Handprints/Standing/Lake/Painting

Here's another bunch of random things lately.

Shortly after Rylan was born, Nick's parents built a new road on their business property and named it Rylan Road. I think I've posted pictures of him with the street sign before, but we have something better now! They poured concrete on the road so Rylan got to put his handprints in the cement with a 2009 penny. He didn't really understand it when we first told him what we were going to do, but he thought it was pretty cool and wanted to put his handprints everywhere.

Waiting patiently

Grandpa helping.

Sweet little hands!

Standing in front of the wet part on "his" road.

Mackenzie seems to be standing more than sitting lately. She will crawl over to anything and stand up next to it to get a better view of what's up there.

We had a wonderful time at the lake last weekend, but I was bad and only took one picture! Rylan went tubing, Mackenzie got to "swim" in the baby pool, and we had quite the collection of caterpillars by Sunday afternoon.

Rylan got this paint set from Aunt Rach for his birthday and I finally remembered to get it out so he could paint outside. He had a blast and Mackenzie just jumped, smiled, and watched.

So Sweet

Kids (mine especially) are so sweet when they sleep, but I've never wanted to take pictures of them while sleeping for fear of waking them. Well, the other night, I couldn't resist. Mackenzie was all curled up, so sweet! And hooray, it she didn't even flinch! Then I went to Rylan's room and took a picture of him and he kept sleeping too! WooHoo!

Here is what I wake up to every morning, I love it!

Last night, I had to take another picture because she had her feet up on the bumper!

This past weekend was our city's annual arts festival downtown to I took the kids there on Sunday afternoon. The weather was beautiful and the crowds had dwindled since most come on Saturday, so it was perfect. Of course, we did the bounce house.

And my sweet girl, just chillin in the stroller.

On a rainy day last week, we went to the mall playground for some playtime. It's the first time Mackenzie has been there since she's been able to crawl and she LOVED it!

So proud of herself, trying to climb the stairs.

Rylan's Language

So far, my favorite part of Rylan getting older is listening to his speech/language evolve. From his first noises and "words" (what we're enjoying with Mackenzie right now) to his non-stop chattering we're enduring now, it's so awesome! I love how he pronounces words when they aren't quite right. He's just starting to actually say the "v" sound and it's making me sad. I like when the 'v' turns into a 'b'. Here's some of my favorite phrases.

"Mommy I lub you so much!"

"I gibb this toy to Kenzie"

"That's my faborite banky" (blankie)

"Hey, there's the ribber"

Another thing that I have loved is his use of personal pronouns. For a long time, he referred to himself as 'you'. Like if he meant to say, "hold me", he would actually say, "hold you". I'm sure it was because we would always call him you, so that's what he used. He now uses the word me, but I loved how he did that. He uses the word "mine" for "I'm" or "I" though, and I think it's cute. For instance, he'll say, "Mine go outside and play" or "Mine here!" It's just really cute to me. I hope I can remember how his sweet little voice sounds forever! We need to take more video of him.

Mmmmm...

I made a new muffin recipe today, wow, they are good! Here's the recipe:

Carrot Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins

1 pkg (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
2 eggs
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 pkg (14 oz.) pumpkin quick bread and muffin mix
1 cup shredded carrots
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup raisins
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup chopped pecans
3 tablespoons butter, softened


1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 12-cup muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray.

2. In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese, 1 egg, sugar, adn lemon juice until smooth.

3. Set aside 1/2 cup of muffin mix for topping. Place rest of mix in large bowl. Add remaining egg, carrots, milk, raisins and oil. Stir until well blended.

4. Fill each muffin cup with 1/4 cup of batter. Spoon 1 heaping tablespoon of cream cheese mixture over top of each muffin.

5. In a small bowl, combine reserved muffin mix, pecans, and butter. Mix with fork until crumbly. Sprinkle evenly over the cream cheese in each muffin cup.

6. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and cool muffins in pan for 15 minutes. Gently lift muffins out of pan and cool completely.

The recipe makes 12 pretty big muffins, but you could do smaller ones and get at least 18. I didn't put the pecans on either. Enjoy!

Every Hippo's Dream

It's kind of a long story, but it begins that I've become addicted to going to garage sales. The kids and I went rummaging with my mom for a whole day earlier this spring and now I'm hooked. It's so much fun to find a good deal on something great! And it helps that Rylan loves going to "sales" too. He will find the toys, play with them nicely until I'm done, then he puts them back and we're off to the next one. It's great! Oh, and he talks to everyone about everything! He usually comes home with little toys we found in the free box, and they keep him busy for days. Mackenzie just loves to be outside, so she's a piece of cake!

Today, even though it was chilly enough to get the hats and mittens out, we rummaged for almost 4 hours. Mackenzie took her 2 hour morning nap while we were out and Rylan cried when it was time to go home. Like always, we went to a lot of sales where we find nothing, but it's still fun to look. We did come home with some good stuff though, mostly clothes for the kids and a few toys. One of the free toys Rylan got was a fast food kid's toy that was still in the plastic. It was a little figurine of Moto Moto, the smooth talking hippo on Madagascar 2. In a sultry, raspy voice, this little figuring says, "Wow, I'm every hippo's dream". Cracked me up the first few times, but then got annoying.

You're probably hoping this is the end of the story, but this is where it finally gets good.

So at lunch today (at home) Rylan, out of nowhere, turns to me and whispers, "Mommy, you every hippo's dream." I laugh at Rylan every day, but it's been a while since I laughed that hard! The best part was that he whispered it, trying to sound like Moto Moto, it was great! I wasn't sure if I should be offended or flattered, but it sure was funny!

11 months old!

Wow, she's almost 1! Mackenzie is still growing and learning new things every day. She eats like crazy and loves all food. She will eat everything that Rylan doesn't. Last weekend at Bakke's, she couldn't get enough beer butt chicken, baked beans, rhubarb dessert and ice cream. All her food still needs to be mashed up pretty good because she still has no teeth, but that's fine with me. I've heard that the longer it takes to get teeth, the healthier the teeth will be, but I never knew if that was true or not. I talked to our dental hygenist though, and she said the same thing, so hopefully Mackenzie has good teeth for life. At least I hope she gets teeth at all. I'm starting to think she'll be the first child to never get teeth. But that would save on dental bills too I guess. :)

Her newest thing is standing next to things. She will pull herself up to everything and in the morning, I find her standing up in her crib, it's the cutest thing! She loves all toys and will crawl pretty quickly to get to her favorite ones. She also loves any kind of jewelry, which is why I never wear necklaces any more. If someone is wearing jewelry, she is drawn right to it, trying to get it in her mouth. Everything goes in her mouth, but especially jewelry or other sparkly/shiny things.

Here are some 11 months photos. She's still just a long skinny-mini!

Oh Yeah!

We officially have a crawler in our house! She's been scooting/doing the army crawl for about a month now, but just today she's been up on hands and knees the whole time. Now she's really getting fast!