Mckinley's First Sleep Over

A couple weeks ago Mckinley had her first sleep over with her two cousins, Haley and Brynlee. They had a blast, of course. If you ask me, you are never too young or too old for sleep overs.


Of course the two younger ones had to try on each other's shoes.


For some reason one day every time we changed her diaper Mckinley put her hands behind her head and just relaxed. It was so funny.

Mckinley and I have such a great time just hanging out together all day.

She is super affectionate and gives lots of hugs and kisses. My favorite is when she gives them to the neighbor boys and they don't want them. :)

She sure is figuring out my iPhone pretty fast.

We are off to another sleep over tonight at Brandon's parents house to enjoy Thanksgiving with them. Yay for holidays and lots of time with Brandon!

18 Months

Mckinley is 18 months old. She is so much fun. Before I get to the 18 month stuff though, here are some cute pictures of her having a blast with a little baby boy I got to babysit last week.

They did everything together. They crawled together...


Played the piano together....


And of course she gave him lots of hugs and kisses. It was so cute!


Anyway, so, Mckinley is 18 months old and she is seriously SO. MUCH. FUN. She is bursting with personality and we still feel like we can't get enough of her.

No, she's not potty trained or anything, but I have had her sit on the potty a few times and boy, does she try to poop. She tries so hard she gets red in the face. One day...


She love love loves to run away from you and find a place to hide. She has a few regular spots where she goes. It's either that or she will run into a room and slam the door shut.


This picture was just too cute not to post.


Here she is after her first Sunday in NURSERY (slightly angry at me because I am taking a picture of her instead of opening the fridge for her)! Yes, that's right. I have been counting down the weeks till she got to go to nursery. Last Sunday was the best Sunday we've had ever since she became mobile. She had a blast and couldn't have cared less when we left her.


Other things Mckinley does at 18 months:

Finally switched to size 4 diapers after wearing 3's for 1 year and 2 months.

Is 100% feeding herself (has been for a while now).

Loves babies and dolls and always wants to hug and kiss them.

Sleeps 12 hours at night and takes a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon.

Will give you a big cheesy smile anytime you ask for it.

Is really good to let me brush her teeth every night and morning.

She's all about being fair. If she gives one person a high five, fist bump, hug, kiss, or smile, she has to give EVERYONE else around her one as well.

You will often find her carrying a little purse with a fake phone in it. She usually brings it with her when we go somewhere in the car as well.

She won't go to sleep with us, not that we want her in our bed every night, but on Friday nights and stuff we thought it would be fun to have family sleepovers. But she won't have it. So instead we put her down, let her fall into a deep sleep, and then we get her out of her crib and bring her in to bed with us. I know most of you have wide eyes right now and are thinking we're crazy but come on, she's an only child and remember what I said about us not being able to get enough of her? It's totally true!

She loves to run, be chased, be tickled, she loves to laugh, she likes dancing and she always comes and sits on your back or stomach if you're laying on the floor and then bounces up and down on you.

She loves reading books and will point to the things she knows and say them (sun, frog, fish, flower, clock, plane, ball, apple).

Other words she knows: Mom, Dad, hair, pretty, owie, car, Kris, shoes, sock, hi, bye bye, baby, cracker, sucker, drink, blanket (except it sounds like baby), no, yes, please, thank you, and I'm sure there are more but I can't think of them right now.

She is becoming quite attached to her pink blanket she sleeps with and will sometimes walk all the way downstairs and back into her bedroom to get it.

She's really good at kneeling down and folding her arms for bedtime prayers. It usually lasts about 5 seconds. Then she is climbing all over us and walking all around the room trying to entertain herself.

She can show you hold old she is when you ask her, although she's been doing that for probably 5 months already.

She can point to most of her body parts.

She loves doing itsy bitsy spider and head shoulders knees and toes. She will do popcorn popping too.

She gets so excited when Brandon comes home from work and usually runs across the room to him with her arms open for a hug.

She is really in to saying hi to everyone and she has to make sure EACH person in the room says it back to her. She even did this on Sunday with the bench behind us. She looked at each person saying hi and waited till they saw her before moving on to the next person.

She really is so happy pertty much all of the time and is just SO much fun to be around. Her 18 month stats were

25 lbs - 61%

32 inches long - 61%

head 19 inches - 97%

In other news, my sister Kristen is officially ENGAGED!!! I am so excited for her I can hardly stand it. She is getting married on January 27th and my parents are flying home from China on January 12th for it. Wahoo!!!!!

Trick or Treat

On Halloween we went to Brandon's parents house for some soup and then Mckinley got to go out trick or treating with all of her cousins.


I dressed up like a flower so we could have coordinating costumes again. :)


Out trick or treating.

Mckinley wasn't scared of the Bosco's Yoda man and posed for a picture with him. We've never been out before because we never had a kid, but I guess all of the other grandkids are usually really scared of this.

Same thing with this mask Brandon's dad had. He said all the kids are usually terrified of it but Mckinley knew it was her dad under there and still gave him kisses and hugs.

It was a really fun Halloween!