First Wish

Last night we went out to dinner as a family. On our way back to the car we were passing by a fountain and I had some coins in my pocket. I asked Kenna and Kellen if they each wanted one to throw in the fountain and make a wish. Kellen just wanted to hold onto his coin....he had no idea why in the world anyone one would want to throw theirs in the water. Kenna was taking awhile and it was freezing outside so we were rushing her along. She paused for a moment, thought about something and then threw her coin in the water. She then came running to me and said "Mama, mama, do you know what I wished for?" Before I could tell her that you are not supposed to tell a wish, she went right on telling me.

"Mommy, I wished that we all could always be together."

She could have wished for a pony. She could have wished for new roller skates. She could have wished to go to Disneyland or that her brother would leave her doll house alone or that she would get a big bowl of ice cream at home. That is at least what I would have expected from a 4 year old wish maker.

She is a sweet girl with a huge heart. And she loves her family so much.

Moments like this make me feel like we must be doing something right as parents.

I'm glad she told me her wish. And I am so happy and blessed to say it is a wish I can guarantee her will come true!

Back to Life

I love the special days, the special events and "big" memories that are created. I love doing fun things, going fun places, having fun activities that stand out and that are out of the ordinary. But what I also love, even more that all of that, are all the moments in between. The regular, day to day occurrences. Those are the things, the moments that I really live for. I love every day life. Nothing quite beats it.

The other day I had to get up from the table to help Kellen with the potty. I had been in the middle of feeding Conner and when I came back, to my surprise, Makenna had picked up where I had left of and continued the job of feeding her brother. When I saw her she was so excited and so proud that she was feeding him and that he had actually eaten it from her and that she didn't even make a mess. It was so sweet. And hey, nice to know that I can call upon help in this department if needed. Of course now Makenna like to correct me on my feeding of the baby and tell me when I am going too fast or too slow. Silly girl.

Dress Up is back in our home once again in full force. It seemed to have been a forgotten past time for awhile. But the dress up chest was re-discovered. Makenna was quick to inform Kellen that there were no dresses for boys to wear. So he ran and got his Spiderman halloween costume, grabbed his special spiderman shoes and, somewhere, found this hat and got himself dressed up. Too cute.

Kellen is a silly boy. He gets attached to things and sort of obsesses on them for awhile. And then he forgets about them and moves onto something new. For 4 or 5 days his obsession was with this gift bag I got at a baby shower. He dragged it all over the house and even wanted it to be in his bed with him at nap time. I told him it couldn't be In his bed (I feel like we need to give him some sort of boundaries with his "obsessions") but that it could be By his bed. Once he had past out we found him like this. Poor kid! He just loved his bag. (It has already been forgotten now and was just put in the trash today!)

Rub-a-dub-dub....3 McKamey's in the tub!

My blue eyed babes.

Makenna loves giving Conner crazy hair in the bath. It is darn cute. And that kid does have a lot of hair going on (for a McKamey at least). I don't know that we will make it to 1 before requiring at least a simple hair cut.

Kellen and Peter and Makenna are buds. It is good to be having play dates for Kellen with boys now. He needs it. Even if Makenna and Peter end up playing as much, if not more than Kellen and Peter.

Such good brothers. Kellen, mostly, is so sweet and gentle with Conner. I love this picture bellow of them. Kellen was being so sweet and showing Conner how to use the toy. It was adorable.

Skater Girl continues to get a lot of good practice in. The girl can book it on these pathetic skates now. I am so impressed with her. She really needs an upgrade soon!

She's so flippin cute with her little thumbs up! Love her!

While Kenna skated and skated and skated, Kellen and I played with Conner and played some soccer for a bit. The rest of time he spent in the sticks looking for bugs, digging and doing whatever it is that boys do in the dirt and sticks. Silly boys.

"Grandpa and Grandpa"

The McKamey home has still not quite recovered from Grandma and Grandpa having to go back home. We had so much fun with them coming out here and spending the week with us. We are lucky enough to get to chat with them online a couple of times a month, but the kiddos love their Grandma and Grandpa so much and have so much fun with them. It is hard with them still being small enough to not quite understand why we can't just go over to their house and see them whenever we want to. Makenna gets it pretty well, but she still wants to know why we have to be so far away and why we can't just fly there any time. It's sweet and sad at the same time.

We really had fun while they were her though. We enjoyed a lot of time just being together, letting them play with the kids and have a good time. We went to eat at all the good San Diego spots that they miss and went to the Zoo one day. We really had a great time together and are already looking forward to seeing them again.
It was cute because the first day and a half Kellen was calling them both "Grandpa and Grandpa" (I don't know why GrandMA was harder to pronounce). It made it a bit tricky that day or two to know who he was referring to or whose attention he was after. I just thought it was the cutest thing :) But he figured it all out eventually.

This was their first time getting to see Conner in person and get their hands on him. Seeing them with him only further confirms for me that he definitely has McKamey in him. Conner enjoyed them and they enjoyed his happy, easy going disposition. He really is such an easy going little guy.

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for coming out here and spending all that time with us. You are greatly missed!!

Grandma and Grandpa's first time holding Conner boy!

Kellen and Grandpa enjoying a game of fishing.

Grandma and Grandpa did an Amazing job keeping up with these kiddos at the Zoo. I think I was more worn out at the end than they were. We had a really good time, despite the fact that Makenna got a black eye from being hit in the head by a bathroom stall door on her way out of the bathroom. And then about 10 minutes later Kellen fell down on the asphalt and skinned his knee and elbow pretty good. It all just makes for memories, right? :)

Kenna LOVES the Giraffes, or as Kellen calls them the "long necks"

I love this group picture. I had one with Conner in it as well, but there were a bunch of distracted kids looking at the waterfall in that one!

My little monkeys!

While Grandpa was here he did an Amazing job at teaching Makenna how to actually skate. Almost every day they went outside and he would show her the right way to shuffle and glide her feet, versus the chaotic stepping that she was doing before. She has continued to practice almost every day and is quite the skater girl now (she even wants you to call her "Skater Girl" and give her a big introduction!) I think she is ready for "real" skates now!

Grandma was a very popular woman on her stay here!!

Makenna wanted me to take this picture and post it on here for Grandpa. She wanted to show him that she still remembers how to crease the pages like he taught her so her book will last longer. Thank you Grandpa!

On Friday, Feb 11, we had the honor and opportunity to recognize KC through the Boy Scouts of America for what he did for Makenna back in July of 2009. In so many ways it feels like that day was only yesterday...the memory at times can almost feel as fresh and painful as it was then. But most days now it will just come to mind, I will remember how blessed and lucky I am to have my daughter here with us today, to see her smile and hear her laugh and watch her grow. It is always a good reminder of the important things in life. Shortly after the event, my mother and I filled out an application for KC to receive and award of heroism through the boys scouts. We found out that he was selected to receive the award and would be honored at their annual dinner. I had the chance to get up and give a brief telling of the days events. It was a wonderful moment to reflect again upon how blessed we are to have had things turn out the way they did and how fortunate we were to have KC there, following the promptings of the spirit and be able to do what was necessary to save her life. In a way having this dinner and watching him be awarded felt like a final chapter in putting this behind us and being able to leave it as a memory to reflect upon from time to time.

KC, we love you. You are a hero to our family and always will be. Thank you for sharing this evening with us.

We were lucky enough to have my mom, Todd's parents, KC's dad and Carolynn's parents at the dinner with us. It was a very sweet and fun chance to celebrate KC.

I love this picture. And I think that Makenna was as proud of the roses they gave to her as KC was of the medal he received!

McKamey's A Plenty

A week ago we were blessed enough to have Grandma and Grandpa McKamey come out and stay with us for a week. We don't get to see them as often as we would like, so our time together is something that we all cherish and soak up every moment of it. While they were here we wanted to get some nice pictures taken with them. As always my sis did an AMAZING job! We only had about 20 minutes to take pics by the time we got down there and finally found a place to park and we were very much racing the sun. Somehow, incredibly, we managed to get a number of great pics taken fast (which is quite a miracle working with 3 wiggly children). I love family pictures. They always make me feel happy and proud and blessed to look at what we have created together.

I had to crop the two of them in this picture because I thought it was just such a cute shot. Their relationship always amazes me and makes me smile!

The boys. I love this pic! I love all my men!

Grandma and Grandpa each with their grandbabies.

The girls. Hopefully some day we will have another little girl to add to this group picture....though no one is really holding their breath. I am very thankful that I at least have one beautiful daughter! :)

I love Kellen's little attitude in this picture. He did all of this completely on his own. A very 2 year old type attitude and pose, in the cute way. Makenna looks like such a big girl and Conner, well he looks HUGE!

So Much Bigger

It's funny to me how sitting up makes a baby suddenly look and feel much older and more mature. Conner has been my late bloomer in the sitting department. But a few weeks ago he finally got steady on his bum and is now sitting WONDERFULLY! This is a big relief, as it keeps him much happier and spares my back from much pain and discomfort during bath time. He's already reaching farther and farther for things, and I am sure that crawling is right around the corner. So here is my big boy! Suddenly looking much bigger vertical than the horizontal view we were used to.