The Easter Bunny & another week of milestones!

The Easter Bunny made his very first visit to our home this year. He left McKinley a pack of big, fun beads, a sweet little snowglobe with an Easter Chick inside and a fuzzy little tiny, wind-up, hopping chick in this precious little baby-boy basket!

He's a good bunny.

McKinley LOVES the big beads, but he really liked chewing on his Baby's 1st Easter card the most. Hahahaha.
This year we packed up the suv and headed down to visit with Grandma & Grandpa, Uncle Mike & Aunt Lorie and those big-boy cousins.

I truly can't remember a better holiday for me. There for a while the holidays were a real bummer for me, personally, after losing Dad and stuff. This year, WHOA BOY! I loved seeing our nephews with McKinley, being with all of my inlaws and having my Mom there with us too.
At one point, I looked outside and saw Cary and his brother, Michael playing with Logan and Mason in the front yard of my Mother & Father-in-law's home. I was holding McKinley and could barely contain myself when I thought...ya know, little boy, you'll be right out there with them next year! That'll be a sight!

Later, Grandpa took McKinley out (bundled in his EASTER BUNNY outfit!) to be Logan and Mason's mascot for their impromptu basketball game. I think Logan said they were the Blue Bunnies! TOO CUTE!

I had fun taking pictures while my sister-in-law, Lori proved that she is definitely the 'baller' of the fam. LOVE IT. I guess I'm gonna have to tuff it up a little...not be so afraid to mess up my hair or something with all these boys in my life. Hahahaha. I KNOW everyone of you who really knows me is currently laughing your butts off at the sheer image of ME out there playing BASKETBALL. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what if I'd rather go shopping. I'm learning to be versatile! Cary keeps up with the gentle, encouraging reminders that we do, in fact have a B-O-Y. Tuff en' up a little, girl! ;-)

So...Easter was great!

I think Cary's and my highlight was when Grandpa escorted our little bunny on his very first egg hunt. He ended up scoring some cash in the two eggs he picked up. Nice!

I love this picture. He was so excited.

Okay, down to some serious baby business...

Da da da daaaaaahhhh!!!

We've got a crawler!

I can't believe it. Time to put the crystal up...omg, I NEVER thought I'd have to do that. Oh well, it'll be just as pretty in the dining room, where I can 'rope it off', so to speak.

On Wednesday, McKinley decided he'd had enough of the army crawling and enough of the up-on-all-fours rocking trick. He did a 'real' crawl. He's not doing it all the time, in fact he has really honed his army crawl skills and is even faster now. Gotta keep our eyes on him at all times, so do the cats. He's quick!

I hope to upload a video of our crawlin' boy very soon. Check back with us!

Also on the milestone list...as I've mentioned in previous posts McKinley has really got Mama, Dada and Oh! down quite well - and the Baby Idol singing, of course. Last night he added a new consonant to his repetoire: Baba. It is so cute to see him say it because he can't stop smiling as he's talking! When he woke up this morning, he looked right at me and said, 'Baba!' Like, "Look, Ma! I remember!" What a sweetie.

So, another fun one we've started is a little wave. He usually does this when he wants something, so he's not like, arm in the air, hey, there, how ya doin' kind of wave, but he's getting there.

But my very favorite new thing of McKinley's is his kiss. OH. MY. GOSH. Words cannot even begin to express how it feels to get a big ol' slobbery kiss from our child. We'll say, 'Give me a kiss' and he'll grab our faces, or hair (an OUCH that is so totally worth it) and pull our face into his and SMACK! We get kissed! It's precious.

I think we are really seeing more of his personality come out, I love it.

Here, McKinley makes his first official basket. Future Indiana Hoosier, baby!

And McKinley admires his big-boy cousins with Grandpa and Aunt Lori during the 'game'.

Can't wait to share his next big tricks.

Have a great weekend!

Lynn

Spring has sprung...well, maybe.

I am so glad it is almost officially spring! We had such a lovely taste of that weather for a few days, and now it is cold and yucky and rainy. BLAH! Oh well, Easter is this weekend so Spring is almost here and we can't wait to get outside.

Last week McKinley turned 8 months old. We always take a picture of him on his 'month' birthdays, this month though we were all pretty exhausted from a busy night. So, this was a pretty relaxed picture...post bath, as we were rocking and listening to the lullaby cd getting ready for bed...hence the paci in the pic.

I can't believe we are so close to the one year mark now. He has made so many awesome changes again. He will give five on command, which nearly put an older gentleman at Subway on his knees last weekend. Evidently he was missing his grandchildren at the time so he came over to our table with his wife to chat and visit McKinley, who immediately took to him. He asked if he could hold his hand...normally this isn't cool, the whole stranger-danger-touchy thing, but he seemed so heartfelt that I said okay (knowing I had plenty of wipes and antibacterial lotion to mop us down with afterward...OCD, I know, can't help it). I told McKinley to give him five, which he did with panache and that giant gummy grin. The man had to step away because he was so overcome with emotion. His wife just oohed and ahhed and thanked us. For what? Anyway, the man said his birthday was this Tuesday and that this truly made his day. I was touched.

McKinley also recognizes his pictures as 'baby' and when we ask, "Where's the baby?" he looks right at his pictures and laughs. He knows Gunther's nickname 'goo', when we ask, 'Where is Goo?' The word association thing is pretty cool.

He's a real army-crawler now, and he can spin on his belly like no body's business. He's pretty fast at it too. He's pulling up on all four's and ready to go...and he WILL go, when he's ready! lol In the meantime, rolling and spinning and crawling like there's something 'INCOMING!!!!' is just fine with him.

Oh, and if you call us on the phone...I apologize in advance for the loud button-pushing and 'Ohhh's! you will no doubt be subjected to. NEVER have I seen a child get so flipping excited over someone or something as McKinley does when he sees our cats, Mom's dog or any of our phones. He cannot control himself and will scratch, claw, climb and gnaw his way up to those buttons and lights! And the amazing sound of voices through the little holes is MESMERIZING! If only Mommy and Daddy would let him chew on that cushy antenna, he just KNOWS its a teether.

I'm sure the next month will be full of exciting changes for us, check back for updates!

We had a very busy week last week, but loads of fun. Diane came over for a visit, so we all had a nice lunch at Mom's. It was great!
My sorority chapter hosted a fund-raiser night at our local Beef O'Brady's. We did pretty well, for the four of us who actually showed up to work! I'm proud!

Oh, and with being so busy I haven't even posted the pictures from the weekend before! McKinley's social calendar has been so full of birthdays for some of his favorite girls this month...Lila, Sara, Sarah and now Reagan! She turned two already! CRAZY. We had so much fun at the party. Here's Reagan digging into her cake and some fun 'kiddie time' that quickly went awry.

Check back soon for some Easter Bunny pics that are sure to be a sight!

Have a great day!

Lynn

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Here's our little leprechan wishing everyone a happy wearin' o the green!
We had so much fun with these pictures with Daddy as the 'prop guy', Mommy as photographer and McKinley as our model. He particularly loved the leprechan pipe and glittery shamrock.
Hope everyone has a great St. Paddy's Day!

Lila's Luau, Queen's Ball & so much more!

So many things have happened since I last blogged! I can't believe it has been this long, but with the busy schedules we've been leading lately...gosh...I just wonder how any of us are awake.

I looked and saw that my last post was on McKinley's 7 month birthday...guess what? He'll be 8 months next week, really. I also saw that I'd shared my beautiful Valentine roses, I have something wonderful to add to that.
To further my gift, Cary took all three of us away for the weekend to Keystone. We had a lovely suite, which made for such a relaxing trip. We did some great Target, Trader Joe's & Keystone/Castleton shopping, hit the FABULOUS Babies R Us (HUGE) and ate at two of our favorite restaurants; Claddaugh (YUM!!!) and Cheesecake Factory (DOUBLE YUM!!!). Heck, we even had the luxury of plopping on the couch to watch 'Superbad' after McKinley was tucked in bed. Oh, and yes...we did get Cheesecake...to go.
I think we all had a great opportunity to totally rejuvenate that weekend. It was so nice.

That rejuvenation, however was short lived. During that week, Cary played Mr. Mom while I was completely incognito. I had so much to do for Queen's Ball it was crazy. I hated being away or tuned out from 'my boys', but it was for a good cause. Have I mentioned that Queen's Ball was a fundraiser for St. Ann's Clinic for those in our area who cannot afford proper health care? It was worth it. Besides that, I realized that I do indeed want to pursue a career in event planning. I swear, its just in my blood. I'm assuming that God will guide me where I need to be and when I need to be there. But I'm very certain that I AM where I need to be right now. I'm a lucky girl to get to spend so much time at home watching McKinley grow into a little boy, and to get to concentrate on being Cary's wife too. I treasure these times and know that I will miss them someday.

Back to Queen's Ball, everything we planned turned out so beautifully, I hope to have some better pictures soon, which I will post FOR SURE! The photographer we hired was excellent...he did our engagement pictures way back when and totally came through for us again. I didn't even have an opportunity to take the first picture that evening, which was a disappointment but understandable. I'm relying on my sisters to give me some fun candid shots. In the meantime, I've decided with all the pictures I have to add and share, it will be so much easier (and more FUN!) to add a slide show...

I'm pretty proud of how everything went down. Our chapter played host this year and are the only chapter that I am aware of who had the honor of welcoming every Indiana State Beta Sigma Phi officer for this event. They came from all over the state in that LOVELY weather to be with us. We were also honored to have the head nun who runs our charity with us as well.
I gave a speech, well...two, I guess. I think I did pretty well. I thought I'd be a little rusty since I hadn't spoken publicly since last April. I'm satisfied with what I did. A friend of ours said she liked my speaking voice so much that she could listen to me and easily fall asleep. Hahaha...hmmmm...NOT so good for a SPEAKING voice, good for McKinley lullabies though.
I'm also beyond thrilled with the backdrop for the 'Queen's Crowning'. My Mom made it! Its gorgeous and everyone oohed and ahhh'd. We really pulled it out.
Cary was a huge help as well. He really did so much for McKinley that week and that day and even came up with some great last minute ideas during the evening. He's a good one to have by my side.

As you can see, we had even more fun the following weekend while visiting friends and a very special birthday girl.

In honor of Lila's birthday, we've put together a slide show of the day.
We had SOSOSOSO much fun at Lila's 1st birthday party. It was so exciting for us to see how McKinley reacted and interacted with everyone. It was his very first kiddie birthday party too! He was so good and I really think he had fun! We sure did. It was good to see Vanessa and fam again, it had been so long. It was also very sweet to see all the changes in our children since we last saw each other.
It is hard to believe that Lila is a year old...McKinley will be turning the BIG ONE so soon!
In traveling up north for the party, we again decided to make a weekend of it. It was another nice getaway, we enjoy doing little 'weekenders' like that.

I'm proud to report that Cary has a new route...and it is so much better for him! I know he misses his favorite old patrons, but I think he is enjoying this change of pace. He needed a refresher!
I'm also really proud of him for deciding to play baseball this year. I CANNOT WAIT to see this lefty pitcher in action. I've heard about his abilities and the fun he has on the field for so long, now it will be so nice to SEE it! Pictures to come, I'm sure! How fun it will be to take McKinley out to watch his Daddy this spring (with plenty of Baby sunscreen and hats, no doubt)!

Finally, I'll update on McKinley's amazing new tricks...last Saturday, amid the celebration, McKinley started teething! He's getting his bottom two teeth in, poor guy. He's had a few bad days, is not sleeping as soundly as normal through the night, and sometimes is a little less giddy but I think he's doing okay with it. We can't wait to see what he looks like with some chompers! Hahaha!
He has definitely mastered the famed sippy cup through all of this. We chose a sippy with a teething spout, so its nice and soft on his gums. Throw some ice cold water in there and he's a happier boy.

McKinley has added some vowels and syllables to his repertoire, it is hilarious to listen to his squeals of new sounds. Pretty funny. Also, we're happy to announce that McKinley will most likely win the new Baby Idol contest...as soon as Simon, Paula and Randy discover him that is. As we watch American Idol, on the floor with McKinley while he plays, he occasionally looks up to see who's making all those lovely sounds. He always thinks he should join in. We need to record it and send it in to America's Funniest Videos. It's something to see!

I think that is all for now in the crazy land of Vernon.
I PROMISE the next entry will not be so long.
I'm very hopeful that things slow down for us for a minute or two.

Have a great weekend and don't forget to turn back those clocks!
Lynn