Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was great. We spent Thursday night in Sherman with my parents. Mom cooked up a great meal complete with her traditional succotash. Benjamin, being my little vegetarian, actually ate some of his turkey. I was pleasantly surprised. That evening my dad even got to see how a diaper gets changed for the first time in his life! HUGE milestone!

Savannah's first Thanksgiving.












Mommy and Savannah












Grandpa, Frederick, Benjamin













Grandmother and Frederick












Grandpa getting a lesson on changing a diaper....not much to see in the picture but we had to at least document the moment!

What's the Rush?

I'm trying to really figure out something about myself. Why in the world do I feel the need to rush with everything I do? For example, doctors' appointments - even if I get up super early and even leave super early and there's no way I'll be late I still rush. I rush getting things together, getting the kids ready, myself ready, I rush the drive. Rush, rush, rush, hurry, hurry, hurry. I've tried to be so deliberate at times to just slow down but within seconds I'm back to rushing. Why is that? And why can't I make myself understand that if I'm late, it's really okay? It's not the end of the world. The old saying "stop and smell the roses" really doesn't ever happen in my life. I really regret that and am actually ashamed to admit it. So off I go now, gotta hurry up and get Savannah before her babbling turns to cries. Hurry now, Kelly, you wouldn't want that to happen now would you? Bah.

Okay, wait...before I hurry off, here's a picture that makes me laugh of Benjamin. This is what he looks like when he REALLY doesn't want his picture taken. The next picture is Savannah's new favorite position. She likes to gnaw on her foot....literally! Good thing she's not walking on them yet. That would be a little gross.

Time-Out

So I walk out of the room today for just a split second and when I came back this is what I see. Benjamin is trying to give Savannah her bottle. She still isn't taking a bottle but we keep trying every day. Since Benjamin is so big on mimicking everything we say and do now I'm totally surprised he wasn't also saying "please Savannah, please Savannah". I catch myself saying it to her every time I try to convince her to take the bottle. Anyway, it was a sweet picture and didn't want to pass up the photo opportunity.













Lastly, Benjamin got ahold of my iced coffee this morning and dumped it out on the coffee table. I walked in to him smearing the ice all over the coffee table in the playroom. My reaction was "Oh my goodness, Benjamin you are in so much trouble". I didn't yell it though, I just simply said it in disbelief of what I was seeing. It was a mess. He quickly left the room and after a little while I went to check on him. I found him on the time-out mat. He had actually put himself in time-out. Good boy!

Date Night

We had a date night last night and it was fabulous! We started off at Houston's for dinner. Next was movie time to see New Moon. If you can get past the horrible acting, the movie was quite entertaining.

I've Become That Person....

....the person that starts to celebrate Christmas before Thanksgiving. Yes, I admit it. 'Tis the season has started in the McKinney household. I dusted off all of our Christmas DVD's and Benjamin watched Frosty the Snowman 4 times in the car on the way to Sherman on Monday. I've burned new Christmas CD's from iTunes and have them all loaded in the CD player. And finally, a Christmas tree has already been decorated and lit in Benjamin's room. Thanks for the idea Tara! Our main Christmas tree is still attic bound (I plan on putting that up when we get back from London, which is a LONG 2 weeks away). I bought smaller trees this year to place in Benjamin and Savannah's rooms. Benjamin's tree is a cowboy theme to match his room and Savannah's tree (I haven't put hers up yet) will be hippie decorations to match her room. Yes, in our house the Christmas movies have begun, the music is playing, and I'm belting out a new Christmas song every time I blink. Benjamin is tired of me singing them already ...I lost count how many times today he told me to "STOP SINGING MOMMA" and "MOMMA BE QUIET"!

Below is Benjamin's tree. He was so excited about it. For the first time ever he requested his picture be taken and he actually let me take many pictures of him smiling by his tree. Unfortunately the camera seems to make the decorations look like they blend in with the tree but there are cowboy boots, stars, horses, and cows on it!

















If the decorations look like they're not evenly distributed on the tree, that would be Benjamin's fault. He didn't like where I placed some of the decorations so he rearranged them. Hey, it's his tree, he can put the decorations where he wants them, right?

Quality Time

With David being gone all last week and now he's turning around tomorrow morning and leaving again we tried to get some quality time in with the kids this afternoon. Thankfully, his trip is only going to be from Monday to Wednesday so 2 days were cut off his trip for this week. I'm so glad...and so is he! It's amazing how much you can miss in a week with these kids. Last week Savannah starting standing on her own (while holding onto something), starting drinking from a sippie cup (although she has yet to repeat it), and Benjamin's vocabulary just increases exponentially with every day.

We spent the afternoon at the park after his nap today. Benjamin has started swinging in the big kid swing now. He no longer likes to swing in the bucket swing. Well, that completely back fired on us today. David was pushing him as high as he could go (because Benjamin kept asking "higher please" - how can you resist that politeness?) and while he was at his highest point of the swing he let go and went face first in the dirt. He bit his tongue pretty bad and had a mouth full of blood for a little while. Scared me to death. But we learned something from it....dark green shirts hide blood. And can you believe it, once he calmed down from his plunge, he wanted to get back on the swing!

Oh and something completely amazing happen today. Savannah took a nap from 12:30pm to 3:30pm. Both kids woke up at the exact same time. So I actually got to take a nap today. I'm calling it my little miracle.


Daddy and Benjamin












The swing he fell from.












A kiss for Savannah















It's impossible to get everyone looking at the camera at the same time....

Max Lucado

While I was in Waco this week Nancy and I got to attend a speech by Max Lucado on the Baylor campus. He's a Christian writer that has written many books and has sold 65 million copies. In other words, he's pretty popular, right? His daughter is currently a junior at Baylor (which is probably why we were able to get him to come speak, sic' em bears!) He has a new book out called "Fearless". The speech was promoting this book. He had some thought provoking points. I won't go into all the details but my favorite part was the question/answer session he allowed at the end of the speech with the audience members. One question from an audience member was "if you say we shouldn't fear things in our life (i.e. losing a job, family member, etc.) then what do you say if those fears actually come true"? Basically Max's answer was that we should put our faith in God and trust that. But I feel like that answer could be expanded. Fear, like worry, won't change your circumstances. It's a waste of energy to let fear (and worry) invade your life. Like Max mentioned, have you ever met anyone that fear has made them a better person or better parent? Of course I need to practice what I preach. I have so many fears. That's me not trusting God and not having enough faith, right? Fear and worry, it's human nature and it's something I'm constantly working on.

Sippie Cup Success

David is out of town for 2 weeks (although he comes home briefly this weekend) so I'm in Waco spending time with his parents. We're having such a good time.

I do have some good news to report. Savannah actually drank an ounce of juice from her sippie cup last night. We've been trying to wean her from the breast but she won't have it. She's been refusing to take a bottle and/or sippie cup since she was born and for the past few months I've been trying every day to convince her to use one or the other. So one ounce from the cup is HUGE to us.

For the first time ever I went to the Waco zoo yesterday. I lived there for 5 years and surprisingly never got around to going to the zoo. Anyway, I was thoroughly impressed with it. I'll definitely be going back again!

Savannah with her juice that she actually drank!













Benjamin hanging out with the leopard.

















Ben seems to have an interest in snakes. He gets that from his dad - David is an enormous snake fan. Feel sorry for me please? I have a feeling those slithering things will be pets in our home come his teenage years. Man oh man!

Mommy's Present

Benjamin came running to me the other day all excited. "Momma, Momma, I want to show you something, I made you something, I made you a present", he kept saying. He grabbed my hand and led me to our bedroom. He had gotten into my jewelry box and hung all my bracelets on our dresser drawers. It was too sweet to be mad at him.













On another note, Savannah cut her 2nd tooth today!