The Mac Kinnon Family

We had dinner with Santa tonight, it was a neat time. Santa told a story, Mrs. Clause handed out cookies and all the kids loved it. Mac was very much into Santa and loved talking to him. Emily on the other hand as you can imagine, screamed when he came out, then watched him very intently while he was on stage. I was trying to convince her to talk to Santa and ask for a Dora for Christmas (she is in love with Dora right now) and I thought I won her over, until we got close to Santa, she got a few feet from him, said "Dora, Dora" then clung onto me. I tried to get a little closer and she freaked out - guess she won't sit on Santa's lap this year!

Busch Gardens has a new thing over the holidays called Christmas Town. They have some rides open and lots of holiday cheer. It was a great afternoon and evening. We started with a stop by to say hi to Elmo, Mac loved it and as you will see from Emily's face, she didn't think Elmo was fun at all. As soon as we got close she screamed, the picture below is her 10 feet away! We rode some rides and walked through the park, ate dinner with Santa (next blog) and finished up the night with a sesame street show!

I've been shopping for two days, for those of you who know me well, know that this was a chore. I do not like to shop, although I have to admit it was fun finding stuff for the kids, but the people, crowds and general rudeness of some people I could do without. John joined me this morning for some more shopping which was fun. It's going to be a Dora year for Emily, she is in love with Dora. After shopping we went to Picture People for our annual family Christmas photo, this place was a madhouse too......the holiday season is here! The kids did great today with all the chaos and were looking forward to a fun day tomorrow at Christmas Town at Busch Gardens, we'll see if Emily will get close to Santa, my bet is she won't but we'll try anyway!

Well I really wanted to try this black Friday nonsense, I've never done it and Toys R Us had some great deals so I talked Jan into going with me, they opened at midnight. We left at 10:30 thinking there would be some people there, but when we pulled up the line was incredible, probably 175 people at least already in line. CRAZY!!! So we turned around and came home. I may go out tomorrow morning to find some deals on toys but I wasn't going to stand in line in that madness......

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! We started our day bright and early getting our turkey in the oven. Then I ran a 5K Turkey Trot this morning which was a great way to start the day. We enjoyed lots of time outside and good food! Emily seemed to enjoy her cranberries the most! Full bellies for all and naps for some...it was a good day!

Mac had a little Thanksgiving parade at his preschool today. It was really cute hearing the kids sing songs and parade for the parents and grandparents. Mac has been talking about his "Indian" wear for a few weeks now, they all were very cute!

Grandma Jan watched the kids today while I ran an errand. When I got home Mac said he ate plums (dried, aka prunes) for a snack. I asked how many, he said he didn't know, neither did Grandma Jan but they thought a "few". As we were sitting down for dinner Mac's eyes grew big and he went running for the potty....I looked at the bag of plums and he had more than a few. Mac learned what eating too many prunes does to you!

Mac, Emily and Grandma were outside playing this morning, when I went to bring them in for lunch I found them pumpkin hunting! They were taking turns hiding little pumpkins and finding them!

Grandma Jan and I both enjoyed a quiet day at home. Jan was tired from her travels and the busy week she had and I've been sick so we hung home in our PJ's all day and played with the kids. Jan let me nap all afternoon and it helped me tremendously. Hopefully by Monday I'll be back in the swing of things! Mac loved playing games all day and is one lucky kids. He beat us most of the games and he loves it, he's also becoming a little competitive...no idea where he gets that!

Grandma Jan came in tonight for the Thanksgiving holiday. We are all so glad to see her, Mac was excited and I'm looking forward to the company. I'm still feeling rather miserable so it will be a quiet weekend. Sorry for not keeping up with the blogs...

I got the H1N1 vaccine yesterday and I feel miserable today. Of course John is traveling so I have to tough it out..I sure wish moms could get sick days off........

Mac has been bugging me for weeks to go fishing with daddy when John returned from this last trip, this is all he wanted to do last week but the weather didn't agree. Finally it was a beautiful day here and Mac and John got to go fishing, Mac was so thrilled. They caught two fish, ate lunch and had a great time!

While at Target today I decided to pick up a couple new games since Mac is so into games these days. Tonight we played Trouble, it was alot of fun and Mac won...again.... Our son has some good luck!

With the November nor'easter that has been hanging for a few days, we've been playing lots of games. Mac brought out monopoly today just as John was getting home for work. He grasped the general idea and we played for 2 hours before breaking for dinner, then played another hour after Emily went to bed. Mac actually won (with a little help from John and I), he bankrupted John first, then myself. It was a lot of fun and taught Mac a little about money, kind of cool!

While at Costco earlier this week I found these hand puppets. Since Emily has had a fascination with putting socks on her hands I thought she would get a kick out of these. She was amused by them but wasn't as into them as I had hoped, but Mac loves them so at least they'll get some use!

We figured soon Emily will be ready to move to a bed, so I found a toddler bed on Craig's list this weekend. We cleaned it up and let her see it today, she was so excited about the bed. The put all her stuffed animals in it, she was way too cute. She didn't want to sleep in it a bed time tonight but we'll get her used to it, part of me is in no hurry, I like the confinement of the crib!

Mac's preschool class took a trip to Jamestown today, John was able to go along. Mac and his classmates were so cute together, it seems like everyone had a good time. Even a lady bug got their attention! After the muskets fired Mac proudly piped up in front of his class, teachers and other parents that when he and daddy got home today they were going to get to use the blow gun that John brought back from his last trip!

We went to the airport to pick John up tonight, he's back home after an almost 4 week trip. The kids were so excited all day today because they knew daddy was coming home. After Emily's nap I fixed her hair and she walked around saying dada and holding her pig tails! On the way out to the car she kept telling the neighbors who were out "dada", too cute.... When we got home John gave the kids their gifts. He got Emily this monkey, when you press it's belly it makes monkey sounds. I thought for sure she would freak out, but she loved it! She wouldn't take it off her neck and had to go to bed with it too. He also got the kids stamps with their names on it, Emily wouldn't let that go either, but had to for bed!

John and I celebrated our 6th anniversary this past Monday, although we were seperated by thousands of miles it was still a special day. I was able to sneak a card into John's suitcase before he left so it was a nice surprise for him and he sent a really neat gift for all of us. He found a company that makes books from our blog, so we have a record of these blogs and most pictures that are posted on the blog. They are really neat, hard cover books and when they arrived both kids were all over them looking at the pictures. It will be so nice to have for us and the kids when they are older to have this memories of their childhood, funny little things that we would have probably forgotten by the time they were adults! We are hoping to sneak away for a nice dinner when grandma Jan comes to visit in a few weeks!

We got the Toys R Us big book in the mail a few days ago and I gave it to Mac to look through. He has spent the past 3 days analyzing the book, circling things he would like and what he thinks Emily would want. As you could imagine there are alot of things circled in the book! I had to explain to him that he wouldn't get all the things he circled and then we talked about some of his "favorites"! It will be a fun Christmas and birthday time this year!!

One of Emily's latest habits is to take her socks off and wear them on her hands. She'll do this and keep them on while playing, drinking, etc, like they belong on her hands. She has no interest with mittens on her hands but loves socks....go figure......

Gran brought some new shoes for Emily, she thought they were fun because they squeaked when she stepped, I think my mom, Emily and Mac were the only ones that loved the squeaking! I love the shoes themselves but the squeaking is very, very nerve wracking. The squeakers came out today, now we have a very nice pair of shoes!!!! We'll put the squeakers in when John gets home so he can share in the enjoyment too!

We took Gran and Grandpa Robert to the airport today. It was a sad goodbye, Mac had a really hard time. We began chatting about all the fun stuff we did with them and I asked him what his favorite thing that he did with Gran and Grandpa Robert was, totally expecting him to give his standard "political" answer of "everything". He piped up right away and said "going to see Astro Boy"! They had a date afternoon with Mac and took him to see Astro Boy which is Mac's new favorite super hero! We all had a great visit and did lots of fun stuff!

Both kids are getting up an hour earlier and turning into grumpy kids by dinner time.....I hope they adjust soon.....

Grandpa Robert hasn't gotten much rest since he and Gran arrived last week. Mac is constantly asking him to play with him, whether it's playing outside or inside, they have been busy beavers! I thought Grandpa Robert would get bored, I had John's list of honey do's ready just in case, but he hasn't had a break! It's been a wonderful visit, we will be sad to see Gran and Grandpa Robert leave tomorrow, we needed a few more days....visits are never long enough!