Normally I’d be pouring on my photographic genius today because it’s Thursday and you know how I look forward to Beth’s You Capture challenges…but this week the topic was “kindred” and I have to say that’s a toughie for me since most of my kinfolk live in the US. So as much as I would have loved to hop on a plane and go see a bunch of family again, it was just not in the cards. Instead you’ll get my little kindred hearted daughter, checking out all her birthday goodness.

I cannot believe the amount of birthday loot our little girl picked up…and she didn’t even have an official party! Thank you so much again to all of our friends and family who sent gifts…and for those that are still on their way. Mackenzie truly gets to have a birthday season since her birthday is so close to Christmas…so with days of opening presents, then the start of Advent and finally Christmas, she’s going to be overwhelmed with gifts soon. She was already a bit overwhelmed with opening all this!

After being invited our neighbor’s daughter’s birthday party a little over a month ago, we decided to skip that adventure this year and revisit the idea again next year. The little girl was quite overwhelmed at her own 2 year birthday party, with all the kids running around, and the mommies using it is as excuse to just let their kids run free. I heard that the rule of thumb is one kid for every year old that your child is. Seems like a pretty good rule in the end…for both the parents and your kids! Five boys, the birthday girl and Mack…it was a bit of a madhouse with all that boy energy running around!

Anywho, when Mack came down from her afternoon nap, Stefan was thankfully home from work already and we had all her gifts on the table. She immediately knew what was up when she came downstairs. Ayla also thought she was going to get in on the goodness…but alas, she was mistaken.

Mackenzie’s present opening skills have vastly improved since last Christmas. I know, that was almost a year ago, so it probably shouldn’t be a huge surprise, but she tore into those gifts like a pro!

One of the first gifts she opened was this super cute little lady bug tambourine. What’s even better about it is that Mack really loves ladybugs…although she calls them “la-da-gah-bah” or something like that. πŸ™‚

Now before you start to think that we would be less than thrilled with noisy gifts like these…we were actually really thrilled. We also bought her a bunch of musical instruments and she LOVES that little xylophone. Every time I try to put her toys away, she pulls that thing right back out. I have to say, I’ve heard worse music from a 2 year old…so I guess all those music dance, sing and play groups are paying off!

There were tea sets and new baby dolls…and she so adores that tea set already. When she was opening presents the first night, we could have just let her stop there to play with the tea set and her new baby doll. She would have served up tea for all of them (and maybe even the oh so sad Ayla hovering in the background)…but we’d take a little break for a bit, I would continue cooking dinner and then we’d get back to the present opening.

She got a super cool farm yard book from her Great Oma which we will try out before bedtime soon. The illustrations are too cute in it!

And she also got the cutest backpack in the world (which is great since she’s still obsessed with zippers) which was filled with gummy bears! Good thing I saw those in there before Mack unpacked everything! She did get to have one little package of them while opening gifts, though. I can’t steal all the kid’s thunder πŸ™‚

I don’t have photos of it to share because it was disassembled on Saturday night during some wild and crazy playtime, but Mack also got a big Lego Duplo airport from us, complete with tower, repair center and an awesome airplane (at least we think it’s cool). Mack loves the forklift and the little service truck that came with it. So we left her Aunt Henny and Uncle Danial know about the airport and they brought over the cutest cargo plane and a rescue team.

Once again, a very huge THANK YOU to everyone who sent gifts. Mackenzie loves them all and I’m going to make sure to pack up a bunch of her older toys to hide away until the new stuff gets boring. Then we’ll bring out the old ones again in 2011 —because I have a feeling there will be plenty of other things to keep her occupied this month, even if it’s just our Advent calendar full of little chocolate treats!