my sweet SWEET ornery girl

Oh, to be three years old again. I totally wish I could remember what I was like when I was three. Three year olds are like teenagers. They go through about twenty different emotions in a two minute time span. It is slightly comical. And slightly frustrating too.

Miss Macy is three years old. Three and a HALF years old, she'd like you to know. She can be an amazingly sweet cuddlebug one minute and then a nasty attitude mean chic the next. "Hmpfh" is a highly-used word in her vocabulary.

Macy likes being my little helper! She loves helping me do pretty much anything around the house. I love this about her. She likes helping prepare meals and bake goodies. Especially if there is a promise of licking the spoon or the electric mixer beater after making a batch of some tasty treat.

MOST of the time, Macy is a rule-follower. She's polite, quiet, and a good listener. When we are in public, she really doesn't test the boundaries or try to break the rules.

But a lot of the time she's a feisty little lady, just waiting for Mommy and Daddy to turn around so she can go do exactly the opposite of what we just told her.

She LOVES books, playing games (like Memory), riding her bike, creating art, and playing with her dolls.

I mentioned that she says "Hmpfh" a lot. She also likes crossing her arms if she's not getting her way.

She would implement "Pajama Day" everyday if she could. I have to very carefully choose how I convince her that it is time to change her clothes and brush her hair in the morning.

Macy is at the point where some days she still takes a nap in the afternoon, and other days she just has a quiet rest time. Most days she reads books in her bed for a while and then eventually falls asleep. But she no longer NEEDS a nap everyday. Right now she thinks it is super cool if she gets to skip rest time altogether!

She is falling into the category of "picky eater". Frustrating. She often claims she doesn't like something even before she tries it. The "battle with food" is one of my least favorite things about parenting. Right next to potty training.

Right now we are having SO much fun with Macy at age 3. We have some awesome conversations with her and its so fun to hear her opinion on things. And she has a great memory, so its pretty cool when she brings something up that happened a while ago and chats about it.

LOVE my Macy bug!

through the lens

I'm a big advocate of kids taking photos. With a real camera. (Not just a Fisher Price toy camera or my iPod camera or the camera on my phone.....) Its pretty amazing what kids come up with when you let them take photos. I can now honestly say that I am pretty comfortable with handing over my big bulky expensive nice camera to my two oldest kids, ages 6 and 3. I'm pretty sure they won't throw it. And its just about the cutest thing ever to see them holding a big digital SLR camera as they walk around taking photos at their level. Most of them turn out rather blurry, but that's ok with me. Tonight Jack and Macy each took turns taking photos around our family room. Very low lighting and the aperture was open as wide as could be, which tends to produce blurry photos if you don't hold the camera super still or if you don't have a good focal point. Taking those two points into consideration, I thought they did a great job!
Jack's:

Macy's:

Valentine's Day turned out to be pretty fun overall. Some highlights:
*My Valentine brought me a gas station donut AND hot chocolate this morning.
*There was chocolate candy everywhere we turned today. Although, those heart-shaped chocolate candy boxes usually disappoint me because I always take a big bite out of some nasty coconut-filled chocolate and then I have to scrape all the nasty coconut flavor off of my tongue. Ew.
*The kids had fun exchanging Valentines and there was one crazy 30 minute time period today where 11 little kids were all exchanging Valentine's and treats in our daycare room.
*Every time I tried to get Zoe to say "Happy Valentine's Day!" she would just say "diaper!"
*The snow is starting to melt (yay!) and it almost felt like a heat wave. It was somewhere above 30 degrees today, so at least it didn't hurt your lungs to go outside.
*Grocery shopping tonight was kinda fun because I got to see a bunch of last-minute shoppers running around buying cards, flowers, and stuffed animals.

Jack, wearing Star Wars PJs and reading a Star Wars book, of course....he's addicted right now:

Macy checking out her bag of Valentines:

Zoe just being squishy and sweet:

An attempt for one group photo of my littlest Valentines. Cute and uncooperative as always.

random Summer updates

Wow, 2 posts in one day! I also updated our daycare blog today, so clearly I’m on a roll. Now that we’re getting back into the swing of things with the school year starting again, I’ll be updating the blog more regularly.

We found a Dinosaur Monopoly game at a garage sale for 50 cents. Jack is REALLY good at it and it is so much fun to play! Right now Jack is really into "big boy" things like Harry Potter, Star Wars, board games, video games, etc. He seems so old to us now!
Kindergarten registration was last week. Hard to believe that the little man is going to be in kindergarten. His first day is August 13th. He's had his backpack all ready for a while and he has been counting down the days till school starts. In this photo, Jack (on the right) is standing with his best friend, Jase, in front of their classroom door. They are in the same class and they are very excited. They will ride the bus together and everything. So cute.

My dad's side of the family had a Zimmerman gathering at the lake a couple of weeks ago and it was great to spend the day there. The kids had fun playing in the sand and going on a boat ride. Here, Jack is getting ready to head out on the jet ski with my cousin, Jeremy. He loved it!

The Zimmerman clan that was able to make it to the get together....

Matt and Jack had fun making a sand castle. Macy just threw sand around with a little shovel.

On the boat...

Macy is really into playing dress-up right now and she likes wearing ALL the jewelry all at once.

A very sweet moment between brother and sister. Macy just woke up from her nap and was sitting at the end of her bed. Jack always insists on being the one to go into her room to get her up from her nap (even now that she is in a big girl bed...). He likes opening the door and being the first one to talk to her. He also likes giving big hugs and kisses. I wonder how long this sweet relationship will last? I'm praying forever!

my little 2 year old baby girl!!

Told you I would probably not post much this summer! Summer has truly blown by, which I am ok with, because that just means we are closer to baby #3's arrival! I'm puffy, swollen, and uncomfortable most of the time, so I'm quite ready to deliver this baby! The c-section is scheduled for September 14th.

Anyway, this post is mostly all about Macy.....more on Jack and everything else in a later post....

I'm quite frusterated with Blogger lately. Its been very finicky and not letting me upload photos and finally when I do get them uploaded, I can't rearrange them, so I am going to have to just write about the photos in the order they were uploaded, apparently.

We finished her big girl room and here are the pictures! This used to be my craft room, so this room has seen quite a bit of change in these past few months! A new bed, dresser, and nightstand. New décor. New curtains and white wooden blinds. I painted some circles to the walls. She started sleeping in her new room and new bed last week and so far, she’s done great! She stays pretty still when she’s sleeping, so she hasn’t fallen out of bed…yet. She LOVES that when she wakes up, she can get out of bed by herself, open her door, and come get us. She has been sleeping well in her bed and isn’t getting up at all hours just because she can. Its quite adorable really!

And the baby’s room is basically all ready for baby #3 to make her appearance too.

So, I am now the proud owner of a 2 year old little girl. And, let me tell ya, a new little attitude has developed since the little lady turned 2. Macy is now a little more opinionated, a little more feisty, and a little more independent than she was a couple of weeks ago. Her favorite activities now include throwing her fork and spoon across the table, screaming if she doesn’t get dessert (even if she didn’t eat any dinner), and doing the opposite of what we tell her. Yes, sweet little Macy is growing up.
Actually, she’s not quite as “bad” as it sounds. She’s still VERY sweet and gives lots of hugs and cuddles and loves being tickled and playing with us. She is BRILLIANT too. She knows her shapes and colors, and can already recognize all the letters. She can also count from 1-15. Hello, smart little lady!

Her birthday was July 23rd and it was everything a 2 year old girl could have wanted. She got to have her favorite meals all day, plus a few cupcakes and yummy desserts, lots of coloring with markers (her FAVORITE thing right now!), went to a playground, opened a few presents plus got some mail from Grandpa, and basically just got to play with all of her favorite toys throughout the day.

She discovered that she is not a fan of candles. She wanted nothing to do with any part of the candle, especially the flame. Jack ended up blowing out her candles from across the table. Thanks big brother.

Here she is trying to hold up 2 fingers for her age. A hard skill to master.

Jack helping her open her presents. This was the gift he gave her, but he couldn't remember what it was, so he's sneaking a peak of it while she's opening it up.

Macy’s birthday party was the day after her birthday and she had a good time. A few of her little friends were there and she had fun playing with them, opening gifts, and eating her Elmo cake (although, again, not a fan of the candles…) A good time was had by all =)

Even Conan joined in on the celebration.

Some favorites from her 2 year photo shoot.

This next one I love because she is "cooperating" and standing in front of the pink backdrop, but she would NOT look at the camera....

SUMMER = happiness

You would think that I would have MORE free time in the summer to update the blog, but there is something about the summer months that makes me get slightly lazy in the blogging department…which means that my last few (and probably next few) blog posts will just be quick updates on what has been going on in our lives!

I’ve been having trouble on Blogger with rearranging the order of photos and text, so I’m just going to talk about each photo in the order it was updated, I guess!

Jack’s t-ball season ended at the end of June. All in all, it was an excellent season and he really enjoyed playing t-ball. His coach gave him the “Mr. Personality award” at the end of the season. Jack was always doing SOMETHING to get the coach’s attention. It was quite comical to watch him out there, to be honest! The other parents would regularly comment to us that they had a blast watching Jack and just seeing what little antics he was putting on that evening. Great…we’re raising a class clown!
We took some photos during a recent trip to Jefferson Pointe. They have gorgeous landscaping around this outdoor mall and we took a bunch of photos of the kids among all the flowers. This was just one of my favorite shots of both of them in front of a brick wall.

Our 4th of July was, well, interesting! We stayed at home and lit off a bunch of fireworks on our driveway. Jack LOVES fireworks and sparklers. So does Matt. It’s a guy thing, I think! I like the big pretty ones, but I could really do without the little dinky ones that just make a lot of popping noises and shoot flames in the air. Because sometimes those stupid flames shoot at my yard and burn the grass. Anyway….Macy, on the other hand, was NOT a fan of fireworks. The first one went off and she just started shaking and was unable to move. She couldn’t even move to crawl into one of our laps! So, after just a couple minutes, she and I came back inside the house. And all was well again!

After all those weeks of watching Jack play t-ball, Macy has decided that she likes to play too! It is adorable, really. She hits the ball off the tee (with fairly decent form, I might add!) and then runs all the way to the patio and back. She even likes to take turns with Jack and she’ll stay out and field the balls that he hits off the tee. So cute!

The sandbox has been a huge hit this summer as well. I can’t believe how dirty the kids get after playing in the sand, but they love it, so we play in the sandbox often! Jack really REALLY likes playing in the sandbox by himself. That way, Macy doesn’t destroy all of the things he builds.

Ahhhh…..so……we’re making efforts to go green! I’ve always been drawn to an eco-friendly life-style, but have just recently started making some new changes around here. I’ve been inspired by a blog that one of my friends directed me to, called Enviromom. Its written by two moms who are trying to live more eco-friendly and they are learning how to do so everyday. They are big on taking “baby steps” to become more earth-friendly. We had already been doing many eco-friendly practices, such as recycling as much as possible and buying in bulk to save on container consumption. But...we have decided as a family that we would like to initiate a few more practices into our daily lifestyles. First on the list…using cloth napkins during meals instead of paper napkins. Saves us $$ because we don’t have to restock paper napkins and it obviously helps the earth. I looked and looked at garage sales and other places for cloth napkins, but never found any, so I finally resorted to buying new ones. I found a bunch of cloth napkins 50% off at Target (in the $1 spot!!!) after the 4th of July…so I bought about 25 of them. That should be plenty, I think. So far, I’ve found that I have not used ONE paper napkin since we’ve made this transition and I have also found that I have not noticed a difference in the amount of laundry that I do each week. I just throw the cloth napkins in the laundry with the rest o the clothes and it has not added any extra loads each week. The kids enjoy the cloth napkins as well! We keep them in a basket in the middle of the table, so they are easy to grab when we need them. I am, however, also keeping a small basket of paper napkins on the table in case guests feel more comfortable using paper napkins! The other big change we decided to make was that we are now going to wash and reuse our plastic baggies. Quite surprisingly, I LOVE doing this! It feels so much better to reuse plastic Ziploc bags rather than throw them all away all the time! One other little change we have begun is to make sure that when we pack lunch to eat somewhere other than home or if I’m taking snacks for the kids while we’re away, we package everything in reusable containers. No big deal. I have lots of ideas on things I want to implement, but for now, those are the big changes we’ve made.

Macy has found a new love…markers. She LOVES them. It is so sweet to watch her use them because she pulls and pulls and pulls to get the cap off. Her whole body shakes sometimes as she is pulling so hard. So sweet!

We’ve completed Macy’s new big girl room! All her furniture has been put together, we added some décor, hung new wood blinds, and I painted some circles around the room. I also sewed some ribbon on the curtains and made curtain tie backs with the ribbon. Her clothes and toys have all been moved to her new room and she LOVES it in there! The kids play in Macy’s new room every day and I think she’s getting used to the idea that it is HER room. In a few weeks, we will transition her to the big girl bed and see how she does! Then, baby #3’s room will be all ready for her to arrive.

my little graduate...

We've had a whirlwind of activity around here the past few weeks, and I think I am just now able to sit back and breathe! Jack has been one busy little bee lately. First of all, his last day of preschool was June 2nd. Yep, he's on his way to kindergarden now. =) He had a Field Day at his school and he LOVED every second of that! Then he had an official little graduation ceremony as well. He's had numerous t-ball games the past few weeks and he really seems to like it! He listens to his coach really well and participates in the game as much as he can. It is really quite fun to watch him play.

Getting ready to go to the last day of school with his friend, Caitlyn:

Macy has had a rather uncharacteristic month. She has always been an incredibly laid-back and "easy" child. For over the past month, she has had a really hard time falling asleep and therefore has been extrememly sleep-deprived! She eventually created a little habit for herself where she would start screaming and crying on her way to her crib. Then she would cry/scream for up to 2 hours throughout her nap, and it was taking her a couple of hours to fall asleep at night and she was also waking up multiple times throughout the night and would cry and scream for hours. This is NOT normal for her! She was so tired all the time. She would randomly fall asleep all the time. She fell asleep on her plate at the table a few times, she would sleep anytime we got in the car, she would fall asleep in her swing on the swingset or just on the couch or floor at various times throughout the day. Again, NOT normal for Macy! Finally -FINALLY- we called the doctor. We think that what happened was that she had an ear infection about a month ago (ear infections can often cause pain in kids' ears when they lay down), and then she just created a little habit of being scared to sleep. We had tried everything we could think of to help her sleep....from holding her to giving her a pillow to putting a few books in her bed, etc...but nothing was working! Anyway, the doctor prescribed an antibiotic to finish getting rid of the ear infection and we were instructed to give her a few other medicines as well. Today is the 6th day on the antibiotic and we are now in the process of helping her figure out her sleep schedule again. We took some things out of her crib and turned on the AC before she went to bed (I normally don't like to turn on the AC until it is REALLY hot, so this was a stretch for me!) to make her room more comfortable, and she has slept for 12 hours straight for two nights in a row! And, the best part is that yesterday she took a 2.5 hour nap all on her own with NO crying beforehand! It thrills me to no end that she is getting her normal sleep again and my little munchkin is feeling better!

Jackson has been extremely sweet and an amazing big brother through this past month of Macy's sleep issues. He regularly asks her if her ears hurt and if he can do anything for her. If she is crabby he'll go through a round of questions trying to figure out what's wrong ("Macy, do you want a puzzle? No? Do you want something to drink? No? Do you want me to give you a kiss? No? Do you want me to get you a toy?") and none of the questions really relate to each other, but he's really trying to help her out! It is such a sweet thing to watch. He'll then report to me the questions he's asked her and what he thinks the problem is (which is usually not anything close to any of the questions that he asked...like the other day he came to the conclusion that she had a little mark on her shoulder and that was why she was crabby.....um, what?) He has not complained about her being crabby or even about all the crying she's been doing. He just goes with the flow and seems to understand that this is a little phase for her. Last night he spent the night at my mom's house and he just called this morning to "check in" and see if Macy slept through the night. How adorable is that? He is quite the caring young man!

Here is a cute little photo of Jack helping Macy walk across a bridge. He is always looking out for her! On this particular day at the playground we had been there for a while before a large group of boys about 10 years old or so, came to the playground. They were being pretty rough and wild and Jack said to me "Mom, those boys are being crazy over there, and I do NOT want them to hurt Macy, so we're going to go to the other playground now." And he led Macy over to the little kid section of the playground where she would be safe. Seriously, how adorable is that? I just pray that this behavior continues for many years!

Have a great day!