New Table for Macy

We bought Macy a new little table and chairs from Ikea to help encourage her artistic creativity. (And to hopefully find something that she will do so I can make dinner. This hasn't happened yet but getting better.) The first morning she saw it she immediately ran over to it and started to color. Usually when Jonathan gets Macy up in the morning the first thing she does is try to find me. Now she goes straight to the table. Her friends like to play at it too. We are so glad we bought this for little Macy Cakes.

Family Pictures from Outer Banks

Here are a few of my favorites. I say few because there are 634 images to choose from. The photographers really did a great job capturing the essence of each family.

Whole Family

The grandkids

My favorite little Angel

the little girlies

Someone isn't happy

a rare smile

All 5 born August 2009-August 2010

Macy and Lily

Macy the Artist

As I mentioned before Macy is really into coloring right now. This is the only thing in her life she has done consistently for longer than 10 minutes. She loves picking all the colors, different pencils and pens, and high lighters. Amazingly she holds the crayons, pens, and pencils the proper way. I don’t know where she learned that. We think she is just a natural born artist. 

This is one of my favorite pieces of artwork. She worked on this over a period of time and would make one line at a time. She would make a mark, take a break and come back to it. She even took it with us outside for inspiration. 

Another amazing thing was Macy letting me take her picture while coloring. She likes to put her face really close to the paper when she is working. She is always so happy when coloring and loves to talk and show me what crayon she is using and what her picture looks like. I love my little budding artist! She is the cutest little artist ever!

So focused

She's showing me what she just did

See how cute she is crossing her legs?!

Praying Macy

Macy has been excellent at reminding us to pray and to pray often. It only took us a few tries to get her to fold her hands and know she can also fold her arms. I wasn’t in the good habit of praying over breakfast and lunch but now we are because Macy insists we pray before eating. She folds her arms and points to us to do the same. She is generally very reverent but if we peek we catch her trying to pick food off her plate. However, her arms are still folded so does that count? I like to peek so I can see how cute she is being. She’s also very good at getting us to say family prayer at night. We’ve always been good at this but she now reminds us as soon as it’s bed time. She waves “come on” to Jonathan if he isn’t moving fast enough for her. She also always folds her arms at church during the prayers and at other people’s houses. I’m so glad that is one lesson that actually stuck.  

Her latest thing is having us all fold our arms or clasp our hands. Jonathan and I have to do whatever she is doing. She tricks us by switching during the prayer sometimes. Often she wants to pray multiple times during dinner. We try to tell her we only need to pray once. If Macy ever isn't paying attention and misses us saying Amen she will not unfold her arms until we say another prayer or repeat Amen a few times. 

Charlottesville

We took the two hour drive down to Charlottesville to visit the NUCCA doctor there. The drive down there is mostly on a highway that goes through the little towns so it’s a beautiful drive. Macy did pretty good on the drive and only cried a little bit. After our appointment we drove to Monticello to go inside Thomas Jefferson’s home. It’s a beautiful home with very beautiful grounds. We took turns watching Macy while the other went on the tour of the house. Daddy was very nice and bought Macy chocolate coins during his watch and she loved them of course.

On the way home we stopped to get ice cream at a place called Moo Thru. The sign says it’s real dairy by real dairy farmers. It was very delicious and Macy loved her ice cream come. This time she only took a little bite out of the bottom. Her favorite part was the flavor sign. She walked in and out of it and was so happy. 

The last hour of the drive I sat in the back with Macy and helped her color. She is very much into coloring right now. I put the crayons in her cup holder and she thought that was great. She would pick a color, draw a line, then show me the crayon and speak to me very purposefully. I really wish I knew what she was saying. It was so cute and I had a great time sitting back there with her.

Macy's first work of art (I did the sun and face)

Bike Ride Down Mt. Vernon Trail

We decided to go on a family bike and roller blading ride on Saturday despite the chance of rain. It did decide to rain but luckily we had stopped by a tunnel to let Macy lose so we were able to find shelter from the rain. Macy had a great time playing in the tunnel so it turned out great!

Meadow Lane Park in Vienna

This is the best park around us. First off it’s almost completely covered in the shade, it has many swings, and best of all it’s full of outdoor toys. Macy always loves to steal other kids toys. Actually this is how I found out about this park. We were at our pool swimming and she wanted a toy that another little boy had. I told the dad that no matter what I bring she always wants what the other kids have. He said, “Oh she’ll probably like this park in Vienna, it’s full of other kids toys!” We went last Friday and Macy played by herself (which is rare) for an hour! We just sat and watched as she went from toy to toy to toy. Other bigger kids were bossing her around but she would just stare at them and do her own thing anyways. Way to stand up for yourself Macy.

Je T'aime

While Jonathan was off in North Dakota last week I embarked on a totally new art medium for me: painting. Our bedroom wall above our bed has been bare for the last 20 months and I couldn't find anything in the stores that worked. I made my own art by using my Cricut to make stencils and paint. My next step will be to not use any stencils but I am not a drawer or painter. Here's the finished product:

I especially loved my love birds.

I'm used to using paper for projects which makes for clean crisp lines so it was difficult to get used to the uneven edges of my letters and birds. All in all I enjoyed the project. Painting was the easy part; deciding the saying, the pictures and the layout was the hardest part. Next time I have a empty wall I'm going to try this again but using paper and do sort of a modge podge effect.

I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ

Macy walked out of nursery with a tag clipped to her that said “I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” I thought it was so adorable! Jonathan picked her up and he said she was so proud of it and kept pointing to it and saying “uh, uh!” Even though the picture is bad I had to take one. I started to sing the Primary song to her and now every time she sees this tag she tries to clip it on and signs for more. She wants me to sing the song to her. How sweet! I want to keep the tag and hopefully it will come in handy for future FHE lessons.

Macy’s First Ice Cream Cone

We celebrated my sister-in-law’s birthday with Thai food, cake, and ice cream. Macy loved the ice cream cone and started eating it from the bottom. Why is it that kids bite the bottom out first? How do they all know to do that when they shouldn’t?

Playseum

Macy and her friend Grant went to a Playseum in Bethseda. Both of the kids had a great time wandering around to the different rooms that are set up with different themes (i.e building, dentist, grocery store, old children’s play room, etc). Here Macy and Grant are enjoying their morning tea before heading off to work. It looks like Macy answers the phone while Grant does the typing. 

 

New Stroller

Macy has been eyeing this stroller since the moment she first laid eyes on one. I finally broke down and bought her one so she would stop trying to steal our neighbor’s. Jonathan was gone in Fargo so before taking the picture I asked her to smile for daddy. She was so excited we walked around with that stroller almost every waking minute for the rest of the day.

Macy loves stickers

One day Macy and I were playing in her room. We came across stickers and I would give one to her and she would run off with it. She kept coming back for more and then running off again. Afterwards I found the stickers on the window sill on our room and in the hallway mirror.

Outer Banks Family Vacation

This year the DeVore vacation was spent all together in one house in the Outer Banks. It was so much fun! I thought it was the best family vacation we've had yet. The house of awesome, the pool was great, the beach was perfect, and the company was good too. We were able to relax and enjoy everyone's company instead of trying to see every tourist attraction out there.

The first night there Kiersten took pictures on the beach. They turned out great and here are a few of my favorites. They were a precursor to our Tuesday night photo shoot.

Monday was the 4th of July and it was so fun to be on the beach watching the fireworks. It was almost magical and one of my favorite memories.

Tuesday we had two photographers come to take on the mammoth challenge of photographing the whole Devore clan. The name of their company was Island Photography and they are a husband and wife team. They were so great! They worked at hyper speed so none of the kids tried to run away in the picture. After the whole group we took individual family photos and they turned out so great. Everyone looks beautiful with the beach in the background because the lighting was just perfect. Here is a link to just some of my favorite pictures. Macy cried for the first attempt at getting a family picture and screamed the whole time during the grandkids picture. Oh well, at least we got a few good ones.

Other than that we mostly stayed at the house. We hung out at the beach a lot because Macy loved playing in the sand and water. She wouldn't go into the pool for whatever reason but liked the hot tub. Macy also loved having all her cousins around to follow. It was so cute. Luc won her over one night by giving her M&M's. She would find, him tug on his shirt and point to the cupboard until he got her more. He is a very good big cousin.

Each night one family was in charge of making dinner for the whole group. This was a million times better than going out to eat every night. Plus, we got to try different foods from what we normally eat.

Jonathan boogie boarding

Macy longing to drive the go karts

The one outing we did was to the Wright brother's memorial. This is how Macy liked it.

Not at all. She cried and cried to get out of the stroller.

She eventually settled down when we let her out of the stroller. She had fun playing with the drain.

The last night the kids got to dig for buried treasure. Holly had a treasure chest filled with goodies and made red and white striped bandanas for all the kids to wear. Macy actually liked it and kept it on. And of course she liked all the candy inside. 

We had a great vacation and can't wait to do it again next year. The only thing that we will change is the time we leave to drive there. Apparently leaving later in the afternoon is how to beat the traffic. It took us 10 hours to drive there when it should only take 5 1/2! Even if we have to drive that long again it will be worth it. 

Watermelon Lime Smoothie

I know the picture isn't great but I started drinking it and couldn't stop.

This is my new favorite way to eat watermelon! We made some last night for dinner and I had to have a second glass before going to bed because I was craving more of the sweet tangy goodness. Here is the recipe I used but you can definitely change it up as needed. I'm thinking of adding strawberries next time.

2 cups frozen cubed watermelon
1 ripe banana
lime juice from 2 limes (it has a strong lime flavor so cut back if you don't like that)
lime zest from 1/2 a lime
1/2 cup Sprite (or more to make is smoother)

Blend all together. Easy Peasy.