Q&A Mac

Two Things

2012-02-05T21:39:00.000-08:00

I have a lot of catching up to do here. But I had to write this down now so I don't forget it, because it sure made me giggle...

Just now, Rylee was laying in bed talking to her Grandma Mac on the phone. Before she hung up, she said,

"Grandma, I just want to tell you two things. The first one is I really, really love you so much. And the second one is I super duper hope you find my Cheer Bear some day."

(Cheer Bear got packed by a mover last summer and hasn't been seen since...)

Oh, how I love that girl...

Pilgrim and Indian

2011-11-17T23:02:00.001-08:00

Rylee and Lainey had a feast at preschool today and came home with traditional headpieces:

If the original Pilgrims and Indians loved each other like these two BFFs do, it's no wonder we have Thanksgiving (:

Rylee preferred the Pilgrim hat and Lainey the Indian headdress, but I coaxed Rylee into sporting her feathers for a bit

so I could document their "Indian Names."

Makeover

2011-11-17T22:55:00.001-08:00

I recently redid the letters for the girls' names to match their new room...

The girls have had fun counting the letters in their names; Cailyn is proud that she has more letters than Rylee.

However, I claim the title of the most letters in the family (:

Curlers

2011-11-16T23:03:00.001-08:00

Lately the girls have been into sleeping with braids in their hair for a waivy 'do the next day. So, I decided to give them another option and introduced them to one of my favorite things as a child: foam curlers.

I was kind of surprised at how well they worked on their stick straight hair! (And not so surprised at Rylee's goony faces and hair chewing...)

This series of pictures makes me laugh; these silly expressions are signature Cailyn faces...

I tried to get a picture of them together, but this was the best I could do...

...Grandpa Mac was in town, and they were a bit preoccupied with his phone.

McLove-ly Birthdays

2011-11-09T23:39:00.000-08:00

The McDonald kids - two of our favorite little people - had birthdays recently; Avery turned 4 and Liam turned 1.

All the kids wore their Halloween costumes to Avery's party.

The loved the donut on a string game

The pinata was hilarious; Shellie made it herself, and it was indestructible!

All these kiddos (plus a few more) each got two turns without any luck.

No, Cailyn is not wearing her costume here...she fell asleep in the car on the way and slept through the first half of the party. She changed later...

So it was ~~Hailey~~ Hermione who came to the rescue and finally finished it off.

Love these sailors (:

The next weekend Liam had a joint 1st birthday party at the beach with his cousin, Nixon.

(Can you tell I've been having fun playing with not only my camera, but also starting to dabble in photoshop?)

Liam LOVED the quilt that Allison made for him. He crawled back and forth all over it like it was a play mat, rolling around, trying to pick up the little cars, etc.

The sunset was GORGEOUS

We are so lucky to have these sweet kiddos in our lives (:

Puddle Jumping

2011-11-07T22:24:00.000-08:00

Halloween

2011-11-07T20:43:00.000-08:00

We had such a fun and memorable Halloween this year!

Here are the treats we made when it was Rylee's turn to bring snack to preschool:

Spider Cupcakes

Banana Ghost Pops

(Cailyn got to eat some at home)

Speaking of preschool, Rylee learned this fun song:

Quinn came up with the great idea of having our whole family dress up as Care Bears. It took a little bit of coaxing to get the girls (mostly Rylee) on board with this idea rather than being princesses, but everyone wound up having fun in the end.

The girls wanted to help me make our belly badges, so I gave them each their own to paint while I worked.

Grandma Karen made hats for us and I found these so-perfect-that-there's-no-way-I-would-have-found-them-if-I-had-gone-out-looking-for-them boots by chance at Wal-Mart.

Our first opportunity for a test run was on Thursday before Halloween at the preschool Halloween party. These girls are so silly.

On Halloween morning I figured I might as well start the girls off with some sugar, so I made them these Jack-o-Lantern waffles.

Rylee had me paint Candy Corns (one traditional colors, one non-traditional) on her cheeks during the day.

In the evening we braided hair, (yes, I even did my own circle braid...be impressed!)

carved our pumpkins

and then got dressed.

Share Bear, Friendship Bear, Grumpy Bear, Cheer Bear

Then we headed over to the Starnes. Halloween is supposed to be wacky, and there's not much I can think of that's wackier than McNamara girls + Starnes kids.

Jack, Rylee, Carter, Cailyn, Lainey

Cailyn brought up the rear all night; often she would get to the door after everyone else had left. And that was with me carrying her in between houses. Sweet little girl.

Me and Casey

Back at home, we took these out of the freezer.

No, we didn't mix up our holidays...it just turns out that plastic eggs make perfect eyeball molds!

Cailyn got right down to business sorting through her candy

While the big kids fought over who got to pass out candy.

Love these kiddos.

Back at our house, there was more candy sorting

and candy "patterns" made.

We put on skeleton jammies, struck a scary pose, and went to bed with braids still in

so we had waivy hair in the morning!

Here are some of my favorite costume shots:

Fun, fun, fun.

Not-So-Little Mermaid Obsession

2011-10-28T15:10:00.000-07:00

It's hard to say exactly where it started...

Maybe it was in May when Grandpa Mac turned her into a mermaid.

Perhaps it was when Grandma Mac let her choose a toy at Disneyland in June,

or a few weeks later when we went on the new ride at California Adventure,

or even at Tuachan in August.

Regardless of when or where it started, it's here. And from the looks of it, it's not going anywhere soon.

Cailyn's Obsession with The Little Mermaid.

I knew that she loved Ariel, but I think the first thing that really surprised me was about two months ago; we had just moved and I set her up watching The Little Mermaid on the computer so I could unpack. I walked by and caught this:

Cailyn likes to sing, but I'd never heard her sing all the lyrics to such a long song before!
Since then, this has become her signature song. She calls it the "cowexion" song (...wouldn't you think my cowexion's complete?) and sings it all the time, with or without accompaniment.

Lines and songs from The Little Mermaid began popping up all over our house. I overheard her in the bathtub one day saying "Sweet child; I make all your dreams come true!"

Another time I heard a little voice from her bedroom saying "Oh Eric! Ahh-ahh-ahh!"

Then she started "swimming" and singing through the house.

So when I saw this mermaid costume at Costco, I snatched it up - even though we already had plans for our Halloween costumes - so she could play dress up with it.

As it turns out, dress-up wound up lasting for three days straight. Nights included.

The girl formerly known as Cailyn became the mermaid, Ariel.

The following lines are all things that Ariel told me at least once during those first few days:

"Mermaids don't wear shoes!"

(This from the ~~girl~~ mermaid who days before had a meltdown because I walked out to the car carrying her shoes and her feet got "dirty" from walking barefoot outside...)

"Mermaids don't wear jammies!"

"I am NOT a human!"

"Why there's no human costumes at Costco?"

She watched The Little Mermaid as much as I would let her.

The singing-on-the-rock pose...

Just when I thought it couldn't get any more over the top (or should I say under the sea?), this happened:

~~Cailyn~~ Ariel was watching (what else?) The Little Mermaid. While wearing her costume, of course.

I was on the computer and she suddenly ran in to me saying, with a high degree of urgency,

"I need to take my costume off!"

Surprised, but also relieved, I asked her if she wanted to go choose some clothes. As it turns out, she didn't want regular clothes at all. Instead, she wanted to wear the Ariel dress from the dress up box.

And get this: it was because the movie was at the point that Ariel turns into a human!

So, for the next few days, every time she watched The Little Mermaid, she did costume changes. And not just once - back and forth twice! Mermaid to dress when Ariel first gets legs, back to mermaid when the sun sets on the third day - and this had to be a fast change so she could be ready a few minutes later when Triton changed her back to a human permanently.

I got the brilliant idea to expand her panty selection with Ariel panties; the girl has a box overflowing with panties, but always refused to wear any of them that weren't Dora. She had a pretty good selection of Dora panties, but occasionally they would all wind up in the laundry waiting to be washed. So I thought that getting some Ariel panties would solve the problem.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Rather than continuing to wear her Dora panties and also wearing her Ariel panties, Cailyn immediately decided that she would ONLY wear Ariel panties. And not only that, but only specific Ariel panties. Only four out of the seven pair that came in the pack (of size 4 mind you, because that is the smallest size of Ariel-Only panties anyone sells, in case you were wondering) of Ariel panties were deemed good enough for Cailyn to wear.

Cailyn's panty box overflowing with panties she used to wear. On the left are the Ariel panties she doesn't like to wear; on the right are the ones that she will wear. And bad news: there are currently two pairs of Ariel panties (one that she likes, one that she doesn't) that are MIA. Gulp.

Now, you're probably thinking

"Why can't you just be the parent and tell her to stop being ridiculous and make her wear whatever panties are clean?"
And you would be right to ask that.
The answer is I do. But Cailyn is a special kind of stubborn and doesn't back down without a fight. Remember the blue jean incident from a few weeks back? We have similar meltdowns every day that Cailyn gets dressed that one of her four sacred pairs of panties aren't clean - which is probably about half the time. Some days these meltdowns ~~last for about 5 minutes and make me want to poke my eyes out~~ are relatively mild. Other days they escalate into full-fledged tantrums that take close to an hour to work through and if you were a stranger and didn't know any better, you would think that she was responding to physical abuse.
Just last week as the girls were getting out of the bath and into jammies, we encountered this dilema. She refused to choose any panties because the ones she wanted weren't clean, so after a few minutes I chose a pair, pinned her down and forced them over her kicking legs while she screamed. I then gave her the option to choose some jammies if she would settle down. She didn't, so once again I chose a pair and once again pinned her down with all of my appendages to get the jammies onto her flailing body. A tantrum continued for 45 minutes. She wouldn't look at me, when I tried to snuggle her she pushed me away and said "Don't TOUCH me!" and her face kept scrunching up like she was in real physical pain. (I actually thought about grabbing my phone to video part of this ordeal, but I decided against it. I now regret that decision; words really don't do the story justice.) She finally fell asleep, still upset about the panties.

Luckily, tantrums like this don't happen very often...Cailyn is normally a sweetheart! But she is definitely a Mermaid-Obsessed sweetheart.
Until recently, she maintained that she still wanted the Dora Ballet party for her third birthday in December that she had been talking about since March. But within the last few weeks she changed her mind and now wants - what else? An Ariel party. So much for the Dora things I'd bought on clearance all year long!

Stubborn as she is, I sure do love this sweet and sassy Cailyn Mermaid!

Boston Miscellaneous

2011-10-27T01:09:00.000-07:00

Here are a few fun pictures from our trip that haven't been posted yet:

The girls with Uncle Kerry and Aunt Marianne

Backyard Zipline

(As much as Cailyn loved the zipline at Zion, she didn't like this one...she wasn't able to hold on well enough to feel secure.)

The girls loved playing with the dogs. Cailyn called the Hopkin's black lab, Micah, "Mike." She would walk around saying "Where's Mike?"

Rylee also loved Elena and Sofia's puppy, Maggie...

Pretty view on the flight home.

Free entertainment on a cross-country Southwest flight (:

Cailyn passed out towards the end of the second flight. We didn't change planes before the third flight, so before the new passengers boarded, Rylee spotted the pilot walking past us. She asked "Are you the pilot?" They got chatting, and before we knew it, he had invited her up to sit in the cockpit!


Captain Roy, Rylee, and Sella

I'm telling you, this girl's confidence will take her far in life; this is not the first time that her outgoing personality has gotten people to bend the rules for her, without her even asking! OK, well sometimes she does ask...notice the bear. This bear belonged to Marianne, but Rylee loved it and named her "Sella". Then on our way out the door to the airport, she asked Marianne "Can I buy Sella?" Marianne accepted payment in the form of hugs and kisses, and needless to say, we left Needham with an extra bear.

Shortly afterwards, even the energizer bunny got tired and slept for most of the flight from Kansas City to San Diego.

We had such a fun trip! The girls are still talking about the trip two weeks later and saying things like "next time we go to Boston..."

It will be a while, but we'd love to have a next time (:

Thanks so much Marianne and Kerry!

Boston Day 6: The Children's Museum

2011-10-27T00:38:00.000-07:00

We had planned on using our last day back east to go to Salem, but decided at the last minute that it would be too much for the girls - they needed a break from the historic sight-seeing. So instead, we made it their day and headed for the Boston Children's Museum.

We rode the train into the city

and then walked the block and a half from the train station to the Museum.

Then we played all day!

Rylee's favorite part of the whole day was going to this audience participation play; the girls and I all got chosen to be "dancers."

Everyone loved the bubble station.

We spent a long time playing with the different ball stations.

Arthur!

Rylee's "Castle"

Afterwards we walked back to the station to catch the train home.

Boston Day 5: Plimoth Plantation

2011-10-25T00:30:00.000-07:00

Plimoth Plantation was a fun place to visit;
the little village is built to look just like the one that the pilgrims lived in, and there are actors on site who play specific people who came across on the Mayflower. They have researched their characters in depth and will talk to you and answer all kinds of questions.

As soon as Rylee saw these chickens, she said, "Look, there's Sarah, Vanessa and Nigel!" She still remembered their "names" several days later.

Petting the cow

Inspecting the Oyster shell she found on the ground.

This lady told us that 11 people lived in her little house. She also said that the flower Cailyn had been holding was used in salads and as medicine.

We took a quick jog over to the Indian Village

Smoking out a tree trunk to make a canoe.

Close-up of a bed (sticks) and pillow (split log). I think I'd prefer the ground...

In a canoe

Posing once again...

The Mooflower

Then we headed over to see the Mayflower II - replica of the original Mayflower.

The girls loved testing out the various beds.

They giggled and played with this cradle for probably 20 minutes.

(I think a cradle on a ship has to be either a brilliant idea or one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard of...I'm not sure which; would the waves rock the baby to sleep or tip it over?)

These ladies were singing traditional hymns.

And then we saw Plymouth Rock. Very underwhelming...I always imagined it to be huge, but it was actually pretty small.

Boston Day 4: Castle Island and Bunker Hill

2011-10-23T23:36:00.000-07:00

The first few days of our trip were cool and felt like fall. Then we had several days of temperatures in the mid 80's! We took advantage of the warm weather and spent a day at Castle Island. Such a fun place!

We played on the playground

{Cailyn could have spent all day sitting on this Kangaroo}

toured the fort,

(when Cailyn, who loves all things "beautiful", saw this girl wearing a tutu, she said "Mom, she's so beautiful; she's my friend!")

played on the shore,

Rylee's collection of colorful seashells

ate hamburgers,

and played in the water again.

Rylee adopted herself into this family.

Cailyn took it upon herself to get all the rocks out of the water. This is more of a pebble-y beach than a sandy one. You can guess how that went.

Then we drove over to the Bunker Hill Monument.

Quinn told the girls the story of the battle that happened on the hill where we were sitting.

Don't you love Cailyn's belly peeking out?

Rylee had been complaining of being too tired to walk and wanted us to carry her. But once she heard that we could climb up the stairs to the top of the monument she said she wanted to do it. We told her we would do it if she would climb all by herself. Always up for a challenge, she was suddenly no longer tired. Funny how that works.

At the 100th stair...because 100 is her all time favorite number!

View from the top.

She made it! All 294 stairs by her little four year old self!

She is turning into quite the little portrait poser, this girl.

My calves were sore for three days after climbing, but Rylee was just fine! Granted, I carried Cailyn all the way up and down...she was in one of her Mommy Only moods...

Boston Day 3: Freedom Trail and Public Gardens

2011-10-23T00:18:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we followed these bricks through downtown Boston to see historic sites on the Freedom Trail.

For our resident history buff it was a perfect outing;

for the girlies, it was a very long day...

although, they did have fun playing inside these little chambers in one of the churches. I believe they were playing the Big Bad Wolf here.

They (and I) would probably enjoy church much more if we had our own private section of benches with a door to sit in! Maybe I'll suggest a remodel...


Pulling out flags marking special graves. Awesome.

John Hancock Grave and Memorial


Paul Revere's original headstone.

Memorial added later.

Contemplating pulling out this big flag, despite my instructions to leave it alone.

Victims of the Boston Massacre

Samuel Adams

"Hold me, mom! Hold me!" Cailyn wraps her arms around my legs and looks up at me whining like this several times a day.

We made it through a little more than half of the sites on the trail, including a tour of the Old City Hall (from which you can see the site of the Boston Massacre) and then decided to call it good...the girls were over it!

So we headed to the Boston Public Gardens. The girls had been looking forward to this visit for weeks because they love the book Make Way for Ducklings and I had told them that we would be able to ride the swan boats and see the statues of the ducks.

Unfortunately we were about two weeks too late to ride the swan boats; they only run from late Spring until the middle of September. Bummer! But we still got to see the statues, and the girls played and played with them. They kept pointing at different ducklings and asking "Which one is this?" Then we'd start from the beginning - "Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Oack, Pack, Quack" - until we got to the right duckling. They also loved sitting on Mrs. Mallard.

When we told the girls it was time to go they of course protested. Cailyn finally agreed that if she could leave her Purple Blankie to keep the duck warm that she would come. No, that is not a typo. And if you know anything about Cailyn, this should tell you how much she LOVED these ducks! Her Purple Blankie has basically been attached to her since she was born.

We walked around the pond and over the bridge

(Oh, and I stepped right into the middle of a marriage proposal while taking these pictures! I backed up and crouched down right in the middle of the couple and their friends or family who were watching from a few yards away, seconds before they all made their presence known to the girl by coming up and hugging and congratulating her. Whoops!)

where we had a good view of the little island where the Mallard family lives in the book.

Then we got up close to the swans...even if the boats were shut down, the real swans were still out (:

Then Rylee noticed this statue on the other side of the bridge and said "Mom, there it is! That's what we were looking for!" She had seen a picture of it on the cover of a Freedom Trail pamphlet we picked up earlier in the day; she knew that is was a map of sorts and asked me if the statue is what the map was taking us to. I was surprised that she recognized and remembered it!

As we headed for our car, Cailyn danced her way across the bridge and through the park singing to herself.

I just love this girl! She is totally in her own world and loves all things girly. I loved watching her sing and dance and twirl her way through the crowds.

Oh, and notice her dress. It was a much warmer day than the day before when I made her wear the terrible jeans, so she got to choose this. Heaven.
Also, hear Rylee asking to take a picture or video of Cailyn? That is one of her favorite hobbies these days - taking pictures and videos on my phone.

Boston Day 2 Part 2: Lobster!

2011-10-20T09:47:00.000-07:00

Just found this picture on my phone...Friday night after our trip to Concord and Lexington, Marianne and Kerry took us out for lobster with my cousin Jen, her husband Luis and Kerry's nephew Eli.

Quinn was one happy guy!

Boston Day 2: Minuteman Park

2011-10-20T00:53:00.000-07:00

Our second day we headed up to Lexington and Concord with Marianne and Sofia.

Our first stop was the Lexington Battle Green.

It's always a somewhat surreal experience for me to visit the sites of such pivotal historical events, to be able to actually picture the scene unfolding. I love that they have people dressed in period clothes to explain and point things out.

Notice Cailyn's jeans...she did NOT wear these happily! I insisted because it was a cool day, but it took me probably 5 minutes of pinning down a kicking screaming girl to get them on her, followed by at least a 30 minute tantrum. Why? Because jeans are blue. It was 30 minutes of "I don't LIKE jeans, they're BLUE!" I can hardly wait for her teenage years.

Rylee and Sofia were immediate friends.

Next we headed to the Minuteman Historical park where we watched a video and then followed along on some of the trail that the Red Coats and Minutemen marched.

We ended at the Old North Bridge

This is the only picture I got with Marianne that day...


View from the Bridge


Can you tell how happy Rylee was to be in this picture? Also, notice the lanyard I'm wearing...after losing the keys the night before, Marianne gave it to me to keep track of them (:

This was the first of many visits on our trip that made me feel a deep sense of patriotic humility and gratitude for all the brave people who gave their lives for our country. We truly are so blessed.

Boston Day 1: Apple Picking

2011-10-20T00:14:00.000-07:00

We took a week long trip to Boston this month and had a fabulous time!

Growing up, I spent a few weeks every other summer out there visiting my cousin; I hadn't been back there in probably 13 years, and Quinn and the girls had never been back east before, so when we had the chance we took it! It was so fun to stay with Aunt Marianne and Uncle Kerry. We just wish we could have spent more time out there - we could have easily spent a month out there and not run out of things to do!

Our flight got in 2 hours late going out there, which put us right around 2am. So, we didn't get to Needham until about 3. Needless to say, we didn't get up and going very early for our first day out there. Well, technically we didn't get up and going very early ANY day out there (that was probably our #1 challenge; for a family who struggles to get out the door before 9 or 10am, going back across three time zones with kids pretty much means losing at least half of the day every day) but we were extra slow getting out our first day. So we opted for a low-key local activity that didn't require a big block of time and headed out to Lookout Farm to pick apples. They had a little train that takes you out to different parts of the orchards, which the girls loved. We picked tons of DELICIOUS apples, pears and grapes.

Some of the apples were almost as big as Rylee's head!

Cailyn was in one of her moods, but she LOVED carrying around her bag. She didn't let it out of her sight.

The grapes were so yummy! They almost tasted like fruit snacks they were so flavorful.

There was a fun play area

with a (muddy) burlap maze,

animals,

This poor belly-dragging pig HAD to be pregnant!

a tree house,

and a "Kids Only" caterpillar train.

Cailyn had to put all her strength into pulling the apples off the trees.

She put every single one into her bag

unlike the rest of us who ~~gorged ourselves~~ snacked on fruit along the way.

As soon as we got home, however, she proclaimed that she was the Queen sat down on the stairs with her bag and began to devour her treasures.

Later, we went on a little walk through the woods across the street. The keys to the rental van fell out of my pocket while I was taking this picture and weren't found again until the next morning. But any anxiety (which was a lot) I may have experienced that night was totally worth this shot, right?

Notice there were a few leaves starting to change, but they were mostly green...which was a bit disappointing since I'd really been looking forward to the New England fall colors, but oh well!

We all had fun running around on the golf course on the other side of the forest trail. I just love these pictures of Cailyn.

Feeding the Ducks

2011-10-05T01:01:00.000-07:00

We walked down to feed popcorn to the ducks the other day.

Cailyn wore her Snow White dress. (She wears costumes at least half the time we are at home and probably a third of the time we go out these days.)

A few other little critters enjoyed the popcorn as well.

We stopped to swing on the way back home.

I just love the princess dress in the breeze (:

Rylee had more fun spinning than swinging.

In the Mirror

2011-10-05T00:42:00.000-07:00

The Ribbon

2011-10-05T00:40:00.000-07:00

The girls have been doing gymnastics since the beginning of the year; Cailyn just recently graduated to the next class! I no longer follow her around helping her out, she does it all by herself.

She got a ribbon for graduating from the "Lil' Hopper" class, and is very proud of it. It's been hanging on our fridge ever since!

It sure has been fun to watch Cailyn's skills and confidence progress over the months! When we started, although she has always loved gymnastics, she was very clingy and nervous about some of the exercises, but now she does them all with a smile. The thing that I will always remember is how TERRIFIED she was of the ladder; it is triangle shaped (two ladders meeting at the top) and is probably about 5 feet tall The kids are supposed to climb up, over, and down. While doing the circuits if the ladder was coming up, she would start crying a few activities before she got there saying "I don't want to do the ladder!" I had to physically move her hands and feet to get her to do it. But she gradually became more and more confident and after a couple months she did it by herself like a pro! Learning to climb the ladder helped build her confidence at home with climbing down from beds, chairs, etc. She used to have a lot of anxiety about these things, but after she learned to do the ladder, we started telling her to climb down "just like the ladder at gymnastics." And every time she successfully got down from somewhere she would say in a super excited voice "I did it just like the ladder!"

I'm one proud mama!

Birthday Bonanza

2011-10-04T00:39:00.000-07:00

This last month has been one birthday after another around here!

At the beginning of September we went to Caden, Rylan and Ethan's Pirate Party:

Cailyn didn't care about the cake...she was just determined to finish her entire bag of pinata candy! I had several people ask me "Are you Snow White's mom? Just thought I'd let you know she's eating all of her candy." Yes, I knew. And no, I didn't do anything about it.

At least she shared!

Next was Lainey's birthday. Check out Rylee's hand writing! She's not exactly an "in-the-lines" kind of person, on paper or otherwise. But her letters are starting to be recognizable and she is starting to put them all in order, not randomly all over the paper (:


Happy Birthday Lainey

Lainey had a princess party.

I got the fun job of taking pictures of each of the princesses in attendance.

Princess Cailyn

Princess Jessie

Princess Ellery

and her brother, Prince Dane

Princess Rylee

The tiniest of the Princesses, Ainsley

And, last but not least, Her Royal Highness, Princess Lainey

Every Princess has to have a little sass...

The Royal Court

The Royal Meltdown

The Fairy Godmothers (Me and Casey)

We made crowns,

opened presents,

sang,

blew out candles,

ate cake pops,

ate cake,

and applied princess makeup.

Fun party for a fun four year old!

Next up were Grandpa Mac

Happy Birthday Grandpa

Love, Rylee

and Grandpa Dave's birthdays

Happy Birthday Grandpa

Rylee

which we celebrated through cards and phone calls.

Then it was Shellie's 30th birthday. Quinn and I got to go up to her surprise birthday dinner.

And then, tonight, was Grandma Joanne's 75th birthday!

(Wow, I'm actually blogging about something that happened TODAY! Almost caught up now. Whew!)

Happy Birthday

Keep the cake coming, please (:

SDSU Game and Fireworks

2011-10-03T22:55:00.000-07:00

Quinn got tickets from work for our family to go to the SDSU game a few weeks ago down at Qualcomm Stadium.

The girls were thrilled to get to sit in seat numbers that correlated with their ages!

It was their first time at a big sporting event; they loved it and were fascinated by everything that there was to see.

Rylee especially loved when the canon went off after each touchdown!

It got a little loud at times, but they didn't mind too much.

Rylee was SO excited when we let her chase the cotton candy man down and pay for it all by herself. Too bad the picture was out of focus...but look how excited and proud she was running back with it!

She didn't even wait for her change...we had to send her back to get it, but she was very proud when she handed it back to Quinn.

Aztecs won the game!

Randomly, the Dibbins had seats several rows behind us! They saw us on our way in and after the game they came down and joined us for the rest of the show. Rylee sat in Donna's lap for most of the evening after that (:

And Tim shared his binoculars.

Cailyn especially loved the marching band after the game. She called it the "parade."

The fireworks show lasted for probably half an hour and was fabulous!

Not much better than a fun, free night!

Little Bugs

2011-10-03T00:40:00.000-07:00

Rylee began her second year of preschool a few weeks ago, and is loving it so far! We switched schools this year to Little Bugs Preschool. These are pictures from the first day. Rylee isn't normally into posing for pictures, but she sure was that day - all kinds of poses!

With Pandy

Lainey switched preschools with Rylee - thank goodness, because I'm not sure I'd ever get Rylee there by 9am if Casey weren't running the morning leg of carpool!

Outside Ms. Paula's house

Who needs a backpack for your cubby when you have Pandy?

Jack has started kindergarten this year, but his class begins after preschool each day; he LOVES the train table!

After the first day of class we ate Carls Jr.

And apparently our first day of photoshoots wasn't enough, because Rylee wanted to take pictures before the second day too. She did, in fact, bring a backpack this time.

I believe that this was the morning that Jack exclaimed as Rylee climbed into their car "Wow, Rylee, you look GOOD today!" Check her and her hot stuff out!

Quite the character, that Miss Rylee Skye.

Ballet Class (with videos!)

2011-10-03T00:15:00.000-07:00

Sadly, our garage ballet lessons were short lived; Ms. Anna decided that it was too hard on her two little boys for her to teach all Tuesday afternoon, so we only had two lessons. We do plan on signing the girls up for lessons at a studio...but are going to wait until after our upcoming trip to Boston.

These are a few of my favorite pictures from their second and final class. Jessie (Lainey's neighbor) joined us this time.

And boy was it a HOT day! It was during the September heat wave when we had several days in the high 90's and even into the 100's! Not ideal for dancing in the garage...the girls attention spans were not what they were the previous week as you'll see in some of the videos below.

This first video is actually from the first class...I just forgot to include it before.

I love how hard Cailyn is trying! And notice Rylee's comments throughout these videos...that girl says everything she thinks!

Shake it, Laine!

And this is probably my favorite video...Cailyn has to get set just right (with her hand in a STOP position) before she freezes every time, Rylee and Lainey are so hot that they've given up on dancing and decided to be cats, and Rylee tattles on Lainey...

Rylee has starting saying OMG lately - and not "gosh" or "goodness." I've talked with her several times explaining that God is Heavenly Father and we don't use his name that way. So now she tattles every time she hears anyone else say it, in spite of my best efforts to explain that it's OK if people do things differently than we do. I've told her she can say "oh my gosh" or "oh my goodness" or even "omg", but it seems the more I tell her not to say "God", the more she does. The other night after repeat offenses in a matter of minutes, I finally washed her mouth out with soap...I haven't heard her say it since then!

A Day in Portland

2011-10-02T22:56:00.000-07:00

The day after the wedding, I drove down to Portland for a quick trip to spend some time with Anne. I was there for not quite 24 hours, but we had a great time! The timing worked out perfectly - since it was Labor Day, Anne didn't have any classes, which was lucky because PA school sure does keep her busy!

I got there Sunday night and Anne had invited our childhood friend, Courtney Hansen, who happens to be in Anne's ward now over for dinner. It was yummy and fun to catch up a little bit!

On Monday Anne and I headed out and about. Our first stop was Sauvie Island where we did a little berry picking.

We got a little nerdy taking pictures...

See no evil...

Hear no evil...

Speak no evil.

Most other things were out of season, but we did get corn (how can you pass on it when it's BODACIOUS?) and the pumpkin patch was coming along nicely.

The flowers were also beautiful!

I think I'd want to live here too if I were a grasshopper!

Then we headed into town where we visited Powell's Books - if I weren't on such a time crunch I could have spent all day there! But as it was, we only had time to go into the children's section. Our berry picking had made us think of Blueberries for Sal and we decided that the girls needed a copy, so we picked up a copy of that, as well as a copy of Stone Soup that caught our eye, and then we were on our way. We walked around the art exhibit that was going on a block or so from Powells and then ate some yummy Thai food from a food cart. On our way back to the car we saw a gelato store, so of course we had to get some of that.

Next stop was Voodoo Donuts. I'd seen a special on the food network that featured it once and was intrigued, and Anne agreed that it was a must while I was in the area. Since we had just stuffed ourselves silly, we just bought donuts for me to bring home to San Diego.


Why plan a wedding when you can have Voodoo Donuts do it for you?

We waited in line for probably at least half an hour...

Yes, that is a piece of bubble gum on top of that pink donut.

Then it was time for me to head back to Tri-Cities to catch my flight home. We took a few pictures at Anne's house first. Look what a pretty view she has! It's a great house.

Back at home, Cailyn LOVED the Froot Loop donut I brought her.

Rylee seemed excited (after all, she does eat Froot Loops almost every morning for breakfast, and what's better than your favorite food on top of a donut?) at first...

but ultimately decided that cereal belongs in a bowl.

She wound up picking all the Froot Loops off and ate them separately.

Oh well, at least I tried!

The blackberries were a hit though!

Personally I left all the toppings on my donut; how can you go wrong with BACON on top of a maple donut?

Thanks for a fun day, Anne!

Kurt and Lindsey's Wedding

2011-10-02T09:37:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, I got to go up to Washington over Labor Day Weekend for Lindsey and Kurt's wedding - I'm so glad I was able to be there! Everything was beautiful and perfect.

I was lucky enough to be on Tessa duty on the day of the wedding.

It was perfect for me, because I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself without my two girlies to chase after. And Lindsey's three-year-old (well, technically she was 2 weeks shy of three at the time) daughter couldn't be any cuter!

She was hilarious at the salon - trying to help do her grandma's hair.

And she loved getting her hair done!

Then she wanted to put makeup on everyone.

Believe it or not, I actually hardly took any pictures of anything other than Tessa! I tend to do this...when I'm around a professional photographer I go into vacation mode and figure that they will get plenty of fabulous pictures. Which she did.

The only bad news is that Lindsey hasn't gotten most of the pics back yet, so I don't have any pictures of me and her or the beautiful reception or anything yet.

Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Stone! I love you guys!

After the Blackout

2011-10-02T00:57:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not referring to the power outage we experienced a few weeks ago that affected millions of homes in Arizona, Southern California and Mexico for about 12 hours. I know lots of people have written about that experience and what they learned from it. I am not one of those people; I'm referring to a much longer blackout...the summer blackout days at Disneyland on our annual passports! (What does this say about me and my priorities? I'm not sure I want to know.)

We were blocked out for most of June, all of July, almost to the end of August. Torture, if you ask Cailyn. (What's that website? First World Problems or something? Yeah, add us onto that one, right at the top of the list.)

Anyway, Casey and I took the kiddos up for a day the first chance we got after we were unblocked. Which just happened to be the same day that I had a flight out of LAX to go up to my friend Lindsey's wedding in Washington. So, I took the girls up, stayed for a few hours, and then abandoned Casey with five kids so I could catch my flight. By the way, this was about two weeks after she took my kids just about every day for a week, including a day with all 5 kids at Legoland by herself so I could pack for our move. I pretty much owe her my life.

So, here's pictures from the first few hours that I was there (:

Goofy was the first one we saw when we walked in the park; notice, Cailyn is showing him her Ariel.

Sweet Jack-eroo

The Mickey Mouse Club: Carter, Jack, Lainey, Rylee, Cailyn

This is my first real photoshop project! I had to merge two pics together so that you could read all the names on the hats. It's not perfect, but I'm pretty darn proud of myself (:

Carter loves Cailyn - such a sweet kid! What other 10 year old boy would hold a sassy 2 year old every chance he gets?

That was a month ago...so we're about due for another visit! We'll head up later this month to check out the Halloween decorations. It's a rough life living in Southern California.

Big Girl Bed

2011-09-30T22:10:00.000-07:00

We moved about a month ago, so life has been even more of a blur than normal...

The girls' bedroom at our last house was HUGE. Which meant that there was plenty of space for two beds. Which meant that I was in no rush to get Cailyn out of her crib.

Well, since we have now moved into a house with normal-sized bedrooms, I decided it was time to change the bed situation. We got the girls bunk beds, and Cailyn couldn't be happier about being in a big girl bed!

She's still a pretty squirmy sleeper, but I don't think she's fallen out of her bed a single time...although she's come close several times.

(Yes, we also painted the walls PINK at the girls' request...the pink glow that you see in these pictures can also be seen spilling out into the hallway from down the hall.)

First Ballet Lesson

2011-09-27T00:35:00.000-07:00

The girls had been asking to take ballet class for a while, so they were thrilled when I signed them up to take lessons from our friend at church, who decided to try teaching classes from her home. Garage ballet - doesn't that have a nice ring to it? Ha! It was great though, and the girls absolutely loved it! Their first class consisted of Rylee, Cailyn and Lainey. Perfect.

I can't get enough of Cailyn trying to stretch her arms over her head. So stinking cute.

Check out Rylee's form! I was amazed to notice her natural grace in several of these pictures. Pointed toes and everything!

Lainey's attempt at touching her nose to her knee (:

Rylee: "Good job Cailyn! I'm so proud of you!"

Back at home, the girls were still dancing...

(Is this ballet or karate?)

Look at those pointed toes!

Love these two tiny dancers!

Tutus at Twilight

2011-09-24T22:39:00.000-07:00

Quick Stop in Vegas

2011-09-24T22:28:00.000-07:00

On our way back from the reunion, we decided at the last minute to stay the night in Vegas with Jess and his family.

The highlight as far as Cailyn was concerned was the 3D Dora Movie that we saw at Circus Circus!

Oh, and the Foofa doll she is holding that Eric got for her from one of the claw machines was a pretty big deal, too!

We watched the pirate show at Treasure Island. Bad plot, bad acting...the only redeeming part of the show was the ship sinking! But the girls seemed to enjoy it enough.

Diana, Eric, Jess, Marisol

Quinn, Cailyn, Allison, Rylee

It was super hot and muggy, even at night. The girls both had me pull their hair up off their necks.

Pretty uneventful for a Friday nights in Vegas!

But I think the McNamara family exceeded our quota of eventful activity in Vegas three summers ago. We prefer the low-key type visits, for sure (:

Reunion Wrapup {around the cabin & family pictures}

2011-09-23T23:13:00.000-07:00

These are a few of my favorite things that I snapped pictures of around the cabin:

Avery and Ava bubble-heads

Relaxing after a busy day

Football Fans (Preseason games started while we were there)

Story time with Aunt Annette

Cailyn's front-row seat

Two Liams

Mini-photo shoot of cute Cole

New Teeth

Giggles

Cole and his Mama, Stephanie


Grandma and Roan

We did family pictures, and I was nominated as the photographer. Getting a picture of this big of a group was definitely a challenge! Maybe someday I'll learn how to really photoshop and try to get one where everyone's eyes are open! Until then, I think we turned out with some pretty good ones.

Goofing off while I was testing my camera settings

Notice Rylee and Quinn. Very back row, middle right.

And check out Rylee again. Every single one of the 30ish pictures I took she was pulling one of these two faces. Awesome.

The Original Clawson Girls

Allison, Melinda, Grandma Jessie Del, Annette, Brenda

Then we did a little McNamara grandbabies shoot.


Liam Fish

The Girls

Of course the one picture where all the kiddos are looking is the one where Grandma has a goofy grin!

Love it.

The Boys

Little Liam is at a hard-to-keep-still age

The Girls...waiting for The Boys to be placed (:

Doesn't Cailyn look thrilled?

Avery cracks me up!

It took some effort...

...and cheek smashing...

...but ultimately we wound up with a couple pretty cute ones!

Now, if we could just get this bunch to all live closer together...

We had such a fun trip! We're so lucky to be part of such a wonderful family.

Hiking in Zion

2011-09-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day we spent hiking in Zion National Monument.

Avery and Ava, hand in hand.

Quinn and Cailyn

Matt, wishing he'd left the double stroller at home (:

Shellie and Liam

The kiddos loved playing in the puddles from the little waterfall at the end of the trail!

Sadie

The McDonalds. Bad lighting...but cute picture!

Our little family. I think this is our only family picture from the trip!

After the hike, we played in the stream

Cassie, Ava, Emma

Scott and Avery

Cole and Stephanie

Katie and Roan

Cassie and Colin

Colin tempting fate

Joe, Colin, Cassie, Shellie

Me, Cassie, Shellie

Love these two cute ladies!

Then it was lunch time on the grass.

Eating her Twinkie cream first.

Happy Roan and his Happy Grandpa

Silly Sassy Girlies

Liam loved the leaves!

LOVE!

Racing

I had fun taking pictures of these cute Shurtleff kids.

Big Sister, Priya

Baby Brother Oliver

Oh! How I love those cheeks!

And their cute Mama, Hillary.

Tackling Grandpa

Sleepy Liam

Do you see it?

How 'bout now?

Payton caught this little lizard; Rylee wanted to hold it and it ran straight up her arm, around her shoulder and into her hair, then up towards her face. She thought it was so funny!

Then Halle spent some time admiring him..

And then we set him free and headed back to the cabins. Such a beautiful place and a fun day!

Fun at the Pool

2011-09-22T23:02:00.000-07:00

The pool at the reunion was awesome! Multiple levels, waterfalls, huge water slides, jacuzzis, and kiddie pools.

This was Rylee's favorite thing to do at the pool.

Then climb back up the rock wall and do it all over again.

Little Dare Devil, that girl!

Couldn't not share these pics...such beautiful smiles (: