Happy Thanksgiving 2014

"Give thanks to the Lord for he is good.  His love endures forever." Psalm 107:1

Season’s greetings dear friends and family!  2014 was year of change and celebration for us as we added our second miracle girl, Miss McKinley Jane, to our family through embryo adoption.  Lena has loved being a big sister and Dan and I are so grateful to be parents to these two precious girls.  It still boggles my mind how God has unfolded his plan for our family over the past eleven years.  

 Dan started a new assignment with the CHP as sergeant at the Santa Ana office this year.  It keeps him busy and he always has great “war” stories to tell.  He is such a fun daddy and is Lena’s favorite playmate.  I (Elizabeth) have continued to enjoy teaching a third grade homeschool co-op this year and I am the resident travel agent for our family! 

Lena Joyce – Three Years Old

Above all Lena loves “friends”, animals, Grandma, Chick-fil-a, and milk!  She is full of energy (a morning person), is imaginative (she can make a song out of anything!) and is extremely talkative with a good sense of humor.  She is definitely an outgoing people person and is instant friends with any willing soul.  I love how friendly, caring, inclusive, and affectionate she is towards others.  She definitely has a gift for making others feel loved and we are just loving getting to know our little girl as she grows up.

McKinley Jane – Three Months Old

McKinley is named after her Great Grandpa Caldwell on Dan’s mom’s side of the family.  She is the happiest most smiley baby you will ever meet.  She is very attentive and loves to be interactive with us.  She even converses with us in “coos” and “ahhhs”.  We can tell already she is going to be a people person like her big sister.  She has serious baby strength with a really strong grip which doesn’t surprise us one bit considering all she had to survive to be born!

Family Travels – 2014

The Shackletons LOVE to travel!  But this year with Shack Baby #2 on the way we stayed pretty close to home.  We did start the year out by taking my Mom with us on a fun trip to Maui.  Seeing the whales, enjoying the Old Lahaina Luau, taking a beautiful road trip to the North Shore, celebrating the Seahawks Super Bowl win, and just relaxing at our resorts was a great way to start 2015.  We also did a fun camping trip at Crystal Cove, took the train for an overnight trip in Oceanside, celebrated Easter with my extended family at our timeshare in Newport Coast, enjoyed a week in Palm Desert with friends, and took a few overnight trips in San Diego to take Lena to Sea World and The Safari Park before McKinley was born. We are getting really excited to take our next big vacation as a family of four in the late spring when we head to Atlanta, Charleston, Savannah, and Hilton Head Island!  It will be a fun mix of beach time and enjoying the historical richness of the south east. 

McKinley Jane: Three Months Old

 On November 15th McKinley turned three months old already!  She is the most smiley baby I've ever known.  She will stop breast feeding just to look up at my face and smile and then turn back to finish eating.

She continues to be a very easy going baby and rarely cries unless she is hungry, but when she does cry she can wail!  Boy does that girl have a loud set of pipes!  A big change during this month is that she loves to play with toys while laying on a blanket or on her play mat. 

Some Basic Stats:

Size 0-3 and some 3-6 months clothes

Size 1 diapers

Started to grab and play with toys

Started to "talk" with Mom and Grandma

Kinley at 2.5 months is the cutest Halloween pumpkin in town!

Uncle Curt getting some Kinley Jane love.

Kinley still isn't sleeping through the night.  She usually goes to bed around 10 or 11pm wakes at 3:30am and again around 6am and then sleeps until 9am.  She will sneak a cat nap in here and there and really loves taking a snooze in her swing.  She takes a regular nap around 1pm and again around 5pm. 

Our Kinley Jane is such a snuggle bug and we love her so much!

Lena's Third Birthday Party

To celebrate Lena turning three we decided to bring all of our friends and family to the Santa Ana Zoo (where we have a family membership) for a Rio 2 themed birthday party!  Lena still loves animals and has recently become addicted to the Rio movies. 

Part of Lena's Party Invite

We rented a party area called "The Amazon" because it is surrounded by tropical trees and next to a huge waterfall.  (Bummer that the waterfall wasn't working on the day of her party though!)  It was so fun to have a birthday party in such a jungle-like environment without having to decorate much!

Our family birthday picture

 My mom made this amazing jungle/Rio/zoo themed birthday cake and it definitely was a hit with Lena and the kids

Grandma's impressive Rio cake

Lena just couldn't take her eyes off her cake!

Can you tell she loves it?

I bought some foam parrots from the Oriental Trading Company for table decorations along with blue table cloths and burlap runners that I recycled from her first birthday party.  For food we decided to do a simple picnic with uncrustable sandwiches for the kids and Costco croissont sandwiches for the adults, along with grapes, chips, and I also made Lena's favorite cookies- caramel refrigerator cookies.

Some of the many cousins that came to celebrate with Lena.

Lunch with Daddy

We did a coloring contest with printouts of characters from Rio 2 and Lena picked her favorites. We also did our traditional pinata which was filled with pencils, stamps, airplanes, and few other goodies.

The cousin/friend pinata line up from shortest to tallest!

Lena picking her favorite picture in the coloring contest.

Lena received such wonderful gifts from her family and friends but Grandma's stuffed "Blue" was Lena's favorite.  After the party our guests got to explore the zoo and ride the minature train and carosel with their party favor ride tickets.  Dan and I agreed that it was our most favorite party yet!

Lena gets her "Blue" from Grandma

Lena always loves to play on this monkey statue at the front of the zoo.

Lena Joyce: Three Years Old

Our Lena peanut is three years old!  It had been a whole year since we took her to JC Penny for a photo shoot because her two year old session was such a nightmare!  We were curious how it would go...she LOVED IT!  She enjoyed the attention, followed directions, and even begged for more costume changes and began to strike her own poses for the photographer.  It was really fun! 

Lena has blossomed into a cute little talkative preschooler.

Basic Stats:

30 pounds

36 inches tall

Size 3T clothes

Size 8 shoes

Favorites and Milestones:

Cheese burgers ("cheese burger robot"), yogurt, ring pops, Iced Tea ("Donald Tea"), carrots and ranch, manchango cheese ("triangle cheese")

Playing pretend, hide and seek, watching "shows" like Rio 2, Little Einsteins, Doc McStuffins,The Little Mermaid, reading the book Spookley the Square Pumpkin (every night!!!)

"Yea! Polka dots!" Said my weary three year old through tears as she climbed back into a fresh bed made with her favorite sheets after waking at 1am with a stomach bug. Way to see the bright side Lena, my little optimist.

Bedtime fun! This is just one reason why I was super excited when I found out I was having a second girl...many more years of sister slumber parties to come! Lena can't wait till sister is big enough to sleep in the big girl bed with her. I love my two sweeties!

It is SOOOO fallish today (cloudy and only in the upper 80s) so Lena and I decided to go cozy-comfy and wear our yoga pants and matching fuzzy socks. Ha ha!

Halloween 2014

Toddlers Say the Darnest Things

Lena has trouble saying the "m" sound on the word "milk".  She says "nulk".  My Mom has been working with her on her pronunciation and has said to her on a number of occasions, "Look Lena, watch my mouth...Mmmmilk".  So the other day I was getting McKinley her bottle of milk and Lena said, "I want milk too Mom.  Watch my mouth...Mmmmilk!"  Tonight she was trying to tell me something and was frustrated that I couldn't understand what she was saying so she said, "Mom!  Watch my mouth..."

Lena is so outgoing.  She LOVES to play with other little kids.  Whenever we are getting near a park where kids are playing she just starts yelling, "Friends!  Friends!  Its me Lena!  I am here!  Friends!" She will yell this over and over again.  Everyone is Lena's friend, even if they don't want to be.  Ha!

McKinley Jane: Two Months Old

Our little Kinley is two months old!

Basic Stats:

Wears size 0-3 months

Size 1 diapers

10 pounds - 25%

20 inches long - 25%

Head is 50%

Kinley often finds herself buried in the groceries on our shopping trips.

Milestones:

Laughed for the first time when Grandma said "pickles"

Smiles lots and loves the chubby cheeks song we sing her

Likes to rock in the swing

Starting to grab things

Loves to nurse but will take formula in a bottle

Enjoys bath time and likes to watch herself in the mirror

Bowling with Daddy and Sister!