Daddy's Girl

Mackenzie got used to having her daddy home with all of the snow and now that he doesn't have to work from home she is asking for him non-stop. We made a little video for daddy!! We love you! You are the best daddy ever!

And the first recipe post is....

Sausage Balls! Sorry you vegetarians! Thank you to a dear family friend that gave me this recipe when I asked for it. I made these yesterday and they tasted just like they did when this friend made them for our Church's pot luck breakfasts! Oh I am so happy to have this recipe!!!!

3 cups Bisquick (I used Krusteaz)
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
1lb ground pork sausage mild or hot, whichever you prefer. I prefer mild.

Preheat oven to 350. Throw all the makings into a bowl and mix! I found it easier to use my kitchen aid with the dough hook. Form into 1 inch balls and bake on a cookie sheet for about 15 minutes, or until done. It makes quite a bit so I put some of the uncooked ones into a ziploc and into the freezer. Next time I might try brushing a little melted butter over top of them.

Going to try something..

I am going to start including some recipes in this blog. So this blog will now be about two of my favorite things, my daughter, and FOOD! First recipe coming soon!

A chat with Santa...

Kenzi has been talking about Santa and even says "lap lap" when talking about him. When asked if she wants to sit on him lap, she says yes. When she meets him in person it's a different story. She's not sure what to think and just stares at him with a blank face. This Santa at the Lights of Christmas was so sweet, he came over to her in her stroller and just talked to her. When he started to blow her kisses, she smiled and blew one back. Melts my heart!

Our insane amount of snow

We woke up to another couple of inches of snow this morning. I think we now have about a foot of it. We took Mackenzie out to play and she loved it. It was hard for her to walk since it was almost up to her knees!! It is still snowing!!

Walking in a winter wonderland

I can't believe how much snow we have! We got 2 inches on Sunday (when these pictures were taken) and today an additional 4 inches fell over the course of the day. Tonight we are supposed to get more! Mackenzie is loving the snow! However, today she didn't like being out in it as much since the wind had picked up and the falling snow was hitting her in the face. We lost power for an hour or so today while Kenz napped. Matt and I were pretty bored so we played Monopoly. Having all of this snow is making it very difficult to get our Christmas shopping done. I finally got the majority of our cards in the mail today. I hope my family in Virginia gets them in time. They should. For now we will enjoy our winter wonderland!

Daily December

Jessica Turner gave me a terrific idea. A scrapbook titled Daily December that has a picture from every day of the month. AWESOME! Jessica is such a talented scrapper. I seriously wish I had her talent. She has a cute new baby too. I have been taking pictures of Mackenzie NON-STOP. If you are my friend on facebook then you have seen a few of them. I love this idea. For now it's all just pictures, I can't wait to get the scrapbook started. Anyway, I wanted to share a few of my favorites with you!

As my dad would say every year....

....Christmas time's a comin!

Our family

A quick update

Mackenzie is learning so much so fast lately. She is obsessed with motorcycles and makes the "vroom" sound with hand motions. We took for another hair cut yesterday and she did rather well sitting on my lap. She is soooo happy lately too. Mackenzie loves to play talk on the phone. She says "hello" now too. Christmas is going to be fun this year I'm sure. Here is a video and some pictures! Oh and a picture of the special birthday present Mackenzie and Matt made for me. The first picture with the Christmas tree is after her haircut, the phone picture is before.

Holiday Traditions

My family never really had traditions that we followed for the holidays. I mean, yeah we would decorate the tree together or make a gingerbread house occasionally but we never had one thing we did EVERY year. I take that back, the gingerbread houses kind of became a tradition in my late teens. Now that I have a family of my own I want a tradition! I need your help in coming up with some ideas. The idea of our traditions hit me when I was looking at my friend Sarah's post on her blog titled Countdown With Style. This product got me thinking as I was trying to make one of these for my family. I had NO idea what to put in the boxes. Yeah, I came up with a couple like Elf night (our favorite holiday movie), actually I think that is the only one I could come up with. So, HELP ME!

Luvs for Cousin Jane, peek a boo, and back to normal!

Just the three of us

This picture was taken before the herpes outbreak but I love it so much. I just got it off of my camera. We don't have many of all three of us together so I had to put it on.

Thank you!

Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers. Mackenzie is back to herself again. Her lips are pretty much back to normal now and she's eating and drinking again too. She went to daycare Wed-Fri of this week and did great. I will post a picture and video tomorrow! She is doing something new, can't wait to show you! Matt and I are so glad to have our little girl back and feeling better. Now we await the next flare up, a cold sore. Should be just a single one though. We have Acyclovir on hand!

Blog makeover, Mackenzie update, and FOLLOW ME.

As you can tell, I gave the blog a little makeover. Let me know what you think. I really wish there were more choices for fonts. I love blogging. I know it's mostly about Mackenzie but I might just started putting other random thoughts on here. We'll see. Not sure how many people actually read this. Speaking of that, if you read this blog click on the "follow this blog" link!!!

And on to the more important things. Mackenzie is doing great!!!!! She slept better last night and in her crib for the majority of the night. She drank some pediasure last night also. Did I blog about that already? I can't remember. I have the urinary system on my mind from lecture today. Anyway, this morning after waking up Mackenzie asked for some cereal. After making sure my ears weren't full of wax I asked her if she wanted cereal and got the reply of YES. I decided I'd give her some when I dropped her off with Mimi and Papa for the day. She continued to ask for cereal up until the moment she had it sitting in front of her. Mind you, only about 15 minutes had gone by. She ate a few bites of it but was rather distracted by the playdough. (One of her new favorite things) Key point being she did not cry with the first bite or any of the 3 she took. I went off to school. Papa told me she had a couple of bottles of pediasure and some cookies. COOKIES! How awesome is that? Tonight she ate some pasta, cheese, and even a few bites of chicken! I can't believe it. Her mouth is looking sooo much better. Most of the scabs have come off and she is able to suck on her pacifier again. I was secretly hoping that since she wasn't able to suck on it that she would forget all about it, not the case though. She is now sleeping. The doctor's office called to check on her and see if we were giving her the antiviral. Did I mention that we only gave her a few doses? It really gave her some GI distress, worse than the motrin. And, it's likely not going to be effective since it was started so late. Had we started it Tues or Wed it may be a different story. I let them know how frustrated I was that we were not told of the results until Friday and that had they let us know that the herpes rapid test was positive on Wed rather than making us wait this outbreak could have been less painful and horrible for her. What I am trying to say is that today I found out that they had the results when they told me they didn't. Should we find a new pediatrician?

With all of that going on I haven't really been able to update you on the new things Mackenzie is doing. She loves to twirl and dance. She loves the slide at the park and will climb it by herself. When we drive by the park on our way to Mimi and Papa's she yells "SLIDE!!!!!" I think I already told you about her learning shapes. Tonight she distinguished pink from yellow when I asked her to point at the pink playdough. Miss Smartypants I tell you. She has an obsession with Bob from Veggie Tales and will ask to watch "Ba" just about every second she gets. Her favorite place to be is outside. She doesn't like to share her toys which is something we are trying to work on.

Sorry this was a long post! Thanks again for keeping her in your thoughts and prayers, we appreciate it. Again, if you follow our blog, click on the FOLLOW THIS BLOG link to the right!!!!!

Back to playing

Well it seems as though little miss monkey is feeling a little better. She slept more last night but still had some tummy issues from the medicine. We stopped giving it to her as it just wasn't worth it and it wouldn't be effective since it was started so late in the eruption of the virus. I was worried last night that I was going to have to take her to the ER to get rehydrated. She wasn't drinking very much and her diaper had extremely concentrated urine in it. Today is a different story. She still won't eat but she has had almost 2 bottles of the yogurt and milk stuff. Then I decided to buy some pediasure, she loves it. Now she is actually playing like herself! Her sores are healing and peeling off and of course still bleeding. We're keeping vasaline on her lips and that seems to make a HUGE difference. Right now she is hugging her baby and saying "nigh nigh" as she is giving her daddy a blanket. Then she lays on the floor waiting for him to put it over her and pat her back. It's so cute. Did I ever mention that she is obsessed with Bob from Veggie Tales?

The updated picture

Here are two pictures, the first one she just wanted to sit on my lap and put stickers on herself. That is what we did for Halloween this year. Fun huh. The second one you can obviously tell that she in uncomfortable. You can see that the break out has spread to around her mouth. Her lips are now cracking and bleeding and the medicine is giving her diarrhea so we really have to make sure she gets enough fluids. She still doesn't want to eat or drink much but hopefully as the weekend goes on that will change.

Update

Well we went back to the doctor today as it is just ridiculous that we have not been called with test results. We saw a different provider who was on top of phoning the lab to figure out where the results were. As it turns out, Mackenzie does have herpes simplex 1. Apparently the first time a child has an occurrence of this it doesn't involve just a cold sore. It involves multiple on the lips, tongue, and roof of the mouth. She now has some blisters on her face, they are small but actually resemble a blister. I feel so bad for her. Last night she ended up eating about half of her cup of diced peaches. YAY! Today I got her some drinkable yogurt and mixed it with milk for her bottle. She drank it up! Finally a little nutrition! She was started on Acyclovir today so hopefully we are on the road to recovery. Although in order for acyclovir to be effective, it needs to be started within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms. We are onto day 4. But it should help with some of the pain. Thanks for keeping her in your thoughts and prayers. I'll post another picture tomorrow. Oh, I passed my exam today with an 84%. Better than I anticipated!

18 months and miserable.

Today we hit the year and a half mark!! Mackenzie has been very sick this week. Monday I picked her up from Mimi and Papa's to find that she had a 102.2 fever. Tuesday she woke up with ulcer type things all over her tongue and on both top and bottom lips, right where the two touch if you have your mouth closed, all the way across. She refuses to eat but does drink milk or water in small portions throughout the day. She is miserable! I took her to the doctor Tuesday who said that she suspects it's the herpes virus (at this point I start to feel like a bad parent as I just got rid of a cold sore over a week ago). They cultured it and said we would know in 24 hours. It has now been 48 hours and we still don't know if its herpes. I phoned yesterday and was told the test takes 3 days! 3 days people!!!! What happened to the rapid 24 hour test?? In the meantime, Mackenzie is not sleeping which means we aren't either. She is crying in pain not only from her mouth but I believe the infant motrin is tearing up her empty stomach. She refuses to let us put anything on her mouth to try and numb it up. I did manage to shove a q-tip soaked in benzocaine in there this afternoon. It made a little difference. I asked her if her mouth felt any better and she said "yeah." She still did not want to eat. She is still running a fever and taking cat naps throughout the day. It is so hard to watch her be in so much pain and not be able to do anything about it. And to add more to the pot, I have an exam tomorrow. She was screaming all night last night, she wouldn't let me hold her, she just wanted to lay on the floor or on the couch. Here is a picture of her, poor thing. The sores do not resemble cold sores at all, they are not fluid filled whatsoever. It doesn't even resemble hand, foot, and mouth disease. I am baffled. She won't even eat ice cream. I also tried the stage 1 baby food. She won't touch it. She can't even brush her teeth! Worst of all, we can't go to the Halloween Party tomorrow night. We were going to dress up as a family- Matt a devil, myself an angel, and Mac was going to be half devil and half angel. Maybe we'll take her trick or treating. I just want her to get better. I hate seeing her in pain, it's breaking my heart. I don't know what else to do! On a better note, she knows 3 shapes and 1 color and she is is growing fast! Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

More pics from the pumpkin patch

Fun in the fall

Today Mackenzie and I went with Grammy and Papa to visit a couple of farms. We fed alpacas and walked through the pumpkin patch. It was so much fun. Mackenzie loved having the freedom of walking around the farms. There were these goats behind a fence at the pumpkin patch that Mackenzie loved playing with. I got video of that but it's too big to put on here. We had such a fun day today. Too bad daddy couldn't be with us. We didn't pick out a pumpkin today since he wasn't there. We'll go back though! Mackenzie did find her own size pumpkin that we did get. We had some apple cider too. I love this season!!!

Very first hair cut

Yep, finally did it. Honestly, I have been scared to take Mackenzie in to get her hair cut. Just wasn't sure how she would react.
Mackenzie did really great during the process though. She freaked out at first but Susan was really great and patient as Mackenzie got used to her pony chair.
Really you don't notice much of a difference though. She has some "swoop" bangs now and layers were added. See, the top part of her hair is straight, the bottom is curly so we layered it to show more curl. It's kind of like an inverted "bob" cut. Susan gave us the first lock of hair that she cut as a keepsake with a little certificate. Soooo cute.

We went to a wedding reception last night, Mackenzie had so much fun running around outside. Perfect weather! She really loved lifting her dress up for everyone too. Geez.

Rockin Out

Mackenzie rocks out every time daddy turns on this song by Angels and Airwaves. Our girl has great taste, I love this song too. Make sure you pause the music bar to your right!

First Weekend Boat Trip

We took Mackenzie out on the boat Labor Day weekend. Our friends Josh and Melissa went with us too. The weather was supposed to be down right crappy but it turned out very nice. Mackenzie loved being on the boat and always tried putting her life jacket on herself. She slept great at night too!! It was a little cramped with all of us on there but we managed just fine. We took the boat up to San Juan Island and anchored out at Garrison Bay the first night, Friday. Then Saturday we took the dinghy over to the shore and walked around English Camp. We took off from there and went over to Roche Harbor and anchored for a little while. We took the dinghy to shore (after a nice nap of course) and walked around the harbor and got some ice cream. We went crabbing and then went and got some oysters and clams from a shellfish farm at Westcott Bay. We had a nice time. Here are some pictures!