Night Night

Mackayla has really gotten smart the last couple weeks. I have a calendar to mark her progress instead of a baby book and I have slowly been putting on the "firsts" stickers, but it seems like lately I have been putting on sticker after sticker. Drinking, waving, teeth, mama, dada, crawling will be soon enough (if she so decides she wants to). Tonight as I was taking her to bed I told her to say goodnight to daddy. She LOVES her daddy and she got a huge grin and giggled a little. Ben waved "night night" to her and she very animated-ly waved back and said "Ni Ni." This would technically be her first word aside from mom and dad. It was the sweetest thing. Definitely one of those rewarding, fleeting moments of parenthood (as opposed to the consuming what am I doing feeling. ha ha.). In all seriousness though, she is so happy and sweet. We love you!

Baby Battles

'Kayla bug is the latest nickname.

I like to think I'm teaching her how to eat.

But really, she's teaching me how she's going to eat.

Subtle difference.

She sweetly smiles as I get a spoonful of baby food. She sweetly opens her mouth and takes it, then spits moving her head from side to side. Still smiling of course.

You would think she would cry when I give her baby food. She doesn't care, she's just not going to eat it. She wants our food. She had cereal this morning with me. I was worried a little about the milk, but oh well, she had ice cream yesterday and seemed fine:)

Ignore the blue, she's a girl.

Also, she literally gets insulted if I try to give her a bottle not a sippy cup. And she's not real interested in nursing during the day anymore. And when she does nurse it's almost like a battle. She continuously reaches for my face with her hand and once she finds my cheek, lip, nose etc she grabs and rips as hard as she can. I have scratches all over my face from her lethal grip. She tries to rip out all my hair if it's not in a ponytail too. I have to be ready to defend myself!

I think she's getting even more teeth.

Cody scored again this week! I wasn't able to go, Macey had a fever, but Ben got to go.

Yesterday Macey fell asleep with a fever on the living room chair. All at once she shot up and said, "Fantastic! I'll have one of those." Then laid back down.
We have the "Amazing Action Alphabet" cd that teaches sounds to letters. At the end of each letter they say a word that starts with the letter such as W-wonderful, F-fantastic. Macey asks what every one of them means and lately she has been using a variety of those words. At dinner tonight she said "This is amazing." It's fun/funny to hear her new knowledge in action.

A New Favorite Recipe

Macey and I made granola this morning.

I approach cooking much the way one of the famous inventors (I cannot remember which one it is!) approached inventing. Try everything that doesn't work until you figure out what does work. Was that Edison?

Anyway, this was an incredibly healthy recipe from my mother in law, that I have very slightly tweaked because it was ironically too healthy. Yes, I graduated in fitness and wellness. Why?

Granola

Actual recipe:
2 c. brown sugar
1 c. honey
1/3 c. water
3 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt

I substitute half of the water with butter! It makes it taste really good. And after paying an arm and a leg for one cup of honey I had a hard time using it all for granola, so I used half honey and half karo syrup. Now this is sounding like caramel popcorn:) and it is as good.

Microwave in large bowl for 5 minutes.

In a huge bowl combine:

10 c. rolled oats
6 c. nuts and seeds (almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, flax, millet, quinoa, wheat germ, etc.)  (I use almonds, walnuts, flax, quinoa, and RICE KRISPIES, again, because they're good)
4 c. shredded coconut

Pour hot caramel mix over and stir. Spread over ungreased cookie sheets and bake 275 degrees for 30 minutes. Don't forget to bake like I have! Store in airtight container in fridge.

We ate it right out of the huge bowl together. Yum:) All the ingredients separately add up to a considerable amount of money, but considering how much a small bag of granola costs, it's actually quite a bargain.

Macey got dressed all by herself today! She has been capable before now, but actually doing it was another matter entirely-a battle I didn't care to fight. But she decided she can do it now!

Score

 There's nothing better than having grandparents visit, even if it's just for a day.

 Macey was so excited she was talking a million miles an hour all day. "I can't wait for lunch {breakfast} at the hotel. I love hotels. Grandma Bonnie and Papa Jeff are coming. When are we getting them...etc. etc." I'm sure Cody would have been like that too, but he had school that day! 

They slept at the hotel with them, their favorite event:) 

They treated us to Ted's, our favorite restaurant and Cody got to show his swimming skills. He can swim across the whole pool frontwards and backwards!

 Cody and Macey got some little seaworld creatures and cars and haven't put them down since.

Then Bonnie and Jeff headed out driving back Kevin's car for him. We bought it from them four years ago and now they bought it back. How's that for a trade?!

We do wish we lived closer. Just over a month until we are able to see everyone again!

Cody is loving soccer. He scores here (sometimes you just gotta steal the glory I guess:)),

and almost scores here 

and as for other big news of the month:

Mackayla got her teeth!!!!!

The bottom two

It took nearly a month of no sleep (terrible) and a bit of irritability (not too terrible) when I first felt those bumps on her gums, letting me know the fun was beginning

I almost lost my sanity a couple times (or was that from Ben being gone or me just being me?)

Either way

I am so happy.

So is Mackayla, she took two long naps today.

Welcome to Oklahoma

Last night at 3 am our neighbors knocked on our door. I answered and he said a tornado was headed our way so come over to the storm shelter. Ben was just pulling in from work. As we ran over there our other neighbor said "Welcome to Oklahoma." I feel like now we've been inducted. The storm shelter was small and with that many kids and adults, a little claustrophobic- and I don't usually get claustrophobic. All in all, not that scary because the weather wasn't bad and nothing got close to us. Tonight is supposed to be worse, but it's almost over!

Update: the next night wasn't worse, although we stayed up once again to make sure. They finally took away the warning/watch around midnight. Of course I checked a couple more times just to make sure:) but no tornados here! knock on wood.

Tornado Watch

We have tornado watches tonight, tomorrow and tomorrow night. Looks like another sleepless night! I have everything we need sitting close by and I'm staying up watching the news. They show it almost street to street so we know if/when to go. This seems even rough for Oklahoma, (as if I knew...) so we'll just see. Outside doesn't seem bad right now though.