Sara is Smiling

Karma's a B!tch

Charlie is beyond upset about Quinn's keyboard renos to her laptop.


She's gone all high pitched and skreechy which isn't completely terrible since it's too high for my human ears to detect. It's her mouth movements and all the cat's trying to escape the house that clues me in there's something terribly wrong in Charlie's life.
Here's where karma comes in...when Charlie was Quinn's age she did the exact same thing to Quincey's laptop. Now that I think about it, he made the same high pitched skreechy noises. Of course, when I recall this story with a smile to my hyperventillating tween, she does not see the same universal justice. I think she was hoping my reaction would be something like this, "Hey Char, that sucks! Let's go buy a BRAND NEW LAPTOP!!"
But nope. Welcome to my world, Eldest Child!

Charlie has recently requested to move out of the girl's room upstairs and into the empty room in the basement. I think the reasons are pretty obvious :-)

Cat Pranks

Welcome our new Babies!

So the stray we took in recently turned out to be PREGNANT.
Ugh..I was NOT happy about that although the kids were thrilled and eagerly awaited the kittens arrival.
When the time finally came, I let them watch. At first they were bored because they figured it was taking too long. Then things started happening and they got excited. Then they realized it wasn't pretty and were grossed out. A fabulous lesson in biology, though!

We ended up with three little kitties. Minnie, Munchie, and Chip. Minnie is the only girl. She's the black one. Munchie is grey and everybody's favourite. Chip is the brown one.
Here they are at 2 weeks old. Their eyes have opened, but their ears haven't perked up all the way yet. Minnie looks like a bat! Munchie is a lovely little puffball. :-)


I had fun with them yesterday..here are a couple more:



The kids are in love. Quinn calls them "Ows" is in "Meow". She stands outside the bathroom door where they live and pulls on the handle begging, "Ows! Ows! Ows!" until I let her in for a visit.


On the topic of Quinn's developing vocabulary...her newest word is Beebo as in Bieber. She yells, "Beebo!" until I turn a Justin Beiber song on repeat. Oh the price of having a teenage babysitter!

LMFAO -- the new Wiggles??

My kids love LMFAO.
If you don't know who they are (I'm lookin at you, Mum) here's a youtube vid:

Max tells me the other day that he really wants to get his license. I ask him why and he says, "So I can drive me and my friends to an LMFAO concert!" The last concert Max went to was Thomas the Tank Engine. Sometimes he's 7, sometimes 17.

Elly is at work with me today and won't stop nattering in my ear. I keep shushing her. She leans over and starts to whisper in my ear. I think she's going to say "Sorry Mommy" but she doesn't. She whispers, "Sorry for party rockin".

It's funny cuz it's true.

Emily with a Belly full of wine -- I highly recommend it.

Why am I 35 and just now experiencing my sister drunk?? Emily is officially my most favourite drunk person EVER!
We spent the last 2 days on a business trip to our company's facility in Ontario. We were with some of the team the first night and had tons of fun.
I myself was not exactly sober, and one of my favourite drinking games is sending my mormon babysitter (who is also a friend) drunk texts. She teases me incessantly about it :-)
The next morning I was flipping through texts from the night before and remembered that I was sending funny Emily quotes to her. Hilarious! Here's a sampling:
The set up for this one is that her husband had sent her a picture of the waffle he was eating for dinner earlier in the evening, and now Quincey had just sent me a lovey dovey text from across the table.
Emily (slamming her glass down): What?? Allan hasn't sent me SH*T since the waffle!!!

Emily (staring blankly at two guys having a conversation): Are these guys talking gibberish or have I lost my ability to understand English?

Here's the last one I'll share. It was at the end of the night.
Me: Emily is not ok.
Emily: I am FINE. I will do long division problems! Write some down!

Shortly thereafter she puked.

Last week's business trip to Vancouver we were walking to a restaurant downtown. It was Saturday night and the streets were buzzing. There was a guy  sitting against a wall with a cardboard sign that read "Help a Punk Get Drunk". He noticed Quincey - the only guy in downtown Van on a Saturday night in a suit - and yelled out, "Come on, man, I KNOW you got the money!!"
Later on our walk back to the hotel we passed the same guy. He had a different cardboard sign and this time it read "Too drunk to work, too ugly to prostitute". I guess he raised enough money after all :-)

Business trips are the best sigh Good times :-)

More Phone Photos

This is becoming more and more common on my blog..too busy to get out the big camera I guess.

So here's the last month or so according to my phone camera!

It was a guy at work's last day. I told him I was going to make him a cake. He said he doesn't like cake so I declared it "Pie Day" and everyone brought a pie. I made coconut cream. Mr. Guy made this monstrosity...it's apple pie with a bacon lattice crust and smothered in scotch!

I saw this sitting on my sister's desk at work the other day.

It's an orange that has been peeled and then taped back together. My brother in law (who also works in the office) was going to eat it then decided not to so he taped it back together. Waste not, want not, I suppose. :-)

This is shopping with Quinn:

She was playing with the manequins. My efforts to stop her resulted in protest. She's learned early to lay down, stand her ground, and go limp.

I sleep in a king size bed, but routinely sleep balanced on the edge with my leg hanging over to hold myself up because this is all the room I have.

When Q's out of town I often wake up 4 sets of arms and 4 sets of legs (not including mine!) all tangled up in my bed. :/
This day wasn't terribly bad..2 kids and a sleepy cat.

Get outta ma bed!

Enjoying a sunny day by the pool :-)


Tongue out..her signature picture face.

My super wonderful sisters on Easter (minus Mary).

I wish I could print this one, but Quinn got her hands on my camera and changed it to low res without me noticing..grrr..

Elly's first cleaning! She was a champ!

I feel myself getting annoyed just looking at this one!

This is the view 9 times out of 10 when I walk in the kitchen.
Get down, bad baby!!
She pushes chairs around so the world is her playground.


Why, Elly.....WWWWWHHHHHYYYYYY????????

SAY WHAT YOU WILL...

I love my blog.
I love my kids.
I do it for them.
It's a living family history.
I think about my girls as women. Having husbands. Having babies. Living their lives. Reading this and relating to me. Feeling closer to me. Knowing that I've been there. I've struggled. I found my greatest joy in being their mother, and if they choose so can they.
I think about all my children with children of their own. They'll be able to know what they were like and see themselves in the eyes of their own kids.
I think of - god forbid - Q and I leaving this world and our children and their children being able to read about life in 2012. What it was like to live and raise families at this time in history. Having the opportunity to know what ME - their grandmother! - was like as a young mother.
I think of how priceless that would be in my own life. To have something so valuable from my own mother and grandmother.

So yes, say what you will. Attack me. Attack my husband. Attack my children. It sits on your conscience, not mine.
I am proud to be a MacKenzie and will be until the day I die. Thanks for reminding me of that.

Charlie's Journal

Do not, I repeat...DO NOT read Charlie's journal:


Not that I was..ahem..reading it or anything, but I came across this.
"If anyone reads more it's die time. The last boy who read on..." points to an image of her decapitated little brother's head in a pickle jar. She drew a heart on his shirt just to piss him off.

Stranger Danger

A few days ago Charlie and Max were playing with a friend in the school field after dismissal. From behind the wall to the outdoor hockey rink, a man in a ski mask was whistling for their attention. He had one hand in his pocket and the other hand was waving them over.
They grabbed their bags and started to leave.
"Come here! Come here!" he called.
They hurried away. When they looked back he was coming after them. Luckily, just across the street from the field was a friend's house. They went there and he dashed off in a different direction.

When I found out I was, obviously, very upset. I called the police and they came over and spent time talking to the kids. They thought it was so cool to have 4 policemen at our house! They acted very mature while they told their story. I was very proud of them. The officer told him that they did the exact thing they were supposed to do: don't talk to him, run away, find an adult you trust.
Max adds: Stop, Drop and Roll!

All the schools in the surrounding area were contacted and notices were sent home to all parents. The police were at the school the next day, and Charlie and Max were little celebrities getting hugs and pats on the backs from the teachers.

Charlie is a worrier and has been telling me for months that she's scared of someone taking her. Every morning when I'm dropping her off she begs to be picked up after school. I always assured her that the school is really close to home, she's not walking alone, and nothing is going to happen BUT if something did ever happen here is what you do....
I'm glad that we had so many opportunities to talk about it. Since the incident she has a million more questions: What if he has a gun? What if he says he'll shoot me? What if he just grabs me? What if he wants me to go in his car? What if? What if? What if?
She also told me that she would, and I quote, "Kick him in the balls if he touches me". I must admit I've never told her that, but certainly wouldn't discourage it :-)

It's horrifying to think what could have happened. I'm very grateful for their safety, and so so proud of them.