.: I love my job!

I really do. I totally and completely love being a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM). Being a wife and mommy is the greatest job on the earth (well, for me at least!) At the end of the day, no matter how tired I am, I feel like my heart and soul went into the one earthly thing I care about the most....this family. I don't mean to sound dull but I could really sit and study McKenna all day. I am totally fascinated by the things she learns and how she communicates. I'm fascinated by sleep patterns and eating habits and behavioral developments. Its just totally interesting to me all that goes on in her little world. Plus, at my job I get hugs and kisses all day and if I choose to do so, I can spend the entire work day in my pajamas. = D

A few new things she's been doing that I particularly get a kick out of:

When she plays with her train she says "chicka chicka chicka choo choo!"

When we've misplaced her juice or the remote she will hunt for them by saying "juuuuuuuuuice?" or "remooooooooooooooooooooooe?"

On the days when we wake up Daddy, she waits until she knows he's awake and then she climbs next to the radio alarm, turns it on and starts to "rock out" to the music. Mariachi, rap, rock....no matter to her. Whatever station she left it on last is "rock and roll" to her. She tries to flash metal but only gets her index finger up. And then she shakes her head back and forth and laughs while she "rocks out".

She did her first real sommersault!! She seemed a little surprised but loved it.

When its snack time, I fill up her little snack bowl and then tell her "Let's go to the snack blanket" and now she knows to walk right over to it, grabs it, tries her very hardest to spread the blanket open (but its pretty big so she usually topples over) and now (for the most part) sits on her blanket while she eats her snack! Usually near the end of the snack she gets restless and forgets that her snacks need to stay on the blanket. But I would say she stays on the blanket for about 90% of the time now. We just introduced the idea of the snack blanket last week and our crumb and cookie-paste mess has drastically been reduced. = )

When I play the song "Simple Life" by Carolyn Dawn Johnson she "sings" along to the whole thing. She obviously doesn't know how to say about 99% of the words but still, you can tell she's singing along. She will sing in tune for most of it and mimic the vowel sounds at the end of each line. If the line is "Watch my babies groooooow" she will sing babble for the first part and then end along with her singing "oooooooow". She does this with every Dora The Explorer song too.

She can name many people in pictures. Particularly Auntie (Dantee), Grandma (Mamaw), Mama, Dada, Luke (Dute), Emily (whom McKenna thinks is Dora so she calls her Dee Dee), and I'm not positive but twice she has pointed to Isaac and I think she tries to say "Isaac" (zzzzzzzat).

Some of my favorite new words of hers are: Potato (patay), Toast (noast), Jesus (JeesJus), Santa (Tanta) and Toys (of course, said perfectly clearly).

Here are a few favorite pics from recently:

She gets TICKED if I try to take pictures of her. If she sees the camera (she calls the camera "cheese") then she demands it. Of course I don't give it to her and this just infuriates her: