Mckinley

Time for a post on each of the kids.

 

Let's start with our sweet Mckinley.

 

This girl is absolutely amazing. Ever since the day she was born, Brandon and I have stopped ourselves at the end of the day seriously almost every day and sat and talked about how amazing she is. She never ceases to amaze us. She is so sweet and loving, so smart, creative, and fun.

 

She has always loved babies. Here she is holding her cousin Sophie.

 

She is so sweet to Tyler and Kallie and always looking out for them. She did go through a phase of always bugging Kallie, tripping her for no reason, taking toys away from her, but I haven't seen her do that for quite a while. As for Tyler, they have always been best friends. I would often look over in to the family room and see them wrestling and just giggling with each other. It's pretty much the cutest thing ever.

 

McKinley is old enough now that she loves going on special dates and me and Brandon. This is when we took her to a Japanese Steak House called Sakura. 

 

Here she is playing with her friend Kenzey. These two have loved each other since they were tiny babies. They play together so well and are so cute together. Especially now that they are older and talking a lot more and everything.

 

At random times throughout the day Mckinley will stop and look at me or Brandon and say "Mom (or Dad), I love you." She does this A LOT. It melts our hearts every time.

 

The main thing she is into right now is drawing and writing. It is kind of out of control, but totally awesome. I knew that every week in nursery she would color a picture but there were usually just a few lines scribbled on the page, and that was it. Then all of a sudden one day she was bringing these pictures home that looked really good. And now that she has a desk in her room with storage in it, she puts her papers in there and then finishes coloring them throughout the week. So anyway, I started noticing that she was getting really good at coloring and it was really weird for me because I felt like it was the first thing she was learning to do that I didn't help teach her. But she really stays in the lines pretty good.

 

Here she is drawing on the program in Church.

 

 

Brandon found this awesome easel online and she just opened it Saturday. She loves it, of course, and is constantly drawing pictures on here.

 

Kallie got some cool bath crayons for Christmas (thanks Jess!) and Tyler and Kallie are obsessed with them and Mckinley finally got to try them out too and of course they are perfect for her.

 

So after she started coloring really well, all on her own she started drawing things. She has always been able to draw a circle, and simple things like that, but one day she just said I'm going to draw a snowman. And this is what she drew. I was like seriously? What the heck. How can she just do that on her own. Maybe this is normal for all kids, but she is my first and I don't know any different and I feel like she is pretty good at drawing.

 

She loves the coloring app on my phone and one day I took it from her and closed it out and when I closed it out I thought the flower she colored looked similar to the one on the icon for the app. Sure enough, she copied it exactly. She is always doing things like this. I think it is so cool.

 

So she started drawing people all on her own too and there is no face or body outline, just the important stuff, eyes, ears, mouth, hair, arms, legs. Ha ha ha. I think these are great. So this is a picture of some people with the sun out.

 

On the back of it, she told me this is a moon, a window, and the people are laying down. I absolutely love this!!!

 

 

Mckinley really is the sweetest thing ever. She is always wanting to save treats and things for Brandon when he gets home from work. The other day we had this little thing that I shaped into a circle and it kind of looked like a heart and she goes Mom! Look, it's a heart! We need to save it for Dad because I love my dad. She forgot to show it to him and a few days later she saw it and was like Mom, can you make this into a heart for me so I can give it to my dad?

 

I love hearing myself come out in her. (the good things anyway) She will tell me sometimes,"Mom, you're my best girl ever."

 

Anything that happened in the past is "last year." And anything that's going to happen in the future is "next week."

 

I could write about her all day. Some days I want to just sit and record everything she does and says. She is such a blessing in our lives and we constantly wonder how we were so lucky to get her.