Our new BIG news!!!

We are buying a house!!! I have been waiting to make sure everything has gone through, but now it is all good! We close on our first home on Tuesday!!!! I can't believe we are going to be home owners!!! That is so exciting, but CRAZY! I am scared, anxious, excited, just a FLOOD of emotions!

We are really excited because it is the same ward at church, so we don't have to get to know a whole new group of people. YAY!

It is a little over 2000 sq ft. It has 3 bedrooms and a bath on the main floor and 1 bed and bath in the basement. It is a foreclosure, so we have a lot of cleaning, painting, and fixing up, but we will be doing this over a period of time. There will be lots of pictures are we redo things!

Yay for growing up!

Halloween a few days late!

Mackenzie went trick-or-treating with her friend Ethan. Ethan's Mom (Tanya), Chelsea, and I decided to go along also while the guys stayed to hand out candy. Here are some fun pictures.

The reason you don't give a toddler a full bag of Cheerios.

Snow in October

It snowed a TON here! I can't believe how deep it got. It seriously snowed for like 3 days straight. Mackenzie liked the snow, but didn't love being in it. When we were walking and carrying her she was happy to reach her little hands out and touch it, but when we put her in it she was not interested.

Here are just a few cute pictures.

Adam and Kenz were playing in the snow.

This is how deep the snow was on our civic.

This is our balcany (2nd floor, so there is a little cover from the floor above us.)

That is a ruler on day 2. After day 3 the ruler was all the way in the snow so the pictures wouldn't have been so exciting.

Church Halloween Party

Last night was our church Halloween party. It was really fun and there were some great costumes. Here are just some fun pictures.

Mackenzie and Derek were both bumblebees!


They had a "cookie" walk andn Mackenzie and I won a cookie.


Mackenzie played ring toss.


And we were in line for the been bag toss.

Derek was checking out his prizes in his bucket.

This little girl is 6 days older than Mackenzie.

Fun at the Pumpkin Patch

Our friends Chelsea and Nate were heading to the pumpkin patch and we decided to tag along.

We did lots of fun things.

We made a pumpkin safety reflector necklace for trick-or-treating.

We colored on a large mural that many other people had helped with.

We saw alpacas.

We picked out pumpkins in the gigantic pumpkin patch.

While I was following Mackenzie around, Adam was searching this patch high and low to find the "perfect" pumpkin. I wanted one that was a good shape, had no spots, had a stem, just like one you would find in a store. Well let me tell you...It took him 45 min of finding pumpkins he thought would pass, finding me, bringing them to me to inspect and then me telling him it just wasn't perfect enough, so try one more time please! He was so sick of me by the end I am sure, but he found a great one. THANKS HONEY!

And then we took a hay ride back to the parking lot.

We had such a great time with our friends and Mackenzie loved walking around the pumpkin patch. Thanks for letting us go with you!!!

My newest project!

Well, our friends Cassie and Jonny were getting rid of there table that they used in Provo that was given to them by family.

I decided I wanted to take it since they were getting rid of it anyway and see what I can do to make it look updated and use it in my house.

Here is the result.

Nana's Visit

Nana Joy came to visit for 2 weeks. She was here for Mackenzie's birthday and it was great to have her here. We did a LOT of grocery shopping because it seemed that we kept forgetting to buy things. We also went clothes shopping. Nana loves shopping for her only grand baby, so we made sure Mackenzie was ready for the cold weather.

Mackenzie wanted to play with Nana very early.

Many days we stayed inside and played because Mackenzie just threw a fit when we got in the car. But one day we took lots of pictures. We went to the park and had lots of fun.

Lastly, for Mackenzie's birthday one of the presents Nana gave Mackenzie was a coat. We ordered it online and it came in the mail, so we had to try it on her immediately. How cute?

Yes, this is a 12 month coat, and it is still gigantic on her. What do you do?

Birthday Party

Mackenzie will be 1 year old on Wednesday. I can't believe it!

But we had her first birthday party on Saturday and it was a success!

I decided to try my hand at my first cake. I wanted to do cupcakes, so I did a cupcake cake. It was really fun to try. I found a picture of Winnie the Pooh (the theme of the party) on the internet, and looked at the picture while I freehanded my design on the cake. It was kinda stressful because my mom and I were trying to use food coloring to make our own colors and make sure the consistancy stayed right. Also, we didn't have any cake decorating stuff, so I used plastic baggies and piped on the icing using just a cut corner of the baggy. I am so proud of myself. Who needs cake decorating classes, stencils, or real cake decorating tools when you have a picture on the internet, powdered sugar, milk, butter, food coloring, and baggies. (We actually made the cake on Thursday just incase the cake didn't turn out...then we would have enough time to order a cake from the store! HAHA).

Here is the final result.

Then on to the party...

We went to a local park and just had fun.

Lots of our friends and Mackenzie's friends came!

Then it was time to sing happy birthday and blow out the candle. The only problem is that the wind was blowing so it wouldn't light. But atleast we got a cute picture.

Then it was time to enjoy the cake.

We also had a pinata that Tonya's parents made. All the kids loved this, and got a chance to take a swing. It actually took the adults taking a few swings for it to finally break. The kids went crazy for the candy. No one left with less than an overflowing bag of candy!

Then on to presents. Thank you for everything. Mackenzie was so excited for all the new things

A Good Helper

Mackenzie loves to help whenever Mommy does anything. She really loves to take things in and out of the freezer, give me clothes to fold, and give me hangers to hang things up.


She was trying to get her pink little "banky" out in most of these pictures even though it was wet and needed to be dried. She would find it, take it out of the dryer, and take off running into the living room.

Lunch on Labor Day

On Labor Day, the girls were going to get together to have lunch without the babies. Well that plan didn't work out because the husbands wanted to come too. So here are some pictures from lunch. One family didn't make it because they just bought a new house and had to go shopping for furniture. Hey, Labor Day has AWESOME furniture deals.

We got there a little early so Mackenzie was just hanging out outside.






Here we are in the restaurant

Man do I have Chelsea wrapped around my finger!

And Nate and I matched. We both had on yellow polos!

The couples that came!

Mackenzie, Auburn and Jason on the left

Nate, Chelsea and Adam on the right.

11 Months

Mackenzie is getting so close to being a year old. THAT IS JUST CRAZY!!!!
She is loving life and growing up just too fast.

She talks all the time and is learning so quickly. She says and understands Dada, Mama, Hi, Hey, Bye, Deer (yes, she sees them and says it....thanks to her daddy), and that is all I can think of now.

She loves any electronic she shouldn't have. She loves the TV remote, cameras, and especially cell phones. When I am on my phone she gets so mad if I don't give her the phone. Then when I do give it to her she turns the speaker phone on and off so I can't talk anyway.

She is walking all over the place. She hardly ever crawls any more.

She doesn't like walking outside though. When we go to the park she acts like she doesn't even know how to stand up, she sits and eats the mulch and sand. She won't even walk if I am holding her hands.

She is no longer nursing. She weened herself, the only problem is that she hates formula and won't really drink milk. I have given her whole milk with a tiny bit of chocolate to get her to drink it. The doctor today also told me to give her plain whole milk with a little bit of sugar in it so that it tastes a little more like breast milk. We will see how that works.

Her stats are
29 1/2 inches tall
17 1/2 pounds

She is still very long and SKINNY!

The doctor isn't worried which is a good thing. Little missy just doesn't have a big appetite, make that ANY appetite. We are working on getting her to snack all day long and maybe that will put a little weight on her.

Mackenzie's health issues with her white blood count are good for now. The hematologist told us to not worry about her anymore and treat her like any other kid her age. So thank you for all of your prayers. She doesn't have to be poked anymore!

She gets so excited when Daddy comes home from work. When she hears the door open her whole demeanor changes. She looks at me like "UH OH I better run or Daddy's gonna get me". And when she sees him she dives into my arms. She and her daddy love to play and he chases her to me all the time. She absolutely loves it. SHe also likes to crawl after her daddy and chase him when he is crawling.

I have also had to move around my kitchen stuff. All of my breakables are in the upper cabinets and all of my tupperware and baking sheets and pans are in the bottom cabinets. She loves to take everything out.

She walks around with one of her toy buckets puts everything she finds into the bucket. Then she brings them to the middle of the floor and takes everything out just so she can go find more and put stuff back in her bucket. She is doing much better with helping me clean things up and not just destroy them.

She loves reading books. She either brings them to me and wants me to read them, or she sits and flips the pages and "reads" them to herself. It is the funniest thing to watch. She just talks and talks as she flips the pages.

Our little baby is turning into a little girl. It is just amazing how fast they change. Here are some cute pictures I took of her. Her hair was getting too long just to leave alone, but it is too short to put it up really, so we get to give her devil horns. THey make me smile!