Family Pictures

While we were in Phoenix for Christmas. We got our family pictures taken. Yeah! I've been waiting for this for a long time. My sister-in-laws friend took them for us, Amy Hill. You can find the link to her website a few posts down. She did an amazing job! All the pictures came in black and white as well. You can decide which one you like better. Enjoy!

McKenna walking Smalls

Smalls actually does really well when McKenna is walking her. She doesn't run fast towards people, she just walks close to McKenna. Its cute.

McKenna

Oh boy! This little girl is starting to hit her terrible 2s and she is only 17 months! What am I going to do. But even after all the dirty looks, the wining, the tantrums, the getting into everything, wanting food on demand, not wanting to go to sleep and staying up until 11!, she is still my little lover. She is so sweet. I love it when she comes and wraps both her arms around my neck and give me a kiss. Its the best feeling in the world. Nothing beats being a mother! I haven't blogged about her for a few months. She has advanced so much in those months. I'm amazed everyday about what she comes up with. She understands so well. It scares me at times. She is now 17 months. (only 7 more months and I can stop counting in months!) 4 more Sundays and she is in nursery. I had in her nursery for just a few minutes a few weeks ago and she managed to make a girl cry. That's my little girl, the little bully. She loves to bite, hit, and pinch. What a fun combo, NOT! Any good ideas about how to stop the madness??

Here are a few facts about McKenna at 17 months:
-She can say so many words. Here are a few: Movie, eat, doggie, mommy, daddy, meme, Hi, Hello, outside, eyes, nose, shoes, socks, juice, milk, water, crackers.
-She likes to open the front door and leave without any warning. We have to keep the door locked at all times. If we forget she is out the door.
-She likes to take smalls on walks. I had a picture and a video, but they are on my phone. I will get them off sooner than later.
-She loves to talk on the phone
-She has become a picky eater. I hate it! She won't even eat a sandwich! Any sandwich!
-She can put her shoes on all by herself. Most of the time on the correct feet.
-She loves fruit and some veggies.
-She loves candy and anything sweet and knows exactly what it is.
-She says WEEEE. She said it for the first time out of the blue. Tucker and I both looked at each other confusion and said, "did she just say weeee?"
-She can point to all of her facial features and her toes on demand. When we say teeth, she will chomp her teeth together. When asked where her eyes are, she squints them
-She is in love with her blanket. If she sees me put it in the washer or dryer, she has a fit. She tires to open the dryer and bangs on the washer. Its quite funny to watch.
-She loves smalls, but who doesn't?
-She uses a pillow now. I say use very lightly. Sometimes she will use it, other times I find her on the otherside of her bed.
-She is learning to color and to drink out of a big girl cup.
-Shes likes to stick things in the toliet. Not fun
-She loves to give kisses.

Well I can't think of anything else. This seems like a good list. Enjoy these pictures of my little girl.

She loves it when I take pictures of her them show them to her. This was just the case. I would take a pic by the tree. She would run to me, look at the picture, then run back to the tree and smile. This went on for probably 5 minutes. Its so cute.

This was at a children's museum in Phoenix.

This one as well.

I just think this picture is so cute. There is just something about it that I love. Maybe its just the mother in me.

McKenna really doesn't play with others. Pretty much the whole time we were in Phoenix, she didn't really play with the other kids. She would just pay all by herself. This is her playing alone.

She LOVES to get into my shoes and put them on. She's so funny.

Her other favorite thing to do....get into our food storage. She likes to put the cans in her shopping cart. At least she knows what its really for.

This is her computer. Santa brought this to her. She loves it. She LOVES electronics. She will carry one of our old cell phones around and talk into it.

Look at that face! She was giving me this look because I wouldn't help her off the coffee table. She used to be able to do it, but suddenly she has forgotten. I told her since she got up on her own that she has to get down on her own. I guess I'm just a mean mom.

Nothing would be complete without my Smalls. Ain't she cute??

Catching up....

I know my blog is Christmas. But I really like it, so I don't care that Christmas is over. I'm keeping it up for a while. Keeping the spirit alive!

Has it really been almost 2 months since I have blogged? Time sure has flown by. It doesn't seem like it has been that long. Anyway, So since my last blog there has been Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and McKenna. She is quite a crazy little girl.

For Thanksgiving we spend it with my family. We all ate at my brothers new house. Its very nice and roomy. The food was really good. Probably the best Thanksgiving meal I've had in a long time. I failed to take any pictures of this event.

For Christmas, we all headed down to Phoenix. My brother, Erik and his family, moved down there last summer. It was the year to go to Arizona. A few months ago when everyone was getting their plans together, we had decided not to attend Christmas in Phoenix. At the beginning of November, Tucker surprised me with tickets to Phoenix! I was pretty excited, and I think he was to, even though he didn't exactly say that. We decided not to let my family know, except for a few people. You always need people on the inside of your surprise to keep you in the know. Plus we needed someone to pick us up at the airport. After many weeks of my Mother asking me questions about Christmas and asking me why I couldn't take her to the airport(we were leaving the day before she did) and was glad to surprise her at the airport and get my secret out in the open. NO one asked any questions about anything, well except for Teaghan, except for my mother! It was starting to get hard lying to her. A few more days and she would have figured it out. So we got there the Sunday before Christmas. Doug, Kristin, and fam left that morning and drove there. So we got to surprise them first. Doug knew, but no one else did. They were surprised. That night, before doug and family arrived. Coleen took a picture of all of us eating at the table and sent it to Elisha. She was the one person who gave me the hardest time about not going there for Christmas. Just about everytime we talked she would say something. She even got a little mad at me and Tucker for not "Wanting" to come down there. Elisha said she got a little tear in her eye when she saw that we had come after all. Micah, Elisha's hubby, was in on the secret. We would try to have secret talks but elisha knew something was up. She probably would have figured it out. So the next day, Monday, my mom was coming in. Coleen, Teaghan, and I went to the airport to get her. Coleen and Teaghan meet her at the gate and went to the baggage claim. While she was grabbing her bag I snuck in behind her and pretended in was my bag and tried to take it from her. I got a little bit of a dirty look before the smile came along. She was happy that we had come down for Christmas. We had a fun time while we were there. We didn't do much, but we had fun playing games after the kids had gone to bed and having to smell all of Joe's farts. Oh my gosh! That was not very pleasant, but at 11ish it was pretty funny. Christmas was enjoyable. McKenna really needed some food in her belly because she was pretty cranky and didn't really want anything to do with her presents at first. She finally came around after she got some juice in her belly. We also took some family pictures. They have turned out so nice. I should be getting the CD this week. So I will post those later. But you can get a sneak peak here. They turned out so good. I can't wait to see more.

This is our tree in our apartment. How we got the tree there is a funny story. But for another post.

Eriks back yard. McKenna loved this swing. She would climb in and sit all by herself for a while. With her, Zac(left) and Treaven.

McKenna on christmas morning. She doesn't do good on an empty stomach.

This is Addison. My sisters kid. When these two first meet, McKenna didn't want anything to do with her(that was about 4ish months ago). But as you can see now all she wanted to do was kiss her. Addison doesn't seem to be enjoying it as much as McKenna.

For New years we went to Tuckers moms in Oroville. Since we ditched her for Thanksgiving and Christmas we thought it would be nice to be there for New years. We spend 5 or so days there. It was nice. I didn't get any pictures of that either. Oh well. None of us stayed up to bring in the New Year. McKenna had a cold and was having a hard time sleeping. So we all just went to bed. Oh well, there is always next year.

All in all it has been a great few months. It was fun keeping the secret and then surprising my family, taking family pictures, being together with my family, seeing my sister and tricking her, and spending time with Tuckers family. It sure was nice to be home though. After almost 2 weeks of being away it was nice to unpack the suitcases and put them away. For a while I hope. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone who reads my blog.