We're Leaving on a Jet Plane

Hey everyone! I just wanted to update that Jason and I about to leave for the airport! We are super excited about our trip. These trips are amazing and we get treated like royalty!We will fly all night and land in Portugal around 8:30 am there Thursday. It will only be about 2:30 am here on Thursday. They are 6 hours ahead of us. We will spend 3 days in Portugal and then fly to Rome. We will be boarding a cruise ship there and cruising the Mediterranean for 5 nights. Then we will fly home out of Rome for a 10 hour flight back to NJ and then a 3 hour flight back to GA! It should be an awesome trip!

We had to say goodbye to our precious McKenzie yesterday afternoon. She will be with Jason's parents for this trip. She did fine. Much better than we did! She did not cry at all which helped me leave. It is just a long time...9 days! However, we are looking forward to some time together! Baxter left us this morning. Sweet Grandaddy came and got him. He will be staying with him and Granny for the time we are gone. Baxter was so excited to see Grandaddy, he did not even care that we were leaving!

We hope that you all have a great rest of your week and a great on next week. I'll update the blog when we get home.

Bye-Bye Inchworm, Hello Penguin

McKenzie is no longer an Inchworm in the church nursery! She has moved right up to the Penguin classroom. Now that she walks she is too grown up to be an inchworm! Today was her first day in her new room. She cried when I dropped her off but then she stopped soon after I left. When I went to pick her up today I was stopped by the preschool director and she handed me an accident report. McKenzie had fallen her first day in her new classroom and bumped the side of her head. She has a big bump. Poor thing...first day in her new room and she comes home with an accident report.

We are in for a very busy week! Tuesday, Jason and I have to take McKenzie to meet his parents. We are dropping her off for 8 days and nights. I know that Grandma and Papa cannot wait to get McKenzie for that long but Jason and I are having a little bit of a hard time. Eight days is a long time! However, we are very excited about our Mediterranean Cruise. We leave Wednesday! It should definitely be the trip of a lifetime. Jason's company really knows how to plan extravagant trips. We do things on these trips that we could never do otherwise. We are really looking forward to some great time together. It is also really fun to see everyone from years past and catch up with their lives.

We hope you have a Happy Memorial Day Weekend and a great, safe week!

Mom's Little Helper

Hey everyone! I hope you are all doing well! We are doing great. Time is just flying on by and at 13 months McKenzie has turned into quite the little helper!


She loves to help me cook dinner...

When she can decide what to make!

And she loves to fold the laundry or maybe just ride in the basket...

When we are in the laundry room and I have put the clothes from the dryer to the basket, McKenzie climbs right into the laundry basket all by herself. It is so funny! So, while I am putting the clothes from the washer to the dryer, she is siting in the laundry basket waiting for me to carry her to our bed and dump her out! She is so funny!


McKenzie had her first black eye this past week. She fell in the bath tub on Friday night and bruised right above her eye. It turned black and blue immediately and swelled up a little. She cried for just a second and then went right back to playing in her bath!

McKenzie also has her first ear infection. I took her to the doctor on Monday because she has had a runny nose for a week and I just wanted to make sure it was nothing more. Well good thing I took her, she has an ear infection. She never ran a fever and still has not. So, she is now on Amoxicillin for 10 days. Poor little girl! She is up to 24.4 pounds though! She is loving the real food!

That is about all going on here this week. I have lots of things to get done before Jason and I leave for our cruise next Wednesday. We will be meeting Jason's mom to get McKenzie on Tuesday and we fly out Wednesday.

We hope you all have an excellent week!

A Polar Bear...In Georgia?

I have to share what just happened to me. (It has been raining here all week and being inside is getting pretty boring!) I was folding up the blanket on the back of the couch and I just glanced out the back window of our house. This is what I saw....my first thought was A POLAR BEAR...in Georgia?!

Then I looked closer and it moved and I realized it was just the biggest dog I have ever seen. I went out onto the deck and zoomed my camera in as far as it would go. I was not getting any closer to that dog! He or She was HUGE!

This dog is bigger than the middle part of our gate in the back. Wow...what an exciting day for a stay at home mom!

By this time Baxter had seen him and was going crazy. He was in total protection mode! Little did he know, he would have only been a snack for this dog! Baxter stayed inside with McKenzie and me!

Worth the Wait

I just wanted to share with you all my Mother's Day present. It came UPS this morning. Jason was upset it did not arrive by yesterday. When I heard him at the door this morning I called Jason at work and asked him if I could open it. He said I could so here is what I found in the box!

It is a canvas of McKenzie's 9 month picture! I am so excited! I love it! Thanks honey, you did a great job! What a perfect Mother's Day present!

Today for snack McKenzie was eating graham crackers. She acted like she was tired of them but still hungry so I offered her a blueberry nutri- grain bar. She ate the entire thing! Look at her face!

She was smiling so cute, showing off her teeth, but closed her eyes!

A full little girl = a happy little girl!

Happy Mother's Day

Before church this morning we took a picture for Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mommies! Mother's day just has an entire different meaning when you are actually a mother. I have always celebrated Mother's Day with my special Mommy but being a mom, it is just even more special! I have the world's best mom and I am trying everyday to be like her to McKenzie! I see all the things that she does for so many different people and I just sit back and wonder how she gets it all done? I'll tell you how...my mom does not require sleep! God made her special and knew that she had lots to do so He created her so that sleep was an option. God had a different plan for me, I must get sleep and I must get it every night! So, thank you mom for being such a great mother, so that in turn I know how to be a great mother to my baby. You truly are the best!

Today in the nursery at church McKenzie made me a picture with her hand prints. Here it is! I scanned it in to share with everyone. I was so excited! It was her first real piece of artwork!!

Today during church we had baby dedication. There was a special bulletin for the dedication and there was a poem in it about children. It was so sweet I wanted to share.

THE GIFT OF A CHILD

God has blessed the union

Of a husband and a wife

With a beautiful little baby

Bringing joy into their lives

For children are blessings

Sent from God above

A precious gift heaven sent

An expression of God's love

On the foundation of this love

May this child truly grow

Discovering the truths of God

And to one day come to know

That Jesus Christ is Lord of all

And He has an awesome plan

A destiny only they can fulfil

As they take Him by the hand

And walk with Him every day

With God's vision for their lives

And godly passion to fulfil

The commission of Jesus Christ

By M.S. Lowndes

We went to Young Harris on Thursday and came back on Saturday. We went to visit Jason's family. On the way to his parent's house we went by Young Harris College! We love to go back there and walk on the campus. It is so different now. When school starts back in the fall, Young Harris College will a four year school. That is some different than when we went there. There were 600 students in the entire student body when we met at YHC! There are two new dorm and the little store and student center are totally different. However, the one this that stays the same is the feeling when you walk onto the YHC campus. It is just home to us. That is the only way to describe it. This was the first time that McKenzie had been to the college. It was fun to explain to her that it was were her mommy and daddy met. Not that she understood a word we were saying but we told her all about it! Here are some pictures from our visit!

YHC Sign

McKenzie and me in front of the Susan B. Harris Chapel!

Close up!

This is our brick! Jason gave it to me for Christmas 2006!
It is in front of the chapel! All of our classmates called us "The Loves"

because we called each other "Love"

McKenzie playing in the grass at YHC! She fits right in...barefoot!

Bye-Bye Ba-Ba

Well, it has happened! McKenzie is no longer using a bottle! We have gone two whole days with no bottle so far and now the bottles are in the basement. There is no looking back now! It is amazing how much room on the counter bottles take up. She has done just fine without a bottle or formula. She gets a sippy cup of milk before bed and if she wakes up in the night she gets water. She has done fine with this the last two nights! This has really helped with her eating as well. McKenzie has really started to be a much better eater. I guess her body is finally realizing that she eats during the day and sleeps at night.

We had a very busy week. Jason was in Hilton Head, SC from Tuesday-Friday with his work. He had his Presidents Council meetings. He was one of twelve advisors from the company to go. It was based on production for the year and he was number eight! While he was in HH I took the kids (McKenzie and Baxter!) to Madison. My mom was on spring break last week so it just worked out so well! We crammed so much stuff into 3 short days! One of the things we did was get McKenzie's one year pictures taken. For her last few shots we gave her a cupcake and let her eat it! Those pictures looked so cute! I can't wait to get them back! Granny and Granddaddy came to Madison on Thursday night and had dinner with us. Then they got to come and watch as McKenzie got her pictures taken! We also got to play with Uncle Steve. He helped give McKenzie her bath and rocked her for a while after playing with her. It was great to see him!

Today, Jason went to church alone. McKenzie had a fever through the night and still had it this morning. She got that MMR shot last Friday and her doctor told me she would probably get a fever from it within 7-10 days. So, she did. However, she is acting just fine. McKenzie knows that she will have to go to time-out if she touches Baxter's food dish. (Yes, she now goes to Time-Out! She has to sit on her flower on the dinning room rug.) So this morning she was playing in his dish and I put her in time-out. Some times she sits there real good and other times she just crawls away. Well this morning she sat there and I went back into the kitchen and just waited a second and then turned the corner to see check her and I heard her crawling just as fast as she could back to her flower! It was so funny! She heard me coming so she knew she had better get back to time-out! I laughed right out loud! Then she smiled and we went out to swing! She loves her swing...she spends so much time in it! She loves to be outside!

We hope that you all have a great week!