She had a lot of fun running around and of course LOVED getting the candy. Carter had been practicing with Kenzi on "What do we say when we want candy?" "Trick-or-Treat" (Which of course came out more like "TREAT".) "And what do we say when we get the candy" "Thank you" She did pretty good and got quite a bit of candy which we limit to two pieces after dinner and one after her nap. We have our ward trunk-or-treat on wednesday, which we will be attending after we trick-or-treat around the neightborhood. Halloween is so much fun when you have children!! Enjoy!

Uncle Alex

Alex is wearing his first Tuxedo. He sings in the High School Choir. See the attached jpg files. What's interesting with the pictures is that Alex is so much taller (bigger) than his mother now, and she's 5'9". Alex is now 6'2", and just turned 14 last month. I think he is going to surpass Carter in height.

Oh yeah...the choir sounded fine.

Grandpa G

So far so good...

So, I took this picture to see if I could get a picture on the blog. And what do you know?!?!?!?! Isn't Kenzie adorable? Sometimes I really can't believe that she is my kid and so dang cute! At this point her favorite thing to do is hang out on Mommy and Daddy's bed. She is really content there. And she was very concerned about the dog being outside this morning, that she had to let her in. I really don't have much to talk about, I am just learning more about this website. I tried to put a picture up top and it was HUGE. So hopefully I can get it down soon. Otherwise, enjoy. And feel free to write if you want. Kari P.S. Happy Birthday Mom!!!

First Post...

Ok, So I tried another Blog, but the pictures were not happening, so after some consideration and viewing my friends pages, I decided to try this site. Sorry for the switch, but hey I was not posting to that other site anyway. I am not sure if anyone will view it or if anyone cares, but in case someone does, I figure that I will give a valiant effort.

Now where to start... Mackenzie has gotten older and bigger. She is talking with regularity, though sometimes I still need her to "Show" me what she is trying to convey. She loves watching Little Einsteins, The Doddle Bops, and of course, Curious George is still a high priority! She still dances when Carter gets home snd competes with Dax (the dog) for attention when actually gets in the door. She is more than happy to tell me that she does not like naps and still fights the whole sleeping thing. She has been know to scream for an hour, and yes you can hear it on the street in front of our house.

As you might have noticed from the title of our page or just below, there is a question mark. That means that I am pregnant. I am due in June next year and we are very excited. It will be very interesting to see how Mackenzie intereacts with the baby. She is really great with our friends daughter, Sophie, but as someone so lovingly put it, Sophie goes home! So we will see. I ask Mackenzie where is the baby and she pats her tummy and says "Baby?!?!" Then I correct her by taking her hand and putting it on her tummy and say "No baby" and then put her hand on my tummy and say "Baby!" Eventually she will get it. Probably when I get huge and mommy is missing a lap.

Well, I am going to close for now. I am going to try and figure out the whole picture thing. So keeps your fingers crossed!

Kari