Babies

Last night we stopped by Nielsen's Grove again and saw some new baby ducks. We have been to the park so many times this summer to see the ducks and I absolutely love it! They are so stinking cute.


I think these ones are a new batch of ducks, newer than that last big batch we saw.


Mckinley had so much fun in the swing and kept shaking her head "no" when we asked her if she wanted to get out.


Mckinley and I went to Seven Peaks twice this week and had a blast. She is loving the water so much more now. She loves to go walking in the wave pool all by herself. We also went down the big waterslide and the little waterslide in the kiddie pool that she loved. She loves taking baths too.


Speaking of babies, there is a bird's next in the corner of our covered parking, right by our car. We always felt so bad because when the mom was sitting on the eggs, we would always scare her away when we got in our car. Yesterday when we left I noticed she was standing on the ledge next to the nest, but not on the nest, and then I saw her feed her babies. I'm pretty sure they just hatched yesterday. When we got home last night, she was already gone, so Brandon got up high and took a picture of the two little baby birds. I love baby animals! Hopefully these birds don't get hurt when they try to fly, since if they fall out of their nest they will fall on the pavement instead of on grass. Probably not the smartest place for the mom to build her nest.


Today is moving day! I'm off to go pack up the whole house so we can move it tonight. I'm so excited for this change!

Camera is Here

Our new camera is here! So of course we had to get started right away videoing some of the adorable things Mckinley is doing these days.

Here's what she does after you put chapstick on her lips.

I finally went to seven peaks when it wasn't busy. Wahoo! You just gotta go first thing in the morning. Kristen, my mom, and Shellee came with me today which was awesome because for the first time I actually got to ride some rides. And there were NO lines. It was sweet. I even took Mckinley on one of the water slides with me. Our seven peaks trip was right during her first nap and she totally zonked out on the way home.

Isn't that precious?

This will be the last post from our first home as a family. We are moving in to my parents' house this Friday. We've moved a lot of stuff already and our house is looking SO empty! When we moved from Jason and Shannon's basement to this house our total move time was 30 minutes. This one will most definitely be longer but we are pretty darn prepared so I bet it will be quick.

Pics

A new camera is on its way in the mail!!! Yay for online shopping. Gotta love it. I seriously can't wait till it gets here. These might be the last few pics from my sister's camera. We'll see.

Anyway, so I put on a Baby Einstein video for Mckinley the other day and then for fun I pulled out her old bouncer chair to let her sit in it. She loves sitting on anything that is her size. It was crazy to see how stinking big she is now. The front of the chair was touching the ground when she sat in it!


Here she is a year ago in the same chair watching a Baby Einstein video. I can't believe how much smaller she was, yet she just looks like the same Mckinley.


This picture is too cute not to post. Haley got Sam and Mckinley up on the piano bench with her and they were all playing. Adorable!

Brandon and I realized that the day we saw those 12 little baby ducks was probably the first day of their lives! They were even newer than we thought. We are a little obsessed and went back to the park 3 more times last week to try to see them. Some of them have died and the rest of them are so much bigger and braver and just swimming all over the pond. It's crazy to think that on Tuesday last week when we saw them they were all snuggling together and falling asleep on each other. They must have been so new and we feel so lucky to have been able to see and watch them that day.

Anyway, one of our trips back to the park was the day that Harry Potter came out. There were some weirdos at the park setting up a Quidditch game. Wow people. Really? If you care, you can click on the picture and see the hoops they had set up. Brandon and I did go and watch Harry Potter on Saturday and we both thought it was really good, but we are in no way obsessed. Oh yeah, and that's Mckinley in the picture wandering very far away from us. We are going to have to keep a close eye on that girl! She'll walk away from you and not look back and I'm pretty sure if we let her she'd just keep going and going.

Another look at the hoops...

A Good Day

Yes, I am posting twice in one day. So sue me. There are two reasons why I just had to post. #1, I didn't want to end on such a negative note. #2. Look at these cute baby ducks we saw today!!!

Well, let's back up first to last night. Brandon and I took our leftover brownies to his parents house to share (aka get rid of so we didn't eat ourselves sick) with them. His dad decided to go on a little food run so we all hopped in the car and went to Sonic, Broiler Express, and Jamba. Can you say "yum?" This is Mckinley laying down on the couch before we left. She was so ready for bed!


So that was last night but now we come to today, which in my books has been a perfect day so far. Mckinley didn't wake us up this morning till 8:20 which was pretty awesome, so that was a good start to the day. I guess Brandon would argue that his day started at like 1 in the morning when Mckinley woke up crying for some strange reason. But being the awesome husband he is, he let me sleep and he went and got her. He brought her in bed with us and she fell asleep with her head on my stomach (double awesome) which she never does, so she slept with us for a bit before I brought her back to her bed. We are always wishing she would have the occasional sleepover with us in our bed but for some reason she won't fall asleep in there. So we enjoyed it while it lasted.

Anyway, moving on. So we had a good morning, ate breakfast, Brandon went to work. Mckinley napped while I blogged and wrote to Amy and cross stitched and stuff. Then as soon as she woke up I called Brandon and asked him if he wanted to have a picnic at Nelson's Grove. We were there sometime in June and saw all these ducks sitting on eggs underneath the rocks. So yesterday we were saying darn, we should have gone back so we could see the babies. I knew there would be babies but I didn't know how small they would still be. I wanted to go check it out so I decided I was going to bring Mckinley, even if I went by myself.

Brandon said he'd come though so he picked up some Subway and I brought a few things from home and we met in the park and had an awesome picnic and saw those adorable little ducks pictured above. There were 12 of them and 2 were pure, bright yellow. They were so perfect they looked fake. It was so fun to see them! Here's Mckinley pointing at the baby ducks.


Dad and Mckinley. It was a perfect day at the park too. A little overcast but still very warm. We practically had the whole giant park to ourselves.


We took Mckinley for a ride in the swing and trust me, she enjoyed it a lot more than this picture shows. :)


I think her favorite thing to do though is pick up handfuls of dirt (or wood chips) and throw them back down. She could do it forever.


Check out her cute smile. I love it! I never thought my kid would be able to smile on demand this early. I love it. The only trick is having a camera good enough to catch it! One good thing I will say about my sister's crappy camera: the screen is so tiny that after you've taken a picture, you really can't see it very well so it kind of brings you back to the old film camera days when it was a surprise to see what pictures you've got on there. When I load the pictures on to the computer, I get to really see them for the first time and see if they turned out or not.

Now Brandon is back at work and I'm at home with the babe, she's in bed falling asleep and I get some more "me" time. Then tonight we have a new little nephew we get to go meet and I can't wait!!! Does life get any better than this? I think not.

A not-so-great weekend

As much as I love weekends, they don't always turn out awesome.

This last weekend we started it a little early and went up to Park City to a timeshare Brandon's dad had reserved for the week. Brandon's mom was already up there so it was our little family along with her. Thursday and Friday were good, we went swimming, relaxed in the hotel watching old movies, went shopping at the outlets, went to dinner, and oh, lucky me, I got my first bladder infection in 2 and a half years. For any of you who know my history, I have had more than my fair share of bladder infections and 2 and a half years without them was nothing short of a miracle for me. Of course it sucks to get one when you're out of town. Luckily the second doctor's office I tried was willing to call me in a prescription. So that problem pretty much got taken care of.

Mckinley all ready to go swimming.


This is the reason I don't buy my child toys. She always finds the most interesting ways to entertain herself. She had fun putting each of the dice in this drawer, one by one. It kept her entertained for quite a while.


Mckinley enjoying a bath in the huge jacuzzi tub in our room.

So on to the next thing. Friday night we went to bed and at 4 in the morning I felt like I needed to throw up. It was pretty weird, I have no idea where I got sick from, but I threw up every half hour for the rest of the night. I had no idea how I was going to make the hour trip home without either needing to go to the bathroom or throw up. Brandon packed up all our stuff and the car and I surprised myself by being able to carry Mckinley all the way down the 5 stories to the car. I was so miserable!

With a prayer and a miracle, I survived the trip home only to run to the bathroom at Brandon's mom's house to throw up. Then finally we were home and I didn't leave the house for 2 days. I threw up all day Saturday and then Sunday I just felt crappy with sore muscles and a head ache all day. So poor Brandon was not only stuck home for a boring weekend, but he did EVERYTHING for me and Mckinley. I don't know what I would have done without him. I guess if I did have to get sick, a weekend was the perfect time to do it.

Man, I seriously hate being sick. And couldn't I have at least lost a pound or two from throwing up 20 times in one day? No such luck.

Well, not the best blog post, but at least you're all caught up. :) We haven't been taking very many pictures lately because my sister's camera is so ancient and crappy. I really need to get a new one!!!

PS. For any of you who know Amy, she has been in Hong Kong for like 4 weeks now and she is doing great! She ate a fish eye that was the size of a pea and she said it was hard but didn't taste like anything. G-R-O-S-S!!!

4th of July

Life without a camera is hard. There are so many things Mckinley is doing that I want to get on video.

Anyway, thanks to my sister-in-law Shellee for all these pictures from our 4th of July weekend.

Friday we woke up early and went to see the balloons. I love doing this every year and I really don't mind getting up early for it.

Just because I can't help it, here's a comparison picture from last year. Mckinley has definitely changed the most!!

For the most part she was pretty mellow all morning since we woke her up so early but we got some good shots of her looking up at the balloons in the sky and pointing at them.

I think the Darth Vader balloon was everyone's favorite. That thing was massive.

What do you call the opposite of a bird's eye view?

I love the coca cola balloon too.

We borrowed Melanee's cute little headress to see how Mckinley would like it.

Doesn't she look cute?

Later that night we went to a ward swimming party at Scera. We forgot to bring Mckinley's floatie but she was happy just walking around in the shallow water. She would walk all the way up to her neck and not want me to touch her. Then of course she would fall and I'd have to catch her. It was fun, but we don't have any pictures from it.

The morning of the 4th we got up and went to the parade. We love the sweet spot we (er....Lincoln) reserve every year.

Family picture.

And the one from last year...

We spent our afternoon and evening on the 4th up in Park City at a timeshare Brandon's dad booked for the week. Mckinley had her first taste of corn on the cob.

She LOVED it.

Now, back to our camera problem, my sister let me borrow her camera until we decide what to buy for our next one. Wow, her camera is old school, the kind with 2 aa batteries. I charged them yesterday morning and they're already dead. So they lasted about 10 pictures. Fun. Anyone love your camera? What is it and how much?