Things that crawl...sort of

Mckinlay is turning into quite the little mover and shaker these days. She reaches and grabs at everything!! We were at the library the other day and it was all I could do to keep her from pulling all the movies from the shelves (I know mom! I think we might have a "Hurricane Meghan" Part Dos on our hands.) She now sits on her own and rolls all over the place. And yes, That is a puddle of drool on the carpet.

A few days ago I laid her on the floor and the next time I looked at her she had rolled over, done a 180 and had scooted backwards 3 feet. Watching her scoot backwards is pretty entertaining. She sees something in front of her that she wants and tries with all her might to reach for it and in the process, ends up moving farther away from it. She gets frustrated and starts inching back like an inchworm, bending in the middle and everything. She gets the concept of moving, we just need to work on her direction a little I guess. It's great. I don't know what Ty and I did for entertainment before she came along!?

Us gals are headed to Utah on Friday. We're pretty excited to get out of this wonderful humidity. I can handle the heat, but the humidity is like a sweaty slap in the face. Give me dry heat any day. Last night, however, wasn't too hot so we thought we'd open the windows instead of turning on the A/C. Bad idea. How were we supposed to know there was a skunk outside that had just skunked!? It was pretty potent, but it kinda reminded us of home. Who'd have thought there would be a skunk roaming around the middle of Brighton. Not us. But I guess that would explain why a fire truck pulled up to our building last night and why the fireman were poking around the fence out in back with their flashlights. If only we'd known before we openend the windows.

While Ty has been studying, I have had a lot of free time on my hands. Stay tuned for the next post where I reveal what I have done to fill it all.

Zoobalie-zoo!

We have decided we are definitely zoo people. This afternoon we went to the Franklin Park Zoo with our friend Anna and her granddaughter Destiny. It's not a huge zoo, but it is just big enough that you are satisfied only spending a few hours there.

They have a great gorilla exhibit! There was a mom, dad and baby (so cute!) and about three others there that all lived together. The papa gorilla was getting super protective of the baby and was running all over the cage and kept smacking the glass with his hand! It was really freaking out a bunch of kids. I though it was great! 'Cause usually the animals just sit there. It was fun to see them actually do something. There was one gorilla that was sitting right next to the glass! It was so cool to get so close!! But apparently not as cool as my huge sunglasses!? But the gorilla looks pretty interested in Mckinlay.
The zebras and the butterfly exhibit made her giggle and squeal with delight but I think the goats in the petting zoo liked her more than she liked them... And, this is a first for me, the lion was standing up and actually roaring!! It roared over and over for about a minute straight! I have never seen lions do anything but sit in the shade. I thought it was pretty thrilling!

I think we pretty much saw it all, except for maybe the Cookamungas...but we can see those when we complete item #12 on the list-- Going to the zoo with Ty.

Fun Times!

We had such a great weekend! Al came into town with her cute parents and Jessie. It was so fun to have her here on my turf! It was so surreal going to Target with her and having her sitting on my couch in my apartment!! We got to look around Cambridge a little, drive to the temple, run a few errands, go to Faneuil Hall and, most importantly, hit H&M! We even got to have Sunday dinner together with the rest of her fam! It was such a treat to be able to spend so much time together, especially with having to share her with others... I love you Al!! Thanks for coming to visit!!

Mckinlay has been such a champ! I've been dragging her all over the place this weekend and she has just been as happy and smiley as ever. It's so fun to take her out because everyone stops and stares and it's so fun to hear people whisper in passing "That's the cutest baby I've ever seen!" (I know, I'm a proud mother...) She is a real hit with the old crowd. There was this cute Grandma the other day that kept saying "I love you!" over and over to her. It was pretty funny. But can you blame anyone for being smitten!?Today we got to go to the water park. It is pretty much the coolest place around here and it's totally free! The water is totally clean (looking at least), they make little kids shower before getting in to keep it that way, and they even have life guards! We went for the first time last week with Kristen and little Emma (three different people asked if Emmy and Mckinlay were twins!) and went again today with Emily and Sam. I have a feeling we will be frequenting this park all summer long. There is a nice playground right by the water park and it is right along the Charles River, so it is pretty much ideal for a picnic. This is one of the many places that is on our list to come with Daddy after the boards are over!! The list is getting quite long, and if it is anything like lists we have made in the past, we won't get half of the things in (We've STILL never done this.)! But it's fun to try!

In honor of Father's Day, just thought I'd leave ya with a picture from Sunday morning. Our favorite time of day is when we get to play in bed with Mckinlay!

Happy Father's Day Ty! And Grandpa and Papio too!!!
XXXOOO

Scooper Bowl 2007

Ahhhh. Ice cream.This was our little camp at this year's Scooper Bowl. We had two people run and grab ice cream for all while the other two stayed with the babes. On one of my runs, I had four cups of ice cream in hand (to share of course) and some man looked at me as said, "Uh, that's a lot of ice cream." Yeah, yeah, like he didn't have a stack of cups in his hand.

Has anyone tried the new anniversary edition of Ben & Jerry's Fish Food!? Already one of my all time favs, but they added a little something special to it and now it is definitely topping the list in my book! Try it, you'll likey! There were some other definite goodies there as well. Häagen-Dazs has an excellent raspberry sorbet. It has just a little tang to it, which makes it marvy! And as Stacey said, it was pretty much the only "healthy" ice cream there so we had all better eat it. So basically I feel like I did something good for my body by finishing the entire scoop. But when we were ready to head home I think we were all feeling kinda like this and I think we had heard enough of the old man singing bad cover songs. Papio would have been appalled at his version of "Operator" by Jim Croce, I know I was.

We gals, and Pauly, all took the T down town (an adventure in itself--4 women 4 strollers and 5 kids) and Mckinlay, true to form, fell asleep on the way. But she might as well have slept since she could't partake anyway. Ty couldn't make it this year because of those dang boards he is studying for! Poor guy is studying his brains out. I feel so bad cause I know how un-fun studying is. Especially when the alternatives are things like playing with your daughter and stuffing your face with all the Breyer's Strawberry you could ever want (which in his case would probably be two scoops max--it clogs your arteries remember!?). But, I gotta hand it to ya Ty! Thanks for studying so hard! Mckinlay and I love ya and are excited to play with you in 39 days!!

Ahoy thar!

Avast, me harties! How be ye? Stop yer pillaging and lend me yer ear (That's right, that's pirate talk.).
Last night be our first annual "Talk Like a Pirate FHE" mateys! This is the third theme in our "first FHE of the month" tradition. We've been gearing up for this for a while 'cause it takes some studying to talk pirate-y! Good thing there are quality tutorials out there like this one. It includes such gems as "how to prepare your voice" because we haven't been exposed to salty air or prolonged alcohol abuse (well any alcohol abuse for that matter). And did you know there is an actual "Talk Like a Prate Day" day!? This is serious stuff, I'll tell ya! I first heard about it here. And don't worry, we know pirate talk can get a little salty. We just kept it to a lot of "Arrrrs", "Yo hos", "Ahoy thar mateys!" and the like. After all, this is an FHE activity!

We had pirate's ships, pirate's teeth and treasure maps for dinner and topped it off with some frothy spirits. And what would a meal be without some pirate's booty (chocolate coins and snickerdoodles) for dessert!? Yarrr!

We had a super fun night and it will only get funner when we have more little Jim-lads and Wenches running around chanting "Yo ho ho and a bottle of--milk!?"

i heart rice cereal

At Mckinlay's last doctor's visit, the doctor encouraged us to start her on rice cereal. So we figured why not? We both figured she would like it, but we had no idea how much she would LOVE it! Man, oh man! This girl is a munch mouth. It took her a few bites to get used to it, then she took right to it. She started anticipating it and would lean into the spoon. Now that she has been eating cereal for a week she totally knows what is coming and gets super restless while you are getting it ready. You have to keep shoveling it into her mouth super fast because if she has too long of a pause in between she freaks out because she wants more, and she wants it now!! But who could deny this face? I mean seriously folks.But now we've got a monster on our hands. She use to sit nicely in her exer-saucer or on our laps while we ate, but now she sees food and she wants it too. Every time you lift a bite into your mouth she follows it with her eyes and opens her mouth in anticipation and when she doesn't get any, she turns into a major fuss ball. Maybe we should have kept to her diet of milk and milk a little longer!?