Mckinley's First Sleep Over

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


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


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

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

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

She sure is figuring out my iPhone pretty fast.

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

18 Months

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

They did everything together. They crawled together...


Played the piano together....


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


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

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


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


This picture was just too cute not to post.


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


Other things Mckinley does at 18 months:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She can point to most of her body parts.

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

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

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

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

25 lbs - 61%

32 inches long - 61%

head 19 inches - 97%

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

Trick or Treat

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


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


Out trick or treating.

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

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

It was a really fun Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

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?

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

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

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.