MacKenzie turns 2!

MacKenzie licking her licks at the sight of her birthday cake! (She got to have a birthday week since Jackson and I are going to be gone all evening at the Nuggets game.)

An upclose photo of her cake- yum! ;)

And now a trip down memory lane...

This photo was taken right after my parents gave us MacKenzie. I will never forget pulling up to their house and wondering why the heck my crazy Mom had her camera in my face! I was so distracted with her weirdness that I missed MacKenzie walking out into the kitchen and under my feet. A few minutes later when I finally saw her, this was my face. :) I love it, my Mom captured my reaction perfectly.

MacKenzie loves the over-sized chair at Grammy's house. I love this picture of Mac and Jack bonding.

As most of you know, MacKenzie loves to play ball. I blame Madison for this since she gave MacKenzie her first toy: a ball. I love this picture!!

MacKenzie was a little afraid of the convertible so for the few days I had my Volvo back after the accident, she wore a seatbelt. Isn't she so cute?! :)

I took this photo one day at a stop light. She was looking at me funny and I thought it was cute.MacKenzie is awfully tough on toys so Grammy is always sewing them up. We snapped this photo because it looked like MacKenzie was helping Grammy sew. She watched the entire process! She has caught on that Grammy can't sew her things as easily now the we live 9,482,429 miles away from home (I know that's an exaggeration) and has been easier on her toys. Whew. Mommy really didn't want to learn to sew!

And finally, my favorite photo ever of MacKenzie. She dressed up for a birthday card photo so today we'll use it for her. Happy 2nd birthday, MacKenzie. We love you very much!

Doe, a deer, a female deer

This morning I took MacKenzie out to do her businesses and this was my view: DEER! I LOVE it when we see deer! (In their own habitat and NOT on the roads!) There were actually 6 does (I checked and that is the plural version of doe) and 1 buck, but I couldn't get all of them in the picture as I only had my iPhone's camera to work with at the time. I'm so glad that we picked to live on a nature trail. It is so lovely. Jackson heard the coyotes howling last night and said they sounded mad...they must have been on team elephant. ;)

I started my job yesterday. Nothing too exciting. I did some cost basis information for an S-Corp (thanks to Wikipedia, whew! I hadn't done that kind of basis in YEARS!) and then assigned tax codes to a company's books so that their information would flow into the tax return correctly. I had never done this before so my new boss, Gregg, had to sit with me for like an hour. Are you as excited as I am? Ugh. I almost died of boredom. No one that works there is my age. Sigh. At least this kind of work is only around until January then it is TAX TIME! YAY! Well, I'm off to my first ever "webinar" at my job for some software they're about to purchase. Then I have millions of errands to run before we have dinner at our favorite Denver joint, The Cherry Cricket (http://www.cherrycricket.com/), with our friend Meg. :)

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

In my college speech class I had to read a book to class. I chose to read, "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" because it is one of my all time favorites. Today, I am Alexander. I firmly believe in respect for those who lead our country so this will be the only time that I express how I really feel. After this, I promise to myself to respect our leader. I hate what America has chosen for her future. End of rant. I will now sulk into a chocolate chip cookie. Perhaps I'll even move to Australia! (That only makes sense if you have read the book.)

I started my new job today. I'll post about that later. I am busy sulking.

Grocery

At our grocery store the clerk empties your cart and each line has their own bagger. It is really kind of fancy. (They also have self-check lines, but why do it yourself when it costs to same to let someone else do it?!) Anyway, I was waiting in line to check out behind a handsome young man who was clearly making dinner for a date (on a Monday? I digress.) that evening. He had salmon, candle and flowers. Collective aww. Anyway, the bagger notices his clear plan for the evening and says, "Looks like you've got a date tonight. How sweet to cook dinner. This stuff isn't cheap!" just as she finished speaking the clerk pulls a HUGE box of condoms from the young man's cart and announces, "I think he has plans to get a return on his investment!" I wanted to die! The poor guy was mortified. I pretended to be engrossed in the magazine I had grabbed, but I was laughing so hard. He quickly left and the girls and I laughed at the timing of their observations. Classic, ladies, classic.

Lonely

MacKenzie is getting her haircut this morning. This place sure is quiet without her!

Update: MacKenzie is back and looking very cute for her birthday this week. :)

The view from the top

We made it! :) Next we want to hike this bad boy!

This is the view from the top. It honested looked like it does from an airplane- we were that freakin' high. Ugh. Terrifying. Very pretty, though. :)

Our ride to the top. A big, red cog railway train! We were seated with a nice, young couple. The girl was studying at Focus on the Family. Interesting.

Jackson wanted to get just a bit higher so he stood on a rock. ;) If you look closely you'll see big-horned sheep. They pretty much promise you'll see them on the train trip. They were not there on the way up the mountain, only the way down. We decided that they cage them and release them right before the train comes! :)
And a picture of MacKenzie because she's just so darned cute.

Pike's Peak

Above is a photo of what we're doing this morning- taking a cog railway train to the top of Pike's Peak! YAY! :) We're also going to do a bit of hiking around the mountains. Then we're having lunch at Cracker Barrel. Could one ask for a better day? I think not.

HAPPY WEEKEND! :)