Mckinley's First Christmas

Wow, it seems like there is absolutely no time to blog about Christmas. We are too busy having fun with family. And I am trying to get my house back in order again. So I am sacrificing precious sleep time right now after my early morning at work so I can blog.

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Our little family on Christmas day.

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On Thursday we got together with my family and had a dinner and the little kids did a gift exchange.

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Mckinley playing with her cousin Bryce at the Bishop Family Christmas party.

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Then on Friday (Christmas Eve) we spent the night at the Salmon's celebrating some birthdays and of course Christmas. Mckinley is trying to open someone else's present here.

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Then of course when it was actually her turn, she wasn't interested. She loves playing with paper, but didn't quite get the whole "ripping it off a present" thing. Maybe next year. :)

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She sure did love playing with my fuzzy socks though.

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Poor little girl got sick on Monday and had a crazy runny nose and a fever all day. Which meant I got to cuddle with her the entire day!! And she slept in our bed the last two nights. It was awesome!!!

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On Monday Ross (Brandon's Dad) surprised us all with a snow mobiling trip at a cabin in Heber. I've come to realize in my lifetime that cabin is quite a broad term. My grandpa built a cabin that is tiny and cozy and I love it. This place we went to, on the other hand, probably cost about $4 million to build and was absolutely amazing. It had a huge theater room, tons of bedrooms, all with their own bathrooms, awesome kids play rooms, heated wood floors, you name it, they had it. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and wished we could have stayed a week.

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I didn't get any pictures of us in all our {borrowed} snow gear out on the snowmobiles, but we did have fun.

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This was Mckinley's sick day. I felt so bad I didn't have any medicine to give her for her fever. But man, I loved cuddling with her and rocking her to sleep in my arms. After she was out, I transferred her to the floor (talk about plush carpet) and she slept as well as she does at home.

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Yesterday we saw Gulliver's Travels and then went to Pizza Factory to celebrate Lincoln's 18th birthday. Here is Brynlee playing with Mckinley. These two are so stinking cute together! They just love each other.

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Brandon's Dad got hotel rooms for all the married couples and offered to watch ALL the grandkids for a night. We'll be bringing Mckinley with us since she's still nursing (and because we just love the girl). More to come on that later.

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One month and two days till I get to see my parents again! I can hardly believe it!!

A WHITE Christmas

The snow outside is awesome!!!! Looks like we're going to have a white Christmas for sure. Normally I hate snow, but this winter I can just stay inside all day with Mckinley if that's what I want to do. Which is exactly what we're doing today.

A few shots of the snow from my front door:


The Camry is BURIED so I told Brandon to take the Sonata, especially since I am definitely not going anywhere today.

Our back yard. The snow is absolutely beautiful.

We drove by the Bastian Mansion to see their lights. I love that you can see them from the freeway or Geneva Road. I LOVE Christmas Lights.

We had our ward Christmas party last Saturday. In the words of Dwight Schrute, it was good, not great.

Check out Mckinley chowing down on a cracker.

And Mckinley wore this cute Christmas dress to church on Sunday. She was so adorable!!

Today is totally a day for warm fuzzy socks, hot chocolate, soup, and wrapping presents. I am so glad I get to stay home with my sweet baby girl all day long. Yay for Christmas. Just a few more days. I can't wait!!!

7 Months

We keep thinking to ourselves, can this girl get any cuter or any more fun? And then she does. Every day.



I love that she is starting to smile for the camera. Sometimes.

At 7 months Mckinley:

• Smiles at anyone and everyone who smiles at her. Including Santa.
• Still just sits on the floor and plays with toys. And I love it. She is starting to reach for things that are really far and kind of move a little, so it seems like crawling isn't too far off. But I'll enjoy every stage while it lasts.
• Love love loves her crib. But is also good at taking naps in her car seat. Which is super handy for babysitters and if I need to bring her to work with me.
• Still nurses pretty much every 3 hours during the day even though she's eating lots of baby food and crackers.
• Could probably eat animal crackers all day long and never get sick of them.
• Sleeps for long stretches at night. Most of the time.
• Twirls her feet around and around and around. Pretty much all the time, but mostly when she gets excited about something.
• Loves to reach up and play with (or pull) my hair while she's nursing.
• Loves getting her diaper changed but cries anytime you change her clothes. Maybe she won't like to play dress ups. Who knows.
• Sits up in her bath now and loves to play with anything in the water.
• Would rather play with grown up things than any baby toys.
• Talks a lot but still doesn't use any consonants, so no ma ma or da da yet.
• Loves to be scared, held upside down, and tossed in the air.
• Has about a thousand ticklish spots.

Family Pictures

Here are some of the family pictures we got. Too bad Mckinley was a bumb and wouldn't smile in any of them. Oh well. :)

Okay, so I guess she is smiling here. Who can resist it though when they're thrown up in the air?

Awww...

December has been a pretty uneventful month. Here are a few pictures of Mckinley when we were over at my brother Bryant's house. Don't ask me why they had a Dora chair there when all they have is 3 boys. :) Mckinley enjoyed it though.


Love that face. Carol, you recognize the overalls? I LOVE them!

Can a baby girl wear too much pink? I say no. Jake and Mal, I can't believe she is big enough to wear this outfit you got her!


We got a little Christmas preview when Mckinley opened a present from one of the doctors. She loved the paper! I think she is going to be really fun this Christmas.

Mckinley's First Thanksgiving

Mckinley enjoyed a feast of cold mashed up peas from a jar. What more could a 6 month old want?

Luckily I felt good enough to go to Thanksgiving dinner but I didn't eat much. We had dinner Wednesdsay evening at Brandon's parents house so everyone could go with their inlaws on Thursday.

Then Friday we all headed up to Salt Lake to stay in a hotel for the night and do a little swimming. Look at this adorable swimming suit my sister made.

I thought Mckinley would love swimming a lot more than she did during the summer because she kicks and splashes a lot more now during her baths. She was still super mellow though. But she does like it, I swear. I wanted to put her under the water so bad but Brandon said no.

She barely fit in to her swimming suit that she wore all summer. She's got the cutest chubby thighs you've ever seen.

In other news, Mckinley has finally started to show a little emotion when I try to take her picture! Wahoo!!! It's so frustrating to see so many cute smiles and not be able to capture them. Those days might just be over. (Knock on wood.)

Enjoying the big King bed (that turned out to be not so big anymore once she slept in it with us) at the hotel.

Look at that little toe hanging out of her jammies. Love it!!

Just cause she's cute.

I think this might have been the day when she all of a sudden started looking at me when I was holding the camera. She gave a little half smile.

The morning after Thanksgiving Brandon left while I was still sleeping to do a little early morning shopping. When he came back he came upstairs and told me what he got, and then he said "I have a surprise for you downstairs." He had crawled down in our yucky crawl space, pulled out the Christmas tree, rearranged the whole living room, and set up the tree. It was still dark outside and the tree lights were on. It was awesome.

I got out all my boxes of Christmas decorations (the only holiday I even have decorations for) and had a blast looking at everything in there. We didn't decorate last year, so it was extra fun doing it this year. Mckinley got in the Christmas spirit by wearing these cute reindeer antlers. They usually light up but the lights are broken. :( Anyway, we are excited for Mckinley's first Christmas! And then the month after that, she gets to finally meet her grandparents!!! Woohoo!!!

I Hate the Flu

Good thing the weather has been kind of crappy this week. Mckinley and I have been stuck inside while I am fighting a bad case of the stomach flu. I knew I should have got my flu shot this year!! Mckinley got hers and hopefully it saves her from catching this yuckiness. We're hoping somehow Brandon can dodge the bullet too because this just sucks!! I know people always say it's not fair to be sick and pregnant at the same time. Well, I think being sick while you're trying to take care of a baby is about as bad as it gets.

Here is Mckinley with her best friend (and cousin) Kai a couple weeks ago at a family dinner. Kai is just in love with Mckinley and it's so stinking cute! He watched her while I was busy in the kitchen and he surrounded her with all the couch cushions in case she fell over or in case his 2 brothers tried to get near her. He would ask me what every little sound she made meant. And at the end of the night when I was leaving Kai said "I can't look at her, because if I look at her, I'll follow her." And then he sighed and laid down on the couch while I walked out the door. Too cute!!!

A whole new world has been opened up to Mckinley now that she sits on her own in her stroller and the grocery carts. She loves it. But of course once I pull out the camera she is all serious. I swear, this girl will not smile for the camera. So if you haven't seen her smile in a while, you need to come visit her in PERSON. :)

Brandon and I decided to try out the Lehi Trafalga last weekend. We golfed with this beautiful sunset in the background. That place was really fun, but it's very kid oriented. A little heaven for 5 to 10 year olds.

Mckinley is one step closer to crawling. She will actually stay on her stomach for more than a split second. She still doesn't love it, but one day all of a sudden she stopped rolling on to her back the second her belly touched the floor. She still isn't very interested in moving, which is fine by me. I am putting off baby proofing the house as long as possible.

I might miss Thanksgiving all together this year. I already missed pie night last night (dessert first, totally my style, too bad I was stuck home), and Thanksgiving dinner is tonight. Unless a miracle happens, I don't think I will be going. Good thing I don't care that much about Thanksgiving.

Why do I go to work at 5 in the morning?

Because at about 7:30 I come home to this: (so precious!)


And because it's only 1 day a week. For a couple of hours.

CUTEness

Yesterday my friend Ashli got these great shots even though Mckinley was less than cooperative.


We've figured out that this girl knows when she is getting her picture taken and tries to fight it...


Love that tongue. And those cheeks!

She sucks on her lip. And then smacks her lips. It's the cutest thing ever.

Then today Ashli took our family pictures and of course Mckinley wouldn't smile but I'll bet we still got some good ones. Thank you Ashli!