Basically a Photo Dump....Enjoy!

McKenna's personality in picture form from the last few months. Can you see a difference in this big girl?

Standing

Being silly for the camera

Matching her cousin, who wasn't too happy

Meeting Great Grandpa for the first time....not sure about her cousin H

Playing with Sophie

Bananas!

Coming for the camera

She is growing like a weed and I can't help but relish in it while I can because I feel as if she is going to be grown up in no time.

A few more pictures from Jason's birthday party. (from a few months ago...oops)

Happy Birthday Daddy

Jen and McKenna

Great friends we met while we were both pregnant

McKenna's friend C

Great friends from church

Almost everyone....see McKenna and C playing?

March

The last month has been on my mind lately, mostly for all of the fun we've had and what we get to do in the next month.

 Our amazing friends from WI, the same ones who selfless-ly moved us out to CO, came back for another visit...sort of a pit stop on their way to California ...and we got them for a total of 10 days. It was AMAZING! They are great people, who teach us everyday by their marriage, the way they parent and their great faith! They are in our lives because God knew we needed their friendship! AND they have raised 4 adorable, sweet, and smart children, one of which we have the privilege to be God parents for. So.....in a nut shell we were thrilled to have their family of 6 even though they had to deal with some trials while they were here, most involving their car not working properly in the mountains.

Then it was birthday month!! At the beginning of March, as sort of a birthday gift to myself, I finally took the plunge and cut my hair. I had been talking about it for what seemed like forever and then was able to just go and do it. It was long enough that I was able to donate 10 inches and end with a fun, easy to do bob. I reminded myself to take before and after pictures and then completely forgot once I got to the salon so check out the other pictures and you'll get a glimpse of the change.

Both Jason and I had birthdays in March and what is so great about birthday month is all of the free items you can get because it's your birthday. Coffee, dinner x2, appetizers, and ice cream!!!! Plus I was able to organize a surprise party for Jason with most of our friends here. It was a great night filled with food, people, games, and cake. Jason and I both enjoy Oreo's so for the last few years we have shared an amazing Oreo birthday cake I found on My Baking Addiction.

Oreo Birthday Cake from My Baking addiction

After the excitement of our birthdays Easter was right around the corner. This is one of my favorite times of the year. The signs of Spring are here, people are starting to get outside again and most importantly it is the time of year we focus on the sacrifice that our Lord made. This time of year is also a very busy one with Jason working at our church. It seemed like he was at church all of Holy Week in preparation for the main three services of that week. We were also able to host an Easter dinner on Sunday for some friends who weren't able to make it back to their homes. We were blessed with amazing weather so besides dinner the day involved horseshoes, corn hole and washers. McKenna was even able to spend some time playing in her sandbox which really tuckered her out.

'Family' photo with our good friend Andrew on Easter

McKenna's Easter nap

Now that Jason's work life has calmed down, Easter is the 2nd busiest week of the year for him, we are able to look forward to a few things in the near future. In April we get to fly to MN and WI where Jason has a work conference and while we are there we will get to celebrate a very important 90th birthday and spend some quality time with our family then this summer our little girl will turn 1!

Life is treating us good!

Playing in McKenna's Crabby Sandbox while Dad grills supper

Life with our Spudette

        When McKenna was sick over Christmas we were at Jason's parents house and thankfully, since we were both sick too, his mom was able to take care of her. More recently McKenna and I both were showing cold symptoms, nothing major but McKenna was eating less and sleeping more, so I called in to the doctors office and we went in later that day. Turns out I had bronchitis and McKenna had an ear infection so we were both put on amoxicillin. Since being on our medicine we are both doing much better and McKenna is back to her normal self!

Happy baby girl!

          At McKenna's appointment we got her most recent stats as a 7 month old. She weighs 19.1 lbs. (84.39%) and is 27 in. (89.84%) long. Growing like crazy and is completely healthy except for the ear infection that she is getting over. We couldn't be happier with how she is growing. Her tricks to date include:

• recognizing both mom and dad (she's done this for quite some time but it never gets old)
• eating small/simple finger foods by herself (puffs, yogurt melts, etc.) even without any teeth

No teeth but super happy to gum-up her food

• attempting to wave, usually its a full arm wave to dad when he's leaving for work. She does try to wave with just her hand...she gets the motion down but its never AT anyone :)
• still taking two amazing 2 hour naps and sleeping through the night (Babywise...read it!!!)

She usually sleeps the wrong way....her head should be on the left side of this picture :)

• still loves her jumper for the most part, not as much recently because of her ear infection
• is content and happy to sit on the floor with toys while mom reads or cooks/bakes in the kitchen (although we did have an incident because she was sitting in our kitchen.....a nose dive + a hard kitchen floor = a bloody nose...thankfully she was ok even if I wasn't

Sitting on the floor getting her sign ready to wish Grandma Kim a Happy Birthday

• 'talking' saying consonants such as da-da(her favorite), ya-ya and ma-ma , her little voice is a constant reminder of the many years we have to look forward to of her voice, God-willing, filling our home
• she has also been very vocal during church, in the sanctuary, and when we are in our church's atrium. It echos in both of those rooms, they are large with vaulted ceilings and McKenna will not stop talking when we are there
• she sits on her own, falls rarely (remember the nose dive?), for the last few weeks she has been rolling all over the place and in the last two days she has started pushing herself up on hands and knees. She isn't crawling yet just getting up and rocking somewhat but I know it's in the near future!!
• McKenna has also been joining me at the gym! We belong to a small gym and their nursery hours don't always line up with the times I am able to work out so most of the time she is sitting on the floor next to me. We are developing her love of fitness from the start :)

          Besides all of these physical milestones and achievements that McKenna has reached we are also trying to instill values, morals, and good healthy habits in her. [Some people (I've met these people in years past) would say, 'You're trying to teach a baby? You can't, they are too young to learn.' When comments are made like that I quickly have to turn off that defensive part of my brain holding all of the knowledge I gained while getting my Degree in Early Childhood Education and turn on the understanding part. While those people are wrong because of course you can and should teach young children, this idea of teaching VERY young children is newer and only recently gaining popularity.] We are helping to teach her these things by doing them ourselves. Both Jason and I know that by implementing these positive habits in our life we will be showing her and any other future children (no, there are no future children in the works right now) how to live God-pleasing lives. An example being saying prayers, every night, whether it's Jason or I are putting her to bed, we hold her hands and say a bedtime prayer. Developing that as a habit so early on in her life will stick with her later on.

         Developing a new good habit is not a strong quality of mine so I have been consciously trying to work on myself. Since my last competitive soccer season working out constantly has been difficult for me to do. I enjoy playing sports and working out with people but when I'm by myself my motivation seems to disappear...especially when I look around the house and realize how many other things I could be doing. The last few weeks I have been able to set a work out schedule and for the most part stick to it! My hope is that this will be the first of many good habits I'll develop.

       What are some good habits you've had to a)work on for yourself b)are instilling in your children?

The Holidays

*I've said this before but.....better late than never......my technology skills are severely impaired......so sorry to the few family members that are actually interested in my sporadic life


Life has been zooming past us the last few weeks...more like months. Our baby girl is almost 7 months old (Where has the time gone?!?!?), Christmas and New Years have come and gone, we had family visitors (and sickness) and took a impromptu trip back to the midwest. With everything that's been going on I feel as though we haven't spent any time at home or just as the three of us but it was all worth it.


The weekend before Christmas some of my family arrived to spend the holidays with us and do some sightseeing. While they were in CO they visited Focus on the Family, Monarch Mountain, Garden of the Gods (a family favorite) and, the highlight for my craft-minded sister, Hobby Lobby (they don't have them near where she lives in MN). Since they were only able to stay for about a week there wasn't much time for sight seeing but we were able to have plenty of family time together celebrating our Saviors birth!

My beautiful sister, her daughter and me with mine

A trip out to Stadium Bar and Grill with my sister, brother-in-law, niece, and Spudette


I stole these pictures from my sister's blog (check it out here!) since I am terrible with my camera and didn't take any pictures while my family was here for Christmas.

Then we got a huge surprise after Christmas! Jason's mom wanted to fly us out to WI to be there for his family's Christmas. A few things made this even a possibility, first, our nephews were sick so they had to push the Christmas celebration back a few days, and our pastors family was going to leave to be with their family in the midwest but changed their plans.....SOOO we booked the tickets and set out to prepare for our fist flight with our Spudette. It was such a huge help that my sister, who has flown with her little one, was here as I was preparing and could help me make sure I was packing everything that we needed for flying with a baby and that the milk and formula was packed correctly.


Being so far away from our family we didn't expect to see anyone except through skype, we were so blessed to be able to see some family members in person. We also spent time on Skype....through computer or in person we were able to see almost all of our immediate family. Such an amazing Christmas!!!!


Blessings as you start 2013!

1st Thanksgiving in Colorado

Thanksgiving looked a little different for us this year being so faraway from the majority of our family. Our Thanksgiving used to typically consist of driving to different family members houses, eating a lot, spending time with with aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents (and maybe some Black Friday shopping). Instead, this year our Thanksgiving celebration looked like this: Wednesday night, Thanksgiving Eve Church Service with a pie social(so yummy!), Thursday, thanksgiving day dinner and watching football with some church friends, on Friday we were cleaning the house and prepping our food (cooked our turkey overnight) for hosting a Saturday Thanksgiving dinner, having 7 friends come over and bring wonderful additions to our meal, Sunday morning we had church/bible study and once we were all home it was nap time then for dinner and a football game we headed over to a church friends house.

Our Thanksgiving dinner was delicious!!!! We only made a few of the dishes and here they are:
The Turkey ~ We tried something new with our bird this year thanks to my mother-in-law and it was amazing! We buttered and seasoned it using: garlic salt, seasoning salt, black pepper, poultry seasoning and sage, then put it in the oven on Friday night 10pm at 300* and the Mister got up at 5am Saturday morning to take it out(LOVE HIM!). We let it cool for a few hours then took all the meat off the bone, put it in the crockpot with the juices sans the fat, until we ate around 3:30pm that afternoon. We loved doing it this way for a few reasons being 1) we didn't have to even think about our turkey because it cooked while we slept, 2) it was super easy, 3) it was amazingly tender! We will definitely be trying that recipe again!

The Ham ~ We cooked our ham the way the package said to. I know, boring, right? But it was great...I may have added extra brown sugar...LOVE the caramelization that happens! Even though it was Thanksgiving and the main event is supposed to be the turkey I am such a sucker for the ham. The Potatoes ~ We HAVE to have mashed potatoes at every holiday. I think it has something to do with growing up in meat and potato country, the Midwest. We boiled, mashed and mixed up 10lbs. of potatoes to put in the crockpot. As long as your crockpot can be set on low or warm the potatoes will stay fluffy and creamy until you're ready to eat.Peanut Butter

Cream Pie ~ I cannot even pretend to take credit for thinking up this amazingly sweet concoction. I am NOT a baked fruit person. I don't know what it is, the texture maybe? So when I was trying to think up a pie to bake for our church's pie social I googled recipes with graham or pretzel crust and came across this one. I didn't end up using it for the pie social but thought I would let my Thanksgiving guests be my guinea pigs to try it out. Everyone who tried it said it was good enough to make again. Personally, I am the worst critic of what I make, I thought The peanut butter/whipped cream mixture was a bit much which made the pie extremely sweet....not always a bad thing but can be overpowering for some people.

Our amazing friends are the ones who brought everything else to complete this feast. We had rolls, corn, green bean casserole (one of our favorite dishes!), wine, beer, dump cake, and turtle pie! It was a great first Thanksgiving in CO! (This post is very boring without the pictures, I apologize. I forgot to take pictures on Thanksgiving and I haven't been able to get our friends pictures yet to add to this post. Hopefully you have a great imagination ;)

Total Spudette

I have not devoted much time on McKenna updates for the main fact of having little time. I knew with her arrival it meant lots of visitors, different schedules for Jason and I and still attending a variety of events and practices. All of these happenings took up plenty of time and blogging wasn't a priority compared to hanging out with the cutest daughter I have! Now that she has gotten older, 4 months a week ago, her schedule is different and she takes longer naps (that post is for a different time, Babywise is AMAZING) I have more large chunks of time during the day to spend doing things around the house and blogging. So this is the start of my attempt to update you on our little girl's first 4 months.

Asleep with Dad while Mom gets her bottle ready.

McKenna's 4 month appointment went great, minus the vaccines.! It is so hard to watch your little baby in pain even when its for a good reason. She is 16lbs.(90%) and almost 25 in.(70%) long and extremely healthy which is all that matters. During our appointment McKenna started showing off for the Doctor and even grabbed her nuk out of my hand and put it in her mouth. She had never done that before, usually she can get it close but is typically sucking/chewing on the hard plastic part of the front or side but that day she finally got it! McKenna is also becoming more and more focused. She will look and watch for her nuk and especially her bottle, she definitely knows her bottle when she sees it, she also loves watching dad, mom, and Sophie (our lab mix). Sophie and McKenna were never really that interested in each other but lately McKenna can't keep her eyes off of the dog while Sophie still runs and hides every time McKenna starts to cry. 

When we got close to the 4 month mark we also started cloth diapers. This topic seems to be a difficult one for some people saying that issues with cloth diapering outweigh the benefits. Deciding to cloth diaper was a no brainer from before McKenna was here. Shortly after we got married two of our neighbors and close friends were pregnant. Both of their husbands were studying to go into the full time pastoral ministry and both cloth diapered. Now I'm not saying if your in the ministry that you have to cloth diaper, it just so happens that alot of people who are in the ministry do cloth diaper. The main reason being cost, which is true for us as well. http://www.snapsandsnails.org/blog/2011/02/25/how-much-were-really-saving/ This blog post goes into great detail, she did a TON of research, about the cost difference between disposables and cloth...about $3000 difference and that's only for 1 child. After having so many trustworthy friends using cloth and seeing how much we could save it was a no brainer for us, but I do know that it's not for everyone. So far we have 2 new bumgenius, love them, 4 second-hand fuzibunz, love them, and 6 thirsties covers with about 20 prefolds, starting to like these more. Originally I had issues with the thirsties, leaking being the main problem but I think it was due to my inexperience with cloth. After a few days and trying different folds with the cover we have been leak free :) Besides starting our cloth diapers life around here as been amazingly relaxing and simple. Fall seems to have officially started here in Colorado with cooler temperatures and we couldn't be happier to finally have Holidays just around the corner. We are looking forward to getting together with great friends to celebrate Thanksgiving and all we have been given this year and then Christmas will be here before we know it and some of our family will be with us to celebrate our Savior's birth. We can't wait!! Here are some pictures from McKenna's first few months. We love her to pieces!

3 Months

3 months and 17 days to be exact; that's how old my beautiful spudette is today and how long it's been since life has changed forever....for the best!

As amazing life has been its also been a bit chaotic lately. In the past month McKenna has traveled to and through 4 new states, met 4 of her 5 great-grand parents, saw all 6 of her grandparents again (they visited us shortly after her birth), met 4 uncles and 2 aunts, met her God-parents (Jason's brother and sister-in-law), met 3 cousins, numerous great aunts and uncles, and was able to spend quite a bit of time with the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins that visited us when she was just a few days/weeks old. In addition to that, the day after we got to MN we had to cancel our plans because I was in urgent care with a temperature of 103*, sever dehydration and pneumonia. NOT the way we intended to start our vacation! Thankfully being with family made it much easier to be sick since they all wanted to take care of us and McKenna, it was almost a relaxing time :) A HUGE thank you again to our family who took care of me!

We loved being back in the Midwest but it was definitely too short of a trip especially not knowing when we will be seeing all of the family again. During those 2 weeks we were also able to see a few good high school and college friends and all of their adorable kids. We also found quite a few future gentlemen suitors for McKenna from among our friends children, can anyone say 'arranged marriage'? Wouldn't it be great, to be able to pick an amazing, Godly spouse for your child? Anyway, that's a topic for a different day.