We're Back

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!

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

Sleep

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

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

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

Now tell me that isn't just awesome!

Oh my gosh we love this girl.

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

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

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

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

Easter/Birthday

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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


Or dump the whole basket over.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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