The MacDonalds

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Many visits with Makelina

Kailee, Makelina, and Hailey

While we were in Virginia Beach we made several trips to visit my 90 year old grandmother. I think Kailee aged her a few years bouncing around her small apartment and after about an hour visit EVERYONE needed a nap! :) It was good to see her though and I love listening to her stories about my grandfather during the war or stories about my Dad and my Uncle that I didn't seem to appreciate when I was younger!

Friday, September 9, 2011

Emily and the Virginia Aquarium

On one of our first days in Virginia Beach we met up with my friend, Emily, from Longwood. Somehow we didn't get a picture together...grrr! It was great catching up and she was very helpful following the girls through the Aquarium, especially with Kai who wasn't in the greatest of moods!

Turtles

Komodo Dragon

Kai was NOT a fan of the crocodiles!

Touchtank: Horseshoe crab, starfish, hermit crabs

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Brave Girl

Kailee got her ears pierced when we were back in the States (it's so funny saying "the States" after saying "the Mainland" for so many years in Hawaii!) Hailey had hers pierced when she was a little over two and I had said with the girls that they could get them pierced when they were old enough to express the want for them but also old enough to understand that it will hurt! :) We looked around at a couple of places in Germany but apparently they only do piercings here at tattoo parlors because of hygiene reasons. Well, after having Kailee's first birthday party at a "bar", I wasn't about pave her a path of destruction and get her ears pierced at a tattoo parlor! :) We opted to wait knowing our trip was coming up!

Tiff and I took the kids to the mall for lunch and to go to Claire's (Hailey had also wanted to pick out some new earrings for school) Kai did great for the first one but cried for the second one. She told people that the left one hurt but the right one didn't. When Hailey had her ears pierced at Walmart they did it at the same time....definitely the way to go (and probably half the price!) I'm just glad we didn't walk out with only one earring! :)

She loves them and loves telling people that she has diamonds in her ears! And, knock on wood, we haven't had any problems yet!

Last earring-less picture!

Of course Coconut had to come along!

The Diamond!

The Stampfers

Our main reason for holding off on our trip until August was to wait for the Stampfers to move down to Virginia. The girls did great on the 8 hr flight over...the flight showed two kid movies, Rio and Robin Hood, so the girls each enjoyed their own tv screen and I didn't even have to open my bag of tricks ONCE (Kailee must have unplugged and replugged her headphones and changed her channels 1000 times but it kept her busy!) They napped for about 2-3 hrs and only took one potty break. It was ridiculous! I could have read a book but didn't even think to bring one for myself. I watched two movies myself, one good and one pretty bad, but I couldn't fall asleep...boo! We were up pretty early for the next few mornings but then adjusted pretty easily. We stayed with the Stampfers for the first 5 days of our trip and then drove down to Virginia Beach for a week and then back up to Fairfax for Colin's birthday and a few more days. It was really hard to fit everyone's schedules into the trip and we did lots of driving between DC, Richmond, and Virginia Beach but it was well worth it to see everyone!!! Hailey's famous quote of the trip was, "Are we here but we're not there yet?" Hahaha....implying were we close when we finally got off the highway?! :)

The kids got along great and seemed just to pick up where they left off over a year ago in Hawaii!

At Chuck E Chesse for Colin's 6th birthday

The girls tormented the two cats and drove them into hiding! Miracle is extremely tolerant and allowed them to play baby, doctor and who knows what else! By the end of our trip she had found a great hiding place and we didn't see her again! :)

Poor Miracle

Swimming at Fort Belvior

Playing their Leapsters

"Sole"mates....apparently there is Leapster foot placement protocol

Playdoh and Doctor

Jim watched all FIVE kids one day and Tiffany and I drove to Leesburg to go shopping at the outlets!

Backyard BBQ

Trying to get a decent group picture

An oldie but goodie....Colin 3, Rylee 18 months, Hailey 2 1/2, and Mason and Kailee 3 weeks

According to Hailey, they are still getting married one day! :)

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Where Has the Time Gone? Part II

I'm back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After our month long trip to Virginia in August, I just couldn't get back into the blogging mode and was panicking as the Summer came to a crashing end! We had a few school things to finish up, had to unpack and reset our biological clocks (this was definitely the most jet-lagged we've EVER been!), and do as much relaxing as we could before school started! Hailey will be in school from 8:25-2:30 everyday and Kailee will go everyday from 9:00-12:00 starting on the 19th. I knew I'd have lots of alone time so I put off the blog for a bit to focus on family time! I'm going to try to do a big blog purge of our trip to get me caught up before we are in full swing of school, soccer, etc!!!! Check back!!!!!!!

Where Has the Time Gone?

We will ride bikes to school for as long as we can this Fall!

Her classroom

Thankfully Kai didn't give us a hard time when we had to leave!

It's hard to believe that Hailey is already "school-age"! I'm sure I'll still be saying that when she's about to graduate from high school! She was very excited to start and knows at least half of the kids in her class. She got a little nervous and started to clam up but thankfully Daddy was there to calm her down because I'm sure I would have just fueled the flame! She got tears in her eyes when we said goodbye (and wiped them on Kailee's sweater when she gave her a hug!) Her teachers are Mrs. Winter and Mrs. Holmes and they both seem wonderful. Last week they came for a "home visit" to meet our family and fill us in on the year and to have Hailey do some "testing".

Here's hoping for a good first day and successful school year!!!!!!!!

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Sisters

I know I've said (for almost 3 yrs now) how I LOVE having two girls. While my days of dressing them alike are practically over, they are the best of friends and definitely keep each other entertained. (Right now as I write this they have set up some sort of Pet Store/Humane Society with all of the stuff animals in our living room. I keep hearing monkey calls and kitty meows.) I barely have to break out my referee whistle which is so nice! Individually, they have me earning my keep but that's another story!

Polly Pockets EVERYDAY

A blast from the past

And a video montage of the SISTERS in action! I needed a tissue for this one! :)

On a side note, the girls had docter appt & dentist appt this week and got clean bill of health on all counts. Hailey (at 5yrs and 5 months weighs 39 pounds and is 3 ft 8 inches and Kai (at 2yrs and 10 months weighs 31 pounds and is 3 ft 1 inch. (Hailey weighed 30 pounds around Kai's age and was the same height)

Monday, July 25, 2011

Tidbits and Photos

Kai's recent tidbits...

When Hailey was getting upset and worked up about something Kai told me, "Hailey needs to do this" (as she was taking deep breaths) :)

Hailey asked us who was shooting off the fireworks on the 4th of July and Kailee told her it was God.

Kai loves to put barrettes/clippies in my hair and then will say, "now you look like a girl!" Thanks!

I do most of my shopping here online (the PX is limited and most things on the Economy are too expensive with the high Euro exchange rate, not to mention peace at my computer vs trying to drag two little ones out) so the girls are acustom to Daddy bringing home lots of packages. We were playing in a dr waiting room one day and Kailee told me that she "wanted to get one of these toys in the mail"

Hailey's tidbits....
We have recently gotten a fish tank (more about that in a future post!) and it is all Leevi's and the girls' project. The water needed to be changed but it was getting pretty late to take on such a task so when Hailey asked me if they could change the water I told her to ask Daddy and her response was, "Dad's in charge of the fish...but you're in charge of bedtime" Smart girl! :)

Hailey has recently reverted to getting upset before bedtime and wanting me to snuggle her until she falls asleep (it probably has a lot to do with me being so lax on their bed-time this summer...boo mom, although Hailey has always been the "needy" one as opposed to Kailee...playing, sleeping, being scared...that could be a whole other post but it would definitely peg one child as much "easier" than the other :) ) So I'm staying firm and not caving even with as crazy as some of our nights get and I've been telling Hailey that I need some alone time and her reply once was, "Sometimes Daddy watches us when you go to the commissary and that gives you alone time." Quite true....sad that we start to cherish those moments to grocery shop in peace!

The other thing I've been a "bad" mom about this summer is letting Hailey have an occasional soda (Fanta or Sprite) We are big water pushers here! Hailey told me one time that when she drinks her orange drink "steam come out of her nose"

We always pass many vineyards on our excursions around Germany. One day I was explaining to Hailey about how they used to stomp on grapes with their feet to make wine and she thought it was the most disgusting thing in the world and vowed to never drink wine! :)

Speaking of wine....these aren't grapes though, They are the cherries in our backyard! They have all practically fallen from the tree now (what a mess...and it brought flies and bees!!!) but for awhile the girls were making cherry juice and somehow they convince me to let them rub a cherry on me....it really did look like blood!