Grandma Time

We were so lucky to have my mom come visit for a week. The only bad part about her coming is that the house seems twice as lonely when she leaves!!!  We had so much fun talking, playing games, crafting, playing with the kiddos, making treats and mostly doing a lot of shopping (yes, I just said it was fun shopping. Don't worry, I still don't love shopping but it was fun with my mom!)  We made two crafts for my girls, super easy and adorable hair bows:

and felt Mr and Mrs Potato Head dolls:

 

These were extra fun because I got to draw all of the templates we used to cut it out of felt. I haven't drawn anything in years so it was fun to try it again, even with my lack of artistic ability! And I love how they turned out so I hope my girls love playing with them. I will definitely be adding to this collection down the road! We also started two more crafts that will have to be finished later. We also had an early birthday party for Kaylee so that Mom could be here to celebrate her 2nd birthday. We didn't do anything big, just had a cake and gave her one of her presents from Grandma early- a new trike!  

 

   She is loving it and is slowly getting the hang of working the pedals. In the meantime, we figured out a solution for letting her ride her bike until she can zoom around on her own :)

Mom even let us go on a date, gave me time to go to the temple (a rarity these days), and spoiled all of us like crazy. There is seriously nobody Kaylee loves more than Grandma.  They are best buddies and Kaylee cried all the way home when we dropped Grandma off at the airport. Thanks Mom for another fantastic visit! Now I'm starting the countdown for our next adventure- our summer trip to Utah!

Blessing Day

 

Today we were able to bless McKenna in our ward. We are lucky enough to have Mom with us this week so she could come and spend such a special day with us.  

 It was weird not to have a big family event but that way it was more focused on the actual blessing, which was nice. The day was kind of a disaster and we had one fiasco after another, which left me a stress case, but it was all worth it when Richard gave her a really beautiful blessing. McKenna was an angel and didn't even make a peep.  In fact, our neighbor who stood in the circle told us that she spit out her binky and just smiled.  What a sweetheart!  We are so lucky to have this beautiful girl in our family.

Giggly Girl

Another way that McKenna is opposite of Kaylee is she smiles at EVERYTHING and you can get her to laugh pretty easily too.  It took a lot to make Kaylee crack a smile so it's fun to have a baby who actually thinks we are funny!  Nothing cheers me up faster than the sound of a baby laughing!

Willy Wonka Pets

Sorry for the blogging hiatus- we've been cooped up in our house dealing with RSV so not only have I not really had time to blog but I haven't even had anything to blog about! After almost two full weeks of feeling yucky, Kaylee finally started feeling better so we wanted to take her somewhere fun. A friend told me about this pet store where they let you hold the puppies so we decided to give that a try. We were not prepared for the surprise we got. This place was like the Willy Wonka factory of pet stores! Not only can you kiss the puppies:

But you can pet the birds

hold the mice

and snuggle the bunnies

not to mention ferrets, guinea pigs, kitties, and probably others I'm forgetting about. And my favorite part was this big guy:

He just wanders around the store on his own, letting all the kids (and lots of adults) run up and touch him, get in his way, and make faces at him. What a stud!!

Kaylee also spent some time getting to know this guy: 

 

and he was so excited to see her, it was really cute to watch them. At one point Kaylee even put her hand up on the glass and the puppy put his paw up too. I'm not an animal person but if I was, this adorable puppy might have been coming home with us yesterday! I used to take Kaylee to pet stores all the time in Utah and I never saw anything like this. It was fantastic! We will definitely be going back and I was glad we had somewhere fun to be after two full weeks of cabin fever.

Theme Night: Hawaii

We had our second theme night last night and it was a blast!  In the ten minutes or so that Kenna let me put her down, I put up a few very simple decorations and laid out our beach towels. 

  First we dug in the "sand" for seashells and little paper fishies. That was by far Kaylee's favorite activity and she didn't want to stop.  

Then we went body surfing.  Kaylee would lay on the towel and then Richard would drag her back and forth across the floor.  

 We even gave Kenna a turn but she was not a fan...

 I also got a turn but I deleted all the pictures so there is no proof :)

Then we turned on some Hawaiian music, gave Kaylee a rather pathetic lei (made from her hair bows) and grass skirt (made from paper) and tried to teach her to hula.

We even ate Hawaiian haystacks and pineapple for dinner and then ended the night by looking through the pictures of our honeymoon in Hawaii while we drank smoothies. 

 All if all I would say the night was a success!

Nursing Woes

As much as I truly despise nursing, I try not to complain about it because I realize that I am very lucky to be able to do it.  I know a LOT of women who can't for some reason or another and I know I should be grateful I am able to nurse.  But sometimes I just don't know what I'm supposed to eat while I'm nursing.  This is what I have discovered with McKenna so far:

Too many vegetables or too much dairy makes her gassy

Too many fruits give her diaper rash

Spices, particularly garlic and cinnamon, make her spit up A LOT

And spicy food makes her scream bloody murder for hours.

So that leaves me with bread and...candy?  Oh and unseasoned meat.  If I weigh 300 lbs by the time I'm done nursing, you'll know why...

Winter Bliss

It's the last day of January and we are outside at 10:00 in the morning with only a jacket to keep us warm.  Best. Winter. Ever!