1 Year pictures

After reading the title, I know, you're thinking, "Have you gone nuts Kaleena?" Well, as a matter of fact I have. But, in spite of that fact, I do realize that Meili is not 1 year old yet. Oh, trust me, I am savoring every last minute of my baby before I have to start calling her a toddler. However, I decided at the last minute that I wanted to get Meili's 1 year pictures taken outside before it got too cold. So, one of my coworker's husband's, who is an aspiring photographer, graciously agreed to try his hand with our crazy little wiggle worm. After the first few outside, he said that she was doing better than other kids that he had worked with...I think he was regretting his words later that night :) JK! I think she did as well as can be expected for the fact that I had tried on about 7 outfits on her that day, and she didn't get to do anything she wanted for about 2 hours straight. Anyway, enough talk... Brady, Jillian, and Holly, thank you very much for all your hard work! We love them!

For the rest of you, enjoy...

This is more of an outtake, but how cute is that face?

How big is Meili? SO Big!

And, I AM HERE!

I love this picture, because Meili has a Pooh Bear like this that she loves, and she will just go up and cuddle with him randomly.

This is Jillian's family's horse, how cute is that?

Please don't grow up anymore baby. I can't handle it.

11 Months

So, for real this time, this is my favorite stage of Meili's so far. I swear, she gets more and more fun every month.

-I think it was toward the end of last month that she learned to get down the stairs by herself. That made life a lot easier for me because now she can go up and down all day, as much as she wants.

-She also has gotten better about playing by herself.

-Meili is chattering more and more everyday, and Josh and I like to pretend that she is saying whatever it is that it sounds like.

-She has gotten better at cruising around the furniture, but she really can't stand by herself, so I don't know if she'll start walking this month or if it will be next month, but probably pretty soon.

-One of my favorite things, is that she gets more cuddly the older she gets. When she is playing, every once in awhile, she will turn around and just come hug Josh or I. I LOVE THAT! She also has a baby that she hugs every time she sees it, and a Pooh Bear that she loves to cuddle with.

-While we were in Texas she learned how to clap, and that's the only thing, so far, that we can get her to do on command.

-I also like that we can feed her pretty much anything we're eating.

Yes, I've loved this month, but I'm sad that this is the last month before she turns one. She's so old :(

In this picture, I think Meili is saying, "Not now, Mom! This is so embarrasing!"

This is of Meili eating a donut. Yes, she is taking after both her mom and dad, and she LOVES sweets. I don't know how babies know what is good for them and what isn't right off the bat, but if we try to feed her bread and a donut at the same time, she will turn down the bread, and always eat the donut! I don't get it, but it happens every time!

There was a time that I said that Meili was pretty neat when she was eating. Those days are long gone!

I wish this picture wasn't blurry! Because I swear that's the cutest face I've ever seen!

Yes, she also likes ice cream sandwiches :)

And I gave Meili her first haircut today. Yes, that was pretty much as many hairs as I cut. And yes, there is more hair than that when I shave my legs. But it really was a huge difference, and I couldn't stop looking at the change all day long. Such a big girl!

No Need to Stress

We took a quick trip with Josh's brother Jared, and his wife Amy this weekend to Texas. As many of you know, I am a pretty high-stress person, and that only intensifies when it comes to Meili. So as the trip got closer and closer I found more and more reasons to stress.

1) The flight: I was so worried about how Meili would handle the air pressure change, being held for like 5 hours straight, and the fact that it was interrupting her nap schedule. Plus, I've heard horror stories about children on flights and I didn't want everyone to hate us. The result: We took lots of snacks, treats, and toys, and it wasn't a problem at all. Plus, she ended up sleeping about the half the time. (And I think she loved taking naps in her daddy's arms, so she was fine.)

2) Sleeping at night: Meili has always been so good about sleeping through the night, but I didn't know how she would do sleeping in a strange place, and with other people getting up at night or moving around, etc. etc. Plus, I didn't want her to keep everyone else up if she did end up crying herself to sleep, or coughing at night. The result: She was awesome. As soon as the lights were out, she found a comfortable spot, and zonked out. She never really woke up crying, and she didn't cough at all at night-the first time in weeks! She slept on an air mattress with either Josh or I and I think that was actually pretty fun for her, because she never sleeps with us.

3) Naps: I have worked 10 long months to get her naps to where they are now, and she is a different child when she hasn't had her naps. The result: We ended up driving and flying at pretty much the perfect times, so she stayed on almost her same napping routine.

4) Driving: We had to drive for about 4 hours and we've never gone that long with her. In case you don't know, Meili is pretty active and likes to just crawl around and get in to things. The result: We broke the drive up, and she still did awesome. She slept for about 2 hours, and we kept her entertained for about an hour.

5) The ball games: We went to 3 ball games in 3 days, which means lots of loud noise, being held yet again, and messing up her nap routine again. The result: Meili was totally fine. She even took a little bit of a nap in each game (even in a stadium with 100,000 people) There are only a few people that I know that could do that! And she learned how to clap! Yea!

Moral of the story: Meili is awesome and I never should have doubted!! (And Josh was SO helpful-which I also shouldn't have doubted!)

Here's Meili on her first flight. We flew out on Saturday morning.

We quickly stopped in Dallas at the JFK memorial.

Pretty much where my head is, is the mark on the street where JFK was shot.

I don't know why or how this tradition started, but people were taking turns taking their picture on the X-which is where JFK was fatally wounded.

The grassy knoll, where they suspect another shooter was hiding. This was just a short detour on our trip, but I thought it was very interesting, and there were a lot of well-deserved memorials for such a loved president.

We went to a Texas Rangers baseball game on Saturday afternoon. The sad part is that when we originally planned the trip, the game was scheduled for 7:00. Well, they changed the time, and we had no idea. So when we stopped to get lunch, the game-that we were supposed to go to was currently being played. So we were only able to go to a couple innings. I think Meili was fine with that. :)

It was still a beautiful stadium though- and it's a good thing that the Rangers won. We didn't have such good luck the rest of the trip :(

The Dallas Cowboys stadium is across the street. So we got this shot when it wasn't busy.

Our family, outside home plate.

The next day, we went to a Houston Astros game. Jared lived in Houston for a year, and that's his team. Sadly, they are the worst team in the league right now. But that meant we were able to get really good seats, pretty cheap, and the game wasn't crowded at all.

The final score of the game... 19-3. Ah, nuts!

I thought this was a cute picture. (If you notice the bruise on her face...First daycare battle wound. Ugh! I was mad!)

See...proof of how much Meili loved the game!

Then on Monday, we went to the Dallas Cowboys game. (Or, more importantly, the Washington Redskins game-because we all refused to cheer for the Cowboys!)

How could something so cute have caused me such stress?

Daddy and baby getting all pumped up before the game.

The stadium was huge, it was so crazy!

Then we had to test out the sports mode, and zoom on the camera. Because, trust me, we were in the nose bleeds!

Again, sadly, the Redskins lost with a last minute fumble. But we all still had fun!

We found the secret weapon for flying... Ring pops!

All in all, I'd call it a success.

First Football Game

Meili went to her first Aggie football game on Saturday. She's good luck for the Aggies! When I was pregnant last year, we beat BYU, and on Saturday, we beat (okay, dominated... for the second half) Weber State.

We had just gotten back from camping, so she was pretty tired. But she was a good sport.

Go Aggies! Let's keep it up!

Weekend Fun

Josh and I got a slow start to our summer fun, but we've tried to make the most of it the last month or so. So this last weekend, we went camping with our friends Hope and Dustin. We decided to go to Tony Grove, and I'm sad to say that in the last 8 years that I've lived in Cache Valley, I haven't gone to Tony Grove. Look at how beautiful!!! We definitely won't wait another 8 years!

And we have lots of pictures of the kiddos-cause they're so cute!!! Josh took the day off, so we were able to get up there by mid-afternoon, and get all set up.

Our cute family

And Hope and Dustin's cute family

Meili found what she was looking for!-stairs

I asked Macie to find a rock and we would take her picture. (I meant a rock to stand on.) She found this little pebble. Ha Ha! What a cute girl!

We were really worried that Meili was going to be cold. But this little outfit kept her plenty warm. In fact, I think TOO warm. She didn't have the best night's sleep and I think she was a little restricted. But still so cute!
On Saturday morning, we went fishing. Noah and Macie had their very own fishing poles. So here I am helping Meili and Noah.

A face only a mother could love! (Yeah right, you all know you love it too)

Hope said that I got the award for the biggest catch of the day... Myself. Oh goodness!

What a cute picture! So photogenic!

Ditto

My fishing lesson from Josh. I don't see why I needed it. I caught 4 fish last week...

at the fish hatchery...

They look like they could be siblings.

Yes, we had so much fun! Thanks Hope and Dustin for the good times. I think this should definitely be a tradition!