2 month photo shoot

Yesterday we went up to see Brian, Lacey, and Abbey and we had so much fun! We were anxious to see their new studio/theater that we've been seeing pictures of and hearing about for so long. It is SO beautiful, we are jealous! Mckayla and Abbey got to do a little photo shoot in the new studio and Mckayla did really well, but Abbey wasn't wanting much to do with it (probably because she sees that camera and knows whats coming now!) My mom got them matching penguin outfits for Christmas so we wanted pictures of them together, and they turned out pretty cute! I must say we've got some pretty cute little girls (not that I'm biased or anything)! My favorite was the zebra print pictures though. I love zebra print anyway but the pictures turned out so beautiful. Thank you so so so much Brian and Lacey!! We'll have to come play again soon!!!

Abbey helping to give Mckayla back her pacifier (no prompting her to do this either!)

Kisses from Abbey!

I love these girls!

Giddyup Mckayla!

Mckayla tried out her new rocking horse today and had a blast!!! She just needs a little cowgirl hat and boots to complete the look!

Monthly growth

It's that time again for her monthly growth comparison photo with her Cabbage Patch doll Mckayla! She's getting so big I can't believe it has been over 2 months already!
Okay, here's the first one at 8 days old:

The second one at 1 month 1 week old:

And todays, 2 months 1 week old:

More Christmas fun

Here is all the stockings at my parents house. My mom has made all of them except we bought a baby's first Christmas one for Mckayla. Her hand made one is at our house. Notice how Chris's is the oddball? Facing the wrong way and much bigger...very appropriate if you know how Chris is about Christmas!!! Any more kids come along and they are going to need a bigger fireplace!!

This is the SUPER cute stocking Chris's mom and dad brought for Mckayla. I think it is the cutest baby's first Christmas stocking I've ever seen!

His parents also got this beautiful plate and mug for Mckayla so she can leave Santa milk and cookies. As you can see he enjoyed his sugar cookies!!

The funnest thing about Christmas morning was Abbey saying my name for the first time! Lacey had walked in the house and yelled my name and Abbey just repeated it as clear as day! She kept saying it over and over and she would look and point at me every time too so she definetely knew it was my name! We caught a little clip of it here but she said it lots of times and even clearer too. YAY ABBEY!

Merry Christmas!

Mckayla's first Christmas!!! We had SO much fun! Sunday we went to my parents house to do Christmas dinner and gifts with my extended family. Here's Mckayla in her cute little Christmas dress:

Here's her second cousin Summer playing with the penguin bowling toys Mckayla got from my Aunt Leshia and Uncle John:

Mckayla with her great-Grandma McKay:

Santa left McKayla lots of goodies!

After we did Christmas morning at our house, we went to my parents house for breakfast and presents with them and Brian, Lacey, and Abbey. Here's Mimi and Papa with their grandbaby girls!

Abbey was so much fun to watch with everything because she is old enough to really enjoy presents. At one point we caught her taking a break in her car seat with a box of raisins, just sitting there watching all the activities!

We came home after that and Chris's parents came down for the day. We got a lot of wonderful gifts from both of our parents (too many to list!) but I had to show off this door mat his parents got for us...it is just too funny!

The absolute best part about Christmas was all the fun stuff for Mckayla. She is only 2 months old and she got SOOOOO spoiled! I took a picture of all of her loot. You'll have to click on the picture to make it bigger to see everything, it's just too much to show individually! We love it all!

Here's a couple close ups of some of our favorites:

This is a mini boppy tummy time play pad from Santa. A fun and cute way to get in some time on her tummy!

This is super cute from Aunt Lacey and Uncle Brian, it is doll sized play set of the rainforest stuff just like Mckayla has! Isn't that awesome!!!!!!

This toy was from Mimi and Papa McKay and it makes all the animal noises, spins, and lights up. Abbey had fun with it too!

As you know, I LOVE penguins so by default so does Mckayla (hehe!) so I've always wanted this penguin bowling toys and my Aunt Leshia and Uncle John got this for her:

My mom and I always seem to think alike because I came so close to buying this outfit for Mckayla but held out because we'd already gotten her so much stuff. I never told her about it but she got one for Mckayla and a matching set for Abbey too so they can be twinkies! SO cute! Pictures of them matching to come soon :)

I've always said when I have a kid I wanted the Precious Moments birthday train for each birthday. Each year has a different animal with the number, but this is the first one that is for the new baby and leads the train. Her Grandma Debbie got her this and this adorable tiny little locket for when she gets a little bigger. Isn't it sweet?!!

One of our favorites though (and biggest surprise) was definetely this AWESOME rocking horse Chris's parents got for her! It looks so realistic and it makes cute noises and moves too! This is ironic too because this is what Abbey wanted so bad and got a similar one for Christmas too!

Here it is in action:

THANK YOU EVERYONE SOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH FOR ALL THE WONDERFUL GIFTS! We had so much fun and we love you all very much! We are blessed to have such a wonderful family!

Concert

Saturday Chris and I met some of his coworkers to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra in concert at the Ford Center, and it was INCREDIBLE! I was torn because we had to leave Mckayla for the first time to be babysat by my parents. I was having a hard time leaving her, not because I was worried about her being okay, mainly because I didn't want to be away from her! I even took a couple pictures of her that morning so I could look at them on my camera while we were gone (pathetic I know). I held back tears on our way there and after we left but I knew we were going to have fun and the concert was amazing. They had a light show, fireworks, fireballs, snow, fog, and of course some awesome music! I recommend everyone should go see them next year, I think we'll go again too!

Here's one of the pictures I took of her and stared at all day:

Talking

This past week Mckayla has really starting babbling and cooing a lot more, it is SO cute! Here's a little bit I got on camera yesterday morning. There was a lot more talking before I got the camera and by the time I got the camera going she got the hiccups too so this is just a little bit of what she does. I'll keep trying to get more!

2 months old

Well Mckayla is 2 months old now as of yesterday and she had her check-up at the doctors office today. Her stats now are: 10 pounds 9 ounces and 22 1/2 inches long. Both of these put her pretty much right at the 50th percentile. She also got 3 shots :( She was already fussy before she even got the shots so the crying just escalated, but it was still pretty sad. She has been fussy off and on all evening so far too. Poor baby!!!

Fun with Emily

Saturday we got to watch Emily for a few hours while Matt and Wendi had to work. She was so much fun because all she wanted to do was play so we spent most of our time going back and forth from the living room toys to Mckayla's room!

Here she was enjoying a good book:

Then we did a little lunch:

Then she decided to check out Mr. Snowman:

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today is Chris's 28th birthday! We went to Outback with his parents for lunch, then we did a little shopping, and then back home for some tree cutting fun. After he got to have so much fun cutting down the rest of the tree and cleaning up the yard, he put out the Christmas decorations again, including 2 lighted deer, one that moves, that he got from his parents. We set it up so that it looks like the deer defeated the tree! Here's a few pics of the new views of the lights and of Chris and Mckayla.

R.I.P. tree

Today Chris and his dad finished cutting down our poor tree. It only took two full days of Chris tearing off and dragging limbs by himself, a day of Chris and my dad chainsawing the branches hanging over the house before the snowstorm, and then today to finish it all. Such a MESS!!

Here's our house before:

And the sad after shot:

Check out this pile of tree, and Chris stacked 99% of this all himself!

He thinks he's such a stud!!!

We got Elfed too!

After seeing that Brian, Lacey, and Abbey made Elves out of themselves, we had to do it too! It's just to funny to pass up!! Here's the link to check it out:
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1410725889

An hour later....

An hour after those other pictures this happened and now this is our view from our front door

A side view

No damage yet! Thankfully Chris had just taken down the Christmas yard decorations right before this branch collapsed on our walkway

See that branch on the roof? That's the one we are worried about now. We hope it doesn't go down and take the window out on the way. We think it will miss it if/when it does go.

Ice storm

So our beautiful little tree in front of our house is slowly coming down from all the ice. One branch just fell onto the neighbors car (but it's okay thank goodness, just little limbs hit it and the sheet of ice seemed to protect it) and the rest is getting lower and lower so it's only a matter of time before it all comes crashing down

This split pretty much guarantees the other parts will soon fall too

This is in our backyard. This nice crashing noise was this morning while we were trying to get some sleep. We are SO lucky that it was just this branch that fell right into the yard instead of on the house or fence. Yet anyway....