Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Polar Vortex

We've been having some pretty crazy weather here in Mississippi, all thanks to this wonderful thing called the Polar Vortex. It's been enough seeing all the snow that has accumulated in my home town of Holland, Michigan, but never did I think we would see anything like that around here. Well, we didn't see snow, at least that's not what I would call it. It was freezing rain and it did this all day.

Due to this freezing rain, starting yesterday, many schools and businesses started to close their doors just so everyone would be safe. Even Keelser AFB where Courtney works was shut down. Even today, after this crazy weather passed, everything is still closed, even base. So we enjoyed another "snow" day with Courtney at home and he doesn't return back to work until 10 a.m. tomorrow, but they have already been cancelling schools in the area for tomorrow already.

Before the freezing rain started though, we got a good amount of rain, which made the streets become ice very quickly. Unlike being in Michigan, where they experience this often in the winter, Mississippi doesn't know how to handle it. They started shutting down roads, mostly the bridges around here, and last night police urge people to stay home by giving every one a curfew, which was beyond crazy. But, last Friday, we had some colder weather too, which ice appeared on the roads and caused many accidents, so they didn't want to risk anything, I guess.

These are some pictures I took in the early afternoon. There was  a lot more falling to the ground once darkness fell, but between the cold and wind, I just didn't want to step outside anymore.






Even though we've been pretty much trapped in the house the last couple days, the girls have been enjoying playing inside and seeing the white stuff outside.
 
Where ever McKaila is these days, McKenna will follow.
The forecast around here is crazy, no wonder we are always getting colds when the temperature changes this big so often.


Monday, January 20, 2014

Mississippi Adventures


Before we had kids, Courtney and I loved to just get in the car and explore somewhere new. Now, with kids, we don't do it as much. When we first moved to Mississippi, we explored a little bit, once McKenna was born, it was the end of exploring. It was nice to stay in the car in the air condition, but it was too hot to get out of the car to really look around. So, finally yesterday, I brought up to Courtney that we needed to explore a little bit and that brought us to the Bay St. Louis and Long Beach area.

We planned on only going to Long Beach and going to a Mexican restaurant that we heard was really good (Juan Tequila's) and find this 500 year old tree(The Friendship Oak). Once we got to Long Beach (which is about 20 miles or so away from Biloxi) we decided to go a little further and go up to Bay St. Louis. Take in mind, this is the area that was hit the worst when Hurricane Katrina came rolling it. So driving around the coast was so sad even after all this time. Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast in 2005 and you can still see where houses were at one point. Even in Biloxi, you see steps in an empty field leading to nothing. We saw driving to Bay St. Louis, a full chimney, but no house around it. It's all so sad.

Once going over the bridge into Bay St. Louis, we drove around downtown and after seeing all the small shops they had there, we decided to walk around a bit. We didn't stay long due to our hungry kids, but it sure will be a place we will start to visit more often. After some lunch, we headed to The University of Southern Mississippi, Gulf Coast to see the Friendship Oak.

The Friendship Oak Tree is 500 plus years old and is overlooking the Gulf of Mexico from the college campus. It was a beautiful sight when we pulled up to it and all I could think of, only if this tree could talk. It's survived many hurricanes, Katrina being the worst, and has seen countless other things. It was something we couldn't just drive around, I needed to get out and take some pictures.

 



 




 
 
We couldn't ride around the coast without making a trip to the beach. So after a little time exploring the Friendship Oak, we headed off to the beach. McKaila was very excited to go run around on the beach, but she wasn't too happy when we told her it was too chilly to take off her shoes and socks so she could go walking in the water. After she got over that, she was happy to keep her shoes on and walk in the sand and look for shells.














It was a beautiful and awesome day on the coast and really looking forward to exploring more of the coast with my beautiful family.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

First Soccer Practice

Our little girl is growing up and I had to deal with not being able to be there for one of her firsts. Being a stay at home mom, I have been there to see all of McKaila's first, so not being able to be there to see her first soccer practice was hard on me. Not going to lie, when I was saying good bye to her, I had tears in my eyes. I know, it sounds pretty crazy, but she's my baby and I've been there for everything.


 McKaila and one of her coach's, Daddy

I decided I wasn't going to go because it was just to cold outside and it was just practice, that I felt wasn't going to last long anyways due to the weather. I really thought about just sitting in the car, but with a baby that just wants to move, I didn't want to trap her in the car with me for an hour.

Practice went for about a half hour before they decided to call it for the night because it was too chilly for the younger kids to be out there. Courtney did say though, that McKaila and Mariah (Courtney's co-workers little girl) were the only ones that really got into kicking the ball into the net. So, we'll see how well games go, but they have a couple practices until then. Games start on February 1st, and I will be there, no matter what.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Lego Love

While we were still living in Waldorf, Courtney made McKaila a Lego table. A Lego Duplo table. At the time we didn't have any Legos but with gift cards McKaila had received, we were able to purchase many Legos for her to play with. Like any child I'm sure, at first it's all exciting to have new toys around, then after a while it's like those toys aren't even there.

In the last couple weeks, both girls, have really enjoyed playing with the Legos. Well, McKenna doesn't really play with them, she just sticks them in her mouth and bangs the Legos together. McKaila loves to build towers and castles. It's like we just brought all these things home, the way these girls have been playing with them, but glad they are getting played with again.




 So happy to be surrounded by lots of Legos

 McKaila's Lego masterpiece and of coarse Roxy had to be part of the picture

It was a day full of indoor play because it was raining outside, but the girls had lots of fun playing with Legos and watching many different Disney movies.

 That face! You can really see the different colors in McKenna's eye here


 Watching The Little Mermaid, can you tell it's a favorite of McKaila's?

 

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

8 Months


Is McKenna really 8 months old already?

 
McKenna is 8 months and moving around like crazy. She is still slithering across the living room and now getting herself into the kitchen, but little by little she's trying to get her legs under her and crawling. She does a few crawls and then it's like she's had enough of that, I'm just going to slither. It's super cute to watch her go though. She sees something that she wants and she heads right for it.
 
In the last few days, McKenna started pulling herself up on everything. It started out as just pulling herself up on Courtney and I, then all of a sudden she got brave enough to do it on everything she could. She's so proud of herself too, because when she gets up on her feet, she gets a huge smile on her face.
 
After lots of drool, teething toys, and baby orajel, McKenna finally got her first tooth. She never really fussed too badly about it, but with the way she was chewing on things, we knew a tooth was about to pop. I am so thankful that she never lost sleep or fussed a lot, because I read some horror stories about teething babies and feel truly blessed that we haven't had to deal with any of it. At least so far.
 
McKenna has become a fan of the sippy cup along with the Doc McStuffins toys
 

When McKaila was 8 months old, I took pictures of her and they are some of my favorite pictures of her at that age. So I made sure I kept the dress she was wearing so McKenna could wear that same dress when she turned 8 months old. I tried to get a similar picture of McKaila, so I could see how much they truly looked a like and well, it's pretty crazy how much these two look a like.
 
Please take a look at McKaila's picture