Just cuz they're cute :)

I didn't realize I never actually posted this...so enjoy this belated post!


I love my kids. I know that I am very partial being their mom and all, but I sure do think that they are the cutest things ever! I love their smiles and dimples and blue, blue eyes. However, Miss McKenzie's eyes aren't as blue as Stevens and around the pupil are sometimes more brown. I kinda wonder if she's going to have hazel eyes. I have some new pics...and I think they all are just too cute not to share so I apologize for how many there are :)

Really mom?

She has started rolling onto her side and back again-she gets so close to rolling onto her tummy! But not yet. Soon though I think. I've also tried practicing having her sit up by herself but she hasn't mastered that at all yet either. She'll just end up leaning forward or falling to the side :) Sweet girl-love her so much!

I wonder if she's going to be as obsessed with her tongue as Steven. Tamar is always commenting on Steven's long tongue-it seems he has it out and up almost touching his nose all the time :)

Like in this picture :)

I love pictures of precious babies sleeping, especially when they're my own!

She has found her fingers and loves sucking on them. I have mixed feelings about that-however she does look kinda cute :) she's found her thumb and done just that a few times, but nothing has stuck yet, not even the binky. I still have to trap it in her mouth during nap times or it just plops out. I forget when they start keeping it in their mouths by themselves...?? I thought Steven had it down by this age but I could be wrong.

The other day Kenzie was doing tummy time and I was sitting on the couch watching Steven play with his animals on the coffee table. Kenzie could hear him playing, but not see him which frustrated her I think because she ended up craning her head enough that she slowly but surely moved herself 90 degrees to where she could see him! At first I thought, "hmm...I think she turned some," So I took a picture and sat and watched her and sure enough she ended up turning some more. Took a good little bit and as you can see from her expression in the last picture she didn't like it, but the above pictures were not staged-she moved herself! Crazy girl :)

Again with the sleeping baby. The weather has started cooling off so its so nice in the evenings now! Still muggy and hot enough to work up a sweat on our evening walks, but nothing horrible. We've started going out most nights to give Daddy a break and quiet time to study. McKenzie will sometimes take a little nap on these outtings :)

Got Milk? :)

How can you not just love this face? Seriously...he has gotten to be quite the handful and I'm not quite sure how to help him-I've been praying a lot to be guided on how to be a good mom for him and how to discipline him because what I'm doing just doesn't seem to be working. Despite that I sure love his amazing hugs, laughter/giggles, kisses, and well, just him! He's really not horrible, just two. But I get frustrated with these normal 2 year old and boy tendoncies and so really I'm praying more to be a better mom, and to help him. The other night during his night prayers I had the thought to have him pray for Heavenly Father to help him with these things instead of just having it be me who is praying for it. That next day was a lot better! He wasn't a perfect child by any means, but the spirit in our home was different and I felt like a better mom. I've been working the last few days and haven't had as much time with him so I guess we'll see this next week if maybe that'll help. Making him accountable and bringing his attention to a need for change might be enough? At least I'm hoping so. Our FHE this last week was focused on reverence in sacrament meeting. Steven has been a little holy terror lately and I don't know what to do! So during FHE we sang "The Chapel doors seem to say to me...Shhhh, be still" a couple of times and I told him that if he could be reverent and not have to be taken out of sacrament meeting that he could get a treat (or shh, shh, shh for those who know what that is ;) after the meeting and before nursery. Then the next day I asked him, "Steven, what do the chapel doors say?" and he said, "Shhh...still" and he said it in a quiet reverent voice! I was kinda shocked because I wasn't expecting him to remember, but he did! And every day after that I reminded him and reviewed what would happen if he stayed in the chapel the entire time. I don't know...this boy loves to have me sing to him and he loves his CD of kid songs and when we're driving in the car I'll hear him back there singing to almost every song. Maybe the way to teach him and to get him to change is through song, love, and consistency. Its worth a try I guess! Wish me luck!

His hair is getting long again but I love it. The other night we went to the pool when Daddy got home and I decided to take my Got2BGlued hairspraty and spike up his hair. It was pretty awesome. He wasn't wanting to take a picture unfortunately so this was the best I could get.

And how crazy am I? I read through a sensory thing for toddlers on pintrest and one of the things said to let them play with flour...so guess what I willingly let Steven do? Yea...he had fun, but I sure didn't have as much fun cleaning up the mess after it was done! Lesson learned: don't let him do this again unless I'm planning on deep cleaning the kitchen! :)

New Job, New Opportunities

Mike started in his new position today! Guess what its as? An administrator! Yay! I'm so proud of my hubby-he's worked so hard and was shooting for the stars and has obtained them! It kinda happened quick. This building became open, Mike wanted it so he asked his boss, Rick, if he would consider putting Mike in that building. Well...last week he came and said that he was thinking of doing just that and just had to work out a few things, so nothing official. And then this last Tuesday he said Mike would be going over for a meet and greet with the heads of departments Wednesday and starting Thursday! Mike of course is super thrilled, nervous, all of the above emotions you could imagine. We feel extremely blessed and are excited to start looking for a home now that we know where we're at! The building is only about 30-35 minutes away so we're thinking of staying in this area around family. I guess we'll just see what we end up finding house wise. So excited to share that information with you all when it comes :) To top all of that off, Michael got a new calling as early morning seminary teacher (starts at 6:00) and he still has to take his national and state test to obtain his administrator license. The first test is Sept 30th so wish us luck! He'll be getting up early for his calling, then staying late to make sure the building is running the way he wants, and then when he gets home he'll need to study for his test SO we won't have much of a Daddy for the next bit but we're still excited for this new adventure life has thrown our way :) Wish us luck! :)

Oh and on a side note...my last official day at work is September 28th! I had already given my notice before Mike got this new job, and now I'm so so glad that I did it! I'm going to miss my wonderful co-workers, but I am so ready to be done and so excited :)

These are a few of my favorite things :)

I love my kiddos! Let me just start with saying that...I still can't believe McKenzie is three months old and Steven is two! I did a little photo shoot with Steven-but it was with my phone so I need to do it again using the regular camera for better pictures we can blow up and not have them blurry. The only problem with the regular camera is the shutter speed isn't the fastest :( We'll figure it out though I'm sure :) Anyways, I still really like the ones I took one my camera. Hopefully we can get just as good of pics with the camera. I also wanted to include a few pics of little Miss. She's just too adorable! I love her :) 

We had Steven's 2 year old check up. Thankfully no shoots! I love those visits! :) His stats are weight: 32 lbs (90%) height: 36 1/2 inches (90-95%) head 50 1/2 inches (95%). Big boy! I heard that you can estimate how tall a kid is going to be by multiplying their height at age two. So going off of that Steven will be right around his Daddy's height of 6 ' 1'' . And now the start of the photo shoot pics with Steven! :) Can I just say I love my boy's blue eyes!

And some of Steven's favorite things: Animals, Cars, Toy Story :)

Steven is two!!

I can't believe my little munchkin is turning two tomorrow! Seriously, where has the time gone?! And I'm a mom of two now? Can you say crazy? I love my little dude...so glad that he joined our family and changed my life forever two years ago. (How many times can I say two? ;)

Steven's new love is Lightening McQueen. He's always loved playing with cars, but now the movie Cars and Madagascar are all he wants to watch. He still likes Toy Story but I think these two movies are his new favorites. We celebrated his birthday with Mike's family on today and opened presents. I originally was going to make alien cupcakes from Toy Story but at the last minute changed my mind to a McQueen cake. While looking for ideas online I decided to try fondant. Marjorie had told me about her good experience with it and that it was easier than she expected so I thought what the heck, I'll try it too! I'm so glad I did. It wasn't nearly as bad as I first thought it would be, but maybe that's just because I wasn't a perfectionist when it came to smoothness or whatever. I just like how I was able to get a crisp look and that it turned out just how I envisioned it to be! I think if I'd tried piping it then I'd have been more frustrated and disappointed. I think I'll most certainly will be using this again in the future! It made me feel good too when Mike's family all liked it and a few asked where I had it made or bought it from. They were probably just being nice but it still made me feel good :) anyways, enjoy the pics! And happy birthday my big boy! 

So it's all fondant except for his toy car on top of course :)

I also used the cake dish Mike had given me for Christmas and did a checkered inside to represent the checkered finish line flag. 

 

Eating some yummy "shh shh shh" :)

 

And the cousins

 

It was kinda crumbly but still tasted good. 

It was a fun night and our little boy was spoiled again with presents. Sorry I didn't take any pictures with my phone, just the regular camera, so I don't have any up loaded on the computer to post. But he loved them all and did a lot better ripping off the paper and getting excited and stuff. We gave him plastic toy animals that he already has gotten out and started playing with. My little boy has two loves it seems...cars and animals. Hence his two favorite movies I guess :) he has an animal book that he is always asking me to read to him over and over and over again! I'm so sick of that book and a bear book he really likes, but at the same time it's really fun to see him learn and how smart he is at remembering all the different animal names. I think he's going to be like you Uncle Trent! I guess we'll see if this obsession lasts :) we really want to take him to the zoo when it cools off-I think he'll love that! Stay tuned to see if or when we do! :)

Puzzles, Camping, and more!

Its hard not to love super heros with Mike as a daddy. Steven found this green lantern mask in our closet the other day and has loved wearing it since. We also put together this hero vs villian puzzle. Well, it was more me who put it together while I tried to keep him from stepping on it till it was all done. It was a 3D puzzle when you put on the special glasses. He got a kick out of it so I guess it was worth it- I still think we'll wait till he's older to do it again :)

I don't know why you can't see it as well here as on my phone, but the other day on my way to work I looked down and I had a little greasy handprint on my pant leg. Steven had eaten peas with butter while I was nursing McKenzie-then he came up and slapped me on the leg. I didn't realize it was such a perfect little print till in the car but it made me smile the entire night when I looked at it. Gave my co-workers a good laugh to :)

Steven got a massive goose egg on his head the other night. He fell/tripped and bonked his head on the Kenzie's carseat poor kid! The next day it had gone down a lot actually-but this picture shows how much it hurt and was only a few minutes after it happened.

Just a quick pic of our cute little girl-kinda blurry but still sweet :)

I have such sill boys! Mike and Steven were upstairs and I asked Mike to have Steven bring me a night time diaper. Supposedly Mike asked Steven if he wanted to wear the diaper on his head which Steven responded "Yes" and so this is what I encountered. Haha gave me a good laugh :)

The other day I was in my bathroom and I heard McKenzie's music thing going off. She was in the bathroom with me and so I went to investigate and this is what I found. Steven had climbed in and kept pushing the button over :)

Camping in Texas during the summer is impossible...and I mean that! It doesn't cool off here, well I take that back. In the mornings and at about 2 in the morning it gets to about 78 degrees, but the humid heat is not fun :-/ So we decided we'd have a campout in our play room. It was a tight fit but really fun! Steven was super hyper and kept running around inside the tent and jumping on the mattress we had taken in. We probably gave him too many marshmallows :) We'll thinking of actually going camping later, like in a month or so, when its cooler and a few hours away in Oklahoma where its cooler. Maybe then we can do a dutch oven dinner! We were going to this time in our stove, but I didn't think it was worth the heat. I hate cooking because of that! It makes our house a sauna :(  

Lovin' the s'mores!