Look-a-likes

Yukon Cornelius and a guy from my jobsite

Makenna Counting To Ten

Ghetto Booty

Painting the Shed

Makenna loves to be a 'Big Helper' whenever she gets the chance. She was able to really put her skills to the test the other day by helping paint the garden shed.
She caught on pretty quickly to how you dip the brush and then rub the extra paint on the side of the paint can.
Miraculously she wasn't covered from head to toe in paint when she was done. I do think she felt she helped out quite a bit and I'm positive she had a blast during the process.

A Few Things I Love About "You"

This post is all about Makenna and the things she does on a daily basis that make us love her. She is changing so much everyday that I feel like if I don't write it down I will forget all about it in a year. So because I couldn't think of a better place the blog is where it is being recorded.

Oh, Makenna where do I start.

Well lets start with the fact that you call yourself 'You'. Which makes complete logical sense. I mean really why wouldn't your name be 'You'. That is what I call you most of the time.

You love to dance and play with Colin. You especially like to tickle him and make him laugh. You also love to help take care of him by getting him diapers, wipes, burp rags, and holding his bottle.
You enjoy pretending to be a mama to your Elmo and your doll. I find you most days with them either wrapped in blankets or laying on the floor with diapers all around them. You feed them well too. You have been caught nursing them or feeding them your play food.

Some of my favorite phrases that you say are...
"Here we go"
"How nice"
"I get it"
"I do it"
"All better"
"Ooooooh yeah"
"Up high"

Makenna, you are quite the daddy's girl. I love to watch you wave good-bye to him every morning and greet him with a huge hug every evening when he gets home. Sometimes you are even so excited you find the nearest toy to give to him. (I still have yet to figure out why you do this. But it is always when you are way excited to see him) A couple other things you love to do with your daddy are snuggle with him in the morning (you always go to his side of the bed and climb in) and play what your daddy calls 'Makenna Ball' (this is pretty much any game that you have made up for him to play with you).

You have an obsession with trucks. Any truck that you hear (even if it is 6:00am) you have to go and look out the window to see if it is anywhere in sight. You have made friends with the garbage men because you are always looking out the window and waving when they drive by. Recently one of the drivers will honk at you as he goes by.

The moon....oh the moon. You are also very fond of the moon. You will point it out every time we are in the car whether it is night or day. You also are very concerned when you can't see it at night because of clouds. You will repeat over and over that the moon is hiding behind the clouds.

Other things you will point out while driving in the car. Flags, stars, trucks, our house, church, and airplanes.

You light up a room when you come in. Especially when you smile with your whole face.
You are quite the feeler. You wear your emotions on your sleeve. And those emotions tend to lean more on the extreme side.

Most days you entertain yourself well. I often catch you reorganizing the boxes of brownies and cake mixes I have by lining them all up in a row, reading books to yourself or Colin, pretending to clean, cook or fold laundry. A few other things you enjoy playing with someone else include bubbles, play dough, coloring, reading, chase, and building tall towers out of blocks.Singing has become quite a time for you to perform. Currently you like to stand on your stool to sing your songs and before each song you will say "ready". Some of your favorites to sing are "My God is so Big", "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Zacchaeus ", "Jesus Loves Me", "The B.I.B.L.E", "I'm a Little Tea Pot", and "Amazing Grace".

Sweet Makenna Girl, I love all things about you and you make life so much more interesting. I cannot thank God enough for giving you to me.

Love,
You's Mama

The Results Are In

Both kiddos had doctors appointments today. Here are their current stats.

Colin's 6 Month Stats

• Height: 27.5 inches
• Weight: 18 pounds 12 ounces

Makenna's 2 Year Stats

• Height: 33.5 inches
• Weight: 24.5 pounds

Apples, Apples, Apples

Jared's mom was kind enough to babysit the kiddos last Friday evening so that Jared and I could join some friends for a night of card games. She was even more kind by bringing us some apples from a local orchard.

Needless to say we had a lot of apples. I planned on peeling, slicing, and then freezing all of them but then I got an inspired to do a little more. I ended up making apple crisp, apple cinnamon muffins, and apple sauce.

Here are the pics from the progress.

We Got A Pig

And this is what our deep freeze looks like now.


I am excited to start digging into all that yummy pork.

Makenna's First Haricut

Last Friday I decided that Makenna needed a haircut because her mama couldn't stand her mullet anymore. I confess it should have been cut a while ago but I kept holding onto the hope that the rest of her hair would suddenly grow two inches over night. I know, I know, I was living in a fantasy world.

Anyways, last Friday I couldn't take it anymore and decided to chop it off. I decided to give her a handful of chocolate chips to keep her still. And ca-pow just like that the ugly mullet was no longer attached to my sweet girl's little head.

I much prefer my mullet free little girl. And hopefully her hair will grow out evenly now. But if not I think that I might let the mullet grow back out and enter her in the Iowa State Fair mullet contest next summer.

Here are the before and after pictures.

Good Morning

Here is a short video of us waking up Colin. I do want to explain though that we typically don't all come barging into his room to wake him up. We just thought that it would be fun to catch this one time on video. I definitely think that this video captures the environment around the Willis house very well. I love Colin's response to his overly loud and energetic sister.

Disclaimer : Makenna is not wearing pants because we were still working on potty training and she has never before been allowed to climb into the crib.

ENJOY!

Updates From Around The House

Jared is in the process of building a shed in our backyard. My dad has helped out some too. It currently looks like this.
Makenna has started potty training. It seems to be going well.

Colin can now do this

and this

Well that is all for now. Until next time.

Happy Halloween

Texas 2010 - The Last Day and Trip Home

Our last day in Texas consisted of taking it easy and just enjoying the company of Jacob, Jason, and Erin one last day.

Monday morning came and we all stared the day very early at 5:30am. Our flight out of Austin left at 8:20 and landed in Branson at 10:00. Our flight out of Branson to Des Moines left at 2:00. Yep that is right we had a layover that lasted about 4 hours. Surprisingly, the kids did great on both plane rides and in the airport.

Now I don't know if any of you out there reading our blog have ever been in the Branson airport but it is not very big at all. This is a picture of the whole airport.So you might wonder what you do to occupy an almost two year old for 4 hours in a small airport. Well, you feed them, read to them, let them run around, and you do a lot of this

Colin also made good use of the floor in the only restaurant at the airport.

All-in-all we had a great stay in Austin. Thanks Ferrera's for allowing us to invade your home for almost 10 days.

I will end my posts about our trip with a couple pictures of downtown Austin.

Texas 2010 - Day 8

On Saturday we headed west of Austin to a park that had a hiking trail that led to a waterfall. It was really neat to see and once again the kids loved being able to play in the water.

Texas 2010 - Day 7

Friday, we went to a splash pad near downtown Austin. The kiddos had a blast, but I am positive that Makenna had the most fun while we were there.