April 2010

Mykenzi loves arts and crafts of any kind, whether it's a planned craft with a finished product in mind or just freehanding it with a box full of arts/craft supplies. She will cut, glue, and color (with crayons, markers, paint, colored pencils, chalk, etc.) for as long as I let her!

So Camden has a dirty Cheetos mouth here. For some reason when he eats, the leftover mess always makes a ring around his mouth. It's kind of weird. The scrunched up shoulder pose was because there was a bee flying around.


Look at his hair. When he sleeps, he always wakes up with an interesting hair issue.


Is he crazy? That's 70 pounds on his back!

Playing choo choo train and taking a trip.

I guess Camden didn't remember these from the previous spring because he was a little afraid of it at first.

It didn't take him long to figure out how fun it is to blow the seeds every where!

Cohen was sitting in his stroller watching everyone outside.

Dyeing eggs the day before Easter.

Mykenzi and Camden could do Easter egg hunts all evening, so after egg dyeing, that's what we did.

On the hunt!

She still has those little baby cheeks!

Lots of Easter goodies for Mykenzi, Camden, and Cohen!

Camden lining up his cars. He loves all cars, trucks, trains, and airplanes, but all of the Disney Cars he receives always become his treasured favorites (for now). He didn't get all of these in his basket, he just put the ones he already had along side the new one he found in his basket.

This is a big Shake-N-G0 Lightning McQueen.

Bunny pancakes for breakfast!

After a morning of Easter baskets, breakfast, and an egg hunt, we went to Nana and Paw Paw's for lunch. Cohen is such an awesome eater! He pretty much eats anything, but sometimes isn't in the mood for some foods (which he'll turn around and eat the next day), and when he's done, he starts throwing food down to the floor.

Camden is our very picky eater. Whenever we go out to eat he always asks for "ketchup and chicken" (yes, he says ketchup first). Not only is he picky about what he eats, but he manages to thrive on eating the least amount of all 3 kids. What Cohen can eat in one meal, is about all Camden will eat somedays. He's still growing, but I'm learning to embrace his picky ways and just serve him what I know he'll eat. We really never wanted to give in to eating habits like this, but we're picking our battles and his health is more important than learning to eat a variety of foods. If I serve foods all day long that I know are healthy for Camden, even though mostly kid approved, he will choose to drink milk all day long. That "he'll eat when he's hungry" doesn't seem to work with him, and at the very least, we learned he will eat just one meal, and just peck at it, so it's best to have what he likes available. The main foods he likes are chicken nuggets, peanut butter & jelly, toast, cereal, blueberry waffles, peanut butter crackers, bananas, strawberries, corn on the cob, yogurt, pudding, peanuts, and of course potato chips, cookies, and cakes. Unlike most kids he's not a fan of macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, hamburgers, or pizza, but he will eat them if we feed it to him. I don't know if it's about attention or what, but we also learned several months ago that he will eat if one of us takes the time to feed him. His favorite feeds he can/will feed himself, but the others, we have to feed him. So we can get other vegetables in him at dinner, we just have to feed him and he will eat it.

Mykenzi is an amazing eater! We started a rule when she was 2.5 years old that she has to try new foods, and if she doesn't like it then she doesn't have to eat it. She eats a variety of fruits and vegetables, and she loves meat and seafood. When we go out to eat she often orders a fruit or broccoli for a side, and it's always neat to see the look on the server's face when she asks if they have broccoli.

We finished off Easter day with an egg hunt at Maw Maw and Pop's.

Gees, his mother should really wash his face more often (at the very least right before photos)! Obviously he'd just had chocolate before the egg hunt.

Kenzi helping Cam find an egg. She's also a wonderful big sister! (Most of the time.)

Every baby has to have a bathtime mohawk!

While we worked outside, Cohen took a nap in the stroller, breathing in the fresh spring air.

Finally! After 5 years in this house, we have tulips! We'll see if they come back next spring because within days the deer had attacked this flower bed. I'll have to find a way to protect it next spring if anything does grow back.

Mykenzi was a big help during this process! Unlike her mother, she's not afraid of dirt and worms.

Our favorite barber for Camden suddenly went MIA (I think he might actually be in jail), so for several haircuts we had to try out new people/places, until we finally found someone who did it right again. Obviously, this is before we found the new barber!

Cohen was starting to mimic us by this point (he was 9 months old), and the kids were making this face, so he did too. They especially love doing things that he will imitate.

Looking down at Kenzi and Cam playing on the floor.

Cohen has sucked in his bottom lip like this since the day he was born. I remember talking about it in the hospital, how he always kept his lip like that, and he still does it.

This is the family calendar in the kitchen, and Kenzi left us a message one day.

Jonmark had to go to Roanoke in April for some classes he has to take to maintain his AOSE certification, and since we have friends in Roanoke, we all went along. It was so nice getting away for a couple of nights, and getting back in the mountains. We drove down to Blacksburg to see the campus and shop at the bookstores, and even had dinner at the Farmhouse, which Mykenzi loved and just asked a few weeks ago when we were going back there.

We had a sleeper sofa, so while the cushions were piled in the floor, the kids had a great time.

While Jonmark was at his class (which was as long as work day), I took the kids to the mall (their favorite thing there was the puppy store), and we rode all over the Salem/Roanoke area (thank goodness for the GPS so I could go where ever I wanted, then plug in the address of the hotel, and find my way back). During our second outing that day, I saw a sign for the Mill Mountain Park and Zoo, which also led us to the big Roanoke Star that I've been wondering how to get to for years. So, the next day before heading home, we took Jonmark up there because he'd never seen the star either. We gave the kids some time on the playground there before we walked up to see the star.

There was a marathon that day that took the exact road we needed up the mountain to the star(which made it very difficult to finally get there, and we were rerouted all over Roanoke because none of the officers working that day seemed to know where the rest of the road blocks were, then the first officer we talked to just let us go up as long as we drove slow for the runners). We kept seeing people stopping to pose next to a mile marker and someone else along side them would take their picture, so Jonmark thought he would be funny and pretend he was a runner too, in jeans with a baby in a carrier.

We wrapped up April with the completion of Kindergarten, a cap and gown, pizza with the grandparents (total surprise for the graduate), and cake!

Her little tassel even says 2010!

Mykenzi lost her first tooth the Friday before on April 23. On May 1, the day after her graduation party, her new adult tooth came in.

Mykenzi did so well in Kindergarten!