What should he be when he grows up?

My 14 month old is trying to decide....

A tupperware consultant
A sock model

A kitchen organizer

A cook (a doctor on his days off)

A dishwasher (a doctor on his days off)

Or maybe he'll just stay a kid for a while

We are having a great December so far. The parties and get togethers have been enjoyable. Now we can relax for the rest of the month. We have had hardly any snow. Someone the other day said, "I wish we were having a white Christmas. I don't like green Christmases." GREEN??? That is a generous description of a southern Utah winter. he he he. We will spend Christmas with Kimball's family in Enterprise. I am excited for McKay to open presents, even though we should really just be getting him a cardboard box and that would keep him busy for a couple hours. :)

{MERRY CHRISTMAS}

Blissful Weekend

Definition of blissful weekend: having your husband home all day Saturday and all day Sunday.

Haircut

As I have mentioned before, I have trimmed McKay's hair in the front and back many times. His hair has been a lot of fun, but the length and thickness and all-over-the-place-ness was getting to me. So, that led to a REAL haircut.

{Before haircut. McKay is sitting with his cousin Sam. Side note: when we visited Sam & Lauren in Seattle, Lauren would refer to me as "Shelley" and Sam would refer to me as "McKay's mommy." Cute.}

{After haircut with the barber himself}

{Spiky hair McKay is sitting in front of the spiky tree- he figured that one out real quick}

Thanksgiving

We spent a day in downtown Seattle when we were there for Thanksgiving, and what a fun, cold day we had!

We saw the Nutcracker ballet with 15 extended family members (yearly tradition courtesy of grandma)

We rode the carousel

It was kind of chilly

We saw the gingerbread houses that various companies have commissioned to be made all out of different types of candy and food. Very cool!

Thankful for family

pictures taken by Melinda Bowler

I am thankful to have these boys a part of my life (even though McKay doesn't look very thankful). I just loved his little face on this picture, so I had to add it. We leave today to spend Thanksgiving in Seattle, my true HOME! I can't wait to be there again. That place holds so many memories for me, especially around Thanksgiving time as we have a lot of traditions as a family there for this holiday.

Free Babysitting Anyone?

(This picture doesn't really have anything to do with the post other than I was excited to have a couple hours of free time with no pots and pans on the ground. Ha ha)

Last night the young women of our ward offered free baby-sitting from 6-8pm at the church during their normal mutual activity. During the day yesterday, I kept thinking to myself, "I don't think I'll take McKay over there. Kimball will be at scouts and I don't really have anything I have to do." Then one of the YW came over to remind me, and I think I sensed a pleading in her voice to let her play with McKay that night, so I reconsidered, and I am SO glad.

Let's just say I felt a little funny driving to the church because I thought, "I'm going to be the only one bringing my kid and they're going to think that I am a crazy mom," but when I arrived, there were tons of kids already there!! (Yahoo) So I got to spend a couple hours alone at my house while the girls googly eyed over McKay. When I picked him up, they said, "he was the only baby that didn't cry. He is soooo good!" Sweet. Good ending to a great two hours alone.

Happy Fall

With fall comes BYU football for our family! This year hasn't been so great, but last Saturday's game was fantastic! We went with Brian and my parents.

McKay played with Blake & Heather (Kimball's brother) while we watched the game.

Fun Costumes

We went to a party as salt and pepper shakers. That was a lot of fun. I love to get dressed up in costumes with Kimball. He's a great sport about it too!

McKay scared everyone who came trick or treating at our door (not quite, but he is working on his roar).

Birthday Party

McKay having fun with a couple presents. He loves stuffed animals. He grabs them and puts them up to his face and kicks his legs up and down.

McKay's balloons

The cake. I could not figure out how to rotate the darn picture, but you can just turn your head.

McKay's so happy he turned 1!

1 Year and Tender Mercies

McKay turns 1 tomorrow, and I can hardly believe it has been a year. We, as our little family of 3, have had numerous tender mercies this past year. A leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Elder Bednar, gave a great talk on tender mercies.

He said, "the Lord’s tender mercies are the very personal and individualized blessings, strength, protection, assurances, guidance, loving-kindnesses, consolation, support, and spiritual gifts which we receive from and because of and through the Lord Jesus Christ. I testify that the tender mercies of the Lord are available to all of us and that the Redeemer of Israel is eager to bestow such gifts upon us."

A few tender mercies that I have been thinking about over the past little while:

• My OB for McKay. We were living in Logan at the time, and he strongly encouraged me to induce labor the same day I had some tests done that showed McKay was not responding well in utero. After a few days in the NICU, McKay's pediatrician said to me, "it is amazing that he came when he did because if you had waited even one more day, he could have been much more sick or dead."
• Family-my parents, Kimball's parents, siblings, cousins. We have so many wonderful people in our families! The first two years of our marriage, we had the privilege of living close to some of my aunts/uncles/cousins. Now we live close to Kimball's parents and a few siblings. This is a blessing in our lives.
• Our house. I love it! It has helped me be more positive and adaptable to living in Southern Utah! After renting for a couple years, which really isn't that long in the grand scheme of things, I feel blessed to be in a house.
• McKay. Boy is he happy (most of the time). I just hope all his little siblings will follow in his footsteps and be just as smiley and happy. Some people have been shattering this hope in saying that all my children won't be like that.....ha ha. On a more serious note, it is truly amazing that McKay does not have any neurological problems after finding out that my placenta was not giving him enough nutrients to grow. I find this to be a huge tender mercy!
  
• Friends. I can't even begin to say how grateful I am for friends that have become my second family while Kimball works such long hours.

Thanks to everyone who has made our last year great! We love you, McKay!

Fun projects

It is amazing to me that I try to get anything done with this little guy crawling now...

...but once in a while, I do succeed in finishing a project.

This was a fun, cheap sewing project that now adorns my kitchen table

This is the garden that Kimball planted (thanks) and I attempted to keep up

And these lovely pears...oh I am so happy about this. First time ever for me canning. It was fun, but I am not quite sure how often I want to have that kind of "fun." :)

Whatcha waitin' for?

The other day, Kimball's dad asked us, "are you waiting until McKay is 1 to cut his hair?" Well, no. I have cut the sides and the back several times already. On top, however, McKay sports his own style of stick-straight-up hair. I water it down and I gel it, but it inevitably always ends up back like this:

Apparently, his daddy's hair did the same thing when he was a little squirt. Until it grows long enough to lay down, we just hear comments from passers-by (usually at grocery stores):
"oh his hair is so cute!"

Grandpa Jammies

I like to call these McKay's "grandpa jammies" because they ride so high on his belly. They are cute. Of course, he has outgrown them, but they were fun to wear for a month or so.

Late August 2010

Hot Air Balloon Festival

We enjoyed getting up bright and early last Saturday to watch all of the balloons get blown up and launch off. McKay loved hearing the air go into the balloons. I was surprised by how many people were at the park at 7am to watch. It was a lot of fun, and we are so glad daddy could stay home from work for a fun day!

11 months

McKay turns 11 months old tomorrow. I am happy to have an 11 month old! He is such a joyful little guy. He's always smiling at someone or laughing at something. He cries when a toy gets taken away, but of course he is okay with taking other kids' toys away. (You'd think he'd know that's not very nice.) :)

Lately McKay has been waving bye-bye and hello, clapping, nodding yes and shaking no, and scooting around (still no crawling). He has discovered how much he loves to play the piano and actually read books (instead of just chewing on them). But, I did find him chewing on the piano keys the other day...

He still has just one lonely tooth, but he is a GREAT eater! He is pretty much eating any table food now and he loves it. He hates getting his diaper changed. I am not sure why he puts up such a fuss, but I think it's because he doesn't like laying down on the changing table and not being able to see his toys.

We love McKay!

Rose Gardens

The last day we had in Portland was spent at the beautiful rose gardens. It's hard to really capture the beauty that was there, but here's some pictures anyways. There are rows and rows of tons of rose varieties.

Kind of a far away shot, but this is us with my parents

McKay liked grabbing the rose petals. There were multiple signs that discussed serious penalization and fining due to destruction or stealing of roses....ummm oops.

corn

How could life get any better?

Vacation!

Last week, we traveled to Oregon to my favorite vacation spot: Cannon Beach!

A cave we like to climb in at Hug Point

McKay enjoyed getting buried in the sand

Haystack Rock