1st Birthday!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY McKENZIE!

As most of you know McKenzie tuned 1 on November 19th. I can not believe it has been a whole year since she was born. WOW!! It is amazing to watch how much a child accomplishes in just a short year. She has gone from just laying there to rolling over, sitting up, crawling and now walking!! She has gone from only nursing to now eating her food by herself and drinking milk from a sippy cup. She has gone from only being able to cry to saying actual words. She can say Mama, Dada, TT (This is how she says Taylor), Gama, hi, bye, and if asked what a doggy says she will give her own rendition of "woof woof". She loves to wave to people and her new big accomplishment is being able do dance. When music comes on and she is in her car seat in the car she starts moving from side to side and dancing. In the house when Barney comes on or when you sing to her she will start dancing. It is very cute!

We had a party for her a few days after her birthday and I wanted to share those pictures with everyone. It was an afternoon of fun, good friends, and LOTS of chocolate cake....EVERYWHERE!!

The Theme of the party was first birthday Princess. She had her own Crown that was only on her head long enough for a couple pictures before it became something to throw on the floor.

My friend Carmel made the cakes for the party. They were WONDERFUL. Very pink and princess like.


The little cake in the middle of the table with the 1 on it was McKenzie's personal cake for the day. You will see the pictures below that this cake looks a lot different at the end of the party.

Here she is showing everyone how she not only can walk now, but she is a huge Oregon Ducks fan. GO DUCKS!!
McKenzie made her rounds throughout the party making sure she thanked everyone for coming. Here she is hanging out with Deanna and thanking her. :)


Oh man it is cake time. We have sang Happy Birthday to her and now it is time to eat cake. As you can see the clothes have come off for this little adventure. The pictures below show just how this cake adventure transformed.

Here is the final product of eating her own cake. I do not think she actually made it to the cake part...just the frosting....but she was having a blast! Grandma showed her how to put her hands in it and then Taylor showed her how to put her face in it. She enjoyed every last lick of frosting though.

After the cake this was the ONLY way to get McKenzie clean. And if you could have seen the path on the way to the bathroom you would have loved all the frosting on the walls and bathroom door. After the bath though came the time for opening gifts. This was not as fun to her as the cake, but she did enjoy ripping the paper off of things and then she was off to the next. Finally as the party was coming to the end you could find McKenzie sitting in her new Elmo chair and looking at her birthday cards. It was a GREAT party and appreciate all the help I got from everyone. It was nice to see so many people come and celebrate McKenzie's first birthday. Can't wait to do it all again next year. :)

Here I am saying I am sorry again for it taking me so long to get this blog out to everyone. I know it has been a few months since the last one. I hope this finds everyone doing well as we start the holiday season this year.

Well it is official.....Taylor is now a teenager!!!

How is this even possible????

And believe it or not McKenzie is going to be one in only 9 more days.

This does not seem possible either. Man how time flew this year.

She even has her first boyfriend. Well to be honest she has had this

boyfriend since she was about a month old. This is Zach. He is one of my best friends

little boy and we watch him a couple days a week while his mom is at work.

Aren't they cute???

Now if this look on her face does not say that she looks like she could
get into some trouble then I do not know what does.


Here she is sitting in the Elmo chair holding an Elmo doll.
Barney is her favorite by far, but in a pinch Elmo will do.

Halloween this year was pretty fun. The masked purple man is Bill.

We went to a party on Halloween night and this was his costume.

McKenzie was a duck this year. This was her first Halloween and
I am not sure she knew what to make of it. She was pretty cute though
in this furry duck suit.

Bill had to take his mask off for McKenzie though. She saw him with the mask on and started screaming right away. She did not like that at all. Without the mask she was ok though.

VACATION TIME!!!

For a wedding present in May of 2007 my sister gave us a WONDERFUL present of a week at Otter Crest on the Oregon Coast this summer. We went there and spent a week this month and I have to tell you it was sooooo relaxing and beautiful over there. Typically on the Oregon Coast it is windy and cold no matter what the time of year. The week we were there it was PERFECT weather. In fact one day I layed by the pool....yes I actually layed in the sun by the pool because the weather was so nice....and I ended up with a sunburn. We all had such a nice time. Taylor took her friend Leah with us so that she would have someone to hang out with. Actually it was more because that way I would not have to listen to how bored she was for 7 days. Smart huh?? :) They spent the days swimming in the outdoor heated pool. The water was about 90 degrees. It was awesome! McKenzie loved the water and decided she liked it when someone was holding her and she could dunk her own head down in the water and then lift it back up. What a clown she is getting to be. There was also a fitness center there and Taylor and Leah went to that most mornings and evenings to workout. I can not really tell you what was in the workout room because I never stepped foot in it. To me working out and vacation are not two things that go together :)

These first pictures are taken from the deck of the room we were staying in. Oh ya...the room we stayed in was HUGE. We had 3 queen beds and two couches that pulled out into beds. There were two full bathrooms and a great kitchen. It was a loft suite and the girls slept upstairs. They each had a queen bed and a bathroom all to themselves. It had a tv, vcr, and dvd player for them too along with 2 big closest for all the clothes they brought with them.....and never wore. Down stairs there was a private bedroom with a microwave, coffee maker, and mini fridge. Also downstairs off of the main living room was a full bathroom and a small living room with a couch, tv, vcr, and dvd player. Then in the main living area was a big living room with a deck, a couch, loveseat, dining table with chairs, tv, vcr, dvd player and fireplace. The kitchen had everything you would have at home. Microwave, toaster, fully stocked with dishes and just everything!

Okay back to what I was saying before....these first pictures were taken from our deck at different times throughout our stay. Can you say AMAZING??!!!

This is just McKenzie chilling in her bouncer in the living room at the coast. She really did great there except at night when she was unsure about going to sleep where she did not know were surroundings. She ended up sleeping on the bed most nights with either daddy, or me. All three of us could not sleep in the bed because there was just not enough room so one of us slept somehwhere else when little one here woke up and wanted in the bed.

These two pictures are of the private bedroom with the mini kitchen in it. Very nice.

These pictures are where Taylor and Leah called home for 7 days. This is what it looked like when they first unpacked. I did not take a picture of what it looked like on the 7th day. Trust me you did not want to see that!

Here is a great shot overlooking the living room from the loft where the girls were sleeping.

Living room, kitchen, and dining area. Check out the girls hamming it up for the camera. And Bill relaxing on the chair playing some motorcross on the xbox. Yep...he was on Vacation too.

One night Bill, Janet (Leah's mom who came and stayed with us for the weekend), and I went to the casino and left the teenagers to babysit. We came back and I had to take this picture before we woke them up. I guess McKenzie really wore them out. HA HA

Finally this is a picture from down the hill where our room was up to the top where we had to walk to get to our car. That was just part of the hill. Once you got to the top of this hill there was yet another one. When I said I did not work out during the week I forgot that I did because I walked up and down this about 5 times I guess, but it seems like I did it about 100.

I just want to say thank you to my sister giving us this wonderful present. We had such a great time and enjoyed ourself a lot!!!! Thanks H1....YOU ROCK!!

Lots of love to everyone from Kelli, Bill, Taylor and McKenzie!!

Happy 4th of July!!

Hi everyone!! I just wanted to take a few minutes and let you see some new pictures. I don't have too many, but a few is better than none right?


This picture was taken just tonight. We were sitting outside the karate school waiting for Taylor to be done and McKenzie was having a blast standing on my lap and trying to turn the steering wheel. Everytime a car would go by she would let out a LOUD squeal and start jumping up and down on my legs. I just had to get a picture of it! Believe it or not I took this picture with my camera phone and then sent it to my email from my phone. Pretty good picture for a phone shot.


These next couple of pictures are McKenzie with her "boyfriend" Zachary. He belongs to one of my really good friends Carmel. They are only 5 weeks apart in age. When you see them next to each other he towers over her and has a good few pounds on her too. I guess she is going to like the rough and tough ones. Shhhhhhh don't tell her dad!













Right before school got out for the summer Taylor had her Spring Fling dance for her school. She looked so pretty in her dress and shoes. This dress had glitter all over it and it got EVERYWHERE. I am still finding it in the truck. They do these dress up dances twice a year....a Winter formal and a Spring Fling. She loves them and always looks beautiful!




She has also been in the school choir this year. She loves it. The only thing she had not done yet was to get up and sing a solo at one of the concerts. This was the last concert of the year about 3 days before school got out. She did not do a solo, but she did a trio up front with a microphone. You can not see it in this picture, but she was sooooo nervous. She did great and sounded wonderful though! Way to go Taylor. :)




In May there was a really hot day and our neighbors at the time (who are now living in Portland :( boo hoo) and us set up 3 different slip n' slides in the yard and had a bunch of kids out there sliding down all of them. They would start at the side of the driveway and run, hit the slip n' slide and go flying. They were racing and having a blast. This is a picture of Taylor and her friend Leah going down the double slide together. It was a fun day.





It was the same night as the slip n' slide playing that Leah and Taylor turned our living room into their own fort hangout. They had all the furniture moved around that about 20 blankets and sheets put up so they had different rooms in their fort. Pretty cool!

These last couple pictures are of our cat Jenga and our dog Baxter. I am putting these on here for my sister to see. She LOVES Baxter and really wanted to take him back to Michigan with her when she was here last. He loves to cuddle with the cat as you can see. And Terri, I think he is giving you "puppy dog eyes" in the other picture cause he misses you too.











I hope everyone has a safe and Happy 4th of July this year. I will be sure and get some more pictures for all of you soon. :)