Sunshine + Park = Fun

It was a beautiful day today.  After the girls got out of school we headed to the park for some much needed sunshine.  We ended up staying for 2 hours.  It was so fun watching the girls run, climb and play while I tested out my new lens on my camera.  We also ran into some friends from school, while the kids played I visited with the moms.  It was a great day at the park. 

Look how big my once little McKenzie is getting.  I remember when she couldn't reach any of the toys on the play set and I would have to help her on everything. 

Both girls just took off on the monkey bars and both came home with soar hands.  I remember those days. 

Our girls call this the Eagles nest.  This is the largest Eagles nest I have ever seen.  Both girls took off for the top.  McKenzie didn't quit make it, but Brooklyn did.  Brooklyn has always been our little monkey. 

It's Snowing!

We haven't had much snow this year.  This is the second  real snow storm of the year.  I can't believe we haven't had more.  I thought with us moving to South Dakota we would have a horrible winter, but this year has been really mind.  Ryan has been really lucky an has been able to keep the project moving forward.  I'm curious to see what kind of spring we have. 

I love it when it snows like this.  I just want to snuggle up in my blanket and watch out the window. 

McKenzie's 7th Birthday

Happy Birthday to our beautiful McKenzie.  For McKenzie's birthday she wanted to go to the Sertoma Butterfly House, Texas Road House and open presents at her House.  Things didn't work out as planned but we made the best of it.  We had planned to go to celebrate McKenzie's birthday on Saturday, but during the night Ryan got really sick, so we had to change things up a bit.  The girls and I still got ready and went to the Butterfly House while Ryan stayed home and slept.  We had a great time and saw some really beautiful butterflies.  The girls were also able to do a fish craft while we were there.  When we got home Ryan was still not feeling well, so we decided that we would not go to dinner and wait until he was feeling better.  I ended up taking the girls to Toys R Us and let McKenzie spend some of her birthday money.  Later that night we let her open all of her presents and had Orange Sherbet Floats.  It turned out to be a fun day and McKenzie said it was the best day.  On Sunday her real birthday both McKenzie and I were starting to feel sick and by that night we both had a fever.  It took a week and a half to get everyone better and back to school.  A few weeks later we were finally all better and able to take McKenzie to Texas Road House for dinner.  

The birthday girl working on her craft.

Tha craft was so cute.  They had cut out fish for the kids to decorate.  They decorated them by rolling up tissue paper squares into small balls and glueing them to the fish.  They turned out so cute. 

Brooklyn deciding what colors she wanted her fish to be. 

The girls hard at work.

The girls with their fish.  So fun!

One of the rooms in the Butterfly House is full of aquariums.  The girls were really excited to see all the cool fish. 

The girls were so excited to go into the butterfly room. They both had their list of butterflies and wanted to see if they could find all of them. 

Brooklyn was really into finding a butterfly and then finding out what it's name was.  It was so fun to explore with them.  It's so fun now that the girls are older and want to really learn about different things. 

This is called the African Moon Moth. 

Blue Morpho

Owl Butterfly

Present time!  I can't believe how big are girls are getting.  I can't believe that McKenzie is one year away from being Baptized.  They grow up so fast.

Look who's 7!

It's so fun watching McKenzie open presents, because she really gets into it.  It doesn't matter what it is she gets really excited about each gift.  We got her a cute cowgirl outfit for her American Girl Doll, clothes and new journal.  She was so grateful for what she got. 

Brooklyn was so excited about her gift to McKenzie that she joined in on the excitement.  Who knew Zinkies could be so exciting.  It was fun watching the girls together. 

We are so grateful that these two have each other.  BFF's

This is the Journal we got McKenzie it says Little notes for the Big ideas of McKenzie Cook with her picture on it.  McKenzie loves to write stories about everything, she has journals everywhere, so we thought it would be fun for her to have a special journal from mom and dad. 

Our Special Birthday Girl!

McKenzie didn't want cake this year so we had Orange Sherbet floats. 

Valentine's Day Parties

Sugar, Sugar and More Sugar. 

 I was lucky and got to help with Brooklyn's Valentine's party.  We had tons of fun frosting cookies, playing games and making lollipop flowers.  I love being able to go over to the school and hang out with the kids when they have a party.  I did sneak over to McKenzie's class for a minute to see how things were going in her class.  McKenzie had fun munching down snacks, playing games and making chocolate kiss roses.  

This is what I had for the kids to do.  We frosted and decorated sugar cookies then the kids munched them down. 

This was the game the kids had to play. They had to see how many hearts they stack before the timer went off.  They got to keep all the hearts they had stacked. 

Miss McKenzie getting ready to make her roses.  She was excited to see  me come and say hi.

This is Brooklyn's litte friend Carmine.  Apparently they are best buddies at school.  Of course it's a boy. 

Baby Laynee

Congratulations to the Martin's

I was lucky enough to get to take pictures of Laynee when she was 2 weeks old.  I'm still learning, but it was fun testing out my lens and playing with the baby.  I also had a lot of fun making the baby announcement for them.  I love using my photoshop. 

Time with Dad

McKenzie loves to do crafts and loves hanging out with her Dad.  Ryan and McKenzie both love to build things, so they have started a collection of paper projects.  They have built a baseball field, log cabin, a castle and the latest a butterfly house.  Its been a fun project on the days when it's too cold to go outside.  

McKenzie and Ryan working on the log cabin.

The finished project.

This is the castle they worked on a few weeks ago.