McKenzie

Look who we got to babysit! 

Happy Mother's Day

The beautiful creatures who call me mom....

Catch-up

It's Mother's Day weekend so I am catching up the blog with almost a dozen posts. Seems like I can only blog on vacations or holidays anymore.  And going through my pictures does remind me that we are pretty busy with life.  Meagan is finishing up her last few weeks of 8th grade before she is officially a high school student.  This school year has had its challenges both academically and otherwise so we are not sad to say goodbye to it and have a fresh start. She is enjoying art and photography and currently shooting a documentary about adoption in her media class.  She's also looking forward to being in the teen ministry at church and teen camp in Chicago this summer.  This is the first summer that we are not hiring out a sitter for the kids. Feel like we have reached a major milestone! Meagan will watch them for the most part- helps that I have a very part time work schedule. NiNi is really maturing lately, and getting better at relationships.  She has 3 little friends at church and the 4 of them together we call the 4 musketeers.  This will be her first summer at church camp which is a really big deal- 4 days, 3 nights away from mom and dad.  She assures us she is completey ready.  Her and Chris have gotten much closer since she started beating him up every night after work.  He comes in the door and she says "wanna fight?"  He takes off his glasses and they wrestle until dinners on the table, or until Chris gets tired whichever comes first.  We are hoping she will get her braces off in the next 6 months.  Her teeth are looking great, really just one gap left on the cleft side.  Amazing considering one tooth was twisted 180 degrees. Ethan is more than ready for kindergarten in August. We made the right decision holding him back one year (he is still a whole head smaller than some of the 4-5 year olds in his preschool class) but he's raring to go now.  In January we took him off the gluten free diet and supplements just to see what would happen with his behavior.  He's been great.  Still has his hyper-speed moments but for the majority of the time he is at normal active boy speed. Funny, I think that maturity just kind of kicked in.  He loves jigsaw puzzles and is now into Legos.  Not the Lego duplos, but the tiny big boy Legos. His train table has now become a Lego table.  It takes some good attention skills to sit and put those things together and he does just fine. Grateful it has been a slow year so far medical wise, which gives us a chance to try to get out of debt with past surgeries.  Main issue now is his ears. Still gets infections almost every time he has a cold, even with the tubes. Then gets yeast built up in his ear canals from all he antibiotic drops. Seems like just when we get rid of the yeast then he gets another infection.  Still does not seem to slow him down.  He started a dad's T-ball league at church and loves it.  Chris' strategy:  Teach him to bunt the ball because he is small and fast and can out run the other players.  Ethan loves being just like daddy.  Likes to put on his only dress shirt and tie and pretend to go on a "field trip".  When Chris works out on the elliptical, Ethan takes off his shirt and shadow boxes next to him.  Then pours himself a big glass of water because he has burned so many calories. He even likes to walk and hold his "coffee" in one hand just like dad. Dad has suddenly become so much cooler than mom:)

Feeding our friends downtown.  Ethan and Jacob helping to haul the food.

Ethan looking like a man with his Starbucks cocoa

Selfies

Handels date with mom

More selfies 

Funnies

I was running errands with Ethan and found an awesome parking spot and said aloud "thank you God!"  Ethan said very serious, "Uh mom...he can't hear you."

Meagan saw me reading a book called "Good Enough Parenting" and said "I think I want you to have higher standards than that!"

Ethan:  "Mom I have a story to tell you.  Once upon a time there was an old, old lady and her name was Jen..."

NiNi was trying to remind me of something that happened a few years ago and kept giving me hints..."remember mom...it was really cold outside...we went out to eat..."  I still didn't remember so she said in a patronizing way, "Well, that really happened"

Nini was doing some goofy dance and said "mom, is this the locomotion?" I said, "no." She said, "Well then I just updated it"

Ethan: "Can God fly?"
Me: "Yes"
Ethan:  "Can God move a tree?"
Me:  "Yeah buddy God can do anything"
NiNi: "Including end the world"

NiNi was throwing a fit about the flavor of her toothpaste and I said under my breath "someone is acting like a B-R-A-T (spelling it)"  She must've heard me and shot back "Someone else is acting like a B-U-L-L-Y"

NiNi: (Holding an Oreo cookie) Mmmm...sweet sweet revenge"

Ethan's 6th birthday

We had about about 25 friends over for a cookout to celebrate Ethans birthday.  Hulk cake, a couple games that quickly degraded into a food fight, and set a record for the most number of presents opened in under 3 minutes. Good times. All culminating in Ethan's very first non-relative sleepover.