Straight Talk from a Two-year old

So, McKinlee has been hilarious lately and I had decided to share some of these funny moments for all of you.

1. She has been calling her dad "Shrek" and me "Fiona" (it comes out 'iona'). Her dad does not think this is too funny.

2. On the way home from Salt Lake we stopped for pizza. She ate and everything seemed to have settled just fine. We get on the road and hear what we thought was McKinlee throwing up. We both jerked around to find her, to our relief, not covered in puke, but instead she must have had a little come up into her mouth. She simply looks at us and says "Yummmm...Pizza!".

3. She loves chocolate milk, but she calls it 'chocolate juicy'. She will ask for it nicely once, and then she brings out the demon voice and her eyes get all scary and serious as if she is staring into the depths of your soul and she yells "I want my chocolate juicy!"...needless to say, she gets it.

4. She has been watching way too much Diego....Her dad takes her to the store, and you must keep in mind that there are many many Mexicans that are at the grocery store, and all of a sudden she points and yells "Diego". Jared looks around and to his embarassment he sees a Mexican man...not the best way to be fellowshiping our neighbors.

5. She loves to cook for us in her pretend kitchen, and she loves rocks. Those two don't make the best combination...We get plates of rocks that she insists we taste.

6. So today she had Cindrella playing and she was running around the house playing with things, not really watching the movie. Well, all of a sudden she must have heard the prince say something becuase she ran out of the room yelling "I'm coming Prince, I'm coming Prince!" She is such a girl....

7. This isn't very funny, but too cute not to share. She is the only little girl I know that asks to go to bed. She will just look at you and say "Night Night" and that is the end of it..we lay her down and she is out.

8. Safety first in our house....When we get in the car, before we can even sit down and get adjusted, McKinlee is in the backseat yelling "Mommy seatbelt, Daddy seatbelt!" She will not stop until both of us are buckled up. Who needs those annoying beepers in cars to tell you to buckle up when you have a two year old!

9. Jared has been taking the fireman classes lately and because of this it has make McKinlee obssessed with fireman (a little early don't you think?!).. Well, on Saturday Jared was able to help put out his first fire. (it was a controlled burn for training purposes, but still, it was a fire!) McKinlee, Logan and I went to watch it and to see if we could make out who daddy was. McKinlee loved every second of it and she is still talking about it. We can't mention the word fire without her starting to talk about "Smoke in eyes" "Smoke in nose"...and this will go on FOREVER! We finally have had to quit mentioning it in front of her because she demands that you discuss the smoke with her.

10. We have been teaching McKinlee how to say prayers and she is now saying them all by herself with only a little coaching here and there. They are the cutest things EVER. She hasn't realized to close your eyes during the prayer, though, so many of the things that she says she is grateful for are random objects found around the room...such as..."Grateful for pen..gratful for horse, cow, sheep and barn, grateful for silky (her blanket)" She of course mentions all by herself that she is grateful for "mommy, daddy, baby 'ogan, church, grandma, grandpa, juju, nana, papa, sheba and koka". There is nothing better than watching your child learn how to talk to their Heavenly Father. This has to be my favorite thing she has done this year. I know her Heavenly Father hears every word she says and I am sure he even chuckles once in a while.

Those are all I will write right now, but I am sure there will be many more that follow. Many of you weren't around when McKinlee was just a tiny baby so I have made a small slide show to show you how cute she has always been!

Logan being cute

So, I noticed from the last blog that I didn't have many pictures of Logan. Well, he looked super cute today in his jeans, so I took some pictures of him. He is getting this super curly hair that I absolutely love! I try to put gel in it to spike it, and the spikes just curl...it's awesome!! We love our little boy!

4th of July and Family

We had a great 4th of July! We were lucky enough to have my brother, Russ, and his family up. They just moved back to Idaho after being gone a very long 10 years! It is GREAT to have them back. We also had Grandma and Grandpa Mayes and Aunt JuJu here. Jared and I had a wedding to go to in Twin on Friday, so we were up at 4:30 in the morning getting ready. We then proceeded to wake the rest of the family up to go to the hot air balloons in Driggs. Like always, that was great fun. Mom was nice enough to stay home with Logan and Quinn (10 months) so the rest of us could enjoy. McKinlee loved the balloons as did the rest of my nephews, Espen, Jacob, and Zach. Jared and I left from the balloons straight to Twin. We went to the wedding and were back in Victor by 5:00. Long day, but still fun. Our next door neighbors rented one of those bouncy things for the kids of the neighborhood to play in, and McKinlee spent most of the evening in that. By the time it was dark enough to do fireworks, she was asking to go to bed. We then went fishing with everyone on Saturday and we brought home a HUGE haul of fish. McKinlee did her 'wiggle' dance whenever we caught a fish, and yes, it was the cutest thing EVER. Logan slept in the stroller for the whole time (like usual). On Sunday we actually went over to Jackson with Russ and his family....I know, not a very 'Sunday' type thing to do, but at least we were with family, right?! We ate, shopped and went down the Alpine Slide. Great, fun day! Monday Russ and his family left, but what is nice is that I know I will see them soon!! It's no longer just once a year we are able to get together. On Tuesday my little sister Sonia came up to visit. She is going to have a baby in September....it sucks she lives in Phoenix! It was great to be able to see her, but super sad to see her go!
As you can tell, it has been a very busy week, but lots of fun! Here are some fun pictures of the activities.

Vacation fun!

So this past week we took a little 'mini' vacation to Utah for a few days. Before we even left we decided to make it a trip all about McKinlee, and make sure that we did things that SHE wanted to do. Now, her being only two and all can make this kind of challenging, but we did it and we had a complete blast! We went down on Tuesday afternoon-night so our real fun didn't start until Wednesday. Those of you who know me know that I would prefer to get up in the morning and get things done...so there was no sleeping in for this family. We were up and out of the hotel by about 8:30 so we could be to the Hogle Zoo at 9:00 when it opens..we made it at about 9:10 or so. I was so glad to get there early before the major crowds showed up and before it got unbearably hot. McKinlee LOVED the zoo!! For a few days I had been telling her we were going to the zoo and all she could talk about seeing were the monkeys and the 'girapps' (giraffs in two year old talk). The cutest thing happened when we were heading to see the giraffes....I could see them before she could, so I told her that the giraffes were just up the hill. She then picks up speed and starts yelling 'Giapps, I'm coming girapps'. So dang cute!!! Anyhow, the zoo was awesome and aside from the girapps she loved the carousel! In fact we rode it twice! We were out of the zoo around 11:30 and then heading to the Mayan restaurant which was a hit!! Entertainment during eating time is a must for McKinlee. The rest of the day consisted of swimming and shopping. McKinlee is becoming such a great swimmer! She likes to swim with her floaties all by herself and is getting so good at jumping off the side of the pool.
Thursday was the aquarium day. I am a nerd, but I even had her wear this new outfit that had a fish on the pants and I put a fish hair barrette in her hair. She enjoyed the aquarium, and it only took us about a half hour to see everything. So since it was a day about fish, we ate at Joe's Crab Shack. hahah. Before lunch we actally took her to her first movie in the big theater. We saw Kung Fu Panda..cute movie! She did great. She lasted about 20 minutes then laid down and slept until the last 10 minutes! If I knew she would be that good I would take her to all the movies! After lunch and movie there was yet more swimming and just hanging out.
Friday was the trip home, and Jared let me stop at Park City to do some serious shopping...man I love those outlet stores! After a few stops and listening to "Finding Nemo" about 20 thousand times, we made it home!
We had so much fun just being our little family. I just realized I didn't mention Logan...well, he was Logan, just great! He slept, and ate, and actually got in the swimming pool for a few minutes. He is so easy to travel with!
Here is a slide show of fun times from the trip. (for those of you who don't know...(mom) you can click on the slide show and it will open up so you can stop on certain pictures and click through at your own pace)

So I have to explain this next picture...I am sure both Grandmas will love this. For breakfast Friday morning we decided to stop at Smith's and get a box of donuts. McKinlee was being a complete two year old and I actually had to take the kids out of the store while Jared finished up. Anyways, she really wanted a donut, and me being the freak of a mom I am, didn't want her to get dirty at all, especially chocolate dirty. So I purposely put a plain cake donut in the box just for McKinlee to eat because I figured there wouldn't be quite the mess. Well, she has this sweet tooth for chocolate (I am blaming that on Grandma Mayes), and she knew that there was a chocolate donut in the box and she wouldn't even touch the plain cake one. So, remembering that this was a vacation all about her, I gave in and gave her the chocolate donut. Could she eat it like a normal person? No. She ate off all of the chocolate frosting and then I heard 'here mommy', and she would hand me the rest of the donut, all slimy with little teeth marks in it. So here is what she looked like after the donut incident.

Bye bye hair!

So I took McKinlee in this morning for a haircut and I ended up having it cut off! It turned out so cute!! No more pony tails but I can still pull up the sides. She was super good and just sat there reading some books. I really couldn't believe how good she was. Unlike her other haircuts that took about 5 minutes, this one took a half hour and she just sat there the whole time! I am so proud of her. So here are a couple pictures...one of the back and one of the front. (Ignore the snotty nose..we are battling allergies!)

Cousin Colin and Outside FUN!

So on Friday the 13th we were blessed to get yet another nephew!! My sister, Gretchen, finally had her little boy Colin Michael, and I was lucky enough to be able to get super cheap plane tickets from Idaho Falls to Grand Junction so I could go see her and the new fuzzy monkey! I had no idea how big Logan was getting until I compared him to Colin....holy crap, i have a GIANT!!! It was a short, but great trip. Just me and little Logan went and Jared stayed at home while McKinlee went with Grandma and Grandpa Colson for a week. I went through some major withdrawls without my little girl!! Here are some pics of Colin and Logan as well as some fun outside pics of McKinlee.

Colin loved Logan and got very distraut when we took him away!

I had to go get the two boys matching outfits...aren't they cute!

Sweet baby Colin...the fuzziest nephew I have!

Logan happy to be at Aunt Gretchen's!

Logan's first plane ride...yup, he slept like that for the entire way there and the entire way back..what a good baby!

McKinlee at the airport saying bye to Logan and me. Looks like she is going to take after her dad and enjoy video games!

Superstar McKinlee before church. She was super tired and cranky if you can't tell!



McKinlee playing in the sprinklers with the neighbor kids. She had so much fun!!

This is what Logan was doing while McKinlee was in the sprinklers. Good thing he is so laid back!

Smiles, Doctor, and Naps

We are loving Logan being able to smile and 'talk' to us! I can't quit taking pictures! McKinlee can get the biggest smiles out of him; he LOVES his big sister. We had doctor's appointments today for ALL of us! We are all quite healthy. I will give you the low down on the kids, but I am sure you don't care much about the poking and prodding that goes on in my appointments...hahah.
Logan is up to 11 lbs 9 oz and 23.25 inches long. He has gained almost 5 lbs!! He had his first set of shots, and he was so so so good. He made a little cry when the shots went in, but that was all. He is eating 6oz every 4 hours and sleep completely through the night. (9:00 - 7:00) It is absolutely wonderful!!
McKinlee is still cute and very healthy. She weighs 26 lbs and is still tiny for her age, but no concerns. The Doctor was very impressed with her language and how she connects words together...he said that is "advanced". Yup, I am a very proud mom! By the end of the appointment she was calling him 'Doc'.

We are so grateful to have such a healthy, happy family! I really couldn't ask for anything more. I can't explain it, but having Logan has made me love McKinlee even more (if that was even possible!) Our family is so complete and I love each of them, including my wonderful husband, so so so much!

Here are some cute pics of the kids. Hopefully next week we will have some fun outside pictures!



Argh!! My little pirate!


"You talkin to me?!"


Check out his big muscles!



Kids fall asleep in the cutest places!



Logan cute with smiles!


McKinlee feeding her baby...yes, that is Logan's "Bouncy chair". But isn't she such a good little mommy!



She is turning into a MONKEY!