7 months old!

March 24th McKinley turned 7 months old! We've been having so much fun with her! She's becoming so much more interactive and mobile and so much FUN! So far months 5, 6 and 7 have been my favorite with our little McKinley! In McKinley's 7th month she has:

• Been so smiley! She loves to smile at random people in stores. She smiles a ton at everyone we see! It's the cutest thing. She's also laughing a lot more! I LOVE her laugh it's one of the cutest noises ever!

• Grown to LOVE her Daddy! She always smiles for him and loves to watch him all the time. She's so happy when she's with her daddy. She's already a Daddy's little girl!

• Started trying to crawl. She can get up on her hands and knees and rocks back-and-forth. She can inch forward by rocking to get what she wants. It won't be too long before we have a little crawler on our hands!

• Become such a good sleeper. She falls asleep on her own and sleeps from about 7pm - 7am, usually just waking up once! It's so nice to just lay her down and she falls asleep on her own. Here she is, our little sleeping beauty :)

• Has had fun playing with her cousin Mya here in Nebraska! We took them to a play place and they got to play on all of the equipment there!

Here she is in the ball pit!

She's also had fun with Mya at the park enjoying the nice weather, finally!

• Has become quite the little swimmer. We went to an indoor water park and she loved splashing around in the water! She's a little water baby and loves the water! She loves her baths, showers, pools and playing in the sink! Looks like a lot of swimming is in store for us this summer, that doesn't bother me one bit :)
  

Kicking her little feet in the water!

I love this age and love my little McKinley! I can't wait to see what's in store for her! It's so fun watching her grow and change and I'm so glad I get to stay home with her to see every moment of it! I wouldn't have it any other way!

Leaving Utah

Before we left Utah, we made the rounds to see everyone we wanted to see...

We got to see McKay, Allison and Kennedy!

We had a going away party with my extended family. We had a picture scavenger hunt with everyone and had a really fun time! Here's my team all going down a slide at once.

Here we all are hugging an employee at Smiths. We had a great time, even though our team didn't win.

We got to see Jeremy, Nicole and Mikayla. McKinley and Mikayla are buddies, they're only 6 weeks apart!

Starting to play together!

We also got to spend a lot of time with the Bodrero's before we left Utah! We spent the night at a hotel together one night. Here are McKinley and Clay playing together!

Clay giving McKinley a hug!

We also got to put our feet in the hot tub by the pool!

We're sad to leave all of our friends and family in Utah. We made some great friends and had some great times while we were there! Hopefully we'll get to see them all again soon!

Moving...

It's official, we're moving to Lincoln, Nebraska. Travis got accepted to Graduate School at The University of Nebraska and is going to be studying Community & Regional Planning. We're heading out there on Monday and will be staying with Travis's brother Brad and his family until we find a place where we want to live. We're excited about a change and ready for something new!

6 month Pictures and Stats

On Monday, we took McKinley in for her 6 month check-up! She is still a healthy, happy baby girl! Just what we wanted to hear :) Her stats are:

Weight: 17 lbs 11 oz 80%
Length: 26 and 3/4 in. 90 %
Head: 45.9 cm 100% (off the charts)

Because of that last measurement, Travis and I also got to have our heads measured to make sure McKinley's large head was just genetic and not caused by a problem. We found out my head is quite large, in the 97% and Travis's head was way off the charts... So no problems there, her large head is just genetic, from both her mom and her dad :)

We also recently got McKinley's 6 months pictures taken by my friend Heather, an up and coming photographer :) She did an awesome job and I absolutely LOVE how they turned out! I'm so glad I have these pictures to cherish forever!

The only pic we caught of her smiling that day, she was in a serious mood.
We can usually always get her to smile a ton. She just wasn't feeling it!

Me and my baby girl! I love this picture!

The last 6 months...

In honor of McKinley's 6 month birthday, I labeled and put together pictures of the last 6 months of her life. It's so fun to look back at old pictures of her and see how much she has grown and changed! It's crazy because when I was looking back at the younger pictures of her, I couldn't remember her being that small! And it's only been 6 months... I can only imagine how I'll feel looking back at pictures when she's 18! I love watching her grow and change! It seems she's discovering something new and changing in some way everyday! We love our little McKinley!

She's Ready To Pop

I love throwing showers and planning parties for friends and family members! This weekend I was able to throw a baby shower for my friend Kayla, with the help of my sister-in-law Natalie! It was a lot of fun and turned out really cute! I got the idea from my sister's baby shower that was thrown by one of her friends. I love how it turned out! A lot of people showed up and showered Kayla with tons of fun things for her baby girl! The theme of the shower was "She's Ready To Pop".




The shower was complete with Pop art...


The treats included Cake Pops...

Poppyseed muffins...

White Chocolate Popcorn, Butter Popcorn and Caramel Popcorn...


And Soda Pop...


We also played some fun games like guessing the size of Kayla's belly...


And of course, Kayla got a lot of fun gifts...

It was a great time!

6 months!

Today is our sweet baby McKinley's half birthday! I can't believe how big she's getting! She's sitting up all by herself now for 5 to 10 minutes at a time! She rolls over like crazy! We'll lay her in her crib and never know how we'll find her in the morning! A lot of mornings we'll take her out of her sleep sack and discover somehow she has kicked out of her jammies and unbuttoned them all the way up to her belly! No idea how, but she is a strong girl and when she wants to do something, she usually finds a way to do it! She's sleeping really well! She now falls asleep on her own at night, wakes up once usually around 4am and I feed her, then goes back to sleep until 7am! It's SO nice to get a full nights rest again! I've forgotten what it feels like, and I'm almost able to sleep through the night myself again :) She's also falling asleep on her own for naps, which is a relief for me and gives me more down time! It's so nice to have a little more "me" time with McKinley sleeping so well! We go to her 6 month check up in a week, so after that I'll post about her 6 month stats then! We love our little girl more than we ever thought we could!!