The Sisters

Just thought I would show a little comparison of the two...MacKenzie and Delaney. Here are some pics where MacKenzie is about the same age as Delaney.

Welcome Delaney Ryan!

Well, the family of three is now a family of four. On April 17th at 7:34am, Delaney Ryan Lovchik made her debut at 7lbs 6oz and 20 inches long. She had a TON of dark brown hair and dark blue eyes.

The entire time that I was getting sewn up, she serenaded the room with her powerful lungs. Daddy got to hang around her while she got checked, weighed, and measured.


She ended up being slightly jaundiced, just like MacKenzie, so she spent much of her hospital stay sleeping.

Grandma and Grandpa Haynes brought new big sister MacKenzie to see her new sister. She is very good at saying "baby". She wasn't real interested in new little sister, and at this point, I don't think that she realized that "baby" was going to be coming home with us.


Below is an attempt at the first family photo. As you can see, it worked out well.




One thing MacKenzie does like about Delaney....new old toys. When MacKenzie was a baby she did not like being in her bouncer, but the minute we brought this thing out, MacKenzie claimed it. She likes to sit in it with her new Doodle pad that Grandma bought her creating masterpieces.


As we are all very tired, this will be a short post, but the requests for pictures has now been fulfilled!

The Easter Bunny Came!

Easter was relatively quiet.....there was a huge rain/thunder storm for the first half of the day with a tornado watch, but by the time naptime was over it was bright and sunny and time for MacKenzie to discover what the Easter Bunny brought!

Bailey was very interested in this whole easter egg hunt. He knew there was something delicious in those eggs.


So it began. MacKenzie had just woken up from her nap to find out that the Easter Bunny had been by. While she was upset with Dad when she first came downstairs (as he had taken away one of her books), she quickly got excited to see that old familiar basket and those pretty plastic eggs.


As you can see by the picture below, she really hit the jackpot! For her first Easter candy, each egg contained either one Mike & Ike jelly bean (Ryan's favorite), one mini whopper egg, or one chocolate crisp egg.

After the egg hunt was done, she found her other Easter basket that had two boxes of peeps, which she loved, some pretty Easter colored bracelets, and a bunny from Auntie Robin. It was about this time, that she also decided it was time to dump all of her plastic eggs onto the ground...she quickly discovered this unveiled the treasures inside.

After a thorough inspection of her loot, we sat down and had our ham dinner, then played the rest of the day. She is getting quite good at singing the ABC's. Sure, it sounds nothing like the ABC's, but she has the melody down and you can almost make out the b, c, d. She has a book that goes through the ABC's, and we have to read/sing it probably 20 times a day. And she will look around as you read/sing it to her to make sure that everyone is joining in on the song.

As for her big girl bed...she has not rolled out since the last time mentioned. And suprisingly, when she wakes up on the weekends or from naps, she stays in the bed until you come get her, occupying herself with singing and playing with her stuffed animals. And here I was thinking that taking her out of the crib was going to be so hard...of course maybe I'm still speaking too soon, so I better keep my mouth shut.

Ryan, the ten year old boy.

Every once in a while, Ryan decides he needs to pretend to be 10 years old again. This most recent occurrence took place in our back yard on Sunday. He was alerted by our neighbors that there had been a snake in their yard, that had made it's way into our yard. And being 10, Ryan decided he needed to capture the snake, show it to everyone, and even have his picture taken with it. Please observe Ryan and the snake below. A half an hour of his day well spent. After his daring capture, the snake was released over our back fence to go scare the horses. And no, it was not poisonous.

The Toddler Bed

Shortly after we found out that we were expecting again, Ryan and I had the conversation about what to do for furniture for the new baby. He was positive that MacKenzie would be ready for a toddler bed by the time that the new baby arrived (she would be almost 20 months old). I wasn't so sure. And everything I read said that she wouldn't be ready until closer to 2 1/2 years. So he caved and we bought a "new to us" crib, changing table, and dresser/cabinet on craigslist for the new baby. And here it is below in the new baby's room. I bought the crib set and then we picked out paint colors to match. Ryan did another excellent job with the trim. And we were able to transfer over the glider rocker from Mac's room to the new baby's room, which worked out well.


So now less than 2 weeks to go and Ryan decides on Sunday that Mac is ready for that toddler bed. So he takes down one side of her crib. He did this right before afternoon nap time. As this was his endeavor, I made sure he knew it was up to him to make sure she stayed in the bed. He wasn't real sure how it all was going to work out. So he put her into her new toddler bed around noon, gave her a kiss, and then shut the door as usual. We could hear on the monitor that there was lots of noise coming from her room. So after about 20 minutes he went upstairs and she was sitting at her little table looking through her books. He put her back into bed, gave her a kiss, and left again. Still lots of noise on the monitor. This time he discovered that she had taken all of her wipes out of wipe warmer...one by one. As well as taking all of her little green diaper bags (for disposing of diapers in public) out of the box...one by one. So he put her back in bed and came downstairs to refold wipes and bags. And still there was lots of noise from her room. After catching her again at her little table, he decided that he would sit in her room, not talking or looking at her, until she fell asleep. He probably sat there for at least a half an hour. So after roughly an hour and half, she was asleep in her toddler bed, which you can see below in her newly painted room. Thanks again to Ryan for all of his work painting those stripes!


So what was going to happen that night? Well, this time he devised a plan of putting up a baby gate in her doorway, and sitting out in the hall where he could peek around the corner to see her, but she couldn't see him. Sure enough, she got out of bed, but the minute he walked into the room, she would run back over to the bed...smart girl. They did this 3 times before she stayed put in the bed. Total time that he spent that night...roughly a half an hour. An improvement!

Then we had Monday night. He employed the same strategy of sitting in the hall and putting up the baby gate, and she actually never got out of bed. She didn't go to sleep for quite a while, but she didn't get out bed. However, roughly 2 hours later, we heard a very loud THUMP from the monitor and a short whine. He went upstairs and sure enough she had rolled over the edge and fallen out of bed. However, it did not phase her. She curled up in a ball on the floor and was back asleep. Ryan picked her up and put her back in bed and tucked some blankets around her. We didn't hear a sound the rest of the night. So night two was somewhat of a success. However, it also started the great debate of getting her a little rail so she doesn't fall out of bed. I say yes, he says no. Ryan is of the opinion that what doesn't kill her will make her stronger. He is all for letting her fall out of bed. I would personally like to avoid scarring until she is at least a little older. We'll see who wins.

The Easter Egg Hunt!

So on Saturday, our community held an Easter egg hunt for the children at the community's main park. At 19 months old, we weren't real sure how Mac would grasp the concept of collecting brightly colored eggs in a basket, but they had a hunt scheduled for the age group 0-3, so we thought we would give it a try.Before the start, Ryan tried to coach her into what she needed to do, by pointing out a section of eggs for one of the older groups of kids.

So by the time the hunt actually started, she was ready to go. She had no problem collecting those eggs and putting them in her basket.





The problem only came later when we got home and she wanted to continue to collect EVERYTHING in her basket. It wasn't until she went to sleep that I finally was able to take the basket away. As of yet, she still doesn't care what was in those eggs. The egg itself was the prize.

A LOT has changed!

Apparently last August I was feeling the need to start a blog and keep people up to date on what was happening with our life. Unfortunately, roughly 3 weeks after the posting below, we found out that we would be expanding our family of 3 into a family of 4.

As I sit typing to you now from home while on bedrest, it is a mere 2 1/2 weeks before the arrival of our second daughter on April 17th, 2009 at roughly 7:30am.

So let me try to give you a recap of the past 9 months. Here goes...

Ryan and I went to our 10 year high school reunion. Interesting night. I got to be the designated driver this night as I was about 6 weeks pregnant by this point. And Ryan fully took advantage of that.














MacKenzie had her first birthday! We celebrated up in Post Falls at Grandma and Grandpa Haynes' house with Grandma and Grandpa Lovchik, Great-Grandma Hawley, Aunt Wendy, Aunt Shirley, Aunt Robin, Aunt Erica, Uncle Scott, Uncle Kurt, cousins Josh, Jon, Nick, and Robbie, and Dania was there as well. As Grandpa Haynes' birthday was the 21st of August, we had a cake there for him as well. I'm not sure he enjoyed having to sit next to MacKenzie, though. This was her first time with sugar, and she thoroughly enjoyed it.




We drove to Seattle from Spokane and Mac got to meet Jamie, Erica, and Kelly! This was their first time meeting her! All were very excited! It was also MacKenzie's first ferry ride. As you can see, ferry rides are pretty windy.














When we got back to Texas, we were greeted with Hurricane Ike. Luckily we managed with only some lost power for 4 days, one shingle gone, and a fallen tomato plant. The house being built 4 down from ours was not as lucky. Here it is a few hours before the storm was due to hit.














And then here it is a few hours after the storm had passed. But, no one was hurt, and the house was rebuilt and just recently sold.














Here is Mac in her fairy costume for Halloween. She still wasn't walking yet. She would walk behind her walker, pull herself up and cruise, but no steps on her own. She loved those little pumpkins.













She also found another favorite pastime. Swinging! Big smiles whenever we played on the swings. And a few feet away is a lake in our community that has ducks. And she loves ducks. She actually loves all animals...even though she calls them all the same thing...doggy.



















The tunnel and the tent. On a trip to IKEA, we picked up this blue tunnel and a little polka dotted tent. Neither seemed to impress her at the time, but Ryan sure seemed to enjoy them. While even now she isn't as impressed by the tunnel, she LOVES the tent. Maybe we'll have to use the tunnel as a kind of dog agility training program.



















Here is another of MacKenzie favorite pastimes. Climbing and destroying. She loves to pull things down from the pantry. This is about a week after she started walking on her own. When we found her with the glass jar of sugar, we decided that the pantry needed a little child-proofing. Unfortunately, we forgot about those two tubs on the floor that she is climbing on. Those are full of dog food. We only discovered her affinity for such a delicacy when she came to us with a mouthful and two handfuls.



















And here is quite possibly the best babysitter money can buy! The dog crate! Not just for crate training your great dane anymore. Almost every day we find her playing inside either this crate or the much smaller version for the weiner dogs. She doesn't have a preference, each are loads of fun.















A trip to the beach. Grandma and Grandpa Lovchik came down in early December and decided to go to Galveston. Galveston was directly hit by Hurricane Ike only 3 months prior to this picture.















You can see some of the devastation in this shot here. That giant lump that Grandma is helping Mac walk on is actually one of thousands of sand tubes that the beaches of Galveston are built on. The storm unearthed these giant things all over, looking almost like beached whales or giant worms. But Mac still had a good time, and Galveston continues to rebuild.



















Ahh, the first picture with Santa. As you can see, it did not go over well. Her body went into fully rigor until she was given back to daddy. This was taken at Fluor's annual children's holiday party. She enjoyed the rest, the food, the balloons, the songs, but Santa...not so much.



















Here she is on Christmas morning. She got a trike from Grandma and Grandpa Lovchik and a wagon from Grandma and Grandpa Haynes. While she is still trying to figure out the trike, the wagon has a daily ritual of taking her and daddy to the mailbox. Ryan insisted that the wagon must be the big-wheeled metal one, instead of the plastic one. That way it was ready for off-roading. Currently that consists of going up and down curbs...which Mac loves.













The bouncy castle. Mac was invited to our neighbor's grandson's 4th birthday. Where we discovered her love of bouncing. Ryan crawled inside as well, so that he could help her climb up to the top of the slide that is to the left of her in the picture. While Mac had a blast, Ryan decided he is out of shape and maneuvering through a bouncy castle is a lot of work. Needless to say, they only went down the slide once.



















Planes and doggies. The perfect day. We volunteered for a doggie walk to benefit the local animal shelters. It was actually held on one of the runways. So we took Emma, our great dane, to the walk and did a mile around the runway. MacKenzie was so in awe of the amount of doggies, that she didn't make a sound for almost the entire 2 hours we were there. There was 20 minutes of "doggy, doggy", then nothing. Not a word. She was in heaven.















You wonder how close we were to the planes? Well, the next runway over from us, was an active runway. Suprisingly, it didn't freak out any of the thosands of dogs. I'm not sure I can say the same for the people landing in those planes, though.

The swingset. We just purchased this from a friend at work a few weeks ago. Now that MacKenzie has moved over to the bigger kids class at daycare, she has a large playset in her playground area. So we thought she might like one at home, too. And she certainly does.

Every night when she comes home, she goes to the back door and wants to go swing and slide. An added bonus is that there is a pool attachment that connects to the bottom of the slide. So now that the weather is reaching the 80's on the weekend, we can attach the pool and all cool off in the backyard. It is sturdy enough that even the dogs can get in the pool if they want.















So yeah, 9 months happened. MacKenzie is now 19 months old. She walks, runs, talks, and throws tantrums! But in our opinion (Ryan and mine), she is the cutest and best little girl in the world...tantrums and all.
















This is a picture of her from a few days ago. Ryan was trying to give her some mac & cheese and she refused.....that is until we discovered that she wanted to eat it with a spoon herself! She had never really shown any interest in the spoon except to bang it on things before, but apparently some of the other kids in her class are now using a spoon to eat, and she has certainly picked up on that. It's still a work in progress. Most of the time she will lay the spoon down, load it up, and then try to transfer it to her mouth, but she's getting better. And she has wanted the spoon everyday now. She's just growing so much. Unfortunately, what Ryan did not catch in this photo is what she did with the spoon when she was done eating. She is very interested in phones recently....and any object can become a phone at any time. Including her spoon. It promptly went into her ear (unwashed of course) and she started her phone conversation, which always consists of "yeah, yeah, yeah."

So from here on out, I will attempt to remain somewhat updated. I'm sure there will be a little hiatus as soon as the new baby comes, but I will try my best.