Randoms and Procrastination

I’ve been quite behind on posting lately, I do realize.  So today, in an effort to avoid THIS:

I’ll be updating! 🙂

Kallie at 8 months old:

I’ve fought the battle of the Humungous Cloth Diaper Booty long enough, and have resigned myself that Kallie will wear dresses until she’s potty trained.  So we’ve had to pick some up here and there when I find them on sale…(I’m certainly not complaining).

It is so hot here.  Stiflingly hot.  You know it’s hot when you invest in the Wal-Mart Family Swim Center:

The girls swam once, and now there’s a hole in it.  Figures!

I know, I’m a broken record, but watching the girls become the best of friends continues to melt my heart every day.  They are SO much fun to listen to in the backseat of the car, b/c they literally play and laugh almost the entire time we’re driving.  Makenna has been a lifesaver with keeping Kallie awake and avoiding all those nap-sabotaging snoozes on the way home.  They just have a blast!

The other day I walked out of the bedroom and could not grab my camera fast enough when I saw this:

Makenna was saying “Kallie, say cheese!” and doing a true girly self-photo shoot of the two of them.  It was to DIE for.  Last night Kylie asked Makenna who her best friend is, and Makenna said “Kallie” immediately, without a second thought.  Words cannot describe how much I love having two girls!!

Date on the Boat

Last weekend we pulled off another day alone with Makenna while Kallie stayed home with Grammy (thanks Mom!).  We took out my dad’s boat (thanks Dad!) and Laura and Matt joined us as well.  It was the most fun and relaxation we’ve had in a LONG time.

Kenna was a little nervous about the boat and the waves at first, and kept begging Mark not to “do those bumps”:

Mark got her a new Dora lifejacket, which she was in love with:

My husband is a man of many talents, though he doesn’t like to brag.  Here he is walking on water:

Matt skiing:

Mark skiing (he’s mad that I didn’t get him doing anything “cool”):

After a couple swim stops she was really loosening up, as you can tell:

And by the ride home she was driving, drink in hand:

She declared it “my most fun day EVER!!”  🙂

Dad’s Day

Well, I caught 2 out of 3 dads in our life on “film” that day.  When I had my camera out at Mark’s parents’ house, his dad was taking a nap, in true Father’s Day fashion!

We love you guys–BEST DADS EVER!!!

Waiting for Daddy

Call me crazy, but I hate the hours of 3-5 p.m. every weekday.  I love the mornings, I love the evenings, but that time of day makes my stomach turn.  We stay on the go every day, but that little window of time is too short to go anywhere (after nap and before dinner), the girls are cranky, dinner is looming but can’t be started, and we’re all starting to go batty from a long day together.  So we usually spend those 2 hours going through all the toys we own while waiting within sight of a window just in CASE Daddy comes home early (and I do loads of texting, IM’ing and begging him to come home as well).   

The girls were so cute waiting in front of the window last week.  Kallie seems to recognize that time of day, and when I ask her “Where’s Daddy?” she looks out the door of whatever room we’re in, towards the front door.  It’s adorable.

Beachy Saturday

The beach is fun.  The beach is great.  We love the beach.  We live five minutes from some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.  But you will rarely catch us at the beach as a family of four, b/c the beach is HOT and the beach is WORK with the little ones.  We acted completely out of character on Saturday and decided to take both girls down (at high noon, mind you).  We were both impressed that we lasted a good hour and a half, and Kallie was an angel.  But then Makenna pulled one of her Jekyl/Hyde acts and we were out of there faster than we could say goodbye to the rest of the family.  One deathly hot, sweat-drenching and heart pounding walk back to the car later, we were all practically in tears and I was yelling like a crazed maniac, “I LOVE THE BEACH, THIS IS SO FUN!!!!!”

Kallie plastered herself as tightly back onto Mark as she could when she was by the water, wondering what these giant loud things were that were crashing toward her.

And I’m sure we’ll do it all again next weekend.  🙂

So…close…

Each day I watch Kallie try her hardest to crawl, and she’s just about there!  This morning she put one hand in front of the other three times, so now she just needs her legs to follow suit and she’ll be off….once again, I am not ready for this!

For now I wish she would just stay like this all day:  🙂

But she isn’t havin’ it.  The second I set her down she lunges onto her belly and gets to work trying to explore the room around her.  I’m finding her under tables, across the floor, stuck between things, and DIRTY.  If you know me, you know I hate this part…I can’t stand her hands being on the floor all day!  More motivation to clean, I guess.  😉

Kallie had a checkup yesterday and I was surprised once again by her stats.  She was almost 30 inches long (98th percentile!!) and 18 pounds (75th percentile).  I was sure she was 20 pounds by how strong my right arm has gotten, but I was wrong!   Her height explains why her toes want to bust through all her jammy feet–I can’t buy them fast enough or big enough!  We just did one shot this time and she was a trooper, only crying for about 3 seconds.  She cried much harder and longer whenever the doctor or nurses even looked at her, much less touched her.  Poor babe!

This past weekend we had a mommy/daddy date with Makenna.  We went to one of the outlet malls and really had a good time.  She’s struggling a bit with attention issues and normal 3 year old stuff, so we were needing to spend some time with her alone.  It was so fun.  She’s such an entertaining little person to be with!  I’m so blessed to be her mommy…I really am.

Waiting on Daddy to finish shopping…yes, you read that right.  WE spend a lot of time waiting on HIM:  😉

Playing at the playground:

Oh, and that’s Mark’s foot coming down the slide, not some random man that she’s shouting at.  😉

Trying to get by another little girl without physically touching her in any way, shape, or form (very Makenna):

And back home with little sis:

Pardon all the redeye.  My Picasa is pooping out on me for some reason.

Growing Up

For some reason on this day, Makenna and Kallie reminded me so much of me and my sister Katy (except I’m 7 years older than Katy). 

This picture just screams Big Sister, Little Sister personalities to me (and Kallie looks just like Katy too!):

Kallie is always just stepping back and giving Makenna these looks like, “What on earth are you saying to me??”  I love it.

This is Kallie’s signature face:

Kallie graduated to a big girl carseat last week.   Sniff……

I ordered her the same one Makenna has, so Makenna needed to show her the ropes:

Look at this girl.  Just look at her!  Where has time gone??

I wish I could just record Makenna talking for a full day so you could all hear her.  She’s always been very articulate, but I can’t get over how she uses words like “exactly, actually, usually.”  For example, she just got home and I asked her how she was, and she responded: “ACTUALLY, I have a really big problem.  I USUALLY wear my pigtail holder here (indicating on her wrist, where she wears it like I do), but now it’s up here (around her elbow)!!” 

Now beware:  Makenna’s got some mean bedhead in this video.  I took the video b/c Kallie kept grabbing Makenna’s back to get her attentnion, then squealing and clapping like she knew she was annoying her.  Of course you don’t see any of that while I was recording…

The Great “Before and After” Post

Wow.  We’re moved in, starting to settle, and feeling that bittersweet feeling of a huge project in our lives being over.  This house was our LIFE for months, with what feels like a gazillion hours of blood, sweat and tears poured into it (literally).  But every second of work was worth it, and what used to be a dog hair-filled, stark white shell of a house is now our home.  Hope you enjoy the long-awaited pics!

View from the entryway before:

After:

Mark added recessed lighting and obviously we changed EVERYTHING else.

First I’ll take you down the hallway to the girls’ rooms.  I don’t have before pictures of those, since they were just plain white rooms.  First is Makenna’s room:

View down the hall, where Mark also added recessed lighting:

Next is a cute little room that was too small to be much of anything, so for now it’s a playroom.  It isn’t organized or decorated yet, but you get the idea:

Next is the guest bathroom, before:

After:

Oops, gotta change that lightbulb!  😉

Kallie’s room, which I haven’t even begun to unpack or decorate yet…you can see my plan of a cute flower landscape scene is falling off the walls, haha!!  Back to the drawing board on her room…

She has a nice closet, a must-have for all her baby gear:

Back in the main area by the entryway is the formal dining room, which we’ve made an office, before:

And after…I have a lot of work to do in here too:

From the office you can see up the stairway to the bonus room.  Remember this picture of Makenna from when we were first looking at the house?

Not much changed, except paint and carpet:

 By the stairway is the laundry room, which was empty before:

We put some of the old kitchen cabinets in here for storage and now I love doing laundry!

Back in the living room again, you’ll see that the main wall was long, white, boring, and blah:

Well, my dad (aka The Construction Whiz) cut out another doorway for us and squared off the arches, giving us a cool little modern design and opening up the hallway.  He was pretty exasperated with all the little things I wanted to change, but I think he’s glad we did (right Dad?? ;)).

I don’t have a real Before picture of the fireplace because we didn’t originally intend to do much to it:

But a spur of the moment trip to Home Depot, and this is what we threw together:

I am SO HAPPY we did it!!

View from the living room to the dining area:

Next to the dining area is the entry to our master bedroom.  Again, I couldn’t stand the arched doorways (and the niche in the wall was arched as well), so my dad just went ahead and took care of that:

AWESOME job, Dad!!!  🙂

The master bedroom:

Master Bath Before:

After:

The mirrors are temporary…I can’t stand them being two different sizes (messes with my center, haha):

Before (Hi Laura!):

After…didn’t change much here, and I was too lazy to move all the kiddo stuff:

The Closet…Ladies, every time I open the closet door I swear I hear the Hallelujah chorus playing all around me.  This picture does not do it justice but it is HUGE.  There’s even more room to the left and another little nook that you can’t see.  It fits in perfectly with my catch phrase of “There’s a place for everything and everything has it’s place.”  I love it.

Back in the living room again, behind the couches is another little corner area:

Kitchen, before:

After:

The sink area was very important to me, since it’s where I spend about 75% of my time every day:

Yes, yes, YES, I LOVE MY FRIDGE!!!  I am not kidding you when I say that almost every time I open it I thank the Lord for it.  So not kidding.

Back to the laundry room and stairs:

The rest of the kitchen:

And there you have it, Home Sweet Home!  I have seriously neglected Kallie, who is spinning in circles on her tummy on the floor while I finish this up, so I have to run!

Happy Birthday Katy!!

Well, since Makenna informed me that she’s going to be a little bit too shy to sing Happy Birthday to me in a couple days, the birthday message to her aunt Katy was a no-go.  But Kallie was talking the other day and I’m PRETTY sure she was saying Happy Birthday to Katy…we love you Katy and miss you SOO much!!