Such a busy little bee!

I realize that while I am writing this, I now have a 13.5 month old! Our sweet little girl turn ONE on October 2nd, and I'm a bit behind on updating the blog.

Family Picture at one of her birthday festivities.

We had a few little get togethers for her birthday, with Daniel's family the Sunday before her birthday, on her actually birthday we just had our little family time (which was very nice), and then the following weekend we celebrated with my family. This little girl didn't need much, so from mom and dad she got some shoes, a baby doll, and a bean bag chair.  From Grandparents Luke she got a little toy wagon and some nice winter clothes, Grandparents Richens a set of the realistic looking animals that IFA carries, (cow, horse, dog, sheep, pig, rooster, goose, and a monkey because a few days prior to her birthday she learned the sound a monkey makes only by seeing a picture of one once, smart girl), stacking cups and PJs from Adam Jessie and kids, and some USU Aggie gear from Jared and Gabby.

My baby the night before she turned one year old! So big, yet still only in 9 month pajamas!

Those front teeth that were bugging her for so long finally popped through, just a week or so after her birthday, and others were quick to follow! She has six teeth now, her two bottom ones, her two top ones, her left incisor just broke through two days ago, and about a week ago I found a molar had popped through on her left side, which might explain the two or three fussy nights we had leading up to me finding it!

Crazy girl was pulling her wagon and didn't know what to do with her blanket, so she was carrying it around in her mouth, problem solver!

Birthday girl enjoying her birthday cupcake!

As of late McKenna has started saying hi to everything. It is pretty cute. And now she has started saying the names of things twice, for example, where she once said ball, she now says ba ba, not sure why that is.. Hopefully she will get back into saying ball again. She will say "hi mama" "hi dada" "hi mah ma(grandma)" "hi papa (grandpa)" "hi da-dee (baby)" "hi teddy" "hi ba-ba (ball)". She loves to get mom's or dad's phone and talk to grandma or papa. She still loves dogs, or ruff ruffs, and cats, and is starting to say more of the kitty kitty sound.

Riding the brrm brrm with Dad

Looking over the fence to say hi to Jake the dog. Hi ruff ruff!

She loves just about any food you put in front of her..except for pizza, odd huh! What kid doesn't like pizza?  Maybe she will acquire a taste for it. This past week I gave her a little bit of my orange to try, and she went nuts!  So we have to limit her to one little orange a day so she doesn't get too much vitamin C :)  This little girl does not like cows milk though.. so weaning should be kind of interesting and hasn't gone well so far.  I've actually resorted to mixing half whole chocolate milk with half regular whole milk, and telling her to drink her chocolate bubbles.. that has helped a little bit, but come nap time she does not want the sippy cup!

Sweet girl playing in the leaves.

Looking through the McKenna sized hole in the fence to say hi to Jake.

She loves the slide, and I love the scrunched nosed smile!

I'm a year old!

Tired of all these pictures mom! See ya later!

She also loves trains! Any time we hear one outside we have to stop what we are doing and listen for it, her eyes get all big and light up and then she echoes with the brrrm brrm noise, which is her choo choo for now :)  Because of this, one way that I am able to get her to hold still love enough to get her dressed and do her hair in the morning is by watching Thomas the Train on the PBS kids app on the iPad, so now anytime she see the iPad sitting out it leads to brrm brrm! and wanting to use it.. so I have to keep it up or hidden so that we don't spend too much time with the tech.

Halloween dressed up as Fred, Wilma, and Pebbles Flintstone.

This little girl is full of such spunky personality, she makes us laugh every day with the funny things she does.  She has come up with some pretty sweet new dance moves, she'll clap her hands more, sway forward and backward sticking her belly out rather than just side to side, and she is a pro at stomping with her left foot.  She is pretty quick on her feet and really steady, but sometimes she forgets to look where she is going, and we do going up the stairs great... but down - this girl just wants to take them like a big big girl, but her legs aren't long enough, so we are trying to work on turning around and going down backwards. 

Celebrating Daddy's birthday, 26 days after McKenna's.

McKenna bought a car with her birthday money, and she wouldn't even let her dad put it together before she climbed in it.  Brrm Brrm! She loves it, and loves to take her babies and teddy for rides in it with her often!

My mom has a picture of me exactly like this, maybe I'm a little older, but she's so darn cute, loves her bath, and look at that hair!

I have a shadow.. who is really good and watching and copying what she sees. She likes to try to put on makeup now, it is pretty cute :) We might have a Diva on our hands!

It is hard to believe she's only been a part of our lives for 13 months, but we wouldn't have it any other way!

All things round!

Built a fort with dad to watch 101 Dalmatians.

Time flies, this little girl has already turned 11 months old - where did the past eleven months go?  In a little less than a month our baby will be one!  She continues to make us laugh and smile every day.  She is becoming more and more vocal and starting to point and gesture for things that she wants or is looking for.  I have a cow in part of my decoration in my kitchen and everyday she points to it and says "moo!" She can now easily identify and remember which of her books have balls and dogs in them, and every time she sees a picture of a flower she now smells it :)  She is so smart and learning so quickly. 

Our newest project - tearing into the old fireplace to see what we need to do to get it ready for a wood burning stove - Daniel is sure excited to have to chop wood and build a fire (he seriously is though! even though this picture says otherwise)

Her favorite treats are the freeze dried yogurt treats - she would eat a whole bag in a day if we let her I'm sure.  She has started a cute inhale sound when she gets excited about something.  She loves anything that is round that seems to be a ball - the first thing we do when we wake up in the morning is go and find the balls and play with them - she loves to have daddy hold her and she will hit them out of his hand to be bounced on the floor back up. 

McKenna helping dad with the demolition

This little diva has started to acquire quite the little dance moves.  At first it was just shaking her head, not it has progressed to waving her arms and her torso - and she now bounces at the knees and does a better body roll then her mama could have ever hoped to accomplish!  I hope she continues to love music and dance - because we would like to start her in it in about two years. 

Sorry about the orientation - the shoes she is wearing are size 1 - starting to get tight finally - just a little girl!

She is still just a little thing - I tried putting a Carters 9 month outfit on her the other day - and the leggings were all bunched up around her knees and ankles... and the 6-12 month onesie outfits that they recently updated in Walmart (which are such cute colors of blues, greys, and pinks) swamp her to the point I have to roll the pant legs up almost an inch - the onesies are a little better.  We sure do start to fade our clothes pretty well before we grow out of them!

It is so hard to get her to hold still and smile for pictures - but she sure had a lot of personality!  I love it!!

Loves her balls!

Lots of kisses for daddy!

She has started getting really good at giving loves (hugs)  but usually only kisses for mom and dad.  She sure doesn't act like she has only been walking barely a month- she is so quick on her feet it is unreal, and you have to keep her in sight at all times, there is no telling where she will go or what she will get into.  Daniel and I comment all the time how much joy she brings - she truly has changed our world so much for the better, she is our little sweetheart that we waited so long for.

Our Uncle Chantz enters the MTC today, and stopped by for a parting hug.

We are sure going to miss him a lot - this was by the far the hardest one to send off, Chantz has always been there!  Poland will be receiving a great missionary - we are excited for the things he will learn, the good he will do and the people with serve.

See you in two years Elder Richens! Loves from McKenna Mae

Walking......running!

I can say it is getting harder and harder to update these on time it seems.  We are three weeks past being ten months so I will recap.

Two days shy of being ten months McKenna just took off, started letting go of things and just walking! Crazy girl! She just grabbed the fridge magnets and took off, I caught her first longer jaunts on camera and video, so glad I was there to see it.  She is a little daredevil, it didn't take her long to get it down and now we cannot crawl behind her fast enough to keep up, she is getting pretty quick!

Cheeser grin while sharing popcorn with dad, I love my dad so much!

In the last few weeks she has become obsessed with balls, we have a big green one for her, and at grandmas house she knows exactly where the big balls are and heads straight to go downstairs when we arrive.  She loves dogs, every time we hear one in the neighborhood barking we have to stop, say "da" and the it is followed by her little barks which are more like a "braah" sound, love it! She can recognize balls, ba, kitty's, kit, dogs, da, cows, moo, and fish, pop pop pop. She is such a smart little girl.

Entering the huggies rewards codes with mom.. I got a little bored, so we played with the stickers all over (love her face!)

Since she has started walking we have to hide her special blanket on top of our bed so she cannot see it or she want to walk all over the house with it, which would be fine if she didn't say "oh" and collapse onto it numerous times not caring where her head would land, or tries to walk and it gets tangled up around her feet and she bonks her head on the table- yes we have already had some nice bruises, with many more to come I know.

One of my favorite places to play... under the table!

She is obsessed with all cords, and will pull them out of the sockets, just to swing them around and jabber at them, crazy girl. She has just started understanding that we don't put rocks incur much, and will copy me when I say yuck, cah! But it got her to not out them in her mouth :). Flowers are a different story still.  Se has also mastered the art of climbing the stairs, I still don't dare let her do it alone, sometimes halfway through she gets bored and decides to turn around and fly into our arms to be carried.

Love playing with the magnets on the fridge!

Still just two bottom teeth, those darn top ones just won't break through, and now her eye teeth are floating down too, we may do all six at once at this rate!

Shortly after I got walking down, I decided to see how big of objects I could carry while walking.

This past weekend we took her to the living planet aquarium, and she loved it! I'm sure her mouth was exhausted from all the fish noises she kept making, but it was so much fun, for all of us.  Her favorites were the river otters, the fish, and the penguins that kept zooming on by.

I LOVE SHOES!  They are one of my favorite things to play with!

We love having this little doll around, she makes us laugh everyday, she will play peekaboo and hide under her blanket and stare at us through the holes and just giggle, she is such a happy baby! Crazy to think she is almost a year! I've loved not having to go back to work, but being able to be with her, such a blessing to be able to!

The first weekend in August we entered McKenna in the baby contest at the County Fair.

She won cutest eyes - she was super cute up on stage!  I need to get more pics from Chantz's camera.

Her winnings and entry gift.  She won a $10 gift certificate to Walmart, and then got to choose the purple hippo and the bag for entering.

This girl loves making messes :) and taking things out of where they belong.

Slow Down Sweet Babe of Mine!

On the second of July, McKenna turned nine months old. Where have these past nine months gone? In three, well now 2.5 short months our little girl will be a year old already!  It has been so fun to be home with her these past six weeks, we do a lot of playing, reading, and mess making around here :) just in time to get it all cleaned up for daddy to come home.

McKenna's hair is finally too long for her little curl unless I work really hard to get it to stand up (lots of product) so we tried pigtails for the first time here, she looks pretty darn cute!

Trying a tootsie pop for the first time, from dad, she loved it!

This little busy body loves food, and is always coming over to share what you have.  She loves to nibble on little pieces of bread, fruit, and cheese as we are eating.  Her all time favorite foods are avocado, broccoli, and butternut squash comes in at a close third place. She has started liking her lunchtime fruit a lot more, as well as yogurt for breakfast, but she has started playing with her treats lately, pulling them out of her mouth and not really wanting to eat them.. Maybe she will kick out of it, but for now we watch her close, or they end up anywhere in a goopy, spitty mess.

Kenna loves the water and loved/loves her pool, this was her first time.

It wasn't long after the crawling thing, maybe two weeks, that she started wanting to be walked everywhere.  She would grab on to our hands and want to be led around, she would constantly crawl around right under your feet until you grabbed her hands to help her walk. Now she is to the pint where she will walk very well along the coffee table and couches, and actually stands for short periods on time on her own, and she loves to get behind her little walking toy and push it up and down and up and down the hall, all over the front room.. She is trying to learn how to steer it so she doesn't get stuck.  We are thinking by 10 or 10.5 months she will have the walking thing down perfect at the rate she is going.  Then she will be unstoppable!  She already is though, she has finally learned how to open the cupboards and pull things out, time to get locks on them! And she loves to play with the refrigerator magnets, pushing them all over the floor, as well as her favorite spot in the kitchen is the first shelf in the fridge. She could stand and bang on it for hours if I let her I think ;)

It is neat to see how quickly she grows and develops, she has for a few weeks now recognized her kitty, "ki" that progressed into the sound "kit". And now sometimes your can hear an "e" on the end of it.  She recognizes picture of fish and the pop, pop, pop of the lips that they make.  She also will say "moo", more like a "maoh" if she sees a picture or her little finger puppet of a cow.  She is so smart, and still loves to read books, her page turning skills are so fun and flourishful (if that is a real word). She will hollar for dada in the mornings and mama when she needs something she can't get.  She is getting louder and louder, there are times when I run downstairs to change a load of laundry and leave her right at the top by the baby gate so she can see me and I can see her, she loves it, she will just start yelling as loud as she can until I respond.  Her little laugh is contagious, and her smile with those cute little teeth are so fun!

Tried to rotate this picture, so funny, it is so hard to take pictures of her now - she moves all over, and this is a funny face I caught "I'm done mom, just let me play!"

Playing in rain puddles with dad

She still just has the two teeth, but has been working on her top four.  They are so close to coming in. The weekend of the fourth we took our first road trip and McKenna stayed away from home for two nights for the first time in her life, it was fun, but we slept horribly! There was about a space of 5 days or so that she would wake up and just be inconsolable and finally sooth herself, in my arms, back to sleep, but if put back in her crib would wake right back up.  Her teeth were really inflamed and bugging her, I'm sure that was the main problem. Here is hoping they come through soon, but for now we are getting a little more sleep around here.

We had a downpour in Price a few weeks ago and McKenna loved the puddles, and threw a fit when we brought her in.

 This past week I went to Girls Camp for the day on Thursday, and when I got back McKenna was already asleep.  The next morning I noticed a little red dot/ blister looking thing on her heel and thought she had just gotten a bug bite on the walk that Jared and Gaby took her on the night before.  But they she started to get more.  Being worried, we took her in to Dr. Madsen, luckily he had an opening on Saturday, and he said it looked a lot like hand/foot/mouth disease which is where children mostly from 0-5 years old develop blisters on the bottoms and tops of their Handsand feet, and can get sores in her mouth.  He gave an ointment that is working wonders and her blisters are healing really

Photo op with Grandma while Dad, Grandpa, and Uncle Chantz are putting the tree in.

well.  Luckily she didn't have it really bad, but who would have ever thought... You get it through the dirt or saliva, so we stayed home from church so as to not share it with anyone else cause it just doesn't look fun :( luckily she isn't full on walking yet or it would have hurt a lot more.

Putting the tree in - Autumn Blaze Maple Tree

Kenna loves to play her new little piano!

Next up for new things around here is the news that I have a new job.  I am now employed with the " Stay At Home Mom Agency" we are so happy and blessed that we have planned and planned and lived our lives in such a way that I have the opportunity to do this.  It was not an easy decision to leave my school kids, I know I will miss being a teacher, but I didn't want to be unfair to my students or McKenna since I wanted to be the best possible mom and the best possible teacher.  I couldn't do both, and one is more important in the long run than the other.  So I turned in my letter of resignation to my principal, and have been packing up my classroom.  My principal was very supportive and that helped, and a lot of my colleges, friends, and family have expressed how happy they are that we are able to.  For that support I am grateful. I will continue to sub and volunteer so as to get points to keep my license current, but I am so glad and relieved that I won't have to worry about McKenna choking on something, or getting shocked by the cords she loves to play with so much, she is such a busy little girl, and you can't let her out of your sight.  I have everything in storage from my classroom as, one day, after my kids are in school, I will probably go back to teaching.  Right now I'm glad I can be a teacher and mom to my sweet little girl.


Daniel- better update on him. He is a great worker and a wonderful guy, I'm so blessed to have him around. He was supportive from the get go with me talking about quitting my job.  He has been working on making some positive improvements to Washington Park, new parking lot, new basketball court, new horseshoe pits, and really nice landscaping.  He is doing great when it comes to managing the jobs, I don't know how he handles the added stress of that sometimes, but he loves it, and he does a great job and is a great leader to his guys.  It has been neat to see him grow into the manager he has become the past two years, we are grateful that Nielson Comstruction has given him the opportunities they have.  We sure have loved having daddy so close to home that he can come home for lunch most days!

Life is good, and it is the small things that matter most- we are living by that and enjoying the sweet joys of parenthood.

Kenna Bug Turns Eight Months Old!

That is a face of trouble right there! :) 

Our little Kenna bug is now eight months old! Crazy!  It is now summer time (yay) and I get to be home with my baby all day and I am truly loving it!  Haha there are days when she takes a really good afternoon nap and I find myself going in to make sure she is still okay and hoping she will wake up soon so that we can continue playing.

This little one is such a happy baby, so full of smiles and laughter.  She has her hot tempered moments too, dad and I are in for trouble in the upcoming years. Dad already jokes about having two hot headed red heads in the house :)

This was the morning after we lowered the crib... already pulled up again!

Some of McKennas milestones:
On Friday, May 24th (the day after school got out) McKenna had a horrible night, woke up screaming and could not be consoled for a while... Well looking in her mouth a little later that day, and feeling around, she sprouted her first tooth!  It is her bottom right, and we can see that her bottom left is not far behind.  It is because of this that she has intensified her play with her tongue, her new favorite place is off to the side and clear out of her mouth.

The day after she sprouted her tooth we had some family over and had McKenna out on the grass (which she doesn't mind being on without a blanket) and up until that point she would consecutively take three or four crawls at a time and then do her little scoot.  Well we thing the workout of the grass did it for her, she is now a crawler, and by no means a slow one at that! She is TROUBLE! Before she could even crawl she was climbing up on things.. Now it just makes it ten times easier, she loves the fireplace, climbing on the end tables, and getting into everything!

She is a climber!

In the past month we have introduced her to sweet peas, butternut squash, cauliflower, carrots, cantelope, and bananas with berries.  What makes me laugh is that she really doesn't like the fruit, we are going to try peaches and pears next, it is a little slow going introducing new stuff because I do it for 3 days at a time so that we can see if she has an allergic reaction or not. She is becoming pro at drinking from a cup, just not on her own yet or she dumps it, but she doesn't like a sippy cup.

She is everywhere!

She is just barely coming out of 3-6 month clothes, and there are some 3-6 month clothes that still fit her.  6-9 are a bit big and baggy, but we are I between right now. Her hair is getting even longer. I am starting to have a difficult time getting her curl to stand up, but it is still red red :) we love how it glows in the sun!

Sounds: This girl is a jabberer. She has now moved forward with her sounds continuing the ma-ma-ma, to pa-pa-pa, and da-da-da. She loves to inflect her voice up and down as if she were singing, it is precious. She still buzzes her lips and rolls her tongue, but she has also mastered how to click her tongue too! When she was teething she had a really bad runny nose and would hate for us to wipe it, so I taught her how to "blow" her nose, she will lean in towards the tissue and let you wipe it, now we will work on the blowing ;)  she is a great kisser too, haha, when in good moods she will give mom and dad sweet open mouth kisses.... And her teddy bear too, who she then proceeds to bite :) and laugh at.  She has started laughing back when she does something that makes us laugh, and she still gets the hiccups really bad when she gets laughing.

Brushing her tooth while mom brushes her teeth!

One sweet thing is she has started to not want her daddy to leave, she has started following him around, begging to be picked up, when she can sense he is getting ready to go.  She is good at that, being right at your feet when she wants you.

Introduced her to otter pops!  She loves them!

She loves books! The other day, we were going to rock for a nap, and she refused to settle down until I read her about 5 stories! So now she will almost throw a fit daily, if not more, to look at and read books when we go down for naps.

Smile!  See my tooth?

This sweet Kenna bug keeps us smiling, and it is hard to believe in four short months she will already be a year old.  We are enjoying everyday with her!