Happy Easter

I figured this year was my one ONLY chance to go full matchy-matchy Easter attire, so I ran with it. It took some work to convince Carter that wearing a pink and white tie was cool enough for him (Look! Zig-zags! Just like an Easter egg!), but I had him convinved by Saturday night. :)

I also realized on Sunday morning that the perfect picture of all three kids will probably never happen. Of the ones I took, I got closed eyes, crazy eyes, hair in eyes, and baby eating the dress. And in this one, three of four.

For Allison's dress I used Simplicity 2460 with an added collar and contrast hem band (don't be fooled by the drawings! There is no contrast hem band peice!). Lindsey's is from McCalls 4351 (which is out-of-print... I bought it when Allison was a baby and had never used it!). The collar and midriff sash are added. I liked both patterns, but had to make changes to both of them to make them work with the fabric I used. The pink satin taffeta was in my stash from when a JoAnn's location liquidated nearby (just $10 for a 4 yard bolt!) and I was determined to use it. I love how they turned out with the pink and white... I was concerned that they pink would be too much "wow, pepto bismo puke!" but I like how the white contrast toned it down. Still very pink, but not so pukey.

For Carter's tie I used my favorite online tutorial and pattern and appliqued white chevron's onto the pink. Its pretty thrown together, but I figured it will only get worn once... maybe twice if I can get him to put it on for portraits. But it held up surprisingly well in the wash, so I was pleased. :)

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and were able to take time to remember the amazing gift of our Savior, His saving, atoning grace and the miracle of the resurrection that we can all look forward to.

Christmas Recap

We had a happy Christmas at our house. This year was fun because not only did Allison undersyand, but she was EXCITED... as in nearly pushing Brian down the stairs trying to get past him to see if Santa came. I don't have lots of photos (Brian was helping kids while I was mostly nursing Lindsey), but here are a few we did get.

Santa brought Allison a real camera all her own...

Carter was so excited about the firetruck from Grandma and Grandpa

Mommy made Allison 3 new princess dress-ups to go with the Barbies Santa brought

Carter + football = little boy heaven!

The kids big gifts were guitars built by Brian. They love them. Cute little story: We only wrapped the guitar bodies, so the necks were showing. After opening stockings Allison saw the necks and said to Brian: "Oh, Daddy! You're very lucky; Santa brought you TWO guitars!" She was even more excited after we checked the tags and found out that they were not for Daddy. Here's a quick little video of the kids playing with them before moving on.

Finally...

The long awaited baby:

Lindsey Elaine, born December 16th at 8:02 a.m. 8 pounds, 7 ounces 20 inches long and not happy about being out in the cold. And yes, she has a set of lungs to support that yell...

She's beautiful. And we love her, even if she was late.

Halloween and such...

Hope you all had a happy and safe Halloween. We sure had fun at our house!

I was let off the costume hook by my kiddos, which is great becuase I'm not sure I would have been up to making costumes for them. Allison decided months ago that she wanted to be a witch and wanted to wear the costume I got for the dress-up box during last year's after-halloween clearance. And Carter was going to be a wizard, but then decided to be a pirate instead. I found his little costume online for 99 cents... I bought 2 to make the shipping worth while and now my kids don't have to fight of the pirate costume during dress-up... yahoo!

At the ward's trunk-or-treat

trick-or-treating our neighborhood with daddy

Beginning the sugar high...

We had some other fall fun at our house too. A few weeks before halloween we went to a little pumpkin patch near our house. Nothing big, but the kids had fun.

they love silly photo ops...

And were all about the mini pumpkins and gourds.

Unfortunately we went about a week too early. They INSISTED on carving the pumpkins for FHE a week later, which meant that by the time halloween rolled around those poor jack-o-lanterns were BLACK with mold. Ew... Needless to say they got tossed yesterday.

What do you do in the summer time...

when your parents are insane enough to plan a 2-week cross-country trip with 2 kids under 5?

You sleep in the car.

You sleep on the plane

(and then avoid sleeping on the next plane when you SHOULD be sleeping because going from East to West is hard like that).

You go to the park... lots of parks.

You ride the ferry...

and the big gold pig at Pike Place.

You go for a hike,

And throw rocks in the ocean.

You "help" grandpa rebuild the deck stairs.

And play with the toys rescued from the attic (even though they've already been sold on Ebay).

You go to the Children's Museum (on the day you thought you were flying home because mommy got the dates mixed up).

And when you finally do get around to flying home you spend a solid 21 hours (!!!) travelling in cars and airplanes to make it all the way home. Which makes your parents vow to pretty much never do that again.

It was great to get to see most of both of our families... But next year, we're staying closer to home for vacation.

Yesterday

Yesterday morning, I had an ultrasound and we all got to find out the gender of baby #3. It was a pretty amazing machine, but a REALLY squirmy baby... which is why the picture is a little unclear...

Baby's profile with hand near the face. :)

Yesterday evening I went shopping... cause thats what you do when you find out... buy baby a new outfit, right? Or two or eight...

...

...

Its another girl for us! :)

By the way, if you love the cuteness that is Gymboree, I asked one of the employees at my store if they had any 0-3 month fall/winter things in back (read: old stuff marked down cheap), and they brought me out a big ol' pile of things to pick through. You just have to ask and they're usually happy to pull stuff for you if they're not too busy. Everything I got was marked under $7 per peice.

Gingerbread Houses

We went all out for Gingerbread houses this year. We probably spent too much for one activity, but the kids LOVED it, and it made for a much nicer-than-normal Sunday afternoon.

Which, by the way, am I the only parent of little ones who thinks that Sunday is actually often the HARDEST day of the week? What happened to day of rest? But thats neither here nor there...

Allison and Carter both enjoyed building the houses. Allison did her own with my help, and Brian did the other with Carter's help... although Carter's definition of "help" was to eat as much candy as possible. Fun was had by all. Next year, I think its cheaper graham cracker houses for our kids, but we'll stick with the royal icing. That stuff really is the key to getting a good house built. :)

Allison thoughfully placing her gumdrop border...

Carter thoughfully eating all the candy within reach...

Yeah... thats my husband... :)

First Snow

We got our first real, measurable snow yesterday and last night. Allison was thrilled to wake up this morning and find a few inches a snow... totally enough to play in.

Allison was very patient, and waited - nicely! - until 10 am to be let out to play. She immediatly wanted to build a snowman, and enlisted daddy's help. For most of the building, she was too busy "supervising" to actually help... sounds like my daughter...

Carter loved it too. This was his first snow experience, and he seemed to think it was pretty cool stuff. I love how chubby he looks in these pictures. Could be because the snowsuit is a little too big on him.

Tidbits...

I keep feeling like I should update, but I don't have anything much to say. So... here's a little summary of the last few weeks.

*I hit the post-Halloween clearance sale hard at Target. My kids now have lots of cute dress-up clothes.

*Two kids, three ear infections, and a newly discovered penicillin allergy. Not so fun.

*A lovely Thanksgiving, of which I have no pictures. We got together with two other families with small kids, all from out west with no family to speak of this far east. It was fun, it was nice, and I didn't have to host (read: I didn't have to clean my house), so it was relaxing too.

*Christmas crafts. I LOVE my new wreath. Wanna make one? Its just a wreath form (mine's straw, and don't look too close... you can kind of see it in some spots!) and a whole lot of Dollar Tree ornaments (I got the ones that come in tubes) and even more hot glue. Which, by the way, I bought another hot glue gun. The mini I got last time just wasn't doing it for me any longer, so I went with heavy duty. And its pretty much awesome. I think I could do a whole post on how awesome that glue gun is...

*Lots of shopping. I'm pretty sure that I'm going a little overboard. Its not hard to do... this is our first year with a real job and shopping is fun. I console myself by say that the slight overspending is okay, because I can write off anything I end up donating to Toys for Tots.

*Decorating for Christmas. My kids are a little Christmas decor crazy. Carter points to every tree-like object (including the garland) and shouts "Te-mas Tee!", and Allison has this unexplained compulsion to decorate every single Christmas tree she sees. Target has some very nicely decorated mini-trees in the seasonal aisle. We still haven't gotten our tree (hopefully tomorrow!), so I'll post pictures when that gets up.

On a completely unrelated note, I realized today that Carter is exactly the age that Allison was when Carter was born. They are different kids to say the least. And its a good thing Allison was first, becuase I'm pretty sure that had Carter been first, my chances of surviving motherhood this long would have been pretty non-existant.

Most days I generally feel like I'm going to go crazy, which is a bad sign, since we're only about 10 days into "its-too-cold-to-go-outside-at-all" kind of weather, and theres a long winter ahead of us. I really miss the days where Allison napped. A few months ago I even decided to quit forcing quiet time on her, becuase it took less effort to let her watch a movie instead. But now I'm thinking that I might have to force the issue again, because I think I really need an hour a day of unassaulted quiet time. And I don't think its too much to ask either.

Niagara Falls

Last week my parents flew in to come see us and we spent Friday at Niagara Falls. It was amazing! We took the Maid of the Mist boat tour and got soaked, but those photos are on my Dad's camera. In fact... most of the good picture are on his camera. I need a copy of those... hint, hint, Dad! Maybe they could find their way in downloadable form onto mckeent.com? Pretty please?


Anyway, here are the best of the photos I DO have, which don't actually include my parents. But I promise, they did come.

Either way Niagara was amazing and I'm super glad we went, even if we have to make it a short day trip to accommodate two tired little kids.

The Great NY State Fair

Brian and I took the kids to the NY State Fair last Saturday. Its held in Syracuse, so it made for a great day trip. We went opening weekend and it was SUPER crowded and crazy. But our choices were either opening or closing weekend (the fair only runs 12 days... what?!?), but we had fun. Here's a few photos:

Everyone's favorite part: the Shriner's circus put on in the kiddie area. It was great, even Carter was rivited every time an act came on. Allison's favorite part was watching the ariel gymnist who climbed the fabric for stunts. She spent her whole act just staring at her, eyes wide and mouth open. If you asked Allison what her favorite part of the fair was, she'll tell you that it was the circus, and the part the girl "climbed up so high on the fabric!"

Over all, I was acutally a little disappointed with the fair. Coming from my 4-H background, I really wanted to see some awesome 4-H non-animal exhibits (which we couldn't even find) and come stunning arts/crafts/sewing/quilting entries, which was housed in a TINY not-very-accessible building. Excluding quilts (several of which were displayed on blank walls) I think ALL of the sewing exhibited was shown in about 20 square feet of exhibit space. Now, maybe my point of view is skewed, becuase I knew the Pyuallup and Kitsap County fairs like the back of my hand, but I really didn't think that this fair had NEARLY as much in the way of non-animal exhibits as either of those fairs. Made me homesick in a way. On the bright side, what we did see and what was exhibited encouraged and and inspired both Brian and I to aim for having a few entries each for next year's fair.

Museum of Play

Brian took the day off yesterday as kind of a birthday gift to Allison (she LOVES it when Daddy doesn't have to go to work!), so we took the kids to Rochester to the Strong National Museum of Play. We had so much fun... we were there 4 hours (its a 90-minute drive and the kids went napless, so we decided to leave kind of early), and didn't even see everything... we didn't even have time to THINK about the Toy Hall-of-Fame on the 2nd floor!

There was so much to see and do there... an active area call the Field of Play (not a plyaground, but lots of large, active toys... race cars, PVC Pipe Organs, Dance Dance Revolution, Ball Rollercoasters... stuff like that. The other half of the first floor had a giant Sesame Street interactive exhibit, a kid-sized Wegman's (THE grocery store, for all you non-east-coasters!) to shop and "work" at, a little Historic section, an art section, a post-office, a helecopter and a boat and I don't even know what else, because we didn't see it all!

The kids had a blast, and it was a fun, exhausting trip for all of us. If it was closer to home, we would have paid for a family membership before leaving yesterday. Enjoy the pictures!

Allison got to meet (and hug!) Raggedy Ann. She's been visiting the museum this month to celebrate her 95th birthday!

Carter ejoyed Wegmans, but would have liked it better if the food had been real.

Allison loved ringing up her own groceries and pushing the buttons to make the receipt print.

So cute! The reading nook at Sesame Street!

Allison's favorite is Zoe. Carter thought Snuffleupagus was pretty cool...

Look out, world!

Allison was excited to see the Barbie display when we first came in.

They both loved the big aquariums at the entrances.