THE CRUISE

We spent Cinco de Mayo in Cozumel Mexico this year! Russ and I were able to land a great deal on a cruise and had a blast. We went with Russ's brother Bryan and his wife Laurie and left the kids in Austin with Grandma and Grandpa Jepson! (Thanks again!! It would not have been the same experience.) Although we missed Mckenzie--it was so nice to have some good R &R, some great food (always too much), and enjoy the sun! The cruise was 5 days and went to Cozumel and Progreso. It was sooo much fun!

Here a couple pictures of some of the highlights.

In Cozumel, we rented scooters to get around the island. Then we found a good little place to go snorkeling that wasn't too crowded. Laurie and I had a little pre-snorkeling anxiety (I don't know what it is about ocean water these days) , but were able to work through it and had so much fun. Here is a picture of Russ and Bryan all geared up in their snorkleing stuff.

Our last stop was in Progreso. There we took a tour to go out to a place call Chichinitza (spelling?) where there are a bunch of old Mayan ruins. This was a 2 hour bus ride (each way) with some somewhat comical tour guides, that went through some towns that reminded me of China actually (which means they were not that nice). It was cool, but it was soo hot and after a few days spent in the sun...we were a bit sunburned and I serisously felt like I was on fire. So I don't think I enjoyed these as much as I could have. But they were very interesting to see and I am glad we went.

AND here is the classic cruise picture. You gotta love it. :)

Potty Drama

Just a little something I thought I would share......

So we have been doing the potty thing for a few weeks now. Mckenzie is doing pretty well-but still has accidents from time to time. I don't think I am a star toilet trainer, nor her a star trainee, but I would say we have made progress. When we started this Kenzie LOVED to go #1 in the potty, but #2 was a whole other story. This was drama at its best! She screamed and cried, and was absolutely TERRIFIED of letting the little logs drop. :) She does much better now, but I captured this moment during one of these first moments because I could not help but laugh. She was unamused but I did not want to forget how fun these days were. :) So sad, yet so darn funny.

If you look closely, you can see the drool down her stomach. Its just an all around great picture.

Spring Flowers

This was a few weeks ago but as many of you have noticed I have not been a very efficient blogger lately. :) Texas is beautiful right now with tons of wild flowers blooming everywhere. I love it--all these flowers make me so happy!! :) Kenzie and I, and my friend Kelly and her little Bella set out to take some blue bonnet pics a little while ago and these are a few of the pics we got.

Hurray for the Easter Bunny!

Its taken me a few days to get pictures on here, but we had a really great Easter last Sunday! Mckenzie actually fell asleep on the way home from church, and since we have early church we waited until after she woke up to show her that the Easter Bunny had come. You can see how happy she was to get the news. ALL SMILES!

You may also notice her bed head. This girl gets some crazy bed head. This was after only an hour or so nap and some of it is at least sort of contained. She just kind of has weird hair. Its not really that curly but its definitely not straight either. She gets random curls in the back...but not in the front...and the sides are yet to grow in. :) You gotta love it.
2 going on 16!

This is the best shot I could get of her in her dress. She refused to take off my shoes (as usual) and her body is all twisted weird because she kind of likes to pose sometimes, but I decided that it wasn't worth fighting her and it was better to just to keep her happy at the moment!

Mommy Mckenzie

I just thought I would make mention of how funny Mckenzie has been lately. (mostly for my own record keeping) :) She loves to play and take care of her stuffed animals. She has 3 teddy bears--a daddy bear, a mommy bear, and a little baby bear; She also has a mommy minnie mouse and a baby minnie mouse. These stuffed animals are like all HER kids. She plays ring around the rosies with them, feeds them, she is very good about putting them in bed for naps, and yesterday I actually caught her disciplining them all. I seriously was cracking up. She would individually put each of them on "the chair" (this is her timeout) and would stand in front of it so they couldn't get off; and then she would turn and say while shaking her finger "No hitting! No Spitting. OK. Chair. Ok. Oh-? lay on bed. OK." (this is what she has to do if she won't stay on the chair or if she continues to cry/scream). Then she would proceed to take her bear or Minnie to her bed and she would come out and say "stay there!" and she would close the door. Then a minute later she would go back in and get her precious animal and say, "OK. Give hug. OK kiss. Say Sorry. OK. Love you. Be Happy. OK That's better. Oh yes." (she says "oh, yes!" to everything) She went through this process with each one and I seriously was cracking up. I kept trying to emphasize that her animals were much happier after they thought about what they had done wrong, but I don't think she really caught on to what I was trying to teach her about it. So anyway, I got to see first hand what I look like when I am trying to discipline her. :)This is obviously a common occurance in our home as of lately. :)

Happy St. Patricks Day

I thought it was only fitting for us to reveal our little blog on St. Patty's day, since green seems to be the color of choice today. Althougth I shamefully admit, we are doing nothing else to celebrate this green holiday. Mckenzie and I attempted to make some sweet sugar cookies this morning, but Kenzie's hand had a little mishap with the electric mixer so we really weren't so "lucky" in that category. (for any of you who are concerned....no fingers ended up in the dough..her hand just ended up bending in ways it shouldn't bend...but I believe there are no broken bones; she really was almost more concerned with the fact that we would not be making cookies) So anyway...in case you still can't believe your eyes...its true--we have finally made it into the blogging world! While I know there is no way I can keep up with some of you professional bloggers out there I will definitely try my best. :)

Girls Day In!

The other day we had one of Mckenzie's friends over and we had such a good time doing "girl" things! There seems to be a lot more boys than girls around these parts, so the girls had such a blast playing dress up, cooking in the kitchen, and putting their babies and teddy bears to sleep, and all that fun stuff. And then to top off the day, just before her friend's mom came it snowed! Now this is nothing for me to get excited about but it is a rare thing down here in the lone star state and I think the first Mckenzie has seen or remembers.