September

For starters, what happened to September? Out here in NY September seemed to have a bit of an identity crisis (it thought it was July... 85 in September is just unacceptable!), and then it was just over. We did manage to do a few things around here, however.

First, I got my house mostly deep cleaned. I never did manage to tackle a major mop of the floors, and the master bed and beth got generally neglected. But the rest of the house did get a nice clean. And I managed to get Carter's room painted, with Brian's help. I'll take pictures of both kid's rooms when they are (hopefully) completely done later this month. I didn't get my craft room (aka the girls' new shared room) painted, but the color is picked and I think Brian and I might tackle that one this next weekend or on Coloumbus day (which he has off... silliest holiday ever). So, yay for goals mostly getting done!

I took the kids apple-picking again this year, which they thouroughly enjoyed. I can't believe how big they've gotten in a year.

And I potty-trained Carter this month. Yes... I am that crazy mother who decided to potty-train her 2 and half year old. But he was ready, and he took right to it. He is largely accident-free and will tell me when he needs to go... I'd call that venture a success. And now I have a few months of no diapers!

I finished a few sewing projects for Allison: a jumper using Manhatten fabric (pattern is Simplicity 2574 ) and a fleece jacket (McCalls 6430). The jumper is cute, but too big. The little jacket is about perfect, and fills a gap in her fall/winter wardrobe too!

I got inspired about our living room, and how have a whole vision for a make-over. Its involves a different furniture arrangement, new couches, and a new TV, and a new cabinet to hold our DVDs and components. Apparently I don't get inexpensive inspiration, so for now I'll go with a new paint color, slipcovers and maybe a TV on Black Friday. Do you think Black Friday could put me into labor? Becuase that would be kind of awesome.

I love this pallete for the living room, except without the dark greys, and add in cranberry. My carpet is cranberry, I'm going to go a light grey-beige on the walls, chocolate slipcovers on the couches and light blue and green accents. Still hunting for the perfect fabric for window treatments to pull it all together.

What did you do this September? And what are your plans for October?

My October? Paint the girls' room. Finish projects to finish the kids' rooms (roman shades, theme-y painted canvases and bean bag chairs, off the top of my head... I know there are more!). Paint the living room. And halls and stairwell. And I should probably get started on Christmas sewing and crafting projects... hopefully the nesting instinct kicks in hard. :)

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.

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.

Apple Picking

Brian's been out of town this week, so I've been trying to pack the kids' days with fun things to do to help them go by faster (for all of us!). And I've been having the hardest time finding a decent apple at the store around here, so we went to a local farm to do some apple picking. We were in luck, too: galas had just come in and they are DELICIOUS!!! It was a fun little farm. In addition to apples they had a cute little country store, several other crops for the picking through-out the year and a little petting zoo. The kids really had a great time. It was lots of fun. We'll probably go back later in the fall for pumpkins.

Love this picture. Carter spent most of the time walking around munching on a HUGE apple. I mean, does life get any better than eating your own yummy apple while exploring outside without mom nagging you to hold her hand? Carter doesn't seem to think so...

Feeding the goats. Carter kept his distance, becuase he did not want to share his apple with them (which is good... we had feed pellets for them). Allison thought feeding them was great.

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.

Zoo

I took the kids to the zoo yesterday. Not becuase it sounded particularly fun, but because if we didn't do SOMETHING out of the ordinary, the chances of everyone surviving the day looked far too slim. So we went to the zoo... it was the first thing I could think of really

I knew Allison would love seeing all the animals, and I knew Carter would love the stroller ride part of it (kid loves stroller rides). But I didn't anticipate how much Carter would love seeing all the animals too! He was so excited at every new exhibit. And he tried to climb into most of them too.

Both kids got to pet an elephant too. One of the zoo keepers had an elephant right by the exhibit fence and was walking her up and down the fence so that kids could touch her. Allison thought it was great... Carter thought it was interesting, and then thought that the elephant was too big and too close to him.

All in all, we had a fun day. And better yet, everyone survived the day.

House Hunting

We are officially in the market for a home of our own. It happened way sooner than we were expecting it too, but we are so ready to be done renting. Once we figured out that we could scrape together a good down payment in 8 weeks, we were all in.

So we're looking. Don't love anything yet. We thought we were going to love one. It was bank owned and looked so great in the pictures. The upstairs was GORGEOUS, but the kitchen was cheaply redone by the bank and it needed to have closet rods and shelves put in every closet and pantry, and the basement gave us come concerns too. I wanted to love it, but I was more concerned than in love.

Where do you make the compromise between a home thats the right price vs thats the right size, one that needs updating vs one that only needs personalization? I realize that with our budget and buying our first home I'm not going to get a perfect dream home that needs nothing and we'll stay there our whole lives. But can I get something that I like in my budget? I suppose its not fair to judge yet... we've only seen 4 homes so far. But is our house out there? Will it come along soon enough for my liking? And how much am I going to have to compromise?

To Do List

• Book visual estimates with moving companies & pick a company.
• Find & book space with an auto-transport company.
• Pack the stuff in the house back up into boxes.
• Find a real-estate agent to help us find a rental.
• Buy 4 one-way plane tickets to Syracuse.

Yep... thats right. Brian got the job. We're moving to New York.

Developments...

I wish I had pictures. I'm sure I some point I will, but right now I'm too lazy to find my camera. Here are some fun new updates on life here at the McKee Compound:

• Emily got married on Saturday. YAY!!!
• The wedding is now over. YAY!!! No more wedding stress. YAY!!!!!
• Carter is a crazy good army crawler and is teaching himself how to crawl for real. He can make it onto his and and knees, and can move his knees, but has trouble with the hands part.
• Carter is fully weaned. YAY!!!! (He started biting.)
• Allison's toe has healed, but still looks pretty ugly. It'll be a while before she has pretty feet again.
• Allison loves the playland kid care at Fred Meyer so I get to grocery shop with just one kid... and the one that doesn't scream or cry or beg for things. Its a very strange sensation.

And I guess this one deserves its own space... not just a bullet point.

Brian has a face-to-face interview with a company in Syracuse (yes, in Upstate New York... across the lake from Canada). They are flying BOTH of us out week after next for several days to interview and see the area.

And we get to leave the kids behind.

YYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!

Hike up Timpanogos

Brian and I have been talking about hiking up to the Timpanogos Caves since we got married. This past weekend we finally did it! We all had lots of fun. Allison did really well... I'd say she walked at least a quarter of the way (a 1.5 mile uphill hike) by herself... she got to ride the rest of the time on daddy's shoulders (and all the way down... we didn't want her running down the trail). And she LOVED being outside and touching, picking up and throwing the rocks

She was so excited to go hiking too... while we were touring the caves she kept asking to go back outside and "go hike!" It was pretty difficult to keep her from touching inside the cave, and she REALLY didn't like it when they turned out the lights and showed us what zero light looks like... it took quite a while to get her calmed down after that.

Carter enjoyed the hike too... he took the luxury mommy carriage both up and down. =) Here's a picture of all four of us. We all had fun, but boy were we wiped out afterwards!

Provo's Freedom Ballon Festival

Brian and I have lived in Provo for 5 solid years. Apparently Provo's Freedom Festival is one of the biggest, best 4th of July festivals in the country... who knew?!? And in 5 solid years we have never willing gone to participate in any of the activities. We did see the parts of the parade our first two years, but we don't count those as willing participation... we lived on the parade route. It was much more like being a, literally, captive audience as it was incredibly difficult to get out of the driveway during the parade when you're on the parade route.

Anyway... every year they hold a hot air ballon festival. I decided that this year we should go. It would be fun and Allison would love it!

So, thanks to Carter's bad night last night, we were all awake by 6:15, which finalized the decision to go. It was so much fun. Allison loved seeing the big balloons. She also got to meet Smokey the Bear and give him five. That was pretty much all she could talk about the rest of the day.

I'm so glad we went. It was a tons of fun, turned a bad start to a day into a good one and we even managed to get this half-decent family photo of all four of us (thanks, Emily!).

Happy Halloween!

We took Allison trick-or-treating at the mall. She LOVED picking up the candy and putting it in her little pumpkin bucket and, even though she was very tired, she had a blast!

Once she got a few peices of candy she thought she was done... she wanted to sit down and play with her bucket and two peices of candy. It was too cute.

She also loved that she managed to get her hands on a sucker, get it open and eat most of the way through it. Mmmm... yummy mess for mommy and daddy to clean up!

Happy Halloween! Hope you had a fun and safe one!

Fun Fall Adventures

This week we thought we'd take advantage of the season and, heaven forbid, actually do something fun! We went to Hee Haws Farms & Corn Maze Monday night and had a good time as a family. Allison LOVED the big tall slide and thought that getting to pet the animals was so much fun. She also thought that the hay bale maze was so fun to run around in.

Yeah for the mini-maze! It was so fun to run in the straw!

This is my favorite pumpkin! I tried to pick it up, but it was too big!

What on earth did they put me in?

The tractor ride with mommy was kind of fun.

But the slide with daddy was more fun!

And getting to touch the cows was so cool!

And I got to ride a pony! What a fun day!