Vacation!

Disneyland and California Adventure were fabulous! I took lots of pictures as usual, and will try to get more detailed soon. In the meantime, check out this little slide-show of Mackenzie getting her face painted:

All she wants for Christmas is a new front tooth?

Yep.. goodbye, baby tooth #4! She's growing up WAY too fast. Jane, get me off this crazy thing!

She has been playing with the new gap.. breathing through it, whistling, etc. I showed her how she could close her teeth with a straw going through the hole.. she thought that was pretty cool.

She has another loose one, too. She decided to save her Tooth Fairy dollar until she gets her next one and then she plans to buy the Barbie dress in the "store" (the 'Mommy subsidized' box of goodies).

I can't believe she's almost six!

Finally, the long anticipated Halloween Picture!

Mackenzie was Cinderella again for Halloween this year. She even wore the same costume! That's three years in a row (not counting modifications to make it fit).. how economical!! I don't know if it'll work next year. Maybe she'll get a new Cinderella costume or maybe she'll actually decide on something completely different!

Either way, she'll be adorable as always.

MIT, here she comes!

The 4th was the first day of Kindergarten. Mackenzie was very excited and had a wonderful time.

She's doing great, enjoying herself and staying out of trouble.. or she hasn't been "found out" yet. She likes her teacher and has a couple friends from Preschool in the class with her.

Not too much homework yet. They say it'll average about 10 minutes a night, but I think some of that is class work that kids don't get done in class and so far she usually finishes hers up.. unless she decides that instead of coloring the graph squares with one color, she's going to make each one a fantastical array of rainbow stripes. Gee, don't know anyone else like that. ;)

What is it and how do I defeat it if it comes for me??

Oh my.. Mackenzie has been drawing lots of pictures lately and having me help her sound out the words she wants to write on them. She's adding so much more detail lately! Here is my current favorite. It's a picture of "Scary Daddy." Everything is done by Mackenzie. I especially love the staring eyes and the jagged mouth.

Click here to have Mackenzie explain her picture: http://youtube.com/watch?v=X-yRttYUKnU

They're mostly of happy things, but I (of course) like this bizarre one best.

Hi Valerie!!

I hear Valerie is wondering why there aren't any pictures of her on here.. well I'll just have to fix that!

Here are a couple pictures of Mackenzie and Valerie from March in the grassy area. It was fun having Valerie and Maggie over a lot during the Spring months!

Doesn't this picture make you wonder what's on the ground in front of them? It does me, and I was taking the picture!

I really love the one below.. they're so fabulously goofy, aren't they? It was so great to watch them wander around exploring nature.

Come play again soon, Valerie!

Shameless Self-Promotion?

For those of you who haven't seen this yet, this is Mackenzie's 2006 music video.. made for the grandparents because we have more time than money:



We're going to start on the 2007 video soon. The song has been chosen!

Fun in the Park

With reluctance she stops playing to pose for a picture

This last Saturday (the 2nd) we had a fun day in the park at an SCA event. The event was on the local (province) level so there weren't a huge amount of people there, which was nice.

Mackenzie had fun running around all day with the kids. Someone brought boffers for the kids, which Mackenzie enjoyed quite a bit. I can't say the same for her victims, though. When she got a little bored, Mongo nicely took her for a walk.

Congratulations on being chosen as the new Bard of Golden Rivers, Emma!

Current Youtube Addiction

I've got a new favorite thing.. well person on Youtube. Isto. He's absolutely dreamy. Check him out:



Thank you, daixy!!

Falling Down on the Job (No Pun Intended)

Okay everybody, I'm sorry - I know I've been neglecting my bloggy duties and you are all update-deprived. I will try to update more frequently.

Let's see.. Mackenzie is really enjoying gymnastics. She had her "show day" last week, which was fun! This is the first show day since she moved up to the first "big kid" level. It was an hour and a half long!

We haven't developed the pictures or edited the video yet but we did take a few digital photos. This one is from the balance beam.

She occasionally got a little shy with everybody staring at her when she did her thing solo. Before this, show day pretty much consisted of all the kids doing the same things they usually do, just with family on the floor taking pictures, etc. This time it was one at a time for pretty much everything.

It's fun to see her skills grow.. she's learning how to do cartwheels and use a springboard to jump up high, then land on her feet on the vault/platform. She's growing up so fast!