Cutie Pie

Why so serious? Come on Kate, would it kill you to smile for the camera?

Hi mom. Watcha doing? Oh no, not the camera again...

Stop taking pictures and FEED ME!!

Christmas Photos

I'm tired. I'll write more about our Christmas festivities soon, but for now these pictures will have to do.

Opa with Connor and Kate.

Four generations of English, Slater and McKinnon women.

My Little Picasso

Connor tried his hand (literally) at finger painting today. The pictures say it all...

Kate (1 month old)

A visit from MiMi

My mom came to stay with us for a few days. It was so wonderful having her come.  She's such a huge help with Connor and Kate and with another adult in the house, Ross and I were able to get a little sleep (which is like winning the lottery). Here are some pictures from her visit.

Controlled Chaos

Ross and I are still adjusting to life with two kids. Right now our life can only be described as on the verge of crazy but not quite ready for the looney bin.

Baby Sister for Sale

Kate's been doing fantastic! Her first doctor's appointment was yesterday and at 6 days old she's already gained back her birth weight plus an extra ounce. Way to go girl!!

Here are some more pictures of our sweet little Kate. I've also added one of Connor, who has decided to fully embrace his terrible two's.

Welcome Kate!!

We're thrilled to welcome Kate Elizabeth McKinnon!!! Kate arrived at 10:13am on 11/24/09.  She weighed 8 lbs and 11 ounces and was 21 inches long.

On our doctor's orders we had to induce. Mainly because my blood pressure was unusually high at my last visit and he was concerned that the baby might be getting too big.  We started the potocin at 7:00am and the doctor broke my water shortly after. Much like Connor, once Kate got the message she was in a hurry to get here...3 hours and 13 min later she arrived after only three pushes.

Here is our precious little angel...

        My mom with Kate - what a proud Mimi.

Ross's mom with Kate. Kate arrived two min. before Beth's flight landed.

Ross in love, ready to sign over his bank account and 401k.

How about a little 'snuggle-cuddle' after a long Thanksgiving day.

In deep thought...or pooping.

Happy Halloween!

What kind of costume do you give a kid who doesn't like to eat? Seems appropriate.

Pumpkin Patch 2009

Oink, Oink

We're dealing with a possible case of the swine flu at my house right now. Connor's been recovering from his 4th case of strep throat this year and even though he was on antibiotics for days, he was still very cranky with a mild fever, slight cough, etc.

A visit to the doctor today, revealed that he does have the flu. However, because the swine flu is spreading like wild-fire through the community right now, doctors are not testing for the actual H1N1 strain. Instead, they're calling all cases of the flu, swine flu (i.e. Connor has the swine flu). BTW - Since he got his regular flu shot weeks ago, the chances are good that he actually does have the piggie flu.

The good news is that his symptoms are very mild. Other than a case of the crankies, he's in good spirits. Eating well, sleeping well, etc. Since the doctor thinks that he's had it for several days already, she told us to just watch him and let it run its course.

I don't mean to down play the subject, but I do feel that the media is blowing this whole thing out of proportion. As a matter of fact, my sister-in-law, brother-in-law, niece and nephew have also recently had a visit from the piggie fairy and all are recovering nicely.

McKinnon Family Report

As you may have noticed, 99.9% of the posts on this blog are about Connor. It's my way of capturing the events of his life no matter how big or small.

Part of the reason that I do this is because my dear sweet mom can't remember anything about my own childhood. If I ask her, "when did I start walking" or "if I were a boy what would my name have been" the response is usually - I don't know. No offense mom...to be fair, Grandma doesn't remember anything about your childhood either. So this blog is really my way of retaliating against the hereditary memory loss that seems to plague my family.

However, in this post I thought I'd give everyone an update on the other McKinnon family members (even our pet manatee - Morgan)

Ross:
Ross has been traveling a lot over the past few weeks. Recently he took a business trip to New York where he met with his customers from an oil trading company headquartered there. He said that he had a very productive trip - even though each time I talked to him he was out at a noisy bar. Oh well, this is the oil biz, where the best deals are made on the golf course or sipping scotch over a dinner. They don't call it the "good 'ole boy network" for nothing.

After that he was in Houston for a few days of training. And in two weeks he leaves for Panama where he's doing some business with the pipeline there. When he's not jet-setting around the world, he's at home playing Bob Villa. Most recently, he installed crown molding in all of the upstairs bedrooms...what a handy guy! And that's not all...it wouldn't be a Ross update if I didn't mention football. Of course, he's really enjoying his role as the San Antonio Auburn Alumni President. So far, he's organized several game watching parties - each with a great turn out of Auburn grads (both young and old). Plus Auburn is 5-0 this season, so he's as giddy as a school girl right now...hehehe - I like that analogy.

Leia:
As for me, I've been incredibly busy at work (but what else is new). On top of my project work, which involves leading the change management effort around a departmental ITIL implementation (ITIL is a set of industry best practices which essentially standardizes and streamlines core IT processes. It enables IT to provide better customer service and fiscal accountability to their customer...i.e. the business)...OK YOU CAN WAKE UP NOW...I'm also the change lead for the account and recently had the opportunity to lead a several million dollar proposal to outsource a key business function to our off-shore delivery team in India.

On top of that, I have my night job of mommy (which is my favorite job of all). By now, you know all about how Connor is doing, so I'll focus this update on the new baby. Baby TBD is ready to rumble. He/She's been kicking up a storm and is now having daily hiccups, which I love. According to my doctor, he/she is growing right on target and has a strong, healthy heart beat. We have only 7 weeks left until the little one arrives...how exciting!!

Morgan:
Morgan is getting fatter and fatter by the day. I wonder if they have a dog version of "The Biggest Loser"? Connor thinks it's hilarious to feed her and Morgan is a willing participant. What can I do?!?!?

Kibbles and Bits

I caught Connor eating dog food last night. His hands were in the bowl right along with Morgan's head. I guess they were trying to have a quiet dinner together. The worse part is that he was actually "eating" it. I mean chewing AND swallowing. YUCK! I can't get him to eat hot dogs or pasta...but dog food?!?!?

Right Said Fred

Long ago there was a band called right Right Said Fred. Their only claim to fame was a song called "I'm too sexy."  The lyrics went something like this..."I'm too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it hurts. I'm a model if you know what I mean and I do my little turn on the catwalk, I shake my little toosh on the catwalk". For some reason this song jumped in my head when I saw this picture.  For anyone who isn't in touch with their pop culture side, this is the classic over-the-shoulder model pose.

Hamming it up at the dinner table.

You smell like a monkey, and you look like one too.

We took a family trip to the zoo this weekend. We've been wanting to go all summer, but it's been too hot and miserable. So when the weather turned a little cooler, we loaded up the car and off we went. I think every other family in San Antonio had the same idea, because the place was hopp'in.

Here are a few of the pictures from Connor's first zoo trip.

Looking at the Flamingo's...

At the butterfly house. Connor wanted to take their plate of food.

That bear looks like he wants baby for dinner. Luckily there was a trench and steel fence in between us.

That fish was as big as Connor.

After seeing that huge fish, Connor wanted to go fishing.

New shoes

Not long ago Connor and I caught an episode of Sesame Street where Neil Patrick Harris (a.k.a Doogie Howser) played the "shoe fairy". He spent the entire episode in a white tuxedo with wings on his back and handed out shoes to all of the characters that didn't have them.

At one point, after a very long (and painful) song and dance routine, Neil gave some magical running shoes to one of the purple fuzzy things (not sure of his name - what ever happened to the classic characters that I grew up with? Sigh!). These shoes had only one speed - fast. So this poor character spent the rest of the episode running and screaming across the screen.

Somehow Connor's managed to find his own magic shoes. Several weeks ago, I took him to Nordstrom’s to pick up some new kicks. Up until now, he's been wearing soft, leather soled shoes that didn't offer much support. So the purpose of our shopping trip was to find some 'big boys shoes' with hard soles and Velcro straps.

Connor and I quickly picked out several pairs of super hip baby shoes which were sure to make him the envy of his daycare class. Like a good salesmen, the guy put the first pair of shoes on Connor's feet, secured the Velcro strap and tried to check his toe position to make sure they fit properly. I emphasize "try" because the second the shoes were fastened securely, Connor took off across the store and didn't turn back...and he's been running ever since.

The clean plate club

At the advice of our Occupational Therapist, Connor's been trying all kinds of new tastes and food combinations. He's still not eating solid foods, but at least he's having fun experimenting.

Tonight's delicacy...watermelon, ground beef and ranch dressing – of course, the ranch dressing won out over all other.

Apparently tonight was eat without hands night. That's right Connor - that IS how a piggy eats.





Oh sure! You won't touch real food, but you'll gnaw on a plastic placemat. Seriously, I give up...

Giddy-Up!

I can only imagine that Morgan dreams about doggie heaven where she can lay in the sun with her feet up in the air while someone feeds her bonbons one by one. Sadly, she's forced to wake up to this instead.



Mom! Can you please put more batteries in my pony. I think its broken.





Notice the one arm resting on Mogran while the other holds the remote. Such a guy...