McKinley Jane: 7 Months Old

Sunbathing on Ko Olina Beach on Oahu.

McKinley Jane turned seven months old in March.  This month marked at lot of firsts for Kinley.  For most of this month we were on a family vacation in Hawaii where she had her first plane ride (which went very well!), her first beach day (she loved the ocean water but wasn't so sure about the sand), and sadly she suffered her first big illness (a bout with a nasty cold that turned into the croup for which she had to have many daily breathing treatments).  The most exciting milestone though was that in Hawaii McKinley learned to crawl!  She got the hang of it very quickly and it seems that she may be an early walker since she is already pulling herself up to a standing position. 

Mom and Kinley at the Honolulu Airport waiting for our rental car.

Seven Month Stats

17.5 pounds

Size 6-9 month clothes (getting too small!)

Size 3 diapers

Nap Schedule: 10:00am-12:00pm / 4:00pm-5:30pm

Still wakes up 2-3 times at night

Relaxing around the pools at the Aulani Disney Resort.

Kinley used to be such a mellow baby but the last few months she has been very demanding and difficult.  She can get very mad and cries with an ear piercing cry until she gets what she wants.  She continues to favor attention from her Mama and I have to carry her around when she is in a bad mood.  Lena almost never cried when she was laid down to take a nap but Kinley usually has to cry for 5-10 minutes before she falls asleep.  Yet she still is so smiley much of the time.  She still loves to be around people and prefers being outside.  When we were in Hawaii we took many daily walks to soothe her.  She really loves the water!  When she hears her bath running or gets around a pool or the ocean she gets so excited!  She loves splashing!

Getting a ukuelele lesson from Daddy.

Seven Month Firsts

First play time at the beach

First airplane ride

First boat ride

First sickness (bad cold/cough/croup)

Began crawling

Feeds herself her bottles

On one of our many daily walks in Hawaii

Oahu March 2015

 In March we headed off to Oahu for a two week vacation with my parents and some of Dan's family.  We had a great visit with lots of pool and beach time, beautiful walks, some touristy activities, and some down time hanging with the family.

We started our vacation off with a short three night stay at the Disney Aulani (thanks Steve and Debbie!) just a short walk away from our Marriott timeshare in Ko Olina. Lena still hasn't had a true Disney experience so we were excited for her to meet Mickey and enjoy the resort for a few days.  The resort was AMAZING.  It had a lazy river, multiple water slides, great pool areas for kids of all ages, characters walking around everywhere, a really fun technology scavenger hunt, an awesome free hula show, a place where we could check Lena in to do activities while we did more adult activities around the resort, snorkeling in a huge man made reef....the list is endless!  We never left the resort during those three days and just soaked up all the fun.  One of the most fun activities we did was go to the character breakfast one morning.  That is where we got to take
 pictures with Mickey and several other characters and Lena got to dance and do other fun interactive things in between eating her breakfast.

 After our Disney stay we checked into our villa at the Marriott Ko Olina and we met up with my parents and Dan's family.  The Marriott resort is gorgeous.  We had stayed there before but were really busy doing touristy things on the island.  This trip we stayed at the resort more. The highlight for most of us was the beach time.  We loved snorkeling in the lagoons.  We swam with sea turtles, saw every kind of tropical fish, and even got close (kind of by accident) to a monk seal!  Kinley was fighting a bad case of the croup so she didn't get a ton of pool/beach time but when she did she loved it!  She is definitely a "water baby".

During our stay we visited the Polynesian Culture Center and stayed for their awesome show at night.  Lena had fun learning hula, going on a canoe, and fishing.  We also booked a few boat rides during our stay.  The first boat ride was for Dan's birthday and we went on a catamaran dinner cruise at sunset.  We had great views of Diamond Head and Honolulu.  The second boat ride was on a pirate boat!  Lena LOVED this activity and the people who ran it were seriously awesome.  There was sword fighting, water cannon shooting, treasure hunts, and all sorts of fun while we cruised the waters outside of Honolulu.

Because of the time difference the girls were up EARLY the entire trip.  Most mornings I would snatch the girls before they could disturb the peace too much, toss them in the double stroller and we would take our morning "donut walk" as we called it.  First we stopped at the resort grocery store to buy a super delicious but over priced "Long John" donut (creme filled with powder sugar).  Them we would stop and say good morning to the koi fish and king fisher bird.  Then we would leave the resort and walk along the beach path and head to the Aulani to wave at Mickey while he greeted buffet guests.  Then we would fly down the fun downhill sidewalk like a roller coaster and head back towards the Marriott stopping to watch waves, say hi to strangers, and see if any sea turtles were beached on the sand.  It was a ritual I ended up really liking being a morning person at heart.

We had a great time with family and the girls LOVED Hawaii!

McKinley Jane: 6 Months Old

Another month has flown by and Miss McKinley is six months old.  This girl is growing and she is on the move!  She gained 1.5 pounds in four weeks and has learned to maneuver across an entire room in a minute by rolling and scooting.  

She is forever a Mama's Girl and loves to be held, snuggled, and talked to.  I have to carry her a lot!  She is every bit as social as her big sister and has to be in the same room where the "action" is taking place.  While Mama is her favorite she has a special love for Grandpa's company, especially his laugh.

Kinley and Grandpa having some fun.

Kinley Jane loves her Mama time.

Six Month Stats

size 2 diapers (almost size 3)

6-9 month clothes

16.2 pounds
75th Percentile for height, weight and head size

two naps: 10:30-12:30 and 3:30-5:00

First ride on a a Merry Go Round at Knotts!

Loving the motion!

Mom having fun too!

Six Month Firsts

New Foods: strawberries, peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, apples, mango

First ride on the merry-go-round

Scooting (almost ready to crawl!)

First time in the jumper (and she loves it!)

Big smile - She sees something she wants!

Here we go....

The rocking begins!

She was rocking so fast I couldn't get a clear picture!

Valentine's Day 2015

"We love because He first loved us." 1 John 4:19

"Peanut" and "Little"

Happy Valentine's Day from the Shacks!  Today we celebrate our life together as a family of four and thank Jesus for giving us the gift of each other.  We hope as parents we can teach our girls about compassion, selflessness, and how to see their own self-worth as a daughter of Christ.  We hope we can model for them what it looks like to love another person both romantically and in other ways.  Lord Jesus help us to be good at loving each other the way you love us. 

Dan first asked me to be his girlfriend on Valentine's Day 2002

Dan had to work on Valentine's Day so we had a fun family breakfast together.  Last week Lena spotted these huge red Valentine heart plastic goblets and wanted so badly to get one for everybody in the family.  But we were on her allowance shopping trip and she didn't have enough money to buy them all.  So as a surprise I went back a few days later and bought them and used them for our juice during our Valentine's breakfast.  I suppose we will use them every year during our Valentine's meal as a fun family tradition. 

Lena helped me set our pretty breakfast table.

Getting ready to drink our juice out of our special goblets!

Mommy didn't have time to put on any make up yet, but "cheers" anyways!

Valentine's Menu 2015

"Sweetish" Pancakes

Bacon & Sausage

Fruit Salad

Apple-Spinach Juice

Apple-Banana Rice Cereal (McKinley)

I even tried to do heart-shaped fried eggs.

Dan's V-Day cookie stash.

Lena and I made special Paleo cookies (and some not Paleo) for Daddy to take to work.  We decided to make him Paleo Candied Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

Lena had a blast decorating her cookies.

We also made some of Lena's favorite sugar cookies and took some over to our neighbors with some Valentines that Lena picked out at the store and wrote her name on.  (She can do a fabulous "L" and a pretty good "E" so far!)

Daddy always picks great flowers!

Daddy bought us girls some pretty flowers and Lena bought Daddy a little love snow globe with her allowance money.

"Little" getting in on the V-Day fun.

Lena loves the snow!

We hope your heart is full of love as you celebrate with your family!

Lena's First Allowence

Ready to go shopping!

After the first week of Lena's goals we had to make a few adjustments.  We took "make bed" off of her list of chores as it was just too advanced of a task for her to complete especially considering she sleeps in a queen sized bed.  Secondly, getting a "pirate coin" at the end of the day for completing all of her tasks was too abstract.  She needed some more immediate and tangible reward for completing her tasks.  We opened up a piggy bank we had been saving to give her and began giving her a nickel for each task she completed on her goal chart.  If she finished all seven of her tasks she would get a quarter too.  Her other reward chart is now strictly for her pirate coins issued for making good choices.  This has worked out really well!  After a few weeks Lena got to open up her piggy bank and get ready for her first allowance shopping trip to Dollar Tree!

Getting the coins ready to take to the store.

Showing off her "gold tabloons" - three gold dollars

When we emptied her piggy bank Lena practiced her counting by grouping the nickels into rows of twenty.  She then traded them in for gold dollar coins.  She ended up with three precious gold coins to take to the store.  She carefully tucked them into a coin purse I gave her and we got ready to go.  Once in the store Lena was excitedly browsing the shelves.  She pulled items from the racks and chattered on and on about each item.  She ended up pulling several items into our basket and then she had to choose only three items to purchase.  It was fun to see what she was interested in.  She ultimately selected a heart-shaped Mylar balloon, a bag of ring pops, and a valentine snow globe.  The runner up items were a valentine goblet, a Sofia the First puzzle, a butterfly net, a set of ninja action figures, Strawberry Shortcake body wash, a bag of Cheetos, and a Scooby Doo expanding hand towel.  We then headed for the check out and she placed her items on the counter and handed over her three precious coins.  I think it was a good experience for her.

Excited about her purchases

Enjoying the "fruits" of her labor - a blue tongue from her ring pop!

 I am so proud of Lena for working towards her daily goals.  Some days she does better than others but she is becoming a great helper and I had so much fun with her today watching her spend her first allowance. 

Toddler Victories: The Picky Eater

Eating her zucchini noodles the way Daddy taught her.

Being the mother of a picky eater I have learned to celebrate the little victories.  You know... like "Wahoo! She licked a banana!!!"  But today was a biggy!  A mom victory for the ages!  At dinner tonight I got my daughter to eat not one, not two, but six different vegetables in one fell swoop!  And she liked it!

It has been a long challenge to get Lena to eat any fresh fruits or vegetables.  Over the last year we have finally gotten her to like freshly juiced fruits and veggies, eat carrots, apples without the peel and that is pretty much it.  Lately I have been trying out new recipes that have more veggies in them and tonight I made roasted veggie ragu with Italian turkey sausage over raw zucchini spaghetti noodles.    We sat down to eat and as I watched her put "noodle" after "noodle" into her little mouth I tried to conceal the utter shock and excitement that was bubbling from inside.  Then when she took big mouthfuls of the ragu sauce I fully expected her to spit it out but she didn't! Success.  I am making this ALL THE TIME!  Now I need to invent even more recipes that can accomplish what this one did.

First I pulled out all the veggies from the fridge that needed to be used up.  Tonight that was carrots, red onion, red bell pepper, and broccoli. Then I roasted them at a high temperature while I made the base of the ragu.  I simmered plum tomatoes, olive oil, Italian herbs, and garlic.  Then I put the roasted veggies into the Vitamix with the sauce and pulsed it to make it smooth.  Lastly I added the cooked Italian turkey sausage.

 I served the ragu over raw zucchini noodles that I made with my spiral slicer.  Lena at hers with lots of "special cheese" also known as Parmesan. 

New Year...New Goals...Elizabeth Gets In Shape

Goal 1: Cook better / Eat better

Goal 2: Move More