She Did it Again

She's done it again. Another awesome sleeping position. This was last night. Her head isn't even on the mattress, it's up on the crib bumpers. Don't worry, after I take a picture I always move her into a more comfortable position and put the blanket back on her.


Yesterday Mckinley's cousin Brynlee came to play for a little while. These girls are so cute together and just love each other so much.

We went on a walk to drop something off at one of the girls' houses that I visit teach. We actually got pretty hot out walking so we came home and I opened all the windows (first time of the year, yay for good weather) and the girls both had a drink.

I taught Mckinley how to color yesterday. I only had to tell her not to put the crayons in her mouth like three times. :)

Mckinley now puts the phone up to her ear by herself sometimes. This is when she was "talking" to Brandon on his way home from work today.

Click HERE if you want to see a cute video of Mckinley and her dad having fun. I didn't even bother trying to upload it straight to blogger.

We took a little walk down to the river yesterday. Check it out. The water is so high! Hopefully our house doesn't flood. :)

Sleep

It's not too often that I post a picture a mere 10 minutes after it was taken, but tonight I couldn't help myself.

How awesome is sleep by the way? Isn't it funny that when you're a kid you fight going to bed, and then when you're an adult that minute your head hits the pillow is the best moment of your day?

Anyway, on to the picture. Brandon discovered Mckinley like this tonight:

Now tell me that isn't just awesome!

Oh my gosh we love this girl.

Kristi, she wore the adorable outfit you got her today. I love the tight pink capris and how you can see the folds in her cute chubby thighs through the pants.

Look at her up on those tippy toes trying to reach the Easter candy. :)

Remember how I said I love when the birthday celebrations are drawn out? Well, my parents had us over for dinner on Monday night to celebrate my birthday. Then today my sister-in-law took me out for lunch. Thanks everyone for a wonderful birth-week! I loved it.

Now, it's off to bed for me to get in a couple hours of sleep before I get up at 4 to go to work. :)

Easter/Birthday

Well, Saturday I turned 29 and then Sunday we celebrated Mckinley's first Easter. I don't know if my birthday has ever been that close to Easter.

Anyway, like I said before, Brandon surprised me with a new computer. Other celebrations included eating at Texas Roadhouse, going to see Limitless in the theater while Shellee watched Mckinley (thank you so much Shellee!), eating at JCW's and renting Hereafter from redbox and watching it at home.

On the morning of my birthday we brought Mckinley to the 6th Ward (where we used to live) easter egg hunt. She was adorable to watch.


She seemed to know that those bright colored eggs weren't supposed to be there in the grass. She would pick them up and then hand them to me or Brandon to see what was inside.


We spent a little bit of time at the mall and Mckinley was having a ball just cruising around on her own. (Love that little belly poking out.)

We met up with my sister Kristen who treated me to some Cold Stone ice cream for my birthday. Mckinley got her free kids creation and pretty much ate the whole thing. And then played with the spoon forever.

On Sunday afternoon we went to Brandon's parents' house for their huge annual easter egg hunt where everyone ends up with as much candy as they get on Halloween! I just love the pictures of Mckinley bending over to pick up her eggs.

She has been sick this week and she missed one of her naps on Sunday so she's not smiling in ANY of her pictures. But she's still as cute as ever.

As soon as she sat down by her basket(s) she just wanted to pull all the eggs out.


Or dump the whole basket over.

Brandon's mom prepared some personal strawberry shortcakes for me and Dallin to celebrate our birthdays. His is on Tuesday.

And 2 pictures real quick that I just can't help posting because they are so adorable. Mckinley always leans over the tub and feels the water coming out when I'm getting her baths ready.

One of her many cute sleeping positions. She's usually on top of her blanket somehow.

Now let's back up to last Saturday. We took Mckinley on a picnic to Nelson's Grove Park. Her cute little neck and arms got a little pink but it went away really fast. We're still hoping she has Brandon's skin, not mine. :)

She loved checking out the ducks over at the pond. She is going to be so much fun this summer. And the next one, and the next one.

See that open mouth and pointed finger? Yeah, she liked the ducks.

Tonight my parents are having us over for my birthday. I have to admit, I like it when the birthday celebrations are spread out a little. Makes it last longer. :) I'm excited to spend some time with my parents. I want to soak up every minute I can with them before they're gone again.

Phases are Okay

In my old age I feel like I have learned a thing or two. I am a girl who goes through spurts of things. It used to really bug me but I'm learning to accept it and realize it's okay to be in or out of a certain phase. Some of the spurts or phases I've gone through:

• There was a time where I worked full-time. For a long time. Like 13 years. I always felt like I was meant to be at home with a baby, but it wasn't the right time. And that was okay. I was good at what I did, and I enjoyed it. Now I stay at home and work only just a little bit. I love it.



• When I was younger I used to read Nancy Drew and the Boxcar Children and Goosebump books. Then I went for years without reading any novels. Then Brandon and I had a library phase where we got library cards and went to the library constantly and read some fun books. I even signed up on goodreads.com. Haven't logged on now for probably a year and haven't read any novels in the same amount of time. And that's okay. I just enjoy the phase when I'm in it. And when I'm out of it, that's okay.



• There have been spurts of consistently praying and reading scriptures. Back when I was a teenager I think I skipped praying for 3 or 4 years in a row. Even since I've been married we have spurts where we are really good and read our scriptures and say our prayers and then we have other times like right now where we don't do it much. I'm not saying it's okay to not do it, I'm just saying that in the lazy times, I can at least be appreciative of the times that we were good. A few years ago Brandon's family made a goal to all read the Book of Mormon from January to May. Brandon and I were the only ones that did it. So you see, we've had good spurts, and even though we have bad ones, I know another good one has to be on its way.



• Exercise. Oh, exercise. This is one that will probably never be consistent. Ever. I hate exercising. Most of all I hate running. I played volleyball in high school and was pretty fit and toned back then. I don't think I knew it though. One summer my cousin Michelle and I ran every morning together for 8 weeks. Didn't seem to make a difference much. I've had lots of years where I don't do much exercising at all. I had a time where I used to wake up early before work and run on the Provo River Trail. Haven't ran on that thing for close to two years now. If I set a goal to do a workout video every morning for a month, I can do it, but I'd much rather not. I didn't exercise the whole time I was pregnant, and not much after. And you know what, it's okay. One day I will feel like exercising consistently again. At least for a little while.



• I went through an indexing phase. Twice. Once was when Brandon and I were first married. I indexed thousands of names. Then stopped for a few years. Then last September our ward started talking about indexing so I started up again. I indexed 11,000 names in 5 months. Which is a lot of names. Then my parents came home from their mission so I stopped. And instead of getting down on myself for it, I can just appreciate my phases of indexing and when I'm not indexing, that's alright. I've been doing other stuff with my time.



• I love going to the temple. When I got home from my mission I went 2 or 3 times a week. Now I might not even make it every month. But I still try. And I still want to be there.



• I will go through phases of playing different computer games. For a while it was these hidden object/mystery games, then I played Tetris for a long time. I know this may be surprising to some of you, but I actually do like computer games. Just in moderation. :) Now I have started reading my dad's, grandpa's, and grandma's life histories and that's all I want to do in my spare time.



• Brandon and I have gone through lots of movie spurts. Usually they are brought on by whether or not there are good movies in the theaters, but anyway, we used to go to movies a lot, and now that Mckinley is around and quite active, we wait for movies to come out on DVD and then rent them.



• One time a couple years ago me and Brandon decided to go for a month without ever eating out. It was awesome. We even carried it on for another month or two. We don't go out to eat a lot now, but definitely more than back then.



• In high school I used to always do my hair straight and would only make it curly on special occassions. Then for years I did it curly almost every day and only did it straight for special occassions. Now I am back to doing it straight pretty much every day. Phases, people. I'm telling you, they are my life.



• Journal writing has pretty much been a part of my entire life. Yes, the real old fashioned journal writing, where you use a pen, not a keyboard. But I did have a few (teenage) years where I didn't write. Writing in a journal is so completely worth the effort it takes. Every time I read back through my old journal entries (even just a few months previous sometimes) I end up crying because I'm laughing so hard at the things I wrote. I love it.



• Oh, game phases. Let's not forget those. Brandon is nice enough luckily to play games with me. We played yahtzee a ton when we were first married. Then there was Phase 10 (no pun intended, it's just the name of the game), Ticket to Ride, and others. Recently we had a little scrabble phase, our first ever. We played scrabble quite a few times for a couple of weeks. We have gone through lots of game phases with Brandon's whole family too. Oh heck, the dice game, 6 card golf, hand and foot, werewolf, and more. Right now there's not a whole lot of game playing going on, but I'm sure it will start up again one day.



• We've had years where we plant tomato plants and years where we don't. I'm hoping this will be a year where we do. I need to get my butt in gear and get over to the nursery to buy some starts!



• Visiting teaching is another one I should always do, but don't always do. I'm happy to say right now I have an awesome companion and we do actually go every month. I'm enjoying it while it lasts.



• We go through spurts of watching certain TV shows but we're not huge into any certain one. We do like Survivor, Modern Family, How I Met Your Mother, and a few others. We watched more when we had DVR for a while but right now we don't watch very many, and a lot of the time we just watch them online a few days later.

Anyway, I don't know how many people made it to the end of this rare, pictureless post, but I have just been thinking about a few of the ways my life is very inconsistent, and how I'm okay with that.

Wahoo!!!!!

So I pretty much have the best husband in the world. Today he surprised me (4 days EARLY) with my birthday present - a new computer!! Wahoo! I am so excited!

I've been wanting a new computer for a while now. We got our other one when we first got married so it's almost 5 years old.

The main thing that I wanted a new one for was to actually have space to hold (and be able to look at) all of my pictures.

So, of course, that's what I've been doing tonight. Looking at old pictures. Like this one from our engagement pictures.


And I have a feeling I'll be doing it during all of Mckinley's naps over the next few days. :)
Be prepared for more flash back pictures to come.

Thank you so much Bran for the best birthday present ever!

New Post. Why? Why not?

I don't have any real reason for blogging today, just thought I'd upload a few of our pictures of April so far. I cut out all of Mckinley's daytime feedings and started her on whole milk. She loves to get in the fridge so I put her sippy cup on the bottom shelf where she could reach it.

She loves to hold it with just one hand.

Mckinley "helping" me with the dishes. :) Ha ha ha. I love EVERY stage babies go through.

Hopefully you can see her big alligator tears but you'll probably have to click on the picture to enlarge it. Every time Mckinley cries she gets these giant tears that get stuck up on top of those cute chubby cheeks and we just LOVE it!!

On Monday this week my dad turned 61.

I went with him and my mom to the Lehi Trafalga. It was a little crazy there because of spring break but we still had a good time. They took Mckinley on the carousel. Most of the time she was looking up at the ceiling watching the poles rotate around. She never once realized I was off to the side frantically waving and trying to get her picture every time she came around.

This is a view of Mckinley I see quite often now. She is very much in the stage of picking up anything she sees and then handing it to Mom. This was at sleepy ridge the other night. We hit around a little on the putting green.

Mckinley playing the piano with me at my parents' house.

This is Mckinley with her new little friend Alyeska. They are pretty much just one pregnancy apart.

Okay, I know this picture is fuzzy but I was trying to be sneaky today and get a picture of Mckinley in one of her cute sleeping positions. I wish I could take a picture of her every night and during every nap but it always wakes her up when I try. She usually ends up somewhere on top of her blanket and off to a side.

In other news, Mckinley is walking EVERYWHERE. It's so much fun. She is such a little person now and not a baby at all.

Also, my parents have decided to leave us AGAIN and go teach English in China. At least they'll only be gone 9 months this time instead of 18. We will be sad to see them go though. They leave in September.

I think that's it. My little sister Amy has been in the MTC for two weeks now and she is a solo sister with no companion! It must be so hard. She is amazing though and will do great. One of the doctors I work for, Dr. Brown, is the MTC president right now. He had her paged in her classroom to come to his office. She said it worried her for a minute that someone had died or something but he just wanted to meet her. :)

11 Months!

It's true. This girl is 11 months old today. I didn't know 11 month olds were allowed to be this cute, smart, well-behaved, fun, entertaining, or sweet! At 11 months Mckinley:

• weighs 19.8 pounds


• is super ticklish and laughs really easily


• smiles at anyone who smiles at her


• raises her hands above her head when you ask her how big she is


• sticks her tongue out anytime you ask her to


• still takes 2 good naps a day and sleeps all night


• started drinking whole milk as of today. I'm just nursing her in the morning and at night now


• is getting really steady at walking now and will walk quite a long distance if you're right in front of her


• loves to climb up the stairs


• jabbers all the time


• dances when she hears music or just when you ask her to


• loves to hand things to me, especially her hair clips when she pulls them out (which is a step up from putting them in her mouth)


• will put anything she finds on the ground in her mouth, but she'll spit it out for us if we ask her to


• loves to stomp on things or kick them with her feet while she's standing


• is about to cut her 8th tooth, which will make four on top and four on bottom


• waves hi and bye


• gives open-mouthed kisses


• loves grown up food. She hasn't had baby food for months now and I hardly even use my masher because she likes to eat it just how we're eating it.


• is a pro at using her sippy cup, she tips it up with just one hand


• has never had any stranger anxiety, she'll go to anyone, although she does get a little shy around new people sometimes, she'll lean her head against me and "hide", it's so cute!


• is starting to put items into containers instead of just taking things out


• learned how to open cupboards and drawers. yikes.


• loves to pull the toilet paper off the roll


• knows how to brush her teeth by herself

I'm sure there's a lot more I could say but that's about all I can think of right now. We are loving every minute with this little girl. Our life revolves around her and we wouldn't have it any other way.

Brandon's basketball season is over and softball starts up tonight. It's always fun to get together with the sisters-in-law and talk while we try to pay attention to the games.

My life consists of taking care of Mckinley. I get my stuff done while she's sleeping (working out every now and then, and showering, etc.) and when she's awake we either play at home or go run errands. I have been able to work during her naps mostly so I don't have to arrange for babysitters. Life is pretty darn good, we're enjoying every minute of it!