There just aren't words....

These are the rest of the pics taken by Hollie. I am the luckiest mom alive....

Look at Stanley in the water swimming below on this one, how awesome is that!
It's hard to see on the one below, but I am blowing bubbles.

Here are just a few more that I had to share:)

Ernest Hemingway Hike....

Ernest Heminway was buried up here ( I believe, I know he at least lived here). There is the most beautiful trail dedicated to him. Drew, Makenzie and I hiked it (pre-broken leg). We had such a good time. This is a perfect example of what we will dearly miss when we move.


It's hard to see in this picture, but if you look at the grass, it is all bent down. This was way back in the middle of no where, where there are a ton of deer. This looks like where a herd must have bedded down for the night. Amazing.

To be a kid again....

Update on Makenzie's leg is that she is doing really great. We took her to see a Pediatric Orthopedist in Boise and it seems that the doctor up here might not have known what he was talking about completely. Yes, she did break it, but it is the type of break that would never need a cast for 6 weeks. YEAH! She is healing very fast, so much so that he didn't even put a cast back on her! She was already getting a sore from the previous cast, so he opted to have me watch her very close and keep her off of it for a week. After that, she can stand on it as she feels fit. What a relief!! I tell you what, carrying her around has been a killer on my back!
She has been so great about it all though, really you wouldn't even know after the first day that she thinks anything at all is wrong. She just adapted. I look at her and think, to be a kid again and just get it done. She hasn't even looked back. Us adults would probably milk it for a while and be a huge baby about it. I am so proud of her.
Here are a few pics of the day we took her to the Emergency Room, and then the days after.


Here is a video of one of her first trys to get around the house since the cast. I just told her she couldn't walk on it, and this is what she did, and off she went:)

And Mom of the Year goes to......

Yes, that would be me. Yesterday my little baby broke her LEG! Can you believe it? I am still in shock over it. It was really a most terrible day for me, one in which I had to wonder if Heavenly Father knew what kind of mom he was sending his precious Makenzie too. Long story short, she fell off my huge bed that morning, which was a pretty bad fall, but surprisingly, didn't break anything then. We got over that. Then about 6 hours later, I took her out into the nice weather to play on this awesome slide we just got. We were laughing and having a great time, when she noticed a puffy dandelion (you know, after they bloom) and she picked it for me. ( I know, how cute and yet it just makes it sting more). After she gave it to me, she picked one for Stanley, our dog, and took it over to his water dish. (She puts all presents to Stanley in his water dish, don't ask me why). Well, his water dish is up a step, which she has gone down and up a hundred times. In her excitement to get back to the slide, she went running off it forgetting it was there. It was almost as if I saw it in slow motion, her coming down full force on her ankle. It just happened to be turned out just enough that it rolled, and then *snap* went the leg bone right above her ankle.
I have never seen my baby be in so much pain. On a much bigger scale I look back today and realize what pain our Heavenly Father must feel when he sees one of us hurting so much and knows that we must endure on our own physically. I ran to her, scooped her up and wanted nothing more than to take that hurt away. She was inconsolable. It the most horrible, helpless feeling I have felt so far in my life.
We took her to the emergency room and they took x-rays, and now she has a pseudo-cast on. We will be taking her to Boise this Friday to see an Orthopedist to put her real cast on, which she will have for 4-6 weeks. My little one can't walk at all. I have to carry her everywhere, which was so hard as first, mentally and physically. She is 30 solid pounds mind you! Today though, just her and I, we curled up on the couch together and watched Care Bears (not my first choice:)) and seeing her laugh and hold my hand brought such a joy to my heart. A joy badly needed after the aching it felt.
I still replay it over in my head every night as I go to bed and it makes me sick to my stomach. I know, in the grand scheme of things, it could have been a lot worse, and heaven forbid, worse could still be to come. But for me, this was life changing. How quickly things can change.
She is in good spirits now (liquid Vicodin can do that to you:)) and has learned that if she can't walk, then she will crawl! She is a good sport. Thank you all for your comforting words. My sister Corinna's words ring in my ears at night when I feel the guilt become over whelming again, "Don't worry about this one that wasn't your fault, there will plenty down the road that you can feel guilty about." :) I am sure truer words have never been spoken.
Our dear friends let us borrow there firetruck that their little boy has. We pushed all our furniture out of the way so she can push herself around a little in our house. It's so cute in a really sad sort of way:) She uses her foot a little more than she should, but the pain meds mask a lot of the pain I think.

A evening under the stars...

The last day of the symphony was bitter sweet. We were sad to see it go, but Drew, Makenzie and I made a night out of it. We got some dinner, went and picked Drew up from work and headed to the amazing new grounds of the symphony. They just built it this year and it is a sight to behold. We met some great friends of ours there (who have Owen that was born the same day as Makenzie. Her mom and I were in the hospital together). It made it fun that the kids could run and play together. It was the perfect weather, a nice beginning to the end of summer.
Here she is laying on Daddy.
She loves to be tickled!

Lions and Tiger and Bears Oh My!

Our first trip to the Zoo! It was so much fun! It was the perfect morning, not too hot yet. In Boise that is hard to find. Makenzie was a little young to appreciate all of it, but man did she love certain things......

She is pointing to a frog that she thought was so cool, probably helped that they were on her level. The ones below are blue ones she loved too. She kept saying "blue frog" (but in her cute voice).
And of course the Giraffe.....SLIDE was a HUGE hit:) Dad was an awesome sport taking her down over and over.


The Tigers are really awesome too. She wanted to pet them.....
....but she settled for riding one:)

Mom was pretty cool too. Climbing through those things isn't as easy as I remember:)
Sometimes those darn fences were just too high!
All in all, we had a fabulous time! We took her to the gift shop after we were done and told her she could pick out any stuffed animal she wanted. Wow, that was a process I would rather not have to go through again:) How can a 2 year old make that decision?:) She choose her purple monkey and home we went.... what a day!

Let the slow decay begin....

So I finally gave in.... I gave Makenzie McDonalds. Drew and I decided to ease the stinging pain of parental abuse I felt I was inflicting, we made a night out of it. We went to the park and sat together and had, I hate to admit, a really great time:). Makenzie thought she had died and gone to heaven. I would like all to notice though, I had a small victory with the juice instead of soda. I am not giving up on that anytime soon! Then out came the toy, and wow, she thought she had hit the jackpot! That is a day I will never forget, talk about firsts (of I hope not many!)
Not two days later, I even let her have a lollipop! (I should be honest and say 2 minutes later I snuck it away from her and pretended it went "bye-bye" back to it's home). Hey, a mom's gotta do, what a mom's gotta do!

My little Cowgirl

We bought this hat for Makenzie a while ago and she wouldn't touch it. I loved it and was so bummed she wouldn't wear it! She has a large elephant toy in her room that she deemed cool enough to wear it though, and there it sat. Yesterday was a "Crystal miracle":) She picked it up and wore it around the house. I loved it!!! She thought she was pretty cool too.

Stick it to me!

Yesterday I found my little one had gotten into my address labels. To her, it was a jackpot full of stickers... how do I get mad at this face?

More water please!!

We have this little water park for the kids up here that Makenzie is experiencing for the for time this year. She really loves it! We enjoy going with her so much, the temperature of the water doesn't ever seen to phase her.

Sing with a happy heart....

Here is my little one just singing away. She loves songs, to dance or sing too. "The Driver on the Bus" is one she does well, along with "5 Little Monkeys" and is learning her ABC's. It is so fun to see her learn!

First light up shoes!!

I just got these for Makenzie off Ebay (I am a huge fan of Ebay for kids shoes!). They are the first pair I bought her that light up. She got so excited when she first tried them on. This video was a few minutes after she had them on. I need to get in the habit of having my camera ready for those first few moments. They are so precious and I know I will miss them so much one day.

Her first radio flyer....

Thanks to our friends the Greens, Makenzie took her first Radio Flyer ride. They had this wonderful house out in the open with some room for the kids to run. Their little boy Grant is so great for Makenzie to play with, he doesn't even seem to mind the age difference. Mark, his Dad, and Drew kept running them up and down their hill in the wagon. Talk about a work out!

An Oldie but a Goodie...

Ok, so I ran across this today and had to post it. It was from this last winter. Drew and I would take Makenzie out on her sled. She loved it so much. She would get so excited every time we pulled out her mittens and coat. She would laugh so much when Stanley (our Dog) would get stuck in the snow because we had so much of it. I thought you would enjoy this video!