Head Over Heels

Life

2012-01-21T09:16:00.000-08:00

Uh....how did I let so much time pass since I last posted? Well, I guess Mckinley was sick for a good week (not fun), then she gave me a cough, which isn't that big of a deal, but not the most fun thing ever. And then my parents came home from China and we have a wedding this week. Wahoo!!

Mckinley is better now. We luckily never had to take her back to the hospital although that next Wednesday night I was worried we might... She has been slowly getting better and has a little bit of a lingering cough but that's it.

So...the week she got sick my parents were supposed to come home from China that Thursday. They got delayed a day and a half which sucked because we were so excited to see them, but they finally did make it home safe and sound.

We had a couple bridal showers for Kristen that Saturday which were really fun and made me so much more excited for her wedding. Not that I wasn't excited before, it just made it more real.

Anyway, this week has been busy. I thought there would be more relaxing and just hanging out with my parents but my mom is almost always gone running errands and stuff. Oh well, it has still been awesome to have them home and to have them see how big Mckinley is.

Now, for some pictures. If you can tell, Mckinley's doll is wearing one of her diapers. She totally takes care of her dolls, she gets wet wipes and wipes their nose, face, hands, and feet. She wants me to help her put diapers on them. She'll go in the kitchen and get bibs for them. She tries to feed them her sippy cups or crackers. It's all absolutely adorable.

I think I was making cookies in the kitchen for Kristen's shower and Mckinley decided that instead of eating her yogurt she would spread it all over her tray, face, clothes, and anything else she could reach. I'm thinking I should let her try out finger painting some day because that's pretty much what she was doing and she loved it.

Okay, this picture I love. I went to Kristen's with my mom and dad the other day to help her rearrange some stuff in her house now that she is swapping out roommates for a husband. Mckinley was so cute and wanted to help clean. She walked all around the house with this rag wiping the walls, desks, my pants, my shirt, anything she thought needed to be cleaned. It was awesome.

Kristen went to Hong Kong to visit my parents when they were serving there in 2010 and she bought these cute matching jackets, one for her and one for Mckinley. We've been waiting a long time for the jacket to fit Mckinley. It's so cute.

I didn't want to feel left out so we took one of me wearing it too...

Mckinley is so fun and is changing so so fast. Brandon and I were watching some videos of her the other day from when we first moved into my parents house just 5 months ago and we couldn't believe how much she has changed. Especially her hair. I didn't realize how long it is compared to back then! I can't believe she'll be 2 in 3 and a half months.

She is really into shapes, thanks to three things. The iPhone, Baby Einstein, and the game Perfection. She first learned to match shapes with a game on the iPhone. Then she learned to pick out certain shapes if you told her which ones to grab from the game Perfection. She can put all the shapes in their places in Perfection. Now, if she's watching the shapes movie from Baby Einstein she can recognize a few different shapes when they come up on the screen. And I can even draw the following shapes on a piece of paper and she will tell me what they're called. Circle, rectangle, triangle, heart, star, moon, diamond, oval.

Also randomly she knows the letter R and the letter A. She loves playing with her sponge letters in the bathtub.

She will come up to me or Brandon, grab our finger, and drag us where she wants us to go and say "come."

She loves to color, but mostly just with a pen. If I'm ever sitting at the computer desk she'll come over and sit on my lap and draw on some scratch paper.

She knows how to get DVD's in and out of the DVD player and loves to watch her Baby Einstein shows. Most of our DVD's are covered in fingerprints and have to be wiped down before they will work.

I have no idea how many words she knows but it's a whole lot. She is starting to group words together now and we just love how easy it is to communicate with her. She surprises me every day with a few new words I had no idea she knew.

She will tell me when she's poopy and if I ask her if she's poopy and she's not, she says "wet."

She loves to dance around and will shake her bum back and forth if you ask her. I need to post a video of that. It's so cute.

She finally makes the kissing noise when she kisses you and she loves to kiss owies and have you kiss any owies she has.

She loves her "daddy" and asks for him all the time. Especially when it's time for bed because she knows he'll get her out and bring her into bed with him.

A Birthday and a Few Sad Things

2012-01-09T09:14:00.000-08:00

Tuesday night last week we had dinner together before Lincoln got set apart as a missionary. Every year that I've been married to Brandon he has blown out candles on a shared birthday cake with his sister whose birthday is the day before. This year the candles were blown out on Chandra's birthday, that same night.

Then we all headed over to the Church for Lincoln's setting apart. I wish I could say it was a good blessing but I really didn't hear much of it, I was trying to keep Mckinley quiet.

I wanted to take a picture of these girls standing by Lincoln so we can see how much they grow while he's gone. Now the only trick is to remember to take the same picture when he gets back. Maybe I'll put an appointment for it in two years on my phone.

The whole family.

The next day was Brandon's 28th Birthday. I made him some breakfast burritos since his parents usually get Beto's breakfast burritos. I would have given them to him in bed but it's always hard to eat in bed so I brought him upstairs.

I brought Brandon a muffin with a candle in it and sang Happy Birthday to him to wake him up and Mckinley slept through the whole thing. So he and I ate upstairs and then she ate later when she got up. She was so excited to hold the little plastic balloons. This girl loves any kind of balloon.

I also snuck into Brandon's office before the setting apart to hang up a birthday sign there and leave him some treats. The best part was that it took him a while to figure out it was me who did it.

For lunch we all went to Pizza Factory to have lunch with Lincoln before he left. Since it was Brandon's birthday he got a free pizza in the shape of his age. (minus 2 years, they accidentally did 26 instead of 28. Still tasted amazing.)

Saying goodbye one last time...

Lincoln with all his nieces and nephew.

Even more sad than Lincoln leaving was our day yesterday. Back up to Saturday first though. Saturday we went to the temple and Karen watched Mckinley. She had a cough and when we were done at the temple she really didn't feel well. We brought her home and gave her some medicine. She fell asleep on Brandon's chest watching TV (which is SO uncharacteristic of her). He was loving it. If only we knew what was in store for us that night.

Mckinley got worse throughout the night. None of us got very much sleep. Not only did she have a horrible cough, but she was starting to have trouble breathing. Her breaths in were really loud and she was breathing faster than normal. Finally at about 5 a.m. Brandon said this is not normal, call the doctor. So we called the doctor and the nurse told Brandon to check and see if her ribs were retracting (pulling in with each breath). They were. She said take Mckinley to the ER.

Um, yikes. I have never been to the ER in my life and I am not the type to run to the doctor as soon as my nose runs. But we were pretty worried about her breathing and of course you will do ANYTHING for your child. We live really close to an Instacare as well so we checked that out but they didn't open till 8. We have new (and crappy) insurance and so we weren't really sure where to go or what to do. At 6 we drove to the Timpanogos ER. But by the time we got there Mckinley seemed to be breathing pretty well. Brandon thought the cold air was probably helping. So we decided to go back home and wait till the Instacare opened. Brandon bundled Mckinley up and sat out on the porch with her in the cold air a few times.

At 8 we went to the Instacare and the nurse checked her out and said they only had one of the medications she would need. They wanted to give it to her, and then transport her by ambulance to the hospital. We thought that was unnecessary so we signed an Against Medical Advice form and drove her to the ER ourselves. The Timpanogos ER was slammed with a few ambulances that had come in so they were verrrrry slow to help us, but eventually we got things figured out.

Over the next 5 hours Mckinley had 2 breathing treatments, a steroid shot, a chest x-ray, and a neck x-ray. They told us she has Croup. It's a viral infection and there's no antibiotics or anything you can take for it. You just have to let it run its course. Which we are hoping is only a few more days. The Dr. was thinking about admitting her to the hospital but in the end, she responded okay to the treatments and we were able to bring her home.

We all took a nice nap once we got home. Later that evening we went to Brandon's parents' house and he and his dad gave her a Priesthood blessing. She slept fine all night last night and is definitely sick today, but at least she can breathe! What a scary experience that we hope we never have to have again. The love in our house grew tenfold yesterday and for that we are grateful. Most of all we are so grateful for modern medicine that allowed us to have Mckinley in the first place, and that helped her little body to heal. I can't get the image out of my head of her little chest pulling all the way in as she struggled to take a breath at the hospital yesterday.

We did enjoy all the time she slept in our arms.

This picture shows you how Mckinley felt about being in the hospital. Whenever we gave her a breathing treatment she would say "all done, all done" and she kept saying "I go" (I want to go). It broke our hearts.

Here she is trying to muster a smile.

She actually did really well for her x-rays and shot. Even though she definitely didn't want to do them, it was as if she knew it had to be done so she could get better. We were very proud of her.

And just to end this post off on a positive note, here is my little "Punky Brewster". Mckinley insisted on wearing her pink dress and pink boots with these purple pants the other morning. And then I wanted to try on this jacket that Kristen bought in Hong Kong. I've been waiting for forever for it to fit her and it finally does. The end result reminded me of Punky Brewster.

New Years

2012-01-03T16:16:00.000-08:00

We have had quite an eventful holiday. Before we get started though, here are a few cute pictures I couldn't resist posting.

Mckinley still loves babies and one day last week she just had to eat lunch with her baby doll. I caught her trying to give her doll a drink of orange juice. So cute!

Then she pushed the doll around but didn't forget her snacks on top.

I forgot I took this picture. I don't even have an explanation. I'll just leave it up to your imagination. (Don't be mad at me Bran for posting it.)

Thursday night last week Brandon's parents took us to the Provo Beach Resort to check it out. Mckinley had fun on the carousel, after being scared at first. Now seeing the pictures she is so excited and yelling "Elephant! Horse!" (She rode on the elephant the first time around.)

Friday night we were lucky enough to go to a Jazz game that came with dinner. Kristen and Dayne came with us and we had a really good time. Mckinley did really well the whole time. She must have drank a lot because when we got home her diaper was soaked through her pants and on to her carseat. Yuck!

Saturday was New Years Eve. We had Chinese food with Brandon's family and then went crazy with the party supplies. Mckinley didn't like it very much. She just sat on my lap the whole time and didn't want to touch anything.

Monday Brandon didn't have to go to work so we had another fun day with his family. We had a BBQ for lunch and made some home made fries in the deep fryer. Then that night we all got to go to the Jazz game together and sit in the box, which was so nice, especially with little kids.

Mckinley followed Brynlee around like usual and did every little thing she was doing. We think it's cute, Bryn thinks it's annoying. :)

We've got more fun plans tonight and tomorrow before Lincoln enters the MTC. Brandon also turns 28 tomorrow. Wow, we are getting old.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-27T12:00:00.000-08:00

Time to blog about Christmas. We had fun spending lots of time with family. This is the 3rd year in a row that my parents have been out of the country for Christmas. As sad as it is, it's kinda nice to not have to juggle time with two families. We did get together with my family one night, but I don't think I have any pictures from it. Most of the time was spent with Brandon's family.

On the Tuesday before Christmas my visiting teaching companion was nice enough to do our visits without me so we could go to a BYU basketball game. Mckinley did really well and it was a really fun game to be at. She doesn't like Cosmo and pretty much freaked out when he got really close to her, but she'll wave at him from a distance.

I'm pretty sure you can't try harder than this to smile.

Family picture.

Lincoln leaves January 4th to the MTC. Mckinley loves coloring on his giant list of things he needs to bring.

Christmas Eve we had dinner at Brandon's parents' house.

I got to talk to Amy on the phone for a few minutes while we were over there. Mostly I just wanted Mckinley to talk to her, which she did. It was pretty cool.

Mckinley on Christmas morning all ready for Church.

I really love comparison pictures. We got a family picture by the same tree as last year.

At least we got a smile out of Mckinley this time. :)

Mckinley did pretty well opening presents. She had to make sure she set down each piece of wrapping paper on the ground before ripping off more.

Mckinley was following Bryn around everywhere (as usual) with these little computers.

A rare picture of just the two of us.

My mom had a gift that she bought for Mckinley for Christmas before she left for China. It was this adorable pink marshmallow coat!! Mckinley loved it and wouldn't let us take it off of her.

Her presents from us were simple things like books, a puzzle, clothes, and some bath toys. She had a blast in the bath today.

Lincoln's Farewell

2011-12-19T12:16:00.000-08:00

Brandon's sister Tara flew into town over the weekend for his little brother Lincoln's mission farewell. So Thursday night was Chuck E Cheese, Friday night we had a big dinner and did our Christmas gift exchange since not everyone will be in town for Christmas.

Sunday was Lincoln's farewell. His talk was amazing. He will be a great missionary and we will miss him while he's gone. We got our picture taken with him but it's on someone else's camera.

Mckinley and Sam doing puzzles on the iPad before Church.

Fun Stuff

2011-12-16T09:42:00.000-08:00

Mckinley is in heaven with this play kitchen that my sister-in-law returned to my mom's house. Even without any food or dishes, she has a blast putting her diapers, wipes, and shoes (or anything else she can find) in the cupboards. Maybe Santa will bring her some play food for Christmas.

The other night I babysat my brother's kids. Mckinley and Bryce are just two months apart so they had fun playing together.

They both have the same cheesy grin...

They just don't show them off at the same time.

Getting ready to change both their diapers.

I love this picture!

Last night we went to Chuck E Cheese with all of Brandon's family and had an absolute blast!!!

I think Brynlee was the funnest kid to watch. She would run around to everyone saying "I need more money!" and then she would go put a token in a ride, ride it for 2 seconds, and then get off while it was still going and find something else to spend her "money" on.

Even some of us adults had fun. (Brandon doesn't know I took this picture. Ha ha ha. Surprise!)

Mckinley is getting quite addicted to our iPhones. She knows how to navigate them by herself and Brandon even taught her how to unlock the phone. Darn it. I was going to hold out on that one as long as possible. Oh well. She's only deleted one app so far and it was my scriptures. Nothing a few quick downloads can't fix.

Mckinley says "cheese" now when we take her picture.

This photo booth is my favorite thing at Chuck E Cheese.

We have a fun weekend ahead of us. We have a big family party tonight with Brandon's family and then we are sleeping over there, and Lincoln's mission farewell is this Sunday, then a party with my family on Monday night, and then just a few days and it will be Christmas!

Pictures

2011-12-13T12:13:00.000-08:00

Ugh, my pictures are a mess. Every time I upload pictures from my iPhone, all the old ones upload themselves again. Anyone have any advice?

I have a lot of cute videos but I haven't found the time yet to upload them to youtube or whatever so I can put them on here.

These pictures aren't in order but they're all adorable so who cares.

Mckinley sleeping. The bumb in the air is her most common position.

Just chillin in one shoe (that she put on herself) and her diaper. Nice look Kinners.

Last Friday night was my work Christmas party. We ate at Molly's and took some fun pictures in the photo booth (that I haven't bothered to scan in yet, otherwise I'd post them). After the party Brandon and I decided to go to a late movie with his parents so we asked if Mckinley could go over and sleep at Dallin and Shellee's for a few hours. They were already having Haley and Brynlee sleep over. We ended up just leaving Mckinley there the whole night and we crashed at Brandon's parents' house and then went over for waffles in the morning. Mckinley did awesome. Geez, she's grown up.

We went and stayed in a hotel one night in Salt Lake with all of Brandon's family. It was so fun to take Mckinley swimming again. She had a blast on the stairs and was still good about going under and jumping off the side.

This is us at the hospital last Monday taking a peek at our new neice Abby. We have had fun going over this week and helping out and holding her.

Mckinley doesn't want to go anywhere these days without these three things. Bay (blanket), baby, and "aff" (giraffe).

Playing in the laundry baskets at Grandma's house.

Brandon and I saw Hugo with his parents the other night and it was the first 3D movie either of us had ever seen so we kept our glasses and boy has Mckinley gotten good use out of them. She thinks they are just so fun.

Mckinley and Bryn enjoying their brownies last night. We made dinner for Jason and Shannon and went over to eat it with them.

Anyway, I think that catches us up on everything since Thanksgiving.

Mckinley is so fun at 19 months. She is saying tons of words, she will pretty much try to repeat anything we say. And she is starting to group words together saying things like Where is she? I want some, I don't know, and help me. She thinks she is big enough to walk up and down the stairs now instead of crawling, and it scares me half to death. She is a little clingy which can drive me crazy when I'm trying to work in the kitchen or when I need to do something on the computer, but we are surviving.

Just a month left until we get to see my parents again for a few weeks and we are so excited!!!!

Thanksgiving

2011-12-02T11:10:00.000-08:00

I forgot to post about Thanksgiving. I'm thinking the main reason is probably because I didn't take very many pictures. But I do have a few.

Like I said at the end of my last post, we headed over to Brandon's parents house to spend the night before Thanksgiving there. It was fun sleeping over, so fun that we ended up staying the next night as well even though we weren't planning on it. Mckinley screamed when we put her in the pack'n'play (she has become quite the crib snob, ha ha ha), but eventually she fell asleep.

We bundled up the morning of Thanksgiving and walked over to the park where Brandon was playing football.

The annual turkey bowl is something Brandon always looks forward to.

It was pretty cold but Mckinley had fun playing on the playground while we were there.

Brandon's dad planned a bowling party, I think on Saturday. Mckinley lasted about one frame and we spent the rest of the time chasing her around the bowling alley.

I didn't take any pictures of the dinner but we ate lots of good food and had a good time hanging out with Brandon's family.

Now that Thanksgiving is over, we are getting ready for Christmas. I went through all my mom's boxes and found the tree and ornaments and we put them up last night, as well as her candy cane lights outside that I love.

Mckinley helped me put candy canes on the lower branches. I love that there are big clumps of candy canes.

I didn't even bother fixing them. I'm sure she'll arrange them a few more times before Christmas is here.

Not sure how long the awkward smile stage is going to last but we're enjoying every minute of it!

Mckinley's First Sleep Over

2011-11-23T12:51:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-09T13:00:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-02T12:43:00.001-07:00

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!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

We lucked out again this year with front row seats to the kick-off basketball game at BYU. Magelby's catered the dinner before the game and the food was awesome.

Us at the game last year:

This year: (uh...someone is growing up!)

Best seat in the house. Front row, center court, again. This picture was from 2010.

Exact same seat for 2011. :) I think it's Blake Roney's spot. I actually ended up switching to the 4th row because Mckinley did not want to sit on my lap for longer than about 5 seconds. We went with a bunch of Brandon's family and had a really fun time.

Here is my cute little bumblebee. This picture was taken a while back when we were trying on the costume. She loved the headband so much that it ended up broken and the stores were all out of replacements. :(

She still looks cute without it. This was at our ward Halloween party last night. Mckinley had fun playing with her new little friend Charlotte who is the little girl of one of my old favorite friends, Sara, who is in town.

This picture is a little fuzzy. I am still trying to figure out my new iPhone I got this week!

Yesterday before the ward party we had a fun family part over at my brother's house. Mckinley had a blast playing in their little kitchen. Turns out it's actually my mom's kitchen and my sister-in-law told us we should take it home because her kids don't play with it. I think I know what Santa is bringing Mckinley for Christmas this year. :)

Fuzzy iPhone family picture.

Mckinley loved the soup Emily made. She was covered in it by the end but she enjoyed every bite.

Just like cereal, she wanted to drink the stuff at the end.

Then she started getting silly and was lapping it up like a dog.

Too Young for Chores?

2011-10-24T19:50:00.000-07:00

Nope! Mckinley loves to help me unload the dishwasher. Today she got a little independent and did it on her own.

I can't believe she's tall enough to put the silverware in the drawer by herself but apparently she is.

So proud of herself.

The finished product: (now tell me that doesn't put a smile on your face)

A kiss for a job well done.

It's funny the things she picks up on that you would never think of. She got Brandon's keys and tried to unlock the door (from the inside, ha ha ha).

She LOVES putting our shoes on and walking around the house in them.

The poor little thing has been sick the past few days. She loves her pink blanket (thank you McKenzie!) and was lounging around on the kitchen floor with her doll.

A self-family portrait in the backyard when the leaves on the tree were beautiful. Those leaves can now be found on the ground waiting for us to clean them up.

Sneak Peek

2011-10-12T12:11:00.000-07:00

I tried Mckinley's Halloween costume on her the other day and when we were done, she still wanted to wear part of it. I bet you can guess what she's going to bee, right?

She LOVES her Christmas present from last year Shannon and is getting really good at it.

Trying to walk in Kristen's boots. Ha ha ha.

Loves walking on her knees!

Even in the tub, Mckinley feels the need to kiss and hug her bath toys.

Conference Weekend

2011-10-03T10:20:00.000-07:00

We had a really nice, relaxing conference weekend at home. Mckinley was awesome and either played with toys or was napping during conference, so even with a kid we actually got to listen. It was great.

Why is it so fun to give your child a sucker? I love that she sets it down on the carpet to go play with a toy or that she will hold the sticky end in her fist and put the stick in her mouth because she thinks it's funny. No concept of "sticky."

Mckinley has the cheesiest smile and I just love it!

She is so good at folding her arms for prayers and it's adorable!

So Saturday morning we got up and made an awesome potato, egg, bacon, cheese breakfast that my niece Haley named R2D2 for some reason. Then we watched conference and in between sessions we went for a drive up the canyon to see the leaves and have a picnic.

After the priesthood session we got together with all of Brandon's brothers and had pizza that was so delicious. Sunday morning we got together with all of his siblings again and made an amazing breakfast of pancakes, eggs, sausage, and bacon. We all watched the morning session together. Then we came home and put Mckinley down for a nap while we watched the 2nd session.

Usually I feel like conference takes your weekend away from you but for some reason this time we both just loved it and felt like it was over too fast.

Last Week

2011-09-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

Brandon informed me today that I haven't blogged in a while. He is great to keep me on my toes like that. :)

Anyway, after the fun flu-filled weekend we had, I got a cold/sore throat/annoyningness that still hasn't left me. But it didn't stop me from pretty much having a normal week, which I am grateful for.

Here is the one picture from the flu weekend. Brandon sent me and Mckinley out to get him some ginger ale the night he was throwing up. Which then came in handy the next day for me while I was throwing up. :) I got Mckinley dressed warm since it was raining when we left and I thought she looked so cute and grown up in her new jeans and shoes that I just had to take a picture.

Me and Mckinley just chillin at home.

Cute pigtails!

One of Mckinley's favorite things to do is push things around, strollers, toys, and chairs. She found out she can push her rocking chair around and this one day she decided to push it right up to the TV to get a good view.

Thursday night this week we went to the BYU v. USU soccer game. Brandon's little sister plays for USU. They had a heartbreaking loss against BYU but it was fun to watch anyway.

Mckinley FINALLY decided to like peaches, just when we were about out of delicious fresh peaches from our neighbor's tree.

Friday Brandon took me on a fun date to the temple and then we were lucky enough to go watch the BYU game with box seats.

Yay for free balloons!!!

Yesterday we had my sister Heidi over and Mckinley of course figured out how to push her wheelchair around the house too.

We also had a fun, delicious dinner at Carrabba's, thanks to Brandon's hard work at his brother's house. Thanks Ryan and Jess!

That's about it. I'm a little sad that it's getting dark early again, which means summer is over. But, on the bright side, Mckinley has an adorable winter wardrobe that I bought forever ago and pretty much forgot about. Yay for cute girls who are so fun to dress!

The Flu

2011-09-18T16:44:00.000-07:00

This post has no pictures. You'll thank me later.

I have always dreaded the first time Mckinley would throw up. Well, the dreaded day arrived. So, Wednesday night I went to bed early knowing that I had to wake up at 4:30 in the morning on Thursday to go to work. I went to bed at 10 and at 2 I woke up to Mckinley crying. She doesn't usually make a sound all night so I thought hmm, that's weird, but I'm tired, and I have to wake up soon. Hopefully she'll go back to bed. I did get up though and just went and listened by her door and it sounded like she was falling back asleep. So I got back in bed.

The next thing I know Brandon is holding her by my bedside saying "she threw up." Can I just tell you how grateful I am for Brandon and what an amazing dad he is? If it wasn't for him, I would have left my child to sleep the rest of the night in her own vomit. I felt like such a horrible mother.

Anyway, we got her cleaned up and changed and got her bed all taken apart and had all the stuff in the washer. Then I was holding her and we went down in her room to put her back in bed. While I was still holding her she threw up again, all over herself, me, my hair, and the carpet. So we got her in the tub and Brandon bathed her while I scrubbed the carpet clean and all the clothes and everything. I was surprised to see that cleaning up her throw up wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it hardly bothered me at all.

When I work that early on Thursday mornings, I pretty much roll out of bed, throw my hair up, brush my teeth and go. But, since she had thrown up in my hair and all down my arm, I knew I would have to shower. It took an hour before we had everything cleaned and had her back in bed. It was 3:00 a.m. and I decided I would just get in the shower then and go to work. Yeah, that is early. So I went to work for a bit and then luckily I got to come home and sleep for a few hours before I had to get up and work from home again.

Anyway, moving on. Thursday night Brandon and I were laying in bed talking and hoping that Mckinley didn't throw up again that night. Brandon was thinking about the last time he threw up and we couldn't remember exactly when it was but we were thinking probably about 3 years ago.

So Friday I am hanging out at home, Mckinley is napping, and all of a sudden Brandon shows up at home at like 3:30 and just jumps straight into bed. He told me he had thrown up at work. So he threw up for the rest of the night and I took care of him. We went to bed and at 4 in the morning on Saturday I woke up feeling like I needed to throw up. I was hoping it was because I had eaten pretty much an entire bag of candy corn late the night before, but no, I woke up every hour and threw up and just felt horrible.

All day Saturday I was sick and luckily Brandon was feeling good enough to take care of Mckinley for me or else I don't know what we would have done. Finally today we are all feeling almost back to normal but yuck, can I just say that I hate the flu! And I have had it 3 times in the last year, once at Thanksgiving, a few days after the 4th of July, and now. Darn it I should have gotten a flu shot. I used to get them every year working at the hospital and since I'm not there full-time anymore I haven't gotten one since I was pregnant. I will not be making that mistake again!

That was our weekend, I thought about taking a picture of our bed, with a throw up bucket on Brandon's side and and other one on my side (which thankfully neither of us had to use), but ew, it's just gross and I don't want any visual memories of this weekend. I'm just glad it's over and I finally feel better!!!

Lagoon

2011-09-13T15:44:00.000-07:00

Oops, I forgot to post about Lagoon. We got to go to Lagoon with the NuSkin summer party last Friday night. It was so much fun! Mckinley got to go on more rides than I thought she would and I went on all the rides I love as well. It was perfect.

Mckinley with Haley and Brynlee.

These two were so cute on the little boat ride!

Gotta love the carousel.

Family picture.

Up on the sky lift, even though you can't tell. Mckinley wasn't afraid to be up that high at all, she was holding on to the bars and looking over the edge.

On the train.

We rode the Ferris Wheel! I haven't been on that ride since I was little.

It was a late night so she was tired by the end of the night but overall she did so good!!!

And just a few pictures for fun. She loves pushing buttons!

And this was just too cute not to post.

Funny Video

2011-09-13T15:25:00.000-07:00

Mckinley was beling so hilarious the other night and crawling with her head on the floor. Where did that come from? I don't know, but it sure is cute!!!

Balloons

2011-09-07T09:03:00.000-07:00

So, I wasn't kidding when I said this girl loves balloons. Mckinley would not let that thing out of her hand pretty much the whole day yesterday. She screamed when I took it away from her to have a nap, and man, when she woke up and came upstairs to see it still floating there, she was so stinking happy. She ate dinner with it. Even corn on the cob. Ha ha ha.

The string was just long enough that she could barely reach it on her tippy toes. And then she would pull it all the way down till she had her hand right near the top.

This morning the balloon had lost all its helium but it doesn't make a difference to her. She was so happy this morning when we gave it to her again and has been holding it the entire morning until I took it away for her nap again.

We're thinking all we need to get for her on her next birthday is a bunch of balloons! Easy.

Mckinley

2011-09-06T14:43:00.000-07:00

Just a few pictures I couldn't resist posting.

September 1, 2010

September 1, 2011

Hopefully my mom will be in the country next year for her birthday!

Just chillin' watching some morning cartoons with Dad.

This one I had to post because of Mckinley's cute lips. She does this with her lips every now and then and I love it.

We had a fun lunch during the BYU football game on Saturday. Mckinley loves her corn on the cob.

And this is from today. What more can a kid ask for than a sucker and a balloon? And of course she is squatting because for some reason that's what she thinks she needs to do when I'm taking a picture of her. Ha ha ha.

Final Bash

2011-08-30T14:50:00.000-07:00

Well, I got on here and started loading pictures from this party we had the other night before my parents' left, and then I realized I have some other pictures that are too cute not to post so we'll do them first.

Mckinley figured out how to climb up on to the computer chair. I can't believe how big this girl is.

She was so proud of herself when she got up there and apparently she knows what to do on a computer. She got right to work pounding on the keyboard and playing with the mouse.

Mckinley has been a little weird with her naps lately. Sometimes she takes them, sometimes she doesn't. And when she doesn't, you'll usually find her every now and then laying on the floor just relaxing.

Crackers anyone? I think Mckinley has a few to share.

Last Friday I went to lunch with my mom, Aunts, and sisters-in-law. We went to Cafe Paesan, it was my first time there and I loved it. It was really fun hanging out with everyone.

Mckinley is so obsessed with babies right now and always wants to hug or kiss them. This is my cute nephew Ezra.

And just because I know most of you are probably too lazy to zoon in on that last picture, I did it for you. Look at that pucker!!! And those chubby cheeks. Ahh, I just love it. Mckinley's kisses are awesome. As well as her hugs. And squeezes. We can't get enough of any of it.

Okay, so now we get to Saturday night. My family all came over and we had dinner and then played Just Dance on the Wii outside with my sister's massive outdoor movie screen. It was a blast!

Kristen and her boyfriend, Dayne.

Ella with Ezra.

My dad with Ezra. (I think this was taken another night but I had to get a picture of both of my parents on here since they are gone now and we didn't really take a goodbye picture.)

My mom with Ezra. (Can you tell we love Ezra? He is so stinking cute and tiny!)

Here is everyone playing Just Dance. This was the first time I'd seen this game and it was really fun. Mckinley was trying to copy everyone, it was so awesome. (Even though this picture doesn't show it.)

Sunday night Bryant and Summer came back over with a birthday cake for my mom since her birthday is on Thursday this week and she will be in China for it. Mckinley had a taste of the whipped cream before we cut the cake. :)

And this picture I just had to add because I think it's so funny. Mckinley loves putting people's shoes on and walking around in them. I always love it when kids do that. She totally just started doing it all on her own about a week or two ago and she always does it. Also, she is squatting because for some reason when I tell her to smile, she squats instead. Gotta love the after-nap hair. :)

So my parents left yesterday and for all I know, they're still traveling. They start teaching school next Monday and I am nervous for them! They are teaching to college students. Crazy. I hope the next 10 months fly by because I miss them already...

August

2011-08-24T13:33:00.000-07:00

There are 30 pictures in this post. But if it makes you feel any better, I have taken 152 pictures since my last post, so I'm not posting all of them. :) Not even close.

This has been such a fun summer. We have done so much. It has also been a blast living with my parents. We make fun dinners together, eat out on the deck, help each other with the cleaning, and of course my parents have babysat for us a lot which has been awesome.

So anyway, let's get started.

Mckinley fell asleep in her carseat on the way home from somewhere (I don't even remember what we did that day anymore) and Brandon enjoyed every second of her asleep on his shoulder.

Mckinley is loving all the toys my mom's house has to offer. She just runs around all day playing with different things and going upstairs and downstairs and just enjoying all the space.

Brandon has softball games once a week that we try to go to. Of course I never see any of the game because I spend all my time chasing Mckinley around. But it's still fun to go. Here's Mckinley with two of her cousins, Mady and Austin.

Ross turned 56 I think on August 17th. Mckinley helped him blow out his candles. Sort of. :) Mckinley does blow whenever she thinks something is hot. She also says hot, but without the t sound at the end. She blows whenever I put food in the microwave or cook something on the stove or have something in the oven.

We are enjoying being 3 houses away from my last living grandparent, my Grandma Bishop. Mckinley found this doll over there the other day and didn't want to let her go. She loves loves loves dolls and babies and constantly kisses and hugs them.

We hit up Thanksgiving Point's $2 Tuesdays and went to the Gardens. I met up with some of my high school friends that I hadn't seen in a while and our babies played in the water together and had fun. Mckenzie is going to send me some pictures soon (hint hint) of Mckinley in the Noah's Ark splash pool. My new camera arrived that day and I didn't have it with me yet. (I know I said we got our new camera a whiel ago but we ended up sending it back because the shutter sounded weird when it opened and closed so they sent us a new one.)

We went golfing at Trafalga one day and Mckinley was in need of a nap so you will not find her smiling in any of her pictures but I think she enjoyed herself at least a little. It was the first time I had tried the XD theater and I thought it was pretty cool. There was no line so we just went again and again.

Fishing down pretty far to get her ball out of the hole.

My grandparents with a bunch of their grandkids at Trafalga. These guys are so amazing and are so willing to babysit their grandkids anytime. We are going to miss them when they go!!!

Mckinley and Brandon having a Lady and the Tramp moment.

Mckinley and I have been to Seven Peaks quite a few times this summer and we always have so much fun. Especially when we go with enough people that I can leave her and go on the mat slide ride. It's my favorite! I did go on the boomerang once and it scared the crap out of me. :)

This picture is seriously awesome and you just HAVE to click on it to enlarge it to see Mckinley's facial expression. She loves that little slide in the kiddie pool. She jumps off the side of the pool to me now too.

Getting a drink after all that fun in the water.

We went to the demolition derby with Brandon's family. We've gone to the rodeo in the past but thought we'd try this out this year. I think I prefer the rodeo, but Brandon is hoping to go to this one every year.

We've been having a hard time getting this girl to smile for the camera lately.

Mckinley did well for the first 2 1/2 hours as long as she had some FOOD to eat. Ha ha ha. We ended up going home a little early because she was just DONE.

We took lots of pictures and videos but I'll just put one on here.

We have been finding Mckinley asleep like this a lot lately. She'll stick one leg or both out of her crib. In fact, we have a sweet set up here, because there are two doors to the bedroom she's sleeping in, so we are able to peek through one of the doors and watch her in there and she doesn't know we're watching. I took a video of her in there one day when she was supposed to be going to sleep and she was just having a blast, running from one side of the crib to the other and playing with her blanket and just talking to herself. She is so stinking adorable we can hardly stand it.

Here she is getting tickle tortured. The blanket we are on is one my parents got for their wedding and it was always one of my favorites to snuggle in growing up. Have I mentioned that I love living at my parents' house? It's so fun.

Oops, here's another picture of us golfing. This one is out of order. Mckinley was so frustrated because she wanted to hold her club and couldn't bend down to get the ball at the same time. It was really funny.

A couple days ago I was painting my mom's toenails and Mckinley seemed interested so I did hers as well. She held really still so it was super easy.

Then of course I had to do my nails as well.

All three of us were matching. If you ask Mckinley to show you her pretty toes she'll lift her foot up in the air. It's so cute!

Oh, by the way, this is my parents' house that we are living in. We built it when I was a baby, so it's 29 years old. I never thought I'd be back here with my husband and baby. And I didn't think I'd like living here very much, maybe that's why I'm loving it so much, I had low expectations. :)

Yesterday we went to Thanksgiving Point again for $2 Tuesdays but this time we went to the farm. Here's Mckinley looking at the baby chicks.

Most of the time we were there this is how you would see Mckinley - pointing. She really liked looking at the horses and cows and other animals. It was super hot but it was fun to be there.

I could not for the life of me get her to smile, but I did get this cute shot that I just love. It might be time to change the desktop background again...

Here we are next to a horse that she didn't dare pet. :)

After we saw all the animals we sat down in the shade for some food and Mckinley and Bryce enjoyed a few kisses.

So this morning after breakfast Mckinley was walking around and she came out of the bathroom with all this toilet paper and was wiping her nose with it. Ha ha ha. It was so funny. She is really good with having her nose wiped. She will just sit patiently while you wipe it, and obviously as you've seen here, she sometimes wipes it herself. And while we're on the subject of bathrooms, Mckinley will also tell me when she has pooped. She comes and finds me and makes a grunting noise like she's trying to poop. She doesn't do it every time, but it's awesome when she does. She is so smart! I love it.

Mckinley's big kick lately is finding my shoes or my mom's shoes and putting them on and walking around in them. She thinks it is so fun. Love the messy bed head!!

And that brings us up to date. Can't believe I had that much to blog about it in just a week and a half! Summertime is so fun. We are enjoying every minute.

A Few Things

2011-08-13T09:47:00.000-07:00

Mckinley is loving playing outside in the backyard with my mom's toys. She figured out how to get in and out of this car, but still doesn't know how to make it move. :) She gets so excited though just to sit in there and honk the horn. For some reason when I told her to smile, she decided to put her mouth on the steering wheel instead.

This girl is so grown up. She pretty much feeds herself all the time now. Here she is this morning eating a bowl of cereal.

Shoving the spoon into her mouth to make sure she got ALL the cheerios that were on it.

PS. I forgot to mention that at my work party last Saturday night I won a Nintendo Wii with Mario Kart!!! How cool is that? I never win anything and I was so excited about it!!! My work party was at the Lindon pool but we didn't take any pictures. Brandon decided to pass on the FlowRider this time, and that's usually the funnest thing to take pictures of.

Cuteness

2011-08-08T20:54:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows Mckinley knows this girl loves her food. Here she is biting in to a Costco slice of pizza.

Get ready to be jealous, people. This is where we eat breakfast these days. Out on the deck. My parents have a sweet deck and a beautiful backyard. I love when the weather is nice enough to eat outside.

Now tell me this picture isn't adorable. I was letting Mckinley play in a bucket of water. She started out with her hands, then I thought I'd let her stand in there and dip her feet in. She decided she wanted to sit down in her clothes in the freezing cold water and play that way. She loved it. This picture is going on my desktop background. :)

Life is good. We are enjoying being at my parents' house even though they have been in training all last week and this week so we don't see them much. Once their training is done this week though, we will have two weeks to soak up all the time we can with them before they leave us for 10 months.

Goodbye

2011-08-03T09:07:00.000-07:00

Well, it's done. We are out of our old house forever. This was our first home as a couple and as a family. We went through so many experiences in this house and it holds a lot of great memories. We will miss it.

Mckinley is having a blast living at my parents' house. She loves all the little chairs that are her size and the baby stroller and she loves this little black doll so much. She just goes from one thing to the next and is in heaven with all the toys. She is growing up so fast!

And speaking of growing up, for some reason Mckinley felt like she should be the one to feed her cousin Bryce his banana. He's only two months younger than her. But she would give him a bite, wait patiently while he ate it, then give him his next bite. It was pretty cute.

Some of Mckinley's new things these days are:

Knocking on doors. She loves to knock (er...pound) on the bathroom door when you're in there. And any other door that she sees that's shut. Somtimes even closet doors.

Giving hugs. She gives hugs all the time, even when you don't ask for them. And the last few days she has learned how to give a "squeeze." Instead of just laying her head on your shoulder to hug you, she will wrap both of her arms around your head and give you a squeeze. It feels awesome.

She loves to give fist bumps. And if she gives one, she always has to give another so she will go find someone else she can give one to.

She is wanting to go down the stairs forwards and it is freaking me out! She'll stand on the edge of the stair with her foot half way off. She thinks she is a lot more grown up than she is.

She HAS to feed herself. She gets mad sometimes if you try to feed her. She wants to do it all by herself. But if it gets hard to get the food on the spoon, she'll just grab handfuls of it, even if it's oatmeal. It gets quite messy but she's learning a lot and getting pretty good at it.

She is so scared of dogs and screams when they get anywhere near her.

She is starting to like swimming a lot more and loves to walk around in the wave pool all by herself, even when the water is up to her chest. She always ends up falling under and it doesn't seem to bother her.

I know there's more, but she's waking up from her nap and we've got things to do so I have to run. Until next time...

Babies

2011-07-29T08:16:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-26T15:14:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-19T10:45:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-12T12:44:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-12T09:14:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-07T07:55:00.001-07:00

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?

Golfing

2011-06-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

Here we are at our annual Freedom Festival golf night. I love living here close to so much family and I love that Brandon's family has so many yearly traditions like this!!!

T minus one month

2011-06-29T12:20:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official. We're moving. In just one month! Most people dread moving and for some reasons, I do too, but for the most part, the question that's always on my mind is "what else can I pack?" Since we'll be living at my parents' house for 9 months, we are storing most of our stuff at Brandon's brother's house and then just taking a little bit with us. So, we've been packing some of the stuff that we can just put in storage that we don't use now. Which is actually a lot of stuff. Makes you wonder why you have it if you don't use it?

Anyway, I love dejunking and going through things and I am just excited for CHANGE. We were so lucky to be able to find renters in less than 24 hours! We're renting to the first people who came and looked at our place. If my camera wasn't broken I could show you the packing mess. We've already moved a few things and I'm starting to drive Brandon crazy because all I want to do is pack and move more things.

Pictureless posts are not very exciting. If my camera wasn't broken I would post a picture of Mckinley climbing into her baby bouncer and bouncing up and down so high that it hits the ground. And a picture of her climbing into her diaper caddy. And up into her old carseat. And doing a flip into an empty box that she tried to climb on. Can you tell she likes to climb? She is so stinking cute and we are just having a blast with her every day.

We went miniature golfing at Cascade on Monday, a yearly tradition we do with Brandon's family. My sister-in-law Jessica took a picture for us and when she sends it to me, I'll post it. We've got a fun week ahead with the 4th of July coming up. Summer is really here.

Bishop Family Vacation

2011-06-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

Before I start on the new post, a few things from the last post about Mckinley being a big girl. Well, I did my post as she was napping, first thing when she woke up she looked around her room and said "shoes!" She wanted her shoes on first thing. Shoes is her first word that she says really clearly and has a perfect understanding of what it is.

Then I put her in the car and we went to run a few errands. At the drive through at the bank, they heard me tickling Mckinley in the car and her laughing, so they asked if I had a kid with me and if they would like a sucker. I thought, wow, Mckinley is big enough to eat a sucker. So here she is in her car seat eating her sucker, happy as can be.

And speaking of car seats, last Saturday we upgraded her to a front facing car seat. She looks little again in a big car seat. But see, I wasn't kidding about her growing up.

Here she is in the car seat box. I thought for sure I'd be able to shut the lid with her in it but she was a little too tall. I think I still feel like she's little but it's time to realize she's not.

Okay anyway, enough of that. So on Tuesday this week my whole family got together to go to the zoo and then we stayed overnight at a fun resort at Snowbird.

It's been so long since I've been to Hogle Zoo. It seems like they got rid of some of the real animals to make room for these big fake dinosaurs that move and make noises and some of them squirt water. I'd rather see real animals, but oh well.

It was a super hot day and there were tons of people at the zoo, but I love the zoo so much so I was still glad we went.

Mckinley wasn't as in to it as I thought she'd be. She always gets so excited at home when she hears dogs or birds and stuff so I thought she'd love all the animals but there were times when we couldn't even get her to look at them.

She wouldn't sleep in her stroller at all so she was pretty overdue for a nap by the time we were done.

Checking out the snake. Mckinley will say "tssssss" if you ask her what a snake says. It's so cute!

I think maybe she could beat up an infant gorilla...not that she would...

Isn't this cute? We just asked her how big she is to make it look like she's smart enough to hold her hands out to the side. Ha ha ha.

Mckinley and Ammon looking at the gorilla.

Usually the hippopotamus is my favorite animal at the zoo (don't ask me why, just always has been) but since there are apparently none of them at Hogle Zoo anymore, this gorilla was my favorite of the day. He wrapped himself up in this sheet and had one leg over the other knee, just like any human would do on a hot day.

All of the grand kids except Mckinley and Bryce on one of the many fake dinosaurs.

After the zoo we headed over to our resort at Snowbird and jumped straight into the pool. It was kind of cool swimming in a heated pool right next to the snowy mountains.

On Wednesday we went down the zip line, Brandon went on the tram, and the kids played on the bungee trampolines and other stuff they had there. Too bad the alpine slide was shut down because there was still too much snow. This picture shows the cool resort we had. We had our own little private hot tub out on our balcony. It was cool. (and that's Bryant on the zip line)

Here's me struggling up the easiest course on the rock climbing wall while my 9-year old nephew Brecken schooled me on the hardest one.

The view from our room. It looks all cold but we were constantly putting sunscreen on and wearing shorts. The weather was awesome.

Mckinley definitely tries to hold her own with all her cousins. Here she is fighting her way into the bowl of popcorn.

And there she is with a mouthful of it. Anyone who knows Mckinley knows this girl loves her food. I'm pretty sure she'd eat all day long if we let her.

Thanks to my mom and dad for ALL the pictures from our vacation. I made sure to charge my camera battery and have it all ready the night before our trip, then when I pulled it out to take pictures of the zoo, it wouldn't turn on. Brandon said he accidentally dropped it when he was getting it out of my purse, but only a few inches. Apparently when your camera is four years old, a few inches is far enough. It's broken. :( We got a really good 4 years out of that camera. And now we get to buy a new one. It's not all bad.

Life is good, I can't believe the 4th of July is coming up. It's so weird that we're doing things this year that we did with Mckinley LAST year too. Is she that old? Every year just gets better and better. It's so nice to go places and not deal with nursing her, binkis, and other stuff like that.

We are also getting ready to rent our house out so we can go live in my parents house while they're in China. We posted it on KSL Thursday night. Friday we had someone call and come look at it and they want it. Then today we had three people want to come and look at it. So we deleted the ad for now. I feel bad for the people who want it but won't get it. I'm glad I'm not in their shoes.

Anyway, this is enough for now. I'm off to go continue enjoying my summer....

Such a big girl

2011-06-16T10:04:00.000-07:00

If it wasn't official before, it's official now. We don't have a baby anymore. Mckinley acts like she's such a big girl. She is so adorable and we just love her more than we ever could have dreamed.

She is starting to smile on command. This was at 7 Peaks the other day.

She'll even smile now when no one's behind the camera. I love it.

Look at her looking all grown up and stuff on a chair helping me make (eat) banana bread.

She's really into dipping things. She was eating a cracker and wanted to dip it in the batter so I got her a little bowl of it and she went to town. Other things she has dipped: crackers in fry sauce and in potato soup and in cottage cheese (and banana bread batter), PB&J in ketchup (ewww) and in potato soup.

I have been wanting to do Mckinley's hand and foot prints for a long time. We stripped her down the other day and took her out in the back to attempt it. I thought it would be easier with two people (I tried it on my own when she was like 6 or 7 months) but we still barely got one hand print and one print of each of her adorable feet. I guess one is all you need though, right? Anyway, she had fun playing with the water coming out of the hose.

A little trip down to Utah Lake last night to see how full the lake is. The dock we usually go to is buried in water. See that cute smile, and I don't even think we asked her to this time.

Enjoying a very large lolly pop. :)

Mckinley will sit forever and play with her little container of hair bows and bracelets. She always picks up the hair clips and tries to put them in her own hair. This morning I decided to help her out. She is wearing all of her bracelets and all the bows. :)

June 9, 2011

2011-06-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

Here we are on our 5 year anniversary. We went to Cafe Rio for lunch, then got pizza and a movie to watch at home that night.

Friday we got Brandon's mom to watch Mckinley so we could go see Kung Fu Panda 2 and afterwards we ate at Red Robin.

I got this delicious smoothie and it's a good thing I did, otherwise we would have been sipping water for FORTY minutes while we waited for our food to come. Yeah, that part wasn't too fun. But it was nice to go out on a real date.

Man, we might not ever need to take this girl to Disneyland. She gets just as excited to have a lick of sugar. Look at that face!

Here's what she was so excited for. That lollypop is as big as her face!

June 9

2011-06-09T10:12:00.000-07:00

June 9th might not mean a lot to you, but it does to us! Today is our 5 year anniversary. It's not even lunch time and it's already been a great day. Lucky me, I got to wake up at 4 and go to work, but then I came home and we made pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream on top. Yum.

Then Brandon told me he got me a 1-hour massage! I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to use it.

We are going to lunch today and then tomorrow night we are going to dinner and a movie and hopefully Mckinley will be having a sleepover somewhere else so we can sleep in!!! My guess is that she'll sleep over somewhere else and then we'll wake up early on our own anyway, but I'm sure going to try my best to sleep in till 11.

Looking back...

June 9, 2006

June 9, 2007

June 9, 2008

June 9, 2009

June 9, 2010

June 9, 2011

Looking back at our previous anniversary's, they pretty much always include dinner and a movie, and sometimes a hotel. It's pretty easy to see what we like to do. :)

Brandon is the best husband anyone could ever ask for. I would be so lost without him. I love you Bran!

Back to back Vegas trips

2011-06-07T08:06:00.000-07:00

We seem to be repeating what we did 2 years ago. We went to Vegas and stayed at Tahiti Village and then went back to Vegas like a month later. This time we only had a week after our first Vegas trip before we went back again. Anyway, we just got back from a week long vacation with Brandon's entire family. We stayed at Tahiti Village again and had a really good time.

A few pictures from our week at home in between the two Vegas trips.

Mckinley sitting on a pillow watching cartoons. So cute!

Mckinley with an awesome bed head sitting on her little stool brushing her teeth. She's in a "sitting" stage. If she sees something that's her height, she will turn around and walk backwards till she reaches it and then sit down. It's so cute.

Brandon's youngest brother Lincoln graduated from high school.

I got to go to PF Changs for a lunch shower for my friend Lisa. I told her not to have the baby while I was gone, but she didn't listen. Her baby girl was born on Thursday. My other friend Anna also had a baby the day before we left so I have two new babies to visit this week and I'm so excited!

Okay, now for the trip. These pictures are not in order but I don't want to bother switching them around so we'll just leave it as is.

Mckinley and two of her cousins playing in the pool.

This might be my very favorite picture. We ate dinner at Cheesecake Factory one night and they have this huge aquarium outside the entrance. Mckinley loved watching all the fish and sting rays go by. I love her little pigtails! And aren't her legs just cute in those little capris? Michelle, aren't you the one who gave me this outfit? I love it.

Tahiti Village is right by the Las Vegas airport and Mckinley loved watching the planes go by. She would point and get really excited to see them. There is a tiny plane on the left in this picture that she is looking at.

Me and Mckinley in the pool. We went to the pool at least once every day. She loved wearing my sunglasses.

She is usually pretty mellow when she's in the water but she loved it when we would come "chase her." That's how we got this smile.

Best friends. Mckinley and Brynlee. Waiting for dinner at Cheesecake Factory.

We saw a few things on the strip. This is in the garden room at the Bellagio.

And of course we always have to watch a few water shows at the Bellagio. I could sit there all night and watch them. Mckinley was ready for bed by this time though.

Vegas is so pretty at night. We had a sweet view of the strip from our hotel room.

Family picture in the pool.

Brandon and Mckinley chillin in the pool.

Brandon has some cousins in Vegas that we had a sweet BBQ with and then later in the week his cousin's husband invited us to come to the airport and tour this 60 million dollar private jet. My camera battery died before we got to go inside so I'm waiting for some pictures from Shellee. ;)

I was lucky enough to go and see The Liong King. Brandon decided not to come. It was such an amazing production.

Mckinley did awesome sleeping in the pack-n-play during our trip. She still found her way to the corner and had some other pretty cute sleeping positions.

If Mckinley ever got fussy by the pool we could just take her over to the hot tub and let her dip her feet in. She loved it so much and would just sit there relaxed forever.

The pool had a little sand beach and I didn't know if Mckinley would like it since she hates grass but she actually enjoyed it.

One day out on the balcony Mckinley kept giving Haley hugs. Then Brandon and Haley both got down to see who Mckinley would come to and she went to Haley. Needless to say, Brandon was quite jealous and Haley was super happy. It was cute.

Most of the time in the water Mckinley would have her feet crossed just hanging out in her tube. Then if you asked her to kick her legs she would. I'm so glad she liked the water.

Mckinley also loves to push things. She's been like this for a while, but now she's been pushing big things, like a shopping cart around the store the other night, and her pack-n-play and her stroller and her music table. It surprises me sometimes that she has the strength to push some of the big things. This was at Concert in the Park on Sunday night.

There are a ton more pictures I could have posted from our trip. It was a lot of fun. I still haven't adjusted back to normal life and I am dreading going grocery shopping.

Today marks Mckinley's 13 month birthday. Just a few things about her at 13 months:

She knows what sounds a dog, cow, and snake make.

She is starting to climb on things.

She tries to repeat the words "amen" and "all done" or "all gone".

She can say shoe. She loves to have her shoes on.

She has 10 teeth with another one close.

She still doesn't like getting dressed.

She takes 2 good naps a day and sleeps about 11 hours at night.

She will cover her eyes if you say "Where's Mckinley?"

She is still super ticklish and loves to laugh. She loves to be chased and loves to play peek-a-boo.

I think that's enough for now. She is so much fun and such a good baby. We always said we would wean her off her binki after our Vegas trip so Sunday night we put it away in the closet and she has done really well without it. She cried for 20 or 30 minutes the first night but every nap or bedtime since then she just whimpers a little and then goes to sleep. She has started being a lot more cuddly and will lay down on our shoulders and just snuggle. I don't know if it's because the binki is gone or maybe because she's teething right now, but we love it!

We're Back

2011-05-20T18:55:00.000-07:00

Well, we just survived our first trip without Mckinley. We have never left her before, and it really sucked leaving her. But she was in good hands (with my mom, sister, and sister-in-law) while we were gone.

We went to Las Vegas for a MetLife conference.

We ate lots of food and spent lots of time relaxing in the hotel room.

The best part of the trip was going to see the Beatles Love show by Cirque du Soleil. It was AWESOME!!! Now I want to see the O show. Bad. This is us on our way to the show.

We stayed at Mandalay Bay and it had a really fun wave pool, lazy river, and some other pools and hot tubs. The weather was only nice enough one day to go out to the pool but we enjoyed it while we were out there. It sure beat the rain we missed while we were gone.

It was cool to have the whole trip paid for, and all our food taken care of. It was awesome coming home to Mckinley today though. We missed her so much. She had the biggest smile on her face when she saw us again.

Now for some cute pictures from before we left.

Brandon and Mckinley all ready for Church with her cute little pigtails.

She loves playing outside and will touch the grass with a stick but not with anything else. :)

How cute are these two walking along the river trail?

This is currently my very favorite picture. It's going to become our computer wallpaper in just a few minutes.

We're back home for a little and then headed right back down to Vegas, I can't wait to bring Mckinley with us this time!

Mckinley is ONE!

2011-05-09T13:01:00.001-07:00

Okay, I have a LOT to blog about. It was a very busy week with Chandra's wedding, family here from out of town, and Mckinley's FIRST birthday. Before we get to the birthday stuff, here are a few other things.

I wanted to go to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point this year but I never made it so Mckinley and I stopped by Nelson's Grove Park on our way home one day and snapped a few pictures by the tulips.

They were gorgeous and it gave me my fix for the year.

All week long lots of time was spent on wedding preparations and Friday was the big day. It was also Annie's birthday (my sister-in-law). Here's a little family picture at the reception.

They had a candy bar which was awesome. We are enjoying all the leftovers. :)

Chandra, Roland, and all the grand kids.

Oh, I can't forget these pictures. My parents watched Mckinley for us while we went to the sealing and afterwards we had a little dinner with them before we headed over to the reception. Mckinley was LOVING this watermelon.

SO cute!

Okay, now I know this is a lot of pictures for Mckinley's birthday but come on, it was her first one! And she's our first kid, so of course we were super excited for it. (If it makes you feel better, there are 116 pictures/videos from her birthday celebrations on my computer, so this actually isn't very many.)

To start out the day, we made Mckinley her favorite thing for breakfast. Pancakes. I attempted a Mickey Mouse-shaped one like my dad used to do for us when we were little and I think it turned out pretty good. She ate THREE pancakes for breakfast. Yes, this girl likes her food.

Here she is in her adorable little birthday outfit. Her shirt says Baby's 1st Birthday.

We had a big lunch with all of Brandon's family and ate a bunch of the leftover wedding food. Mckinley's cake was a leftover eclair. She got it all over and rubbed her chocolate-covered hand in her hair.

Here are a couple pictures of her opening some presents.

In the afternoon a bunch of us went to the movies and saw Rio.

Later that evening we went to Carl's Junior for dinner. She wasn't in the smiling mood so I asked her to stick her tongue out instead.

I was playing around with her hair and was very surprised to see that it fits in pig tails! So cute. Of course they lasted for about a minute.

A family picture on her birthday.

We went back over to Brandon's parents house that evening to spend some time with his sister who is in from out of town and Brandon's dad wanted to take Mckinley to the park for her birthday. It was a little chilly and she was tired but we bundled her up and went anyway.

Going down the slide with Grandpa.

On Sunday we celebrated with my family. Here she is with her new phone she got from Dallin and Shellee (she loves it). Look at those little toes!

Opening the new train my mom got her. Thank you so much!

My brother had been wanting to try out these chocolate cakes from Costco and decided Mckinley's birthday would be the perfect time. That thing was so rich!

Mckinley didn't waste any time digging into it. I think she would have eaten the whole piece if we let her.

At one point it looked so good that she decided to just go straight for it with her mouth and not let her hands get in the way.

The result:

The only bad thing about turning one was that she had to go to the doctor today and get shots. Oh, how this girl hates getting shots.

Her 12 month stats were:

Weight: 20.26 lbs, 37%

Height: 29 inches, 48%

Head: 18.6 inches, 95%

It was a busy but great weekend. Mother's Day was awesome too. We had dinner's at both our parents houses. The boys did all the work for both dinners. My dad had a separate table set up for all the women and we ate on China while the boys and kids ate on paper plates. It was cute.

We can hardly believe Mckinley is one. She has made our lives so much better and we couldn't love her more!!!

In just 2 days

2011-05-05T08:02:00.000-07:00

Mckinley will be ONE. That sure crept up fast. But it's been an awesome year. Awesome doesn't begin to describe it actually.

On Tuesday night this week we went to the temple with Brandon's sister for her first time (she gets married tomorrow). There were two highlights on this temple trip. Being picked as the witness couple and the secret note my little sister left me under the bathroom sink. She's in the MTC and happens to have P-day on Tuesdays which is when we went to the temple so she told me she would leave a note for me stuck underneath the sink in the bathroom and I went and found it and it totally made my day. It was so cool! I almost forgot to look.

Anyway, the main point of the story is that we went to the temple and my sweet mother watched Mckinley for us and Mckinley had her first sleep over at Grandma's. Any of you that really know me know that I love sleepovers and I spent a larger part of my childhood sleeping over at my grandma's house and I'm so excited for Mckinley to be able to do the same thing. It was the first time we have ever been away from her for the night. She was awesome. Slept the whole night through and was an angel. Brandon was moping around all evening missing her like crazy. It was pretty much the cutest thing you've ever seen. I really honestly don't know if any dad has loved his little girl more than Brandon. She is one lucky girl. (And so am I.)

This is a picture of Mckinley pushing her cousin Sam around in a doll stroller last night. Man, these kids are cute!

And just because I can't help it, here are some more pictures of her sleeping. We are totally in the mode of taking as many pictures of her asleep as possible.

If anyone ever needed proof that Mckinly is in fact my daughter, this is it. I always sleep with my knee bent like this and often with my hands up too. Oh, I love it.

Another one with the blanket over her head. :)

I had to include this picture too to show her cute wings. My hair totally used to curl on both sides above my ears when I was little. Only difference is my hair was super blonde and I didn't get any of it till I was like 2. Anyway, her hair is starting to show some curl and Brandon and I both love it!!

This week has been pretty crazy with wedding preparations. I wish we could focus more on what is actually important (the sealing) instead of all the reception fluff. Could someone remind me of this in 20 years when Mckinley gets married?

She Did it Again

2011-04-28T21:58:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-27T20:27:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-25T11:18:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-20T13:57:00.000-07:00

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!!!!!

2011-04-19T21:10:00.000-07:00

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?

2011-04-15T15:37:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-04-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

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!

Walking

2011-03-31T11:36:00.001-07:00

I swear I used to be able to put videos on blogger, so something must be wrong with my computer. Or with me. :) Either way, click HERE if you want to see a video of Mckinley walking.

Amy's Gone

2011-03-30T11:56:00.000-07:00

Well, this weekend has been full of missionary stuff and getting in every last minute with Amy that we could. ... Sunday was her farewell, Tuesday night she got set apart and just about an hour and a half ago, Amy entered the MTC. ... We went to Cafe Rio today for lunch before she went to the MTC. ... No big surprise here. Mckinley is sucking on a lime and loving it. :) ... Me and Brandon saying goodbye to Amy. She will be such an awesome missionary! ... It's so weird that Mckinley will be 2 and a half by the time Amy comes home. Who knows, we might even have another little munchkin by that time too. Wouldn't that be awesome? ... Uh, yeah, I'm not much of a writer, so I'll just let the pictures do the talking, but her farewell and setting apart were both awesome. Hong Kong is so lucky to be able to borrow her for a year and a half. We'll sure miss her. ... I was going to put a video on here of Mckinley walking but blogger won't upload it. Maybe I'll try uploading it to youtube and adding it on here.

This girl is 3 letters. F.U.N.

2011-03-26T21:04:00.000-07:00

Oh my heavens we are having a blast with Mckinley. This girl is so much FUN! Here are some pictures from ever since the last time I blogged.

The highlight of my Wednesday mornings: Coming home after a very early morning at work to Brandon and Mckinley sleeping in bed. I love that she is upside down!!

Mckinley is so fun to bathe! She loves laying down and will just play and play and play in the water. Her little naked body is just so stinking adorable.

Mckinley had a few days this month where she had a fever all day and took 4 naps each day, just like a newborn again, except without the frequent feedings. It was awesome. Here we are just snuggling on the couch. Loved it. And now she has 7 teeth instead of just 2. :)

Okay, so I think I posted a picture on here before of Mckinley sucking on a lemon wedge at Olive Garden. This girl loves lemons! She doesn't pucker or make any weird faces when she sucks on them either. Don't know who in the world she gets that from!!

She bit some chunks out of the peel...

And then sucked the juice out of some wedges we cut for her.

Happy as can be as long as she's eating a lemon.

So this little shirt is the first item of clothing Brandon and I ever purchased for Mckinley. It's size 12 months so we had to wait a little bit to put it on her but it fits her now and it's so cute!

Mckinley has been spending a lot of time bonding with her Aunt Amy who is leaving this Wednesday to go to the MTC and then off to Hong Kong to serve her mission. The big bet we had going was if Mckinley would walk before Amy left and Mckinley can indeed walk!!! Some days she is in more of a walking mood than others, but she definitely knows how to do it. We of course think it's the cutest thing ever.

Ha ha. Love this picture. Mckinely was over at my mom's house playing with some dolls in a little baby basket bassinet thingo. She just looked so cute in there.

One of Mckinley's favorite things is this little empty sample size bottle that used to have face wash in it. She will hold on to that thing for hours and take it with her around the house wherever she goes. Lately she has started just putting it in her mouth so she can play with other toys or crawl around at the same time.

These two are so in love with each other. I am so lucky that I get to spend my whole life with them.

Self family portrait. Not too bad I guess. :)

Yay, one day Mckinley magically learned how to tip up her sippy cup all by herself. Now I can stop worrying about how this child is going to get any fluids down once I stop nursing her. She does NOT do bottles!

Some of Mckinley's favorite things to do lately:

Dance to music or just whenever we ask her to

Stick her tongue out

Lay down on her blanket whenever she sees it

She plays with her hair when she's nursing or falling asleep

She loves pulling all the clothes out of her drawer or the diapers out of the diaper caddy or anything else like that

Loves crawling up the stairs

Loves giving opened mouth kisses

Time for an Update

2011-03-09T17:32:00.000-08:00

Brandon mentioned that I haven't posted on the blog in a while, and when I started this post (geez blogger took forever to upload the pictures), Mckinley was asleep for her fourth nap of the day so I figured I didn't have an excuse. (She just woke up, but I'll finish it anyway.) No, she doesn't normally take four naps. She takes two. But last night and all today she's had a fever and just isn't feeling well. Which means she's been cuddly which is of course awesome. But I do feel bad for her, I don't know what's wrong.

This picture is from last Monday when we went with Brandon's family to see Gnomeo and Juliet. Mckinley looked so cute just staring at the screen with her daddy. Of course that didn't last long and she was up and crawling/walking all over everything in the theater. But we still had fun.

Mckinley moves all around in her crib now and this is her most common sleeping position. On her stomach with her cute squeezable bumb in the air. I love it!!! Thanks to Brandon for discovering it. I never used to go in and look at her while she was sleeping. That's when I get my things done. But Brandon can't help it and always wants to go in and just stare at her. That's how he figured it out. Anyway, we have seen her in all sorts of cute positions, like the other night she was sideways in her crib at the end, on her tummy of course, and totally had her toes tucked in down by the side of the mattress. Adorable!

Here she is in her new cute jammies my mom bought her, helping do the dishes at my mom's house.

Last Friday I finally took her to book babies at the library. She couldn't have cared less for the songs or story, but liked crawling all around the library. I don't know if we'll be going back soon, I probably should, but it's right during her morning nap. I woke her up to go.

Last Thursday was my little sister Heidi's and Brandon's mom's birthdays. They both celebrated on Saturday, at the exact same time. So I went to Heidi's and Brandon went to his mom's with Mckinley. We went and watched Tangled and then had this awesome ice cream cake my mom made.

Ha ha, love Holly. I asked her to move back so I could see Heidi's cake.

Yesterday I went to Salt Lake with my dad to pick up Amy from the airport. My mom stayed home and watched Mckinley for me so I could go with them and do a session in the Salt Lake Temple. Man, I love that temple.

That's about it for the update. Life has been pretty normal. Brandon had a pretty bad sore throat for a while, and I've got a little bit of a sore throat now, and who knows what Mckinley is sick with. I love when she's cuddly but today she has also been pretty sensitive, crying a lot, for minor things like me trying to get her to walk, or major things like when she fell down the stairs today. Oops. My bad. The only times she sneaks away and crawls up the stairs are when I'm in the kitchen making dinner. Maybe I should stop making dinner and hope it magically makes itself. :)

Mckinley has taken quite a few steps on her own, so I'm sure she'll be walking for real before too long. She is so much fun and growing so fast!!!

Mckinley

2011-02-25T12:13:00.000-08:00

Before I start this post, I want you to notice that there is in fact a picture of me in here and one of Brandon. So I am keeping my promise to not only blog about Mckinley. But who are we kidding? She is the center of our world. Every day when Brandon gets home from work I proceed to tell him every little thing she did that was cute. He does the same for me when he's alone with her. We just love her so much and can't get enough!!

Anyway, life has been really good lately. Just the same old. Working a tiny bit here and there, spending lots of time with my parents, and just watching Mckinley grow and learn so much so fast! We wouldn't have it any other way.

One of the things Mckinley loves to do is pull the wipes out of the wipes container. And for some reason she loves to put them in her mouth.

Life has started to get really fun lately. Mckinley is getting more and more mobile, crawling everywhere and getting into lots of fun stuff. Here she is after she proudly pulled out all the DVD's. Good thing we don't collect a lot of movies. :)

Mckinley's very favorite toy is her music table she got from Grandpa Salmon for Christmas. She walks around and around it and stays entertained for long periods of time.

It's funny now with her crawling everywhere, sometimes I will look into the family room and not see her anywhere. This one day I looked for her and barely saw her little feet sticking out from her car seat. This is a toy she really likes as well. By the time I got the camera out, she wasn't as far into it as earlier, but still super cute.

Then she realized I was taking pictures and sat down and gave me a big cheeser. I love that she smiles for the camera now! Even though with our point and shoot she just looks super chubby. But oh, chubby cheeks are the best. So fun to squeeze and kiss.

If I had photoshop I would take Mckinley's head from this picture...

and add it to this one. Bryn's little smile is just too cute!!!!

Mckinley is giving me lots and lots of practice with doing her hair in a ponytail on the top of her head. She pulls it out multiple times a day. Yesterday I spent the entire day at my parents' house just hanging out and after one of her naps, Mckinley had pulled her ponytail out and had some awesome hair to show for it.

Looked like a mohawk from the side. Ha ha ha. Love it. I think I did her hair 6 times that day.

Mckinley is starting to get a little more cuddly and we are soaking up every minute of it. Brandon lucked out the other night and had her fall asleep on his shoulder. He said it was the best day of his life. :) This picture isn't from that night, it was just yesterday after we got home from Walmart and she had fallen asleep in her car seat.

Her newest trick is climbing up the stairs. Time to really keep an eye on her. She's so proud of herself. Even while climbing up I just said "Mckinley, look at Mom" and she turned around and smiled for the camera, then kept going. She got all the way to the very top, laid her head down on the floor, and sighed. It's tough work climbing up stairs when you're just 27.5 inches tall. :)

Today is an awesome lazy Friday. Brandon and I had no idea it even snowed till he opened the door to go to work and then we saw there was like 6 inches on the ground. Yuck. My only plans were to go to lunch with Brandon but then we had to cancel because he's going to lunch with someone for some business something or other. So yay, I get to stay inside. I keep meaning to take Mckinley to baby book time at the library on Fridays but here she is almost 10 months old and I have never taken her. I guess I really need to plan for it, because even when I have nothing to do on a Friday, I just still stay here at home. I need someone to go with me. Kristi, you up for it?

I guess that's the update for now. Especially because I can hear Mckinley starting to wake up from her nap. We always go in now and find her standing up just waiting for us. It's so darn cute! Love love love this little girl...

Random Stuff

2011-02-14T20:18:00.000-08:00

Oops, posted this to the wrong blog! Sorry for those of you who are seeing it twice.

Just a few random pictures from the past few days.

Best Friends. Brynlee and Mckinley.

We took Mckinley to the Bean Museum for the first time over the weekend. She was pretty tired, but I think she liked it okay.

Mckinley and Dad.

My parents spoke in Church yesterday and then we had a family dinner after. My dad was showing all the grandkids pictures of their parents (my brothers) from back in the day when they had mullets, long hair, and thought they were too cool for the world. The kids were all laughing so hard. Wait till their kids look at these pictures of them!

And here's one of the pictures we emailed to Brandon at work today. We sure miss him while he's gone....

Today had been a fun Valentine's Day. Brandon always finishes eating before I do so when he was done but I was still eating he went around the house hiding heart shaped notes for me. I've found 3 so far and each one has been awesome!!

Thorougly Impressed

2011-02-10T10:49:00.000-08:00

Last night I was lucky enough to go see Phantom of the Opera at Pleasant Grove High School. I wasn't sure what to expect out of a high school theater performance, but wow, it was so amazing. Seriously, it was so good!

I have seen Phantom of the Opera 2 other times. One in some awesome building in Sydney, Australia and once at the Capitol Theater in Salt Lake. PG High seriously did as good as the Salt Lake performance. The cast was perfect and they all had such beautiful voices. I wish I could tell you guys to go, but every performance for the rest of the week is completely sold out. There were tons of people waiting to just try to get in stand by. I doubt any of them did. The place was packed!

It was super weird going back to my high school 10 years later...

I actually completely forgot I was even going till the night before and I hadn't told Brandon about it at all, so luckily he was nice enough to stay home with Mckinley with last minute notice while I went out and had fun with my mom and sister.

Of course we weren't allowed to take any pictures but here is me and Kristen during the intermission.

Anyway, it was too awesome not to blog about. That's all.

9 Months

2011-02-07T19:48:00.000-08:00

Mckinley is 9 months old today. She has been out of my stomach for as long as she was in it. Well, in a week that will be true since she stayed in an extra week. :)

I love love loved having her in my belly but I love her outside of it even more. Look at that face, how could you not?

Anyway, we went to the doctor today and here are her stats.

Weight: 18 lbs 6 oz (43%)
Height: 27.5 inches (49%)
Head: 17.75 inches (81%)

At 9 months Mckinley:

Crawls!
Is a pro at giving kisses.
Is starting to wave a little.
Likes to copy you when you say "Ah!" (she'll copy you over and over and over, it's so fun)
Pulls herself up on anything she can and walks along it.
Finally got to meet her Grandma and Grandpa Bishop!
Still just has two teeth on the bottom (although I think I can see one of her top teeth getting close).
Doesn't say very many words with consonants but she loves to jabber.
Understands a bunch of words and does lots of tricks.
Will always turn her head and search for him if you ask "Where's Daddy?" She L.O.V.E.S. him.
Can be found standing up in her crib now when she wants to get out (like twice in the last half hour since I put her down).
Still wakes up in the night to eat, but last night we decided to put a stop to that. Brandon hung out next to her crib at 3 in the morning this morning till she went back to sleep. And she had her record night of 13 hours!
Loves to go to sleep with her binki but we have lost 2 out of 3 of the ones she likes so once the 3rd one is lost, it's all over.
Takes 2 good naps every day, and sometimes a 3rd nap in the evening.
Loves to eat anything we're eating, but still loves rice cereal and baby food.
Has almost eaten more cheerios than her body weight.

Anyway, we just love this little girl so much and are so blessed to have her in our lives.

February: Week 1

2011-02-06T12:06:00.000-08:00

Wow, what a week! It has been so fun having my parents home. I love it. Here's what we've been up to.

Tuesday. My parents both slept in, my dad till 10 and my mom till 11. They were both exhausted from travelling. As soon as Mckinley woke up from her morning nap I took her over there so they could see her when she's fun and not just super tired. We had a good time. Later that night the whole family got together for a dinner. We had an awesome time just talking with my parents and everything. They brought home lots of presents for the grandkids and some stuff for us too.

.
Our little family.

All the adults.

Mom and Dad with all the grandkids.

Wednesday I went to work early, then did some major grocery shopping. I didn't see my parents that day. It was Groundhog Day so we watched Groundhog Day with some of Brandon's brothers.

Thursday my little sister came over and babysat Mckinley so I could go do some work at Brandon's office. Then I went over to my parents' house in the afternoon to see them some more. I can't remember what we did Thursday night. Maybe just relaxed at home?

Friday. We went to lunch at Olive Garden so my mom could see her two sisters again. Here are the three of them.

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Amy, Kristen, and my cousin Sarah at lunch.

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Mckinley and me.

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Mckinley was loving sucking on a piece of a lemon.

Friday night Brandon had a basketball game and then he went and helped his brother clean his house while I chilled at home by myself. :(

Saturday was a big day. My niece Holly got baptized so we went to that and then had food at my brother's house after and stayed there for a while just sitting around and talking. We loved it. I didn't take any pictures, but this is Holly.

Then we brought a very tired baby over to Brandon's mom's house so she could watch her while we went to the temple with my whole family. My little sister Amy (who is going to Hong Kong on her mission at the end of next month if you don't remember) went through the temple for the first time. We ate at the temple cafeteria after and the food was actually really good. Amy is going to be such an amazing missionary!!

Today is Sunday and in a couple of hours we are going over to Brandon's brothers to eat some good food. Some of them are going to watch some football and others of us are going to watch the funny commercials.

Mckinley's 9 month appointment is tomorrow. This will be the first time she doesn't have to get shots. Woohoo!

Anyway, that was our week in a nutshell. I'm sure this next one will have lots of exciting things in it too.

They're HOME

2011-02-01T09:49:00.000-08:00

Well, last night was the big night. And it did not disappoint. My parents' flight did get delayed about an hour so it made it an even later night for poor, sick (again) Mckinley. But it was worth it.
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This was at about 9:00 last night. I was getting so so so excited to see them. Me and Mckinley headed off to Kristen's house.

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We hung out at Kristen's waiting till it was time to go to the airport. Everything worked out perfectly. We only waited in the airport for about 5 or 10 minutes before we saw them.
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Here's Mckinley, just woke up, at about 12:30. Such a trooper for letting me drag her around in the middle of the night.

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Kristen, Amy, and me, waiting and so excited to see Mom and Dad.

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Kristen and Amy went ahead and I hid with Mckinley behind a big pillar to surprise my parents. And boy, were they surprised. Check out the video HERE.
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Mom and Dad meeting Mckinley for the first time. She was so tired and super mellow but we didn't expect much more than that from her in the middle of the night.

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My parents and 3 of their girls. Mom's eyes are mostly closed. Classic.

The girls being silly while Dad was busy getting the luggage...

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My mom got to sit with Mckinley in the back of the car and she didn't fall asleep the whole way, so my mom was in heaven. Now I am just waiting for Mckinley to wake up from her morning nap so we can go back over there and play! Wahoo!! This is awesome.

Real quick, if any of you want to reminesce with me, click HERE to see pictures of when they left. It's so awesome to think of all the ways our family was blessed while they were gone. Number one for us being our sweet little miracle we named Mckinley.

Just in Time

2011-01-31T15:04:00.000-08:00

Brandon and I made a bet (yes, I know, it doesn't make much sense seeing as we're married and we share money) about Mckinley crawling. Brandon bet she would be crawling before my parents got home and I bet she wouldn't.

Well, my parents come home today. In fact, as I type they are in California hanging out with two of my brothers and I get to see them late tonight at the airport. It still doesn't seem real.

With only a day to spare, Mckinley started crawling yesterday. She's still learning, but I told Brandon that if she moves at all on all fours, he wins the bet. It was a small bet anyway, if I won, I got jamba juice and if he won, he got $10. Not an even bet, I know, but I loooove jamba.

Anyway, if this video ever loads, you will be able to see Mckinley crawling for about 2 seconds. Enjoy. :)

Okay, I hate blogger when it comes to adding videos. Thank goodness for youtube.

Nevermind, I can't get it to work on youtube either. I guess you all know what it looks like to see a kid crawling anyway. If I can figure it out later, I'll add the video.

Holy crap I am going to see my parents in 6 hours. I can't believe it.

Hong Kong is Here to Stay

2011-01-27T09:30:00.000-08:00

My paper chain that started with 90 links is now down to 4. My parents come home in 4 days, and I can hardly believe it. We thought we would be saying goodbye to Hong Kong, but now we are saying HELLO to it again. My little sister opened her mission call last night and believe it or not, she got called to the China Hong Kong mission speaking Cantonese!!!!! Holy cow I can hardly believe it!!!!

I stole this picture from my cousin's facebook of her opening her call. The kids surrounding her are my cousins' kids, my mom and dad are on skype (in Hong Kong, how ironic) on the computer in front of her, and most of her siblings were on a conference call on the phone with her. So there are actually quite a few more people in this picture than you think.

(side note: she had just spent 8 days in the wilderness with no shower, toothbrush, toilet paper, etc. so she showered first, and that's why her hair's all wet)

Okay, I don't know how many of you care to hear the story, but you're all going to get it.

So my little sister Amy is living in Arizona with my cousin Ryan while she is working at the Anasazi Youth Wilderness Camp. She goes out into the wilderness with troubled youth for 8 days at a time and like I said above, has no showers, toothbrush, toothpaste, toilet paper, deodorant, cell phone, etc. Anything the rest of the world thinks is crucial, they don't have it. It's pure craziness.

Anyway, while down in Arizona she got her mission papers all sent in. Last week when she was home her call didn't come so she assumed it might come while she was gone. She left last Wednesday and the call came two days later, on Friday. It's been sitting in my cousin's house, patiently waiting for her to come home and open it.

Ryan texted me this picture and said "The next 18 months of your sister's life is in my hands. Wish she was here!"

So anyway, while she was gone, I told all my siblings to stand by on Wednesday (seeing as we had no idea what time she would get home) and then my brother set up a conference call for all of us to call in and listen. My parents had the day off in Hong Kong and were home packing so it was perfect.

So last night at 8:00 she called me and was out of the wilderness and I told her the mission call had come and that we were all waiting for her to open it. So we all got on the phone and man, when she read those words, "You are hereby called, yaddy yaddy yadda, you are assigned to labor in the China Hong Kong Mission" we just couldn't believe it! Sounds just like my parents' mission call 18 months ago. And like each of their mission calls when they were single. Yes, people, my mom and my dad both served in Hong Kong when they were single (yes, they were in the same mission at the same time, but no, they did not meet or fall in love there). So this is seriously just the coolest thing ever.

Amy knows Spanish pretty well so I think some of us thought she might get called spanish speaking but wow, now she has to learn Cantonese! A super hard language. Hopefully my parents can teach her a few words before she goes to the MTC. Which is on March 30th by the way. Only 2 months away!!! That is super quick.

So, last night Amy made a quick decision to quit her job in Arizona and come home to Utah and stay here for the next 2 months before she leaves. She was planning on just coming home for about a week to see my parents and then go right back to work and stay there till she left on her mission. I don't think she was expecting to leave so soon. So, needless to say, I am EXTATIC that for the next two months she will be here and can play with Mckinley and me. I have missed her.

Well, that's the story, and if any of you made it this far, I fixed the link in the post below, so that video should work now.

Man, life is so AWESOME right now. So many exciting things going on.

Latest and Greatest

2011-01-26T10:08:00.000-08:00

Holy cow I really don't know how this girl could get any more fun. Brandon taught her a new trick a few days ago. How cute is that tiny tongue???

Here's the video.

#200

2011-01-25T20:47:00.000-08:00

This was supposed to be a post with a video of Mckinley's newest super cute trick but the video won't load. So I guess we will just celebrate that it's post #200 and put a few pictures on here. I will try again in a new post with the video and may have to resort to putting it on youtube.

So proud that she pulled all the diapers out.

I love it when kids become little begging puppy dogs. This girl wants to eat anything and everything we're eating. Confession: I don't like sharing food (and especially treats) with kids. Bad. I know. She ate half my shepherd's pie. I am definitely going to have to learn how to share.

Last night was her first bath in the big tub. Crazy. She is growing up.

Pictures. It's all I got.

2011-01-20T09:51:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wish my blog was clever or funny or remotely entertaining. I read other people's blogs who are such good writers and it makes me realize how boring my blog is. Sometimes I wish I had advice to give or something to write about that would make people stop and just think. But, life is what it is, people, and unless I have pictures, I don't blog. And all I ever do is add a few pictures, and let people know what's happening in them. So, I'm going to do what I do best. Add some pictures and call it a blog post.
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Can't believe Mckinley can stand and play with this toy all on her own.

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This is Mckinley with her Aunt Heidi (my little sister). We went to Heidi's house one day to visit her. We had a lot of fun. Mckinley and I sat on the bed and Heidi sat next to us in her wheelchair. At one point, Mckinley leaned over and grabbed the control to Heidi's wheelchair and drove it a bit. She's such a curious baby and always wanting to touch/grab/lunge for new things.

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Haley came over to our house one day to watch a football game and ended up upstairs reading a book to Mckinley in her rocking chair. How cute is that?

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Even though all we do is take pictures of Mckinley, here's proof that Brandon and I still exist. (Although I guess you already knew we existed, otherwise who would be taking all these pictures of Mckinley?) This was last Saturday while we were making an awesome breakfast of pancakes and eggs on our new griddle.

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Mckinley is so happy (even though the poor thing has been sick for over 3 weeks now) and she actually smiles now when I get the camera out. (for the first picture at least) It's awesome.

Look at those eyelashes!! She gets them from her dad.

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Hanging out in her exercauser in the kitchen.

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Happy as can be since I gave her a magazine from the mail to play with and chew on.

Last night we went to visit our friends in the hospital who had a new baby. She is about a pound smaller than Mckinley was. Just tiny! And so stinking cute. Look at that perfect face.

Mckinley scoots backwards. Mostly when she's on a smooth surface. She started out right at my feet and ended up half way across the room. Ha ha ha.

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Is it bad that I gave her my candy cane to suck on so she would stop crying? Look at those cute cute thighs. You can't help but just squeeze them!!

Now. Proof that Brandon and I are first time parents. (Read: First time parents make mistakes.) We thought we'd teach her a new trick (side note: I can't believe how incredibly fun it is to teach tricks to babies. I absolutely hate dogs but I can understand now why people might like them, if they're as fun to teach tricks to as babies are). Anyway, back to the trick. We (and by we I mean Brandon. He deserves the credit for teaching her the trick - he is so good at teaching kids stuff - but I don't want to blame him for the fact that we might have taught her a bad trick). Wow, do you think I can finally spit this sentence out? Third time's a charm. We taught her how to "fall back" on our bed. But now she's doing it everywhere. Like off my lap this morning. Don't worry, I caught her. And on the floor. Like with no padding underneath her head. So now we're working on unteaching her this trick, or at least teaching her that she can only do it on a soft surface.

Enough of my blabbing already. Watch the video.

Family Pictures. Again.

2011-01-17T20:52:00.000-08:00

Well, we got family pictures taken again. This time with Brandon's entire family. The goal is to get one printed for his parents' house to replace the one that's there. It's only about 12 years old I think.

Mckinley still doesn't like to smile when getting her picture taken (it's not just you Ashli!).

A couple different poses of the whole family.

I tell ya what, this family isn't getting any smaller!

It's always so fun to have all the grandkids together. And then to pretend like you're actually going to get a good picture with all of them in it.

The countdown continues. Two weeks from today till my parents get home. I can't believe it's finally almost here.

One Year Older And Wiser Too

2011-01-05T18:34:00.001-08:00

Happy Birthday on January 4th to the best dad and husband anyone could ever ask for.

It's funny how similar this year's picture is to those in the past.

If you want to see the previous 3 years, click here:

Brandon's 26th Birthday

Brandon's 25th Birthday

Brandon's 24th Birthday

Last week on Thursday we ate at Texas Road House before heading to our hotel in Lehi.

Good thing someone remembered Brandon's birthday was coming up (wish I could take credit for that one, but it totally slipped my mind) so the servers could embarrass him. Here he is riding the saddle and yelling "Yee Haw!!"

Mckinley thought it was pretty funny. She is such a happy girl these days, even while still being sick.

Brandon got breakfast in bed for his birthday, then we went to Pizza Factory for lunch, and had Thai Food for dinner at his parents' house, followed of course by the traditional shared cake with his little sister. He had a basketball game that night so we didn't do any crazy celebrating, but he said it was a good birthday.

Back to Christmas for a minute, here is Mckinley with Santa Clause. She didn't cry or anything, in fact, she smiled at him right after this picture was taken.

Here is Mckinley enjoying (and yes, standing up all on her own believe it or not) her music table she got from Grandpa Salmon for Christmas. She can't pull herself up, but if you put her next to something, she is really good at standing up next to it. She sure is growing up!

I got Brandon this popcorn maker for Christmas. He said he wanted one of the big ones but I knew he wasn't serious so I got this awesome nostalgic counter top one instead. It's perfect!

Mckinley's booster chair didn't quite come in time for Christmas but we're sure glad we have it. She is getting to be a little more mobile now and doesn't do as well just sitting on the floor while being fed. She loves to bang her spoon on the tray.

Mckinley had fun this Christmas getting to know her cousin Sam, who has now gone back to New Mexico. Can't we implement a rule that family isn't allowed to move out of state?? I hate that she has cousins she will never know.

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We had a fun New Years Eve. We had some amazing food over at Brandon's parents house. His dad bought all sorts of noise makers and confetti and stuff, so after a burst of fun, everyone got right to work cleaning up the mess. I'm still finding pieces of confetti in Mckinley's diaper bag.

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Mckinley's hair is long enough to put in a tiny ponytail on the top of her head. It's so fun and so stinking cute!

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Now tell me this picture isn't cute. Mckinley got the cutest white furry jacket from one of the doctors I work for.

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It's hard to believe that in 2 days Mckinley will be 8 months old. She has grown up so much and gets more and more fun every day. She has quite a few newly learned tricks. She will spit out her binki on demand (even did it over skype for my mom and sister - so awesome!), she can clap, she kind of waves, if you say "give me a kiss" she will usually look straight at you until you kiss her, she is getting super close to crawling (at least it seems that way). She smiles at anyone and everyone, she is a super good sleeper and has learned how to find her binki when it falls out which means I get to stay in bed more at night. She hates getting her mouth wiped after eating, loves getting her diaper changed, loves taking a bath, but doesn't love getting dressed for some reason. I have no idea how much she weighs or how long she is. I never do that on my own but maybe I should since she doesn't have a doctor appointment for another month still.

The most exciting thing we have going on is that my parents will be home from Hong Kong in just 26 days!!! I think about it all. the. time. (literally) and can't wait for them to meet Mckinley. I think that's it for now...

Mckinley's First Christmas

2010-12-29T05:54:00.000-08:00

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.

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

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

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. :)

She sure did love playing with my fuzzy socks though.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

A WHITE Christmas

2010-12-21T09:58:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-17T15:09:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-12T19:50:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-29T15:51:00.000-08:00

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!!!