The McKennys

Team Spirit Day

2012-01-06T13:27:00.001-05:00

Taiwan 2011, Part 2

2011-11-06T18:16:00.002-05:00

On Saturday, we took the kids to visit my family. My grandmother, Ni-Ni, is losing her memory, so she didn't quite know who we were, but she loved seeing the kids.

Later that day, went swimming. Everyone is required to wear swim caps. The kids looked adorable with theirs on.

Sunday morning we did a traditional Cantonese brunch, Dim-Sum.

Buns with red bean paste, radish cakes, veggies in oyster sauce, beef steamed inside a rice flour casing, egg custard tarts. Not seen were also chicken and corn soup, dumplings, meatballs, egg rolls. So DELICIOUS!

Taiwan 2011, Part 1

2011-11-06T02:18:00.005-05:00

After three airplane rides and traveling for over 22 hours, we finally reached Taipei, Taiwan. We had low expectations for traveling with a 4 and 2 year old, but it wasn't that bad.

On the first day, we took the MRT train to try to get to the National Palace Museum. We ended up going to the National History Museum, which was the wrong museum, but in the meantime we took some pretty pictures.

And we got to walk by all kinds of street vendors. Our whole family tried some Bubble Tea, which is Milk Tea with gelatinous tapioca "bubbles." The first few bubbles were yummy. After that they start to become really chewy and unenjoyable.

We finally reached the National Palace Museum. Taiwan has many of the ancient Chinese artifacts, so we learned a lot about China's history and art.

Drinks in the vending machines. Peanut soup??

Randomly, Taiwan has the largest collection of miniatures of anywhere in the world. As a fun activity for the kids, we took them to the museum. Pretty much anything, from tiny houses complete with tiny electric lights to miniature whisky distilleries, are on display here. The picture below is of a Gulliver display. The museum was creepy, yet oddly cute.

Halloween 2011 parade at school

2011-10-29T20:03:00.001-04:00

A peacock princess and a blue monster...

Fun in the rain

2011-10-19T23:04:00.001-04:00

Octoberfest in Reston Town Center

2011-10-11T08:23:00.001-04:00

Without kids for the day on Saturday!

Crazy Hair Day

2011-10-11T08:21:00.001-04:00

Last Friday was crazy hair day at school!

Starbucks

2011-10-01T09:32:00.001-04:00

Daddy and big sister went off to have a fun breakfast together. So Porter and Mommy went to Starbucks. Nothing like starting off your day with chocolate milk and a gigantic blueberry muffin!

Location:N Harrison St,Arlington,United States

Little Miss Independent

2011-09-29T21:24:00.002-04:00

Tonight, after Lilly "went to bed," she came downstairs to remind me that I had neglected to put stickers on her sticker chart. She gets a sticker for some good behaviors like "Being Helpful" and "Making My Bed." But tonight, the bedtime procrastination had gone on too long, so I decided that we weren't going to do stickers. It was way past bedtime, and she needed to get her little behind back in bed.

Ten minutes later, I heard a little voice, and she had come down the stairs.

Lilly: "Mommy, I did my sticker chart by myself. I put my stickers on it, since you said it was too late."

Me: "Oh did you now? What stickers did you put on it?"

Lilly: " 'Being helpful' and the '[Going to Bed] Not Complaining' sticker."

Me: "Wow."

Lilly: "OK, and I decided that's what I'm going to do. When it's too late, I'm going to do my sticker chart by myself. And that's how it's going to be."

I have to say, in some ways I feel good that she is learning to reward her own good behavior. Parenting success? (Ignoring the fact that she still got out of bed after I told her not to.)

Yummy

2011-09-10T17:11:00.001-04:00

Got a blast from the past when the Good Humor truck came by. Growing up in Houston, Texas, we had one every day. "Do your ears hang low" reminds me of summer days playing in my neighborhood. Not of ice cream though, since I was never allowed to have any. I always thought when I had kids and a house and an ice cream truck, I would let them get something occasionally.

Today when we heard the familiar melody meandering by, Lilly had a friend over and the sun was shining. A perfect day for some Good Humor.

Imagination

2011-09-09T23:54:00.006-04:00

Lilly has always had an aptitude for words. She talked extremely early, and is always eager to learn what things are called. She will often ask me to repeat words that I have said, watching me closely and repeating it herself, as if she is intentionally memorizing it.

She also has a unique way of trying to express herself even if she doesn't know how. If she knows what she wants to say, but doesn't have the exact vocabulary for it, she will creatively string other words together to express what she means. I wish I'd written a lot of what she has said down. Sometimes it sounds quirky and inventive, like poetry. Once she told Laurence he needed to replace her light bulb because it had "dried up." It's especially interesting when she talks about her thoughts or what goes on in her head.

Tonight Laurence was walking upstairs, shortly after Lilly had gone to bed. She shuts her door because she can't stand any light in her room. Right outside of her room, Laurence encountered this:

It's an old rocking horse that has been in her room since we moved to our new house last fall. Laurence was mystified by its sudden presence in our hallway, so he cracked open her door and asked her why the rocking horse was there.

Lilly's response: "Because I'm afraid of my imagination, what it tells me."

Now I can't wait until she wakes up tomorrow, because I want to know what!?! she means by that. Except I know she probably won't tell me anything.

Sweet words

2011-09-09T12:04:00.001-04:00

I got dressed this morning in sweats and a t-shirt. No makeup, but Porter, two and a half years, in his baby voice, still unsure of his words, toddled into my room. He looked at me silently for a second and said, "you ook... beau-i-ful... Mommy." I don't think I've ever gotten a sweeter compliment.

First Day of school

2011-09-08T09:31:00.001-04:00

Long time, no blog.

2011-09-07T14:45:00.003-04:00

Well, the last post was from 2009, and the most recent picture is from Fall 2010. Other than that, I've been doing really well with the whole blogging thing. Or not. But at least I freshened up the look. Will try to get some more pictures and posts up soon.

Yay for iHop

2009-12-12T09:13:00.001-05:00

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Campbell Dr,Fairfax,United States

Porter playing at the park

2009-11-08T16:44:00.001-05:00

-- Post From My iPhone

Fun on the swings

2009-11-08T16:28:00.001-05:00

-- Posted from my iPhone

Painting at Silver Diner

2009-10-27T18:33:00.000-04:00

I wonder if I'll be able to wash her hands over the next week.

-- Posted from my iPhone

Sunny and baby Hudson!

2009-10-19T14:32:00.001-04:00

-- Post From My iPhone

Shopping at home depot

2009-10-10T18:00:00.001-04:00

Thank God for dual steering wheels.

-- Posted from my iPhone

Porter almost 8 months

2009-10-10T14:34:00.001-04:00

Learning to crawl!

-- Post From My iPhone

Lilly at Marissa's party

2009-10-10T12:46:00.000-04:00

Lilly and the birthday girl!

Lilly and Jamison

-- Post From My iPhone

Liza and Baby Girl Elaine

2009-10-07T18:48:00.000-04:00

-- Post From My iPhone

Cox Farms

2009-10-03T11:19:00.001-04:00

-- Post From My iPhone

Susan's Shower

2009-09-29T15:12:00.007-04:00

A couple weeks ago I had the honor of hosting a fabulous shower for Susan.

Though I can't take credit for it's fabulousness because Megan, Lisa and Margaret did all the beautiful food and decorations...take a look!

They did a vintage "Cottage Chic" theme based on what Baby Girl DenHerder's nursery will look like.

Porter 7 months

2009-09-28T11:28:00.000-04:00

-- Post From My iPhone

2009-09-25T10:29:00.001-04:00

Dressing in "compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience" at God's Girls...

-- Post From My iPhone

2009-09-18T22:33:00.001-04:00

First day of school last Thursday!

-- Post From My iPhone

Porter, 5 1/2 months

2009-08-03T12:06:00.000-04:00

Pictures from Lake Anna

2009-08-03T12:01:00.000-04:00

Blogging on Facebook

2009-05-18T14:04:00.003-04:00

So I just figured out that I can import my blog to facebook. Which means I will probably blog more because now I won't be so overwhelmed with the amount of updating I have to do!

2009-05-18T13:33:00.007-04:00

We have been so busy the past month. Not that I mind, but it gives me less time to do things like blog. Since starting my job at the church, I have been working during most of the naptimes and evenings, which is usually my free time. But things have slowed down a little. I'm adjusting to my part-time work. And Laurence's company has found someone to help him and the new guy starts today. So that will help too. And Porter's slowly moving towards an easier nap/feeding schedule which will also give me more time.

Lately Lilly says so many funny random things. Now she tells Laurence, "Good Job, Daddy!" every time he parks the car. She is trying to do everything on her own. A couple of times recently she has even put herself to bed at nap-time. She runs into her room, closes the door, hops in bed and pulls the covers up. I know what she's doing because I see it on her video monitor.

She is obsessed with firetrucks. For some reason, we see them all the time in this area, and she gets so excited. She loves any kind of truck, buses, and choochoo trains. She brought LaurenceThe Little Engine that Could book the other day and said, "Read choo-choo train book, Daddy? Woo-woo!!"

We're trying out a trial membership at Lifetime Fitness and she LOVES it. The daycare is so much fun, there's a little play area with a slide and toys and a computer area. The people there will do whatever she wants. Yesterday she came back talking about the "water fount!" which means she probably asked them countless times to pick her up and let her drink out of the water fountain.

She is so sweet, she asks me for permission to do things. We went to the pool at the gym and she said, "Splash around mommy?" And she has gotten really into blow drying her hair. I have finally gotten her ok with shampooing and rinsing because she knows that she can blow dry her hair afterwards.

Porter is 3 months old and still mellow as can be. On Saturday we went to the park, and he fell asleep on the picnic blanket. I set him down for literally only a minute and he was out! I love cuddling him. And last night I fed him at 10:30 and he slept all the way until seven. I had been feeding him at 11 for the last feed, but I am slowly backing it up. My goal is to do his last feed at 9:30 or 10 every night, and have him sleep until 7, so we're pretty close to that right now!

Catching up

2009-04-21T15:00:00.006-04:00

Well I meant to blog on my birthday, back on April 10th, but then Lilly got sick. She had some bronchiolitis and strep throat. And then it was Easter. And then we went down to Lake Anna. One thing after another; we are super busy. So I'll try to give a brief summary...

Oh! And the big news is that I started my new job last week. I am now a Sunday School Coordinator for McLean Bible Church. I'm in charge of the K and 1st Grade classes for three services. It's a part-time job, and with the exception of Sundays and a few occasional weeknight meetings, I can do most of it from home.

Anyway, we had a great Easter. Lilly was still sick (actually she still has a lingering runny nose and wet cough and we are trying a new antibiotic). But Laurence's Grandmother and Aunt came to visit. Lilly dyed Easter Eggs with them and then they stayed to babysit with Laurence's parents. We got to go out on that Saturday night with some friends.

Then on Sunday we volunteered at Church and went out to Legal Seafood for an Easter Lunch. Lilly had a fun time with so many people to entertain and be entertained by.

On Wednesday I went down with Stacy, Jordan and Anna to Lake Anna. We took our kids so there was never a dull moment. But it was great for a change of scenery.

Then on Thursday, after we all drove back, we had a girls night in Alexandria with Elizabeth who was visiting DC. Elizabeth used to be in our small group and moved to Dallas. We miss her tons, but it was so good to see her. We had pizza at Gadsby's which was delicious!

Then on Saturday we tried to get some things done around the house. Actually I can't really remember what I did on Saturday. oh that's right! we took Porter to the Doctor's office. He has a cold but the Dr. said his lungs were fine. Then we went and had lunch at Red Hot and Blue in Falls Church...yummy!

Saturday night, Raif and Kate came over. We grilled out which was so nice. Lilly had a blast running inside and outside. She even disappeared for a second. I went in to check on her and she was coming down the stairs putting on some underwear. I looked around the house, put two and two together and realized she had -- all on her own: taken her pullup and pants off, used the potty, dumped the potty in the toilet, flushed, walked upstairs, put a chair up to her dresser and climbed on it, opened a drawer and got out a pair of underwear and put it on.

I was so impressed! She didn't come get help the entire process.

On Sunday I had my first day of work. It was fun and tiring at the same time. I think I will take a Sabbath on Mondays as Sunny recommended to me so I can recharge before starting work on Monday evening.

Saturday, Palm Sunday and Easter Egg Hunt

2009-04-07T14:38:00.004-04:00

On Saturday, we went to Ikea. What a great place to go with kids! It has huge parking spaces for families and little play stations throughout the store. Lilly loves it and now talks about "go to Ikeeeeaaaa?" all the time. We bought a wardrobe that will hold almost all her toys and my crarts/sewing supplies. Gearing up for Spring Cleaning! Later that day, we went to a park in Fairfax and actually jogged/walked for 30 minutes. We pushed Lilly on the swings and let her slide.

On Sunday, we volunteered with our Sunday School class like we usually do, but it was Palm Sunday so we got to take them into the auditorium and jump and down with palm branches. It was actually the first time I've seen a Palm Sunday service at our church. I was moved by it, because it gives you a visual for what it must have been like when so many people were so excited to see Jesus entering Jerusalem.

Later on Sunday we went to Liza's and Anna's houses for an Easter Egg Hunt. So much fun. It was the first time Lilly has done an Easter Egg Hunt. She wore her cute pink overalls that Faye got her and I got her a basket from PB Kids. She got all kinds of treats including candy, Peeps (which Laurence ate), stickers, play coins, fuzzy chicks, and a little froggie.

Porter Smiling

2009-04-03T22:19:00.002-04:00

Monday thru Wednesday

2009-04-01T21:17:00.005-04:00

Monday was a really pretty day, and instead of having Ballet with friends we went to Brandy's lake. By that I mean, Brandy lives in a neighborhood with a lake and a beach in Falls Church (who knew??). It was so nice and peaceful. Lilly was so excited to be at a lake, which she associates with my in-laws' lakehouse. She kept yelling "ooooh, Geese, geese!" She also got really excited about seeing "Wuceee!!!" (Lucy), Brandy's daughter, who is about 2 1/2. It was perfect; there was even a playset there with a "schwing!" I could have stayed out there for hours.

On Tuesday we had a playdate with Susan and Will (different Will from the birthday party) who is slightly younger than Lilly. It was going really well; we were upstairs when all of a sudden, Susan and I looked over.... and Lilly was pushing Will down the stairs! He tumbled down half a flight before we could stop her. It was awful! Both kids were crying (Will obviously was hurt, and Lilly I don't know why she was crying). He seemed fine afterwards, just shaken up, and slightly bruised.

BUT there were so many reasons it shouldn't have happened! We had a baby gate up there, but it had ripped out of the wall, so Laurence took it out temporarily and set it to the side. I should have been watching more carefully, but for some reason it didn't occur to me to be worried about the two toddlers running around near the staircase. And then Lilly started pushing boys last week. I don't know why, but she has done it 4 times now with different boys. First at Mainly Music, then at her birthday party and then yesterday. I didn't foresee the fall down the stairs, but I didn't really address the behavior other than telling her "we don't push".

She did get a timeout immediately afterward, and she had to say "sorry". And I've talked to her a lot about how to treat friends "nice" and to pat them and hug them. I don't know how much she understands about what she did, but I told her the next time she pushes it would be a spank. Now, I try not to spank a lot, but for direct disobedience and safety issues, I do. And in this case, it has become an obvious safety issue. This is such unfamiliar territory for me; the terrible twos came in with a bang when Porter was born, and this new aggressiveness is hard to see.

Today we had Small Group at Anna's house and I was on the sharp lookout for any more pushing, but I didn't see anything to worry about. It was fun to just let the kids play while we fellowshipped. I was so tired though, I had to drag myself there.

Not that Porter has been waking me up...he went 6 hours between feedings last night! He'd been doing 4 or 5 every night. Then he went to four. But yesterday, Susan gave me some great tips from when Will was a baby (more awake time in the evening, and tanking them up). I keep forgetting that Porter is an entirely different child from Lilly. He needs much more awake time than she did and it helps him sleep longer. He doesn't get overtired the way she did, and after over an hour of awake time is still smiling. He is smiling a lot now! I love, love his beautiful, sunny baby personality. He loves coos and tickles, I even got a smile on video. I'll try to download it tomorrow.

Lillys Birthday Party

2009-03-31T15:23:00.004-04:00

We had fun at Lilly's birthday party on Sunday. We threw a double birthday party with Will (another child in my Mothering Matters small group) who also turned 2 in March. Gymboree has a great birthday package where they take care of almost everything except for food.

I got Lilly's outfit off of Etsy. It was only $30 for an applique and personalization. I chose zebra print to go with the "Jungle Safari" theme Liza and I used for decorating.

Trip to PA

2009-03-29T21:26:00.007-04:00

We had a very busy weekend. Laurence and I keep saying how since Porter was born we feel like we've entered into warp speed. Every Friday we can't believe another week is over, and every Sunday we can't believe the weekend is over.

On Saturday we drove up to Mechanicsburg, PA, for the day. This is where my mom and my grandparents live. Coincidentally, Laurence's good friend from college has grandparents there too and was visiting them. So we drove up and stopped by my grandmother's house and then my brother's workplace, and then went to have lunch with Laurence's friend Zach. Zach and his wife Jaimie have a 3 month old named Jackson. We had to explain to Lilly that she was meeting a different Jackson from her friend Jackson who she sees very often. A "Baby Jackson." So she walked into the restaurant saying, "Where Baby Jackson?"

Porter got to meet his Great Grandma and Great Grandpa. Lilly loves seeing my mom and my brother. She calls her grandma "Mommy's Mommy" and kept asking to see her and "Uncle Richard" the whole drive up.

Here is a picture of my mom with Lilly. She gave Lilly some shamrock stickers which made Lilly's trip all worth it.

My Grandfather is a wonderful man and especially loves all children and animals. And instinctively, most children and animals love him right away too. Porter was a great traveler and like the mellow baby he is, just slept whenever he needed too the whole day. My grandfather said what a pleasant baby he is.

I'm sad that we haven't taken more pictures of Porter in these first few weeks, but I have to say that these weeks have been very precious. Porter is the most easy-going baby. There is no fussiness. He doesn't get overtired very easily, and he falls asleep very easily. I have spent so much time just enjoying kissing his head and snuggling with him. He is a cuddlebug and loves to be held. I just love his little fuzzy head and his sleepy face. Lately he has been smiling and it is so warm and delightful to see!

Video

2009-03-29T08:58:00.008-04:00

Lilly has lately taken to playing creatively with her Baby Doll. She runs off to find the baby whenever it is time for Porter to go in his crib. Then I hear her singing to her baby and putting Baby Doll to bed in her little crib. It is so adorable and I wanted to catch it on camera. She sings her version of "Jesus Loves Me" and the "ABCs".

This morning Lilly said

2009-03-29T08:50:00.002-04:00

We were talking about her birthday party that is planned for this afternoon with some of her friends and if she knew who was going to be there.

Lilly: Georgia? Is Georgia all betta (better)?

Me: Did you ask if Georgia's all better?

Lilly: Is Georgia okaaay?

I have no idea why she thought something was wrong with Georgia, so I asked, "Lilly, why do you think something is wrong with Georgia?"

Lilly: Georgia fall down!

As far as I know Georgia has not fallen down, but I thought it was cute that Lilly was so concerned.

Then a few minutes later she was sitting in Laurence's lap and she gave him a kiss on his cheek and stroked his chest and said "Daddy is so pwetty!" We laughed so hard I think she got embarrassed. (If you're reading this, Stacy, I thought this was especially funny since Jackson said the same thing to Mark recently.)

Favorite Outfit and First Smiles

2009-03-24T12:16:00.002-04:00

This is Lilly's favorite outfit to wear right now. It's a Redskins Santana Moss jersey/onesie and her ballet tutu. If she had it her way she would wear these two things all the time. Whenever I ask her what she wants to wear she says, "Wear football shirt??"

For her birthday we bought her a toy kitchen from Land of Nod. She loves to make us coffee by stirring her whisk and bringing it over to us to sip from the "coffee pot". If only we could get her to figure out how to brew and serve us actual coffee in the morning :-)

Porter started smiling the past couple of days. They are completely rare and unpredictable, but he smile huge and it is so so cute! We sat around last night after he smiled twice trying to catch a third one on camera but no such luck.

Today we went to the park

2009-03-22T21:13:00.002-04:00

Today was so pretty; the first nice day in a while that I've had the time to get out. We went out for a long family walk and took Lilly to the park. She loves to swing and go down the slide. And then on the way home, we saw five deer just grazing along the side of the trail. Lilly was so excited. "Deer, deer! Deer eating blue grass!!" I told her it was green grass, and she corrected herself. "Deer eating GREEN grass!"

Yesterday Lilly said...

2009-03-22T21:10:00.003-04:00

Porter was crying because he had a burp stuck in him. I was trying forever to get it out and Lilly was very curious.

Lilly: "Porter poop!"

Me: "No, Porter, didn't poop. He's crying because he has a burp and it hurts him."

Lilly: "Ohh. I'm sorry Baby!"

2 Years and 1 month

2009-03-19T14:26:00.005-04:00

Well I feel old. Porter was one month on Saturday. And Lilly turned two on Tuesday; I cannot believe she is completely a toddler and no longer a baby. She is talking in small sentences and wants to do everything by herself these days. "Lilly do it??" "All by SELF!!" Everything, from going potty to getting in and out of the carseat. I love the move to independence because it is easier (even if it does take twice as long!) with Porter. But of course, it is also bittersweet.

We celebrated her birthday with pizza and cupcakes with Laurence's parents and brother. "Granddad, Grandma, and Uncle!" She helped me make the cupcakes, and we made the pizzas from scratch with her Grandpa like one of her Karen Katz books.

This is a cute picture from my mom's group yesterday. Lilly is sitting with her friends Bradford and Rory. The kids were running around on the porch and sitting next to each other on the bench. I managed to catch all three of them smiling! Someday when they are all friends in high school we'll be able to whip these pictures out...

At home with a family of four!

2009-02-23T10:02:00.006-05:00

Porter arrived on Valentine's Day as everyone probably knows by now. So now we have a St. Patty's Day birthday and a Valentine's Day birthday. (Didn't plan it that way, but now that's a lot of pressure for #3!) He was a repeat c-section after attempting a vbac because he ended up being breech just like his sister.

He is doing so well. Our pediatrician told us not to bring him back until he was a month old. So now we are trying to survive the first couple of weeks as parents of two.

Lilly is so interested in him and constantly asks, "Where'd Baby Porter goooo?" She loves to help change his diaper and find his paci for him. Since coming home from the hospital, she is having some problems with temper tantrums that we haven't encountered before. There seems to be a lot of frustration in her and she wakes up once every night screaming and crying--tantruming in her sleep. We are trying to spend as much time with her as possible, cuddling and talking with her. That seems to help. But we don't give in to the tantrums; that's something that we're trying to nip in the bud. We've been trying to add some structure with time-outs, and that has worked a little too. It is very sad to me that she is no longer my baby!

We finally got her potty trained during the day a couple of months ago, so I hope that won't regress in the days going forward.

Porter is a great sleeper so far (fingers crossed!); he actually slept for 6 hours last night. I have to wake him up for all his feedings during the day. And we haven't seen any of the crazy wide-eyed alertness that Lilly showed at his point. But we've had some really bad nights because he has had some gassiness and wakes up every few minutes with his face all scrunched up, panting and letting out some toots. Last night I finally gave him some gas drops and brought him into bed with us. That's a big no-no, I know, but I was exhausted from the night before. And he didn't wake up until 4:30 AM!

Not sure why he's so much gassier than Lilly or maybe I didn't notice with her. (Since I had no idea what I was doing.) He's very difficult to burp, but swallows gulps of air when he nurses. Speaking of, nursing is going so well; even better than with Lilly. I followed the Baby Whisperer's nursing plan and switched to single-sided feeding as soon as I felt my milk coming in. There was very little engorgement and basically no soreness!! I am grateful that everything has gone so smoothly so far.

I couldn't ask for more than the wonderful family we have. Here's a picture from the day we brought him home from the hospital...

December already?

2008-12-04T13:40:00.002-05:00

I cannot believe how quickly things are going by. Thanksgiving was so much fun this year. We had Laurence's family and my mom, brother and grandfather over. We had a fun time making most of the food. I tried to do a "light" Thanksgiving with some Cooking Light sweet potato casserole which was soo yummy and everyone loved it. I will probably make it again for Christmas. We also had CL's sage stuffing and I got a pre-brined turkey from Trader Joe's. I'm sold on the pre-brined birds. They are so low maintenance.

Then the day after Thanksgiving we bought our Christmas tree at Whole Foods. That's where we got out tree last year, and it was beautiful and so fresh. Lilly has been loving having the tree. There are a few fun ornaments on it and she points to and talks about the elephant and the house. Sometimes she gets hyper and goes up to the tree and starts smacking the big shiny ornament balls.

She has been into little sentences and phrases lately. Especially possessives. Everything is "Daddy Shoe", "Mommy Jacket", "Lilly boots." She get so excited about leaving the house and says stuff like, "Put on bows?". Sometimes I can tell she has so much to say, she gets so excited and then it all comes out in a jumble and she has to start over and try to articulate herself.

Yesterday we were getting ready to go to our small group, and I put a headband on her with her pigtails (which I have finally convinced her to sit still for.) She touched my head and said, "Mommy wear headband?" So I went and put a headband on which made her really happy.

Today we went to a birthday party for her friend Liam who turned two. It was an Elmo theme, and Lilly flips out over Elmo. They played "Pin the Nose" on Elmo, without blindfolds, and it was so cute. Lilly kept asking for "Nose? Nose?" I think Elmo had about 12 noses all over his body by the time they were done.

We are getting geared up for Baby Boy. OK, well not really, but we are starting to think about getting geared up for baby boy. We have been so busy with the holidays and Lilly that we are waiting to get the nursery painted and Lilly's toddler bed set up. I'm a little apprehensive about that transition too.

We'll probably tackle those things in a couple of weeks. We're painting it BM Manchester Tan. So it will be blue and white and tan. With a few dark brown accents probably.

And tomorrow painters are coming to paint the powder room on our main floor (BM Poppy). And the ceiling on the lower level which has water damage all over. Yes nesting is in full force!!

Halloween

2008-11-04T11:00:00.005-05:00

We had a busy last week with four Halloween activities to attend! On Wednesday, we went with my small group to Sleepy Hollow Rehab Center to hand out treats and scripture cards to the residents.

Lilly dressed up in her bumble bee outfit. I was worried she would keep taking her antennae off, but once I told her she was a Bumble Bee, she got really excited. She kept saying "Bumble? Bumble?" all week and would constantly check to make sure her headband was still on.

There were some other very cute costumes there too! Georgia and Ella were a 50s girl and a pink poodle. Jackson was a dog (Georgia and Jackson's moms made their costumes!!). There was also a pirate, chicken, and a fairy. So adorable!!

Then that night, we went out as a family to the Vienna Halloween Parade. It was a big event. Laurence's company had a table of goodies all set up with hot cider, which was delicious since it was sooo cold! We had to bundle Lilly up, but she had a blast because she loved the parade. She danced and laughed. We kept having to run after her at one point because she saw some dancers on a float and she took off towards it and ran into the street. We think she thought she could just hop right on!

On Friday we went to Mainly Music where all the kids dressed up. They took pictures on the stage:

And then on Friday night, we went to Cherrydale Baptist for a Gospel-oriented Fall Festival. Some of our friends attend that church, and it was so much fun. Lilly got to collect treats and once she realized that she was getting candy, she stuffed the chocolate into her mouth as fast as she could. We ended the evening with all the kids running around high off of sugar, which was hilarious.

Iron Bell Farm

2008-10-20T20:08:00.005-04:00

I had a great weekend with my fellow mamas out in Rappahanock County. It was nice to have a little break. We went to a vineyard and walked around Little Washington. Mostly we talked and laughed. I came back with my voice completely gone.

It was absolutely gorgeous with the changing leaves. I am so glad I live in a beautiful state like Virginia!

When I got back on Sunday, Lilly was itching to go out, but I was pretty tired. She was persistent though. She tried every angle her little mind could think of:

Lilly: Go?? Go??

Me: Go where, Lilly?

Lilly: Car? Vroom-Vroom! (makes driving motion with her hands)

Me: But where?

Lilly: Babies! (this is what she says when I tell her we're going to have a playdate.)

Me: No, we're not going to go see babies today.

Lilly: (After a pause) Shoes?? Library? Books?

I don't know if she meant to put on shoes to go out, or if she wanted to go shoe shopping which we've done recently. But we had the same conversation today, and I've realized she has really learned a lot of words recently. It's very sweet to be able to teach her things and hear her little mind at work.

Fall Fun!

2008-10-13T15:13:00.004-04:00

On Saturday we took our family of five out to a pumpkin patch. (Yes, FIVE!) We were babysitting Georgia and Ella, so we took all three girls out to Burke Nursery and Garden Center and met up with their buddy Jackson there.

It was the perfect place to take all of them, and they had a lot of fun! We took some pictures of them playing in the giant bales of hay. There were also several giant slides, a tractor ride, a mini-carousel, and much more. Georgia and Lilly LOVED picking their pumpkins at the end.

We had so much fun watching them, and Lilly loved having friends come over and play all day.

Then on Monday, Laurence had the day off, so we got things done around the house, did some fall landscaping, and then I made an apple pie for desert. I even got creative with one of the pumpkins we brought home. (Yes, nesting is in full swing in the McKenny house!)

I was so excited to find large mums for $2 each at Merrifield Gardens. They were on the discount table, but they only had a few bad flowers on them, and I only need them to survive through November. And if they die, it's just $4 wasted. I love fall...the colors are so cheery and the weather is great!

Our day of rest and football!

2008-10-12T15:52:00.006-04:00

Since having Lilly, we've settled into a weekly routine. Mondays are cleaning, and we have various playdates and activities throughout the rest of the week. Saturdays are for house projects, socializing and running family errands.

Sundays are our free days where we don't schedule anything or do a lot of housework. And we can pretty much do whatever we want in addition to going to church and our volunteering. We've found that by doing this we have a very productive week and don't feel as stressed.

Our typical Sunday starts with breakfast. Today we made pancakes and eggs with real maple syrup -Yum! Then we run around and get ready for church. If we get everything done early enough, we watch the sermon at home online. Either way at 10 AM we head to the actual building for volunteering in our kidnergarten classroom while Lilly goes to the nursery. And of course after church, we have football!

Guess What??

2008-10-06T13:44:00.004-04:00

We got our 20 week ultrasound today, and our months of wondering have finally come to an end! We'll be having a precious boy in 20 more weeks.

Laurence and I are so excited. It's almost like being first time parents again, since everything is going to be different. I can't wait to get started on dreaming up a boy nursery!!

The best part is, we have a boy name picked out already, and we had no idea what to agree on if it was a girl. I mentioned it a few months ago on the blog...We like "Henry Porter McKenny", and I think that's going to be permanent. We'll call him "Porter," but if he likes Henry when he's older, he'll have that as an option too.

I think Lilly is going to be a great older sister. I don't know if she really understands what's happening, but I do tell her that there is a baby in my belly. And when I point to my belly and ask "what's in here?" she'll say "Baby!!" And I've shown her some pictures of pregnant women with a baby drawn inside. So I think she kinda gets what I'm trying to say.

Weekends at Lake Anna

2008-10-06T13:37:00.003-04:00

We have been to Lake Anna a few times recently, due to Laurence's parents purchase of a lake house there. It has been so relaxing, and we are looking forward to many more weekends there!

Girls Trip to Chicago (in August)

2008-10-06T13:28:00.003-04:00

In August I met up with some friends in Chicago for a girls' weekend. What a beautiful city!

First Night at the Navy Pier.

On our Wendella Boats tour. (Thanks for the tip, Layton. It was awesome!)

The "Bean" Statue.. I think it's actually called "Cloudgate"

Before dinner and seeing Wicked on Chicago Broadway which was so much fun!

Mommy's Little Helper

2008-09-30T14:54:00.004-04:00

Frying Pan Farm Park

2008-09-30T14:45:00.002-04:00

Burke Lake Park in July

2008-09-30T14:32:00.002-04:00

July 4th in Woodstock, CT

2008-09-30T14:26:00.002-04:00

RNC

2008-09-03T12:32:00.003-04:00

I watched most of the Dem Convention last week. And last night I was excited to watch the first real night of the Republican Convention. Both Fred Thompson and Joe Lieberman gave great speeches.

Fred Thompson is hilarious. Most of the news is focusing on his retelling of McCain's POW story or his attacks on Obama. But my favorite part of his speech came when he touched on the economy and the Dems solution of raising taxes. It's not nearly as effective typed up, but here's the quote. For the full speech, click here.

Now our opponents tell you not to worry about their tax increases.

They tell you they are not going to tax your family.

No, they're just going to tax "businesses"! So unless you buy something from a "business", like groceries or clothes or gasoline ... or unless you get a paycheck from a big or a small "business", don't worry ... it's not going to affect you.

They say they are not going to take any water out of your side of the bucket, just the "other" side of the bucket! That's their idea of tax reform.

We're pregnant!

2008-09-02T11:11:00.002-04:00

I don't think this is news to anyone, but I haven't posted about it yet. (Although I did put a ticker in the header.) But we are expecting baby #2 February 20th. We're very excited now that we are safely in the second trimester. Lilly will be almost two when this one is born, which is exactly the age difference we wanted in this family.

So far everything has gone very smoothly. And we will be having an ultrasound at 20 weeks in early October, and hopefully, find out whether it's a boy or girl!

July in Review

2008-08-01T13:31:00.003-04:00

I need to get some pictures off of Laurence's fancy digital camera. But we have been quite busy this past month.

We kicked off the first weekend with a trip to Woodstock, CT where we celebrated the Fourth of July with Lilly's Great-Grandmother McKenny, Great Aunt Anne and Grandpa McKenny. Lilly even got to meet her fourth cousin. It was beautiful and definitely worth the 8 hour drive. Speaking of an 8 hour drive, it was the longest road trip we had taken with Lilly, and now we feel so empowered to travel with her.

We've been trying to make the most of local spots in this area. We have been running miles in Alexandria and Fairfax, going to local parks and generally exploring Northern Virginia for all of its free fun outdoor activities.

We've also celebrated a couple of birthdays. Lilly's friend Ella turned 1, and Jackson turned 2. We went to Jess' baby girl shower. And the Nances' DR trip fundraiser at the Torpedo Facoty. And had the Griffins over for dinner with--Lilly got to play with Hadley.

And last night we capped the month off and went out to a reception for a friend's new think tank, and afterwards we went out for some Ethiopian food (see G&G for more on that).

Whew!

All that and the biggest news of all still to come...

Megan's Wedding

2008-06-30T15:51:00.003-04:00

We went to Norfolk/Virginia Beach over the weekend for Megan and Chris' wedding. It was beautiful of course. And our first time to leave Lilly overnight!

My first (and probably last) magazine cover!

2008-06-12T13:41:00.007-04:00

So this is really random, but I am on the cover of a magazine. It's Midwifery Today, which is not a huge magazine, but it's widely read in natural birth circles.

The background to this is that I posed for maternity photos back when I was pregnant with Lilly, and the photographer, Melody Yazdani, was contacted a few months ago to ask about using one of her photos for an issue cover. I knew it was a possiblity that I would be chosen, but kind of forgot about it. And then today, she sent me an email saying I was on the cover!

The McKenny Family Runs a 5K

2008-06-10T18:24:00.004-04:00

On Saturday we ran a 5K in Fairfax for the National Trails Day. As our first 5K (3.1 miles), Laurence and I were pretty excited to be able to do it. We did have to walk a little bit at the end up a few hills--because we were pushing a jogging stroller uphill. But our time was a little over 30 minutes, so we still averaged about 10 minute miles. The first picture is from before the race.

And the second picture was from after...we were dripping sweat, but it was worth it!

Baby Name Musings

2008-06-09T09:56:00.014-04:00

Today is cleaning day, but Lilly went down for a rare morning nap, so I am writing on the blog for a few minutes to take a break.

Many of my friends know I am pretty obsessed with baby names, so I thought I'd randomly share a few that I have been thinking a lot about if and when we have child #2.

The requirements for names are that they don't sound too low-class/trendy, you know with the weird spellings like " Ashlynne". I tend to prefer timeless names and rare traditional names. And I really like to use family names.

For girls, here are some combinations that sound really sweet to me:

Esme Louise
Sophie Louise
Alice Katharine
Alice Louise
Scarlett Jane
Emmaline Louise (Emmy for short)
Katharine Alice
Jane Alice-Louise, or something like that

I know-- Scarlett is up there with the trendy names, but I have always loved that name, ever since I read the book Gone With the Wind in 6th grade.

I love Esme and Sophie because they are both ADORABLE. But Laurence is not such a fan. Actually Laurence only really likes Alice, Jane and Katharine

Katharine is, of course, a big family name, and for a while it was out of the question because I thought I didn't want to name a daughter with the same name. BUT the unique (Baby Name Wizard says "Patrician") spelling that is particular to my family is falling out of use, and I don't want it to become obsolete.

Louise is a family name on Laurence's side which is traditionally given as a middle name, and I really like its traditional elegance. And I love, love Jane and how it's both simple and plain, and rare, at the same time.

Emmaline is the name of a character in the movie Anne of Avonlea which is so pretty. And I really like the simple classic sound of Alice.

And here are some boys names we have both been liking:

Henry Porter, not sure whether it would be "Henry" or "Porter"
Blaise Porter
Bishop Henry
Henry Bishop
Laurence Oliver "Oliver" (Jr.)
Henry Oliver

Ok, so not a lot of variety, but with the exception of Blaise, they are all family names. Henry from my side and Oliver, Bishop, Porter, Laurence from Laurence's side.

Our top choice is Henry Porter and has been for sometime. We don't know what we would call the child. I like Henry, but would never let anyone call him Hank. Eww. Porter is a pretty respectable sounding name, but sounds a little big for a baby.

Blaise is a random choice because I really like it's strong sound. And also I have always loved Blaise Pascal's quotes on religion and his conversion story is pretty cool.

OK, those are my top choices. Nobody steal them!

Just kidding.... But I would really like to know what names everyone else likes!

Momentous Occasion!!

2008-06-07T07:03:00.002-04:00

At 14 and a half months, Lilly took her first steps yesterday! Laurence grabbed the video camera and made a video you can watch here.

Catching Up

2008-06-03T12:24:00.011-04:00

Well, I haven't posted in a month, so obviously, a lot has happened in that time. Hmm, where to begin? My brother graduated college (Congrats!) and my dad came to visit and see Lilly for the first time.

Lilly is still crawling and cruising but she did take a step a couple days ago.

Laurence and I are loving this age with her. She is just so sweet and curious. Really she's just the best form of entertainment.

She'll has gotten into watching DVDs. Well not that she watches them all the time. But at home sometimes we watch a farm animals DVD that shows different animals and their babies and says what sounds they make. At the end of each segment, they say "Bye-Bye, Cows (or another animal)" and it used to make her cry. She would get very upset. And she would just bawl and then say "Bye-bye" while crying. And I would say what's wrong, and she would point at the screen and babble unintelligibly with tears streaming down her face.

We don't really know why she cried, but after she watched it a couple more times, she stopped crying, and now she says "Bye-bye, cows". She doesn't quite know all the animals yet. She thinks that a lot of them go "woof, woof" like a dog. Although she recently figured out "Duck" and "quack."

She absolutely loves bath-time and towards the end of the day will sign BATH and say "Baath...oom". I try to tell her "not until bedtime, Lilly". Once after I said that she waited a few moments and then came back to me and signed BED. I think she was being clever, trying to get me to put her to bed early so she could get in the bath.

I think we are just about at one nap. Her morning nap is lasting about 10 minutes if that so it seems to be a painless process to cut it out.

But she was pretty tired by noon today, and completely lost it when I took a Yankee Candle away from her. She knows that they smell good and she started pointing at it and sniffing very exaggeratedly (it was pretty hilarious) so I would get it down for her. But then she started throwing the top, so I took it away from her. She was NOT happy about that.

Here are some pictures I have been meaning to post:

On Memorial Day Weekend, we went to Shepherdstown, WV, to visit Uncle Nick. Lilly had so much fun trying to chase Grandma McKenny's Border Collie

Playing in a Fairfax County Park. We've been checking out various parks on the weekends. Lilly loves the swings and slides!!

with my Dad and Brother

And another picture from Cinco de Mayo. I have probably neglected to mention that we joined a mom's group last fall (from church), but everyone in the group is amazing and it has been a blessing to get to know the other women and their families over the past year! Our get-togethers are always fun (and as you can see, a little crazy.)

Fun Weekend

2008-05-05T10:05:00.003-04:00

Some pictures from Saturday and Sunday:

We took Lilly to Georgetown where we had strolled along the water, had a couple of drinks, and gelato!! Laurence and I LOVE gelato, ever since we went to Italy, and there is a gelateria right near Sequoia. Lilly saw us getting out cones so I got her one with a very small scoop of strawberry. She was SO excited and happy to have her very own cone. I was nervous about her holding it right and making a mess, but she managed to eat the entire thing the right way. And I wish we had a picture, but I gave her a napkin in her other hand, and she would stop every so often and daintily dab her mouth with it. It was so cute.

(Eating a graham cracker and dancing while holding onto the oven.) On Sunday we had some friends over for a Cinco de Mayo fiesta. I put Lilly in this outfit that I made for her. Yes, I made it. Some of my friends and I have started a sewing circle where we can teach each other, and I have learned a lot.

Laurence bought this child's rocker at a yard sale, and Lilly really enjoys sitting in it. It plays music when you rock it, so she will just sit in it forever. It was so gorgeous outside, it was a great day to eat Tex-Mex and drink Sangria!

13 months

2008-04-25T15:47:00.003-04:00

Just a quick little entry. Lilly is sleeping of course. My twitter--just installed Twitter--says I'm spring cleaning. But I'm taking a break to blog.

We went to the park today with our mom's group. Lilly LOVED it. She played in the sand which is now her new favorite thing. (She hated it when we went to the beach.) She cried when I took her away to go home.

She took a break from signing for a few weeks. Maybe because we were so busy I took a break from teaching her. But now she is signing again and talking more. The latest sign is POTTY, which she signed last night for Laurence and this morning, he went to go to the bathroom, and she said "Potty." I thought that was funny because I didn't know about the signing last night. But then he told me she had signed it, and as he was telling me she signed it again. So he put her on her potty and she went. Then a couple hours later I said, "Lilly, how do you sign potty?" And she said "Potty!" and signed it at the same time! So Cute!!

She is obsessed with flowers at the moment. We have been doing a lot of gardening and have cut flowers indoors left over from Megan's bridal shower. So she cruises around pointing at the flowers and signing FLOWER. She wants to just grab them, but she knows to be gentle, so she touches them without plucking them.

She crawls like a machine now and is so proficient at getting where she needs to go, that she has little motivation to walk. She does cruise all the time now and even lets go to stand for a second or two. She's very proud of herself when she does this. She claps and giggles for us to look.

She's at the age now where she wants to be into everything I am into. I'll be in the kitchen, cleaning or making a meal. She cries, "Mama, Mama, Mama" and tugs on my legs. When I turn to look at her, she raises her arms and says "UP!" Or sometimes "Uppas" which is "up, please."

When the garage opens or the phone rings, she says "DaDa!" And now she waves bye-bye at Laurence when he leaves. One day she cried because she saw him walk out the door.

She still makes her perfect little frown-y face. I love this age because she's still a little bit baby but is so expressive and really understands a lot of what we say.

OK time should get back to the laundry and vacuuming and list-making I am avoiding.

In Memory of Grandma Lil'

2008-04-21T21:31:00.006-04:00

Lilly's great-grandmother Lillian Oliver (the one she is named after) passed away on April 8th. We went to her memorial service on Saturday. She touched so many people during her life, and we will never forget her vivacious, loving spirit.

A couple years ago, Grandma Lil' gave us a frame with a couple of sweet poems she wrote herself. We will miss you, Grandma Lil', but we know that you are in a beautiful place!

"A Prayer"

by Lillian Oliver

Dear God, enable me to do what's right,

As I walk along the path of life

I cannot see the road ahead

And I must speculate before I tread

Each fallen footstep on that path,

Knowing each is there to last.

For the road I walk is paved but once,

The imprints made are not undone,

'Til Judgement Day and eternal fate,

To path's end at the pearly gates.

Catching Up

2008-04-21T21:17:00.005-04:00

The past two weeks have been crazy busy for the McKennys. So I am finally getting caught up on my blogs. These pictures are way overdue. But here are some from Lilly's Birthday and Easter.

Lilly's First Easter Basket

Hery Birthday was on St. Patty's Day, so we celebrated at an Irish Pub.

And earlier that day at my grandmother's house:

What's that?

She wasn't very interested in birthday cake.

Four generations. Lilly with her mom, her mom's mom, and her mom's mom's mom.

Happy Birthday to Lilly!

2008-03-18T09:34:00.003-04:00

I can't believe we've been real parents for one year. We're in Lancaster, PA right now since Laurence has a seminar. We celebrated Lilly's birthday yesterday in Harrisburg with my mom's family. Laurence has pictures on his camera that I'll post later.

Then we went into Lancaster and shopped at some little stores until we ran into an Irish pub. Well it was St. Patty's day so we stopped in and had a bite to eat. So we managed to celebrate Lilly's birthday and take her to celebrate St. Patty's.

Incidentally I weighed myself yesterday and have finally reached my pre-pregnancy weight. So it took my exactly one year (God has a sense of humor), but I did it!

Pictures from St. Croix

2008-03-11T10:21:00.006-04:00

We had a great week vacationing in St. Croix with Grandma and Grandpa McKenny and Uncle Nick. The sunny warm weather was a great break from Virginia's winter and our busy schedules!

We stayed at the Buccaneer, a beautiful historic hotel. We actually never left for 5 days, it was so relaxing.

The view from our room was gorgeous! So even staying in during Lilly's naps was a treat.

Grandma McKenny watched Lilly for a day so the rest of us could go on a snorkeling trip to Buck Island, which has one of the most beautiful beaches in the world and the United States' first National Underwater Park!

Lilly had a blast playing on the beach.

She loved her Sun Tent and played peekaboo with us. (Although she was terrified of the sand. What a girly-girl.)

Our last day there, we got some beautiful shots in the beach.

Grandpa showed Lilly and Laurence some of the shells and rocks he collected.

What a wonderful time!

Another Video

2008-02-07T12:58:00.000-05:00

Lilly loves this Playskool Ball Popper now that we finally got batteries in it. We bought it a while back after seeing how much fun Caroline has with hers. She figured out how to work it on her own and even puts the balls back in. She never puts things back where they belong, so it is exciting to see her do it with this toy!

First Real Video

2008-01-29T08:55:00.000-05:00

I finally got a little video of Lilly, and I think we will be putting more on now. I took it with our little digital camera. Laurence has a complicated HD Camera that is more than I can handle, so I was waiting for us to get a little problem with our computer fixed so it would play our other videos.

Lilly has been asking "what's this?", "What is this?", "What's that?", "That's? or this?" ALL day long. From the first second she wakes up, sometimes in the middle of the night, to when she goes to bed, she is pointing at things and asking about them. She has said or at least made a decent attempt at close to 40 words at this point. Some of them she has said once and never said again. Some she says really articulately and others she can barely say. Like she said "Cup!" once, but I haven't heard it since. And rug is "Ru-ru-ru" and Lilly is "Luh-luh-luh".

She says Ma-ma all the time now, and has learned she can say "Mama?" to which I will say "What?" and then she will proceed to ask me "What's that?" So we actually have a mini-conversation.

The other day I was going through her animal sign flash-cards and I showed her ELEPHANT and she immediately pointed at the elephant sitting on the shelf on Daddy's desk. I thought this was neat because you can barely see it from the floor and she hasn't asked about it in weeks. And while I was still surprised and praising her for noticing that elephant, she turned around and pulled her stuffed pink elephant out of her bin of stuffed animals which has about 20 animals in it (and was buried under some of them) and showed it to me. You could have knocked me over with a feather!

The cutest thing she does lately is fake laugh and cough which I taught her to do the other day. She does a little fake laugh that sounds like the Count from Sesame Street.

In the video, she asks about the swing in our living room, and then she attempts to say "Bird" several times. And she also laughs and coughs on command. I'm very excited that she actually does all that because she usually gets distracted by the fact that I'm holding a camera, which you see at the end. She's also a little tired which you see at the beginning--she's rubbing her face and being fussy.

Her vibrant curiosity and boundless energy have motivated me to look to add more structure and activities for the day. She seems to get frustrated when her learning comes to an impasse.

Like if she is asking about a car and she wants to know what color the car is, but I don't understand because all she is saying is "That?" I know that this is the reason because she breaks out into a smile when I give her the answer she is looking for.

Anyway, our friend Sunny sent me a wonderful curriculum to use for a one year old which has a reading list, nursery rhyme list, indoor/outdoor games, musical activities, and more all planned into a year's worth of daily lessons.

That's the reason for the Amazon Wish List at the side--those are all books and games that I think Lilly would enjoy. I put it together so I can keep track of all the things I would like to get her for her first year. Some of the books are a little old for her, but she can still look at the pictures.

I think that fostering a love of reading is so important, even at this age. My mom began to teach me to read at a very young age (I could read basic words before I was two) and I grew up loving it. The result was that I had a vocabulary so expansive that I scored a perfect 800 on the verbal section of the SAT my junior year of high school without studying. I'm not saying that to brag, but to illustrate how important I think reading is for expanding a child's breadth of knowledge.

So the point is that I want to funnel Lilly's curiosity into activities that will keep both her (and me) sane on a daily basis!

Pictures! And More...

2008-01-14T09:54:00.000-05:00

So much is happening with Lilly. She is almost 10 months and every day she does something (or many things) that I feel like I should be posting about.

First of all, she cut her first tooth a couple of weeks ago. It hasn't come in fully but it's there nonetheless. Lilly thinks its a violation of her personal autonomy to have her mouth prodded, so we have no pictures of it. But we have plenty of others!

Crawling has been the best thing that has happened to our family. Lilly is so independent now that she can crawl. She just zips around and plays with her toys. Pretty much the only thing she cries about now s if she is hungry or tired.

Here she is crawling with determination.

She also cries when she wants me to explain something or tell her what something is. Now that she knows so many signs and a few words, she has learned that everything has a name. It's soo cute, she will say "THIS?" or "THAT?" (And rarely, "WHAS DAT?") and point and she will want me to repeat the name over and over again until she is satisfied. If I try to end this process prematurely she cries very loudly. This morning it was the tissue box on my night stand. She wasn't happy until she had heard me say "tissue box" a dozen times and had been able to hold it and pull a few tissues out.

Signing is going so well. She uses general movements for many things. So MORE, SHOES, BOOK, CUP, and COOKIE are all hand clapping since all those signs involve bringing the hands together. And MOMMY, WATER, EAT and BED are all bringing one hand to the lower face. But usually with a few attempts or other signs I can figure out what she wants. For example if she claps her hands and hits her face, that usually means CUP of WATER. Or it can meet EAT COOKIE. She does FINISHED very well and of course, LIGHT. I LOVE YOU is an "L" sign with her hand, so she can't quite get the pinky up, but it is very sweet because she usually does it at night when I put her to bed.

The other day we had her in our bed in the morning, and she saw cars driving by out the window and signed "CAR". (I usually do that in the mornings, but that morning she remembered it on her own.) That one is very specific (pretending to steer a car) so it was adorable to see her do it.

I was really inspired by this video of a 12 month old who signs so well, and how cool it is to be able to communicate with your child at this age.

Here she is signing BOOK. I had just asked her "How do you sign book?"

She tries very hard to say many words which surprises me. When I say a word she watches my mouth intently and listens with great concentration. She gets very frustrated if I don't repeat a word she wants to hear, but there is nothing she doesn't try to say. Like this morning she tried to say "Tissue Box" but was only able to say "Tish.. Ba!"

A few minutes later we were in her bathroom and she pointed to Daddy's shirts hanging up to dry. And she said "SHRR" several times concentrating very hard. I tried to interrupt her to say "Shirt" myself and she cried. So I let her continue, and she finally said the whole word, "Shirt!" She was very happy with that and smiled and squealed.

One of her favorite words recently is "Bath". Ever since she mastered the "TH" sound, she says it a lot. Like the other night, it was getting close to bedtime, and I said "Lilly, do you wand to go take your bath?" And she said "Bath!!" She was very excited.

Since she turned nine months, she is now on 3 meals a day with at least one snack a day. Seriously, there seems to be no food that she doesn't like. Lilly loves to eat! Well, she isn't too crazy about jarred baby food, so I hardly ever feed that to her anymore. But she loves cheese and yogurt and grown-up food like pasta and soups that I make. Avocado is still always a favorite. She doesn't just use her pincer grasp anymore-- she loves to grab handfuls of food and smear it all into her mouth, which gets very messy!

Here she is eating bananas and cheese.

Here are a couple of pictures that we took while watching the Redskins (lose) in the playoffs. Lilly wore her Redskins onesie for the last time. But if she grows up a Redskins fan, now she has proof of how early her devotion began!

Of everything there is nothing like hearing your baby say "mama" and "dada" which Lilly does occasionally. A couple of nights ago, I was giving Lilly her bath and Laurence walked in. Her whole face lit up and she said "Da-Da!" very clearly. I thought it was the cutest thing!

And last night she was sitting in my lap, reclining against me, and we were going over her signing flash cards. I showed her one with a Mom and Boy on the front. She said "This?" and I said, "That's a mommy and a baby." And she immediately signed "MOMMY" and said "Ma-ma-ma-ma". It was soo sweet, and probably the best part of my whole day!

Merry Christmas

2007-12-26T19:15:00.000-05:00

This is the 100th post on the McKenny blog. And although I have not written very frequently, I am proud that we have kept it up for so long!

We hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas, and we have many updates on our little girl.

Lilly is now nine months and a few days. And she has been growing in so many ways. Shortly after she turned 8 months, she began to sign many different signs. Just thinking offhand, she has signed BATH, LIGHT, MILK, MORE, MOMMY, DADDY, BABY, BED, FINISHED, EAT, DRINK, TREE, ELEPHANT, PLAY, BOOK, and several more. Sometimes she uses them with great accuracy, and other times she gets them completely wrong. For a while she thought MORE meant FOOD, so she signed it a lot when she was hungry. Then she learned to point and now that seems to replace a lot of signs.

She also starts to say words. The B words are easiest. So Baby is popular. She loves looking at other babies, and even her own reflection int he mirror. She also starts to say Puppy-- "Pu-Pu". Both her grandmothers have puppy dogs, which she gets so excited about.

And the day before Christmas, she started to crawl! Now, two days later, she is really getting around very efficiently. We have't yet baby proofed the house, so that is something we will be making a priority in the next few days.

Almost 8 months

2007-11-15T14:17:00.000-05:00

Lilly will be 8 months on Saturday and I can't believe it. It used to be that one year old seemed so far away, and now it's just around the corner!

This past week, she has been dealing with a nasty cold. Her first cold only lasted a couple of days, but this one is still hanging in there. She hates it when I wipe her face, but her nose is so runny!

For the first time this week, Lilly has shown some pickiness about what she wants to eat. We had been giving her a lot of avocado lately, and on Sunday night, we were hurrying, getting ready to have guests over, when Laurence tried to feed her dinner. Something leftover that was not avocado, and she just started to cry and cry. She had tears running down her face, before I thought, "Maybe it's because she wants avocado" and sure enough, that's what she wanted. She gobbled it all down, and was happy as could be afterwards. We've gradually managed to get her to eat other foods, but for a couple of days, it was all she wanted to eat!

She is now drinking out of a straw cup. She won't drink from a bottle or a sippy cup, only from a real cup or a straw. The real cup isn't really practical, since she can't hold it without spilling everything, so I found a small Nuby brand straw cup that has handles. She loves it. She'll sit in her high chair and take sips of water all throughout her meal. She even hold it herself and drinks from it.

And she has gotten very adept at eating her puffs. She can now pass them from hand to hand, and has learned to scrape it off if it gets stuck to her palm.

She isn't babbling as much this week, probably because of her cold. And still no crawling yet. She can inch backwards, and pivot, but can't seem to get past getting up on her hands and knees and rocking. It's like she thinks that if she just rocks fast enough, she will just somehow propel forward. It is very frustrating, I think, for her not to be able to crawl yet, as she cries whenever she is on her hands and knees. Like she knows what she wants to do, but doesn't know how to accomplish it.

And I think she is starting to recognize herself in the mirror. She at least knows that if she seems an image in the mirror that it is behind her, not in front of her. If she sees me in the mirror behind her, she leans back and cuddles against me, or reaches up and touches my face, without actually turning her head. It is very sweet!

Fun Mornings

2007-11-09T16:36:00.001-05:00

Our mornings are our fun family times right now. Since we obviously aren't sleeping when Lilly wakes up around 7, we end up cuddling, all 3 of us, for a good half hour or so (until we decide that we should probably go downstairs and make coffee or whatever). Lilly is usually the most playful then, and we have so many cute moments.

This morning, she was so cute and bright that Laurence said I should put it on the blog.

Lilly really enjoys it when we play peekaboo with her, but today she started to play peekaboo with us. And by that I meant, she kept lifting up the blanket with her two hands and holding it up like a curtain in front of her face for a second. Then she would lower it and wait for us to say "peekaboo!!" at which point, she would burst into giggles. She must have done it almost a dozen times. IT WAS ADORABLE! Not to mention the fact that she kept turning around periodically to smile at the light fixture in our bedroom and sign "light"!

And we think she may have said Da-da! When Laurence put her on his chest this morning, the first noise she made was "Da!...pause.....Da!" We don't know for sure but we're counting it as the beginnings of her first word!

Updates and Halloween Pictures

2007-11-06T09:47:00.000-05:00

Well literally an hour after I wrote the last post, Lilly woke up from her nap and successfully made the "Baa" sound. And she has spent the past few days saying "Babababa." And attempting any other words she likes. The ones I think she is most interested in are MORE (Mmmm or Maaa), BURP (Bppp), and PRETTY (Prr). MORE is her favorite because she realizes she can get food into her mouth more quickly if she makes that sound. As of yet, she seems completely unmotivated to try to say Mama or Dada. She did make the Da sound once or twice. And she says mmmma when she is upset.

She is also signing!! OK, one sign so far. LIGHT. She does it all the time. The sign is relatively easy (open and close outstretched fist), and she loves lights!

Here are some pictures from Halloween:

Our friends Susan and Nate were so sweet to invite us to a little get-together at their place, and we put all the babies on the floor to play with each other in their costumes. There was a pumpkin, a duck, a bumble bee/fairy, and a Nemo!

Look, Mommy, why can't I have one of these at home?

Lilly wanted to pose for pictures while the other kids fought over the candy.

Until she saw Will with his Skittles!

Then the next day, out Mothering Matters group went to Sleepy Hollow nursing home to visit the residents in costume!

The little pumpkin brought many smiles!

Sleeping, Growing, and Many Firsts

2007-10-31T14:00:00.000-04:00

It seems that Lilly can finally go for over 8 hours at night without eating. For 4 out of the past 6 nights, she has not needed to be nursed from about 9:30 to 6 or 7. She does still wake up at 1:30 or so (3 out of 6 nights) but I just go in and get her back to sleep without feeding her. I am hoping that through the next few days, she'll learn to just sleep the whole way through.

I am gradually moving her dreamfeed back to eliminate it. It used to be at 10 or 11 before I went to bed, and now I go in at 9:30. Since we're on solids she really shouldn't need it, so by 9 months I want to have her last meal at 7 (dinner and then bedtime bf).

I took Lilly to a nearby park yesterday with some friends. And I put her in the swing for the first time:

She whimpered at first, but then gave me some little smiles, like she was unsure of what to expect but that it was fun.

She has gotten very responsive in the past few weeks. By that I mean she is really starting to imitate our sounds. Especially the "B" sound. She puts her lips together, but all that comes out is a raspberry sound. (Unfortunately Daddy encouraged this while consuming baby food, so she now likes to spray her food too.)

She also imitates our hand motions. Like if we slap our hands on the ground, she'll repeat it back to us. I think this is my very favorite age. She is so happy and giggles at everything and everyone. The randomest things make her crack up, like when Laurence picks her up and takes her upstairs while I walk up behind them. She thinks it's funny to look down on me from that angle.

Today for the very first time, she cried because I wouldn't let her have something she wanted to play with--my glasses. Before today she usually would just get distracted by something else and not even notice. But this morning she was very intent on removing my thick frames from my face, and when I wouldn't let her have them, she cried (without tears) in a very whiny voice. And then persisted in trying to take my glasses, and so I had to keep refusing. I have a strange feeling that it is a turning point. From here on out, she is going to be aware of the things she can't have because I am not letting her have them. So she won't just be crying out of frustration; she'll be crying at me. That's going to take some getting used to!

Solid foods are going well (except for the occasionaly spray). She is not picky at all and loves everything. We have found the best baby distraction tool ever--arrowroot biscuits! They dissolve really easily, but they are big enough that Lilly can just hold one and gum it to death. She likes them and it gives us a breather when we are trying to eat our own food.

She is also working on her pincer grasp. It is adorable to see her pick up little puffs with her tiny little index finger and thumb ever so carefully and then, just as carefully, place it in her mouth. She is getting better and better every day!

Laurence's boss and his wife gave us an adorable little baby doll for Lilly. It is her first baby doll, and I hadn't even thought to get her one. But what a great idea. She loves it! Every time I hold it out to her and say "Ba-by" she gets SO excited and she like to touch its face and hands, as if to see whether or not it's real. I think that's what's motivating her to try to say the "B " sound. As of yet, we haven't heard anything resembling a "Dada" or "Mama" yet. At least not very often.

So many things are changing with her, I had to get it on a blog post, before I forget what this time is like, because it is just flying by! It is so exciting and wonderful to see her grow, but it does make me a little sad, because it is such a short time before she is no longer a baby!

Is this a trend?

2007-10-27T19:48:00.000-04:00

Lilly slept from 9:30PM to almost 6:30AM last night!! I am beginning to hope that maybe this is the really the end of fragmented nights!

8 hours

2007-10-26T10:21:00.000-04:00

Lilly slept from 10:40 to 6:40 this morning. That's 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep!! The last time she did that she was around 4 or 5 months, and it only happened once. I hope this time it is a new habit!

How cute is this??

2007-10-25T11:22:00.000-04:00

We ended up with two costumes. Which do you like better?

Special Request

2007-10-21T18:47:00.001-04:00

I am passing a request along from a sorority sister, Jessica, who is trying to raise money for her 6th grade class. I can't imagine learning social studies without maps, so I thought it was important:

Here is the deal.
I am working at MS 201 in the South Bronx. This school is notorious for violence and failure. I am working hard to change that for my small group of students. Right now I have seven 6th and 7th graders in my special education class. They are wonderful kids but we do not have a lot of supplies to work with.

Here are some things that would make my students lives a little better:
books (all different levels and different topics)
book shelf (as one student said, my current book shelf looks like it came from the trash)
bean bag chairs possibly a rug (a nice place to read)
maps (I am teaching social studies without maps)
a globe (same reason as above).

These are just a few of the things that would help my students. Any bit of money that you are willing to donate for this cause will help them tremendously.

If you would like to donate, you can use Paypal. Even if you've never used it before it's really easy. Just type in your name, contact info, and credit card and make a payment to her email address, JLHUNSINGER@GMAIL.COM.

Or if you want to help in another way, you can email her at the above address.

Miracle Baby

2007-10-19T17:38:00.001-04:00

I saw this on Drudge. There's so much terrible stuff in the news, that I loved reading about this happy ending.

http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=local&id=5715281

Our Kitchen is done!

2007-10-19T09:30:00.000-04:00

We finally finished. Laurence did an AWESOME job refinishing our cabinets. Blogger is having issues with images at this moment. So for now, go to Glitter and Gab to see pictures....

7 months

2007-10-17T14:02:00.000-04:00

Well 7 months is here, and Lilly is turning into a wriggly, grabby, giggly pretoddler. She is getting frustrated because she can't crawl yet, and thus wants to be held/carried all the time and constantly amused. She likes to run errands since the house is starting to bore her.

So when she wakes up from her nap today we're going to go to the fabric store. I want to find some fabric that we can use as a background for her pumpkin pictures.

Unfortunately our digital camera is broken. We don't know why it's not working, but that is why there is no 7 mos. picture right now. We'll have to take the pumpkin pictures the old fashioned way--with film.

I found it!

2007-10-16T10:02:00.001-04:00

I went to Marshall's yesterday in search of a discounted pumpkin costume for babies. I didn't think I would find anything but I did! For $12 I found a stuffed pumpkin costume, size 2T, which i s a little big, but that means it will be good for next year. Stay tuned for pictures...

First Cold

2007-10-14T17:26:00.000-04:00

Lilly has finally gotten over her very first cold. She had a runny nose and sniffles for a few days but is now recovered. I'm sure it will be the first of many more to come!

She is really starting to enjoy all kinds of foods. Last night she had some avocado and LOVED it. And today she put some baby puffs in her mouth by herself!

We are planning on taking some fall pictures this week. Maybe with Lilly dressed as a pumpkin?

Introducing....Glitter and Gab!!

2007-09-30T14:55:00.000-04:00

Well, I am starting a new blog that I can funnel my creative energy into. If you like fashion, home decor, and great deals check it out at glitterandgab.blogspot.com!!

6 Months and more!

2007-09-21T12:00:00.000-04:00

This is for you, Layton...

Well, I have been completely negligent with the blog, so here is a long post to show what the McKenny family has been up to.

Lilly just turned six months, and she is so much fun. She is still vocal as ever, but now into grabbing everything in sight. She loves drinking water out of a glass, and lets me know by reaching out her arms and leaning back like a little chick opening her mouth for food whenver I have a cup in my hand. We have also started solids, cereal and little bits of pureed veggies and fruit!

And a few weeks ago we celebrated Grandpa McKenny's Birthday and Labor Day Weekend with Great-Grandma McKenny, who flew down from Toledo. Here's Lilly is sitting with (Great) Grandma and (Great) Aunt Anne.

And we got Lilly a playpen now that she can sit up on her own:

And last but not least, the zucchinis. Laurence grew zucchini this summer, and every once in a while we would forget "harvest" them. And then lo and behold a ginormous one would pop up overnight.

What did we do with all this Zucchini? Made lots and lots of zucchini bread! Yum!

The Bourne Ultimatum

2007-08-24T13:33:00.000-04:00

Laurence and I had a date last night! Lilly's Grandpa McKenny was so nice to offer his babysitting services, and he came to watch her so we could get out of the house!

We went to Brio, the Italian restaurant at Tysons. It was delicious. Then we we walked around the mall a little bit and went to see The Bourne Ultimatum.

The movie was like the last two, but with more chaotic chase scenes and more chaotic fight scenes. The crazy film angles made me so dizzy! (Or was that the wine from dinner?) All the Bourne movies have been so much fun to watch. I was sure that this one was the last, but they left it open-ended. So is there a fourth one in the making?

NIP

2007-08-23T09:39:00.000-04:00

Laurence snapped this pic on his way to a seminar in Crystal City. "For the blog" he said.

I'm glad someone is trying to get the word out on breastfeeding. When we were in the airport in Florida, I was NIP (nursing in public) and some middle-aged mom gave me a disgusted look and made an audible comment about breastfeeding in public. And I was completely covered up with my handy-dandy "hooter hider"! (See www.bebeaulait.com) Not to mention that I even sat in the furthest removed corner from public view. The only thing more private would have been a bathroom. But I wouldn't eat a sandwich in the bathroom, so why the heck would I breastfeed a four month old infant there?

Anyway, good to see some public support!

Hair, Hair, Everywhere

2007-08-20T16:40:00.000-04:00

Well, with the exception of nursing, I feel like my body has almost gone back to its prepregnancy state. I still have a few pounds to go, but I'm finally in the range I used to be in pre-pregnancy.

And I have begun to lose hair in massive quantities. Apparently when you get pregnant, the hormones have the side effect of making your body retain hair, since we usually lose quite a few per day. But now that my hormone levels are changing back to normal, it seems as though my scalp is making up for lost time.

I had gotten used to not shedding at all, so it's weird to be losing so much. And we are finding it in places all over the house. Gross!

5 Months

2007-08-18T19:40:00.000-04:00

We had to go out and buy Lilly some more toys, since she seemed to be getting bored with her jumper and playmat.

She is still not giving us a lot of sleep at night. The record is 9 hours, but it is usually 4-6 hours. She used to wake up just because her stomach was too small to hold enough food to keep her through the night.

Now she's waking up because she refuses to eat large amounts during the day--so much to do and see! So she tries to snack despite my persistent attempts to get her to eat more.

Lilly is now producing consonant sounds, lately she has been working on her "B" sounds. And at 3:30 (AM) we heard her working on her "CK" sounds. She also imitates our words. For example, I like to say, "Ooone, twooo....threee!" when I am about to do something like put her in the tub, and tonight she started to help me finish by squealing, "vvvrheee!" Adorable!!

Here she is with the little mini-piano we just bought her. Move over, Mozart!

Pictures from Marco Island, FL

2007-08-02T14:59:00.001-04:00

Our AC broke last week, so rather than sulking about it, we turned it into a vaca opportunity! We booked a last minute flight down to Southwest Florida. Lilly was an angel, and we got some cute pics:

Four Months

2007-07-17T10:54:00.001-04:00

Lilly is four months today, and it so awesome to be a parent at this age. The past month has been filled with lots and lots of smiles and giggles. She loves to smile when we're at home. She smiles all the time for no reason at all, and every time she sees Mommy or Daddy walk into the room she gets so excited and loves to "talk" at us. (I mentioned earlier we are doing the Baby Whisperer, and she says that babies with a "Spirited" personality smile a lot without being prompted and for no reason. They are also very loud.)

Every day is so much fun, and I can see now why some people want 5 or 6 of these little munchkins!

Lilly has begun to really enjoy her toys. She loves her jumper, and she loves looking at pictures in books. Especially babies' faces. It is so hard to get things done when Lilly is awake, because I would much rather be interacting and playing with her!

We are starting to use sign language with Lilly, since babies can sign sooner than they can talk. Some babies sign as early as 4.5 months! We are teaching her fun words and useful words. The fun words are motivation for her to sign. They are "light", "book", and "drive"--things that Lilly loves. The useful words are "bath", "milk", "finished", "bed", "change", "Mommy" and "Daddy".

I hope to eventually teach her hundreds of signs, since it is supposed to be helpful for reducing frustration due to a toddler's inability to talk clearly.

First Video

2007-07-09T16:08:00.000-04:00

Well I finally am attempting to post a video of Lilly on the blog. It's not very good quality since it's from my cell phone, but our video camera is too high quality and our other camera doesn't work on this computer for some reason. I'll get Laurence to figure that out, since he's the tech-savvy person in our family...

Anyway, Lilly has started to smile all the time for any reason. It's adorable the way her face just lights up. She smiles at her jumper, and she smiles at the lights. She smiles at pictures and TVs.

And she has also discovered that she can scream. She used to just babble; sometimes at 5 AM we heard her babbling on the monitor. It was not unpleasant, and actually, really really cute. Now she has started to experiment with varying the pitch and volume of her voice. And she is loud!! Now we're hearing blood-curdling screams at 5 AM!

Here is an example:

Giggles

2007-06-25T10:12:00.000-04:00

One of our favorite things is seeing Lilly smile and laugh. It is so new for us to see her face light up, and it is amusing to find what amuses her. Yesterday we had Lilly down in the TV room with us while we were watching a recorded episode of "Man vs. Wild". Laurence was holding Lilly who craned her neck to watch the TV intently with us.

We noticed an interesting phenomenon. Whenever we fast-forwarded or rewound the episode, Lilly would start to giggle and smile. We tried it several times, and it never failed. At regular speed, her face was serious and focused, but as soon as we hit the fast-forward button, her face just lit up! It was so cute! Who knows what she was thinking, but it was clearly funny to her that the man on the screen was moving around faster than normal.

Darn it!

2007-06-18T14:56:00.000-04:00

Ann Taylor Loft just started a maternity line. I LOVE Ann Taylor, because they have an awesome selection of petites clothes, and everything is always so cute. Why couldn't they have started this one year earlier??

Boo-Hoo!