Cupcakes

On Sunday Jadyn went to a birthday party for her friend Sammy. Karina was feeling a little left out, so she and Daddy decided to make some cupcakes while they were staying home with Makenzie.

While we were waiting for them to bake, she started playing with Jadyn's camera. I asked her to take a picture of me holding Makezine. It only took four tries to get one with my face in the shot. She did great! And the cupcakes were delicious, too!

Then we did a few self-portraits. It was a great afternoon!

First tooth in, first tooth out... finally!

Jadyn lost her first tooth tonight! It was a big big-girl moment. It has been loose for a very long time, and last week finally got to the point where it was hanging on by only one corner.

I've been encouraging her to twist, pull, etc and try to pry it out, and she's been pretty adventureous about it. But tonight she wanted to let me try to pull it out, so I gave it a little push and it came right out.


She's very excited, and now she has it upstairs next to her bed in a special tooth-fairy tooth holder that her Aunt Marcella got for her. We'll see what happens tonight... hopefully the tooth fairy doesn't fall asleep with baby Makenzie and forget to swap out the tooth!

Look! It's Christmas!

Karina woke up this morning and looked outside to find snow on the ground. "Look! It's Christmas!" she excitedly announced to the world.

Jadyn played around with her camera and took some neat pictures. I've been trying to work with her on taking pictures with purpose, not just pictures of "nothing", but trying to view things with perspective and working on forming a shot. I gave her the challenge of taking some close-ups of the snow on branches. She did a pretty good job:

We made the most of the rare March snow - we had our snowball fights, built a snowman, took lots of fun pictures, and loved every minute of it.

Reach down deep and pull one out of your memory bank...

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... like a year ago, I used the Top Gun expression, "Negative Ghostwriter, the pattern is full," with my kids to say no to things. I probably did this for a few weeks or months, but literally haven't said it in a very, very long time. (You know... passing fads, etc.)

Tuesday this week, Julie and the girls are sitting at the dinner table (I'm at work) and Julie asks Karina if she had finished her dinner, to which Karina replies, "Negative." Now Karina has never really used this expression, so it caught Julie off-guard. "What was that?" she asked in curiosity. "I said 'negative'; that means I'm not done yet."

Since then she's continued using 'negative' as her way of saying no. Way to reach back and pull one out of your memory bank, Karina!

Daddy: "Would you like a banana for snack?" - Karina: "Negative."

Mommy: "Is it raining outside right now?" - Karina: "Negative."

Jadyn: "It's my turn to play with the race cars, Karina." - Karina: "Negative."

1 Month Old

Makenzie's a month old now. Five weeks actually. She's growing well, weighed in at 8 lbs, 7-1/2 ozs at her 1 month appointment, and was 21-1/4 inches long. She's marathon napping today, but most days spends more and more time awake. And she's even beginning to smile on purpose - and what a precious thing it is to see that smile! She's almost over her second cold in her first five weeks of life, which is no fun, but she's been a good trooper.

More to come when we can. Jadyn and Karina have some friends from school over right now and are having a blast upstairs, so I had a few seconds to jot a quick note.