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!

Time usually crawls by, but someone else is crawling instead!

It really is crazy to me just how quickly time flies by.  McKenna is now 7 months old, and I'm a bad mom and didn't update on her sixth month.

We took McKenna in for her sixth month check up on April 9th, she weighed 14 pounds 3.5 ounces,  so just a little girl! She still had not doubled her birth weight.  She probably has now :) a month later. Daniel got to come to this checkup with me, so he got to help her the her shots.  Not fun! But we don't have any more until she is a year old! Some of her favorite things at 6 months:

Her toes, loves to play and suck in them! She is quite the contortionist!

She loves to put anything in her mouth, paper, fingers(hers and yours), spoons, toys, paper, etc.

She loves her walker, it is crazy how fast she is growing because about a month ago her toes barely touched the floor, and now she is flat footed

At six months we tried baby cereal and solids this time.  She LOVES avocados! As you can see by her excited face, she. Has also acquired a taste for sweet potatoes (didn't really like the texture of that one), bananas, and sweet peas, as well as oatmeal and rice cereal.

She also started scooting herself pretty well at six months across the floor.

We had to finally move her into the tub for baths because she was drenching my kitchen each night.  I don't think I have ever seen a baby loves water as much as she does!

At seven months this little cutie is starting to develop her little personality.  She loves being outside and does not mind the grass like most babies.  She loves to swing, stroller rides, and watching and listening to birds.

She is getting great with her "ma-ma-ma" sounds, buzzing her lips, and she has recently started rolling her tongue! The first time she did that I could believe she had, I can't even roll my tongue, she sure amazes me!

She is now an expert scooter- she can successfully get anywhere she wants and she is getting pretty quick at it too.  She will push up on to her arms, push with her feet, scoot, and then back on to her stomach, and repeat the process over.  She is pretty good at judging distances, she likes to scoot across the hallway and play with Daniel's alarm clock in our bedroom. She will follow me around the kitchen while I am making dinner, and gets pretty vocal when she wants your attention or to be picked up.  She also loves to kick things, whether that be the stove, the heat vents, the floor, the bottom 

 She loves just about anything you give her to eat now, that is baby food that is.  Her favorite is still avocado though.  There are thirteen more days of school left and then I get to be home with her all day! So excited and so ready for that! 

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin', keep that baby Rollin'!

Such a big girl sitting all on her own!

One word just about sums up McKenna to a tea right now, Rollin'! She rolls everywhere, onto the wood floor, into the tile at the base of the fire place, into the walls on the crib and pack n' play, into the leg of the coffee table, under Grandma Richens' coffee table, into the couch at Grandma's, and into just about anybody who will lay there and play with her.  I sure do love this girl! Each day she makes it harder and harder to go to work!

McKenna turned 5 months old on the second of March, so I am a little behind in posting this.  We tried a go with rice cereal about 3 weeks ago... We think it made her tummy pretty upset and gurgly, there was one night she cried for about and hour for me, and the sitter the next day :( so it was not worth it to me to have her be uncomfortable and not her normal happy, sweet self.  I have some oatmeal to try in a few weeks, and I have also started making some baby food that I thought I might give a go at when she is six months old.

Mmmm, my sock is soooo tasty! Live the look on her face in this one!

 This girl loves to roll everywhere as stated earlier!  There is no more just leaving her on the bed for a second. She has to be somewhere where she won't roll off.  She refuses to be held facing you, and automatically turns her body so she can see out in front of her.  She is so observant and watchful, this makes feeding her a bottle especially difficult, not quite as bad when she nurses.  Grandpa Richens thinks she wants to be an owl :).  She loves to buzz and gurgle still, and just recently has started making the ma-ma-am  ma-ma sounds- they are so cute! Now we are trying to work on the da-da and ba-ba sounds.



She does pretty well at sitting up, still wobbles from time to time, but whe. We put Baby Einstein on, she is very riveted and will sit without wobbles for at least five minutes or more.  She has started scooting backwards on her belly.  There are times that she will hike her rear end clear up, plant her face down, and scoot - crazy girl! She also just giggles whe I try to help her with the motion of pulling her knees up underneath her.  Daniel thinks she might be crawling by the time she is 6.5 months, we will have to see! We have the baby gate up already just in case

No teeth yet, but there are days when we wonder if they are starting to bug her- but we also know that they take a while to break through.  Here's hoping she got Daniel's pacing with teeth ( he didn't get any until he was a year old or more I think)

Some of her favorite things right now are:
Her butterfly bug- she will chomp down on its wing and it will just hang in her mouth
Teething fruit ring
Her thumbs, both sides are getting pretty chaffed again
Books- she loves to taste the words to help her read
Patting surfaces with her hands
Her toes
Baby Einstein Neighborhood Animals- she loves the cats and dog segments
Tiger- the big orange cat at Grandma Richens' house ( when he comes into the room she wil turn to watch him until he is out of sight)
Outside- she gets really quit whe we take her out and just sits back and soaks it all in
Grandma and Grandpa Richens
Grandma Luke and Grandpa Luke after she warms up to his bearded face
Uncle Chantz and Uncle Jared who can always make her smile or laugh

Each day this sweetheart changes a little more and grows a little bit. It is so fun to see her go through these different quirks and stages- we sure do love the joy that she brings and that we get from being her parents!

Giggles, Grunts, and Gurgles!

Smily and strong at 4 months old!

McKenna turned four months old on Feb. 2nd. I can't believe how quickly time passes.  I am glad that  the school days pass quickly and I can hurry home to play and laugh with my little girl.  She is so much fun.  I was told by a few people before she was born that once she got here it would be hard to remember a time without her, and it is true.  Life seemed so ... Not boring, but just less exciting without her.  When we get home all I want to do is play with her and work with her to get her stronger.

Smiling and playing with mom one night after work

Since about December she has been rolling from front to back, and she is getting better and better at it.  She is now getting to the stage where we are working with her to roll on her own from back to front.  It is insane how strong she is, she loves to stand and is starting to balance, but funny thing, she doesn't really enjoy sitting.  However, there are times we joke she is doing crunches because she will try to sit up on her own from a laying position.  She loves her toes, and her little butterfly bug.  Everything goes right for her mouth now.  She has moved past her growl stage and only growls when she is mad, and has started gurgling in her throat.  It is funny how quickly she changes and adapts her sounds.  She loves to squeal and scream back at her dad, they get into squealing battles with each other.  She is full of smiles for just about anyone who will take the time to talk with her.  She is also getting really good at buzzing her lips, get too close and she will make sure to spray you with her baby spit, which also results in foamy bubbles covering her mouth and chin, it's so cute!

We went to the doctor today for her next round of shots.  :( Don't like those at all, but we know that they are to help her in the long run.  Thankfully my mom could come with us.  McKenna didn't like Dr. Madsen at all this time, as he was poking and prodding her this time, she was screaming at the top of her lungs.  It is sad to see her cry like that.  I think the main reason is only because he scared her, she didn't nap well at all today, and slept horribly last night too. So, she was just exhausted.  She is currently sleeping in my arms right now as I finish this post because she woke up crying and fussing again just a little bit ago.  Poor girl.  However, on a happier note, she is growing! We kind of knew that by the cute chubby rolls she is getting on her legs and by how she is starting to finally grow out of 0-3 month clothes.  She is now 24 1/2 inches long and 12 lbs. 7.25 oz. I thought she would be right close to 12 pounds, so still just a small little girl, but she is right in the middle of the growth chart.  She handled her shots again like a champ, and really only cried because she was woken up from her nap.  Now we have 2 months until we go back for check ups and round three of shots.  On the upside, Dr. Madsen did say that it seems that our area is finally coming out of this bad flu and RSV season, keep fingers cross we can continue keeping the sickness at bay!

I'm also kind of combing this post with our Anniversary post too.  This Friday, the 8th, Daniel and I will have been married for five years.  Looking back at where we were five years ago it is hard to imagine how we got to where we are today.  Lots of hard work, teamwork, sacrificing, and determination.  We have grown so much as a couple these past five years, and especially these last two with the challenge that comes with staring and having your own family.  We thank The Lord every day that we were blessed to be parents to McKenna.  We still have a lot to learn and are not experts by any mean.  It there is one thing I have learned these past five years it is to trust in The Lord and to have faith.  It is only him who knows what lies in store and what we need to be faced with and how it will help us to grow.   I am so glad and so blessed that I have Daniel as my eternal companion to go through this life and eternity with.  I'm wondering if eternity will be long enough with this amazing guy :). There are days that I wonder how he tolerates two stubborn red-heads, (McKenna can already be a little stinker), but I am sure glad he has the patience to do so, and is so helpful with her.

Bring it on!

It seems like time just keeps flying by. I don't know where the past three months went and I find myself back to work now, and missing my sweet little girl.  One good thing is that with my job I have my own brood of 26 nine and ten year olds that keep me pretty busy and entertained, so while I am at school I don't really have time to worry about McKenna.  I have four wonderful women who watch her for me.  Three are in our ward from church and they take one day a week ( this way I figured they wouldn't give up every day all the time ) and she gets to go have some fun bonding time with Grandma Richens on Thursdays and Fridays.  I really appreciate their willingness to tend my daughter, and they are such wonderful moms themselves that I don't worry about her.  I am counting down the months until summer though, 5 months! Next week we have a three day weekend so I get to see McKenna an extra day, yay!

A little update on the last month or so, we had a wonderful quiet Christmas. We spent a little time with both of our families, but Christmas Eve and almost all of Christmas Day was spent with our little family.  We woke up christmas morning at 8 am when McKenna was hungry, I know our Christmases of sleeping in that late are becoming fewer and fewer.  McKenna was spoiled with toys and clothes and she is lovig her new rattles for her hands and her feet.

She is now talking up a storm with her little noises, she buzzes her lips, and coos, and can get to squealing pretty loud. :)  She has also started rolling over from her stomach to her back more consistently, she did it about ten times tonight! She also loves to arch her back and scoot to the top of her blanket, this is especially fun whe trying to put a diaper on, or letting her air to help with the diaper rash she gets on occasion.  One of my most favorite things she has started to do is giggle.  She has such a cute little giggle, and it is contagious! She will laugh so hard that she gives herself the hiccups.  She has also found her toes within the last week and a half and whenever she is laying on her back, and especially when she doesn't have socks on, her feet are up in the air and she has hold of both feet. She is still sucking on that little thumb of hers, but she just loves her hands in general!  We love this little girl and still have to sit back sometimes and ask ourselves, is she really real? Is she really ours? The answer is yes, and we love that!

Daniel and I are both doing well. Daniel will be managing a new job really close to home on Hwy 10. It should take until about May to complete and it will be so nice to have him home at a decent hour each night.  He has started setting time aside to run and lift weights and it is fun to see his excitement wit finally having some time to do things he enjoys each night.  I am back to work as earlier stated, and it is good to be finishing what I started.  I did miss my kids, they just seem to find a special place in your heart, climb right in, and don't let go.  I started my second to last class for my math endorsement this week.  So by the end of the school year I will have my elementary math endorsement and 18 credits towards a masters degree.  We are busy and loving being parents to this sweet little girl.

McKenna got spoiled for Christmas.  Her leggings are almost as long as she is!

Family picture with Santa

We were able to get family pictures taken just a few days before the new year, they turned out wonderful!  Thanks dad!

Such a smily little girl!

McKenna turned 3 months old on January 2nd!

McKenna got to hang out with dad the first week mom was back to work.  She was so helpful, she loves to help with the laundry!