Update!

Here is a video of Mckenzie talking to me the other night! She has been discovering her voice lately.  She just woke up from a nap a bit ago and was talking to herself in her crib :)  She is such a happy baby!! She smiles all the time, "talks,"tummy time is usually me getting her from rolling over back onto her tummy.  She really enjoys it! She also has a play mat that she is really good at kicking the toys that dangle down.  We obviously put her to sleep on her back but lately she will immediately turn and lay on her side.  She can be in a deep sleep and we can put her on her back and she turns to her side, several times.  Most often then not I wake up to her on her side! What can you do?  She is an amazing sleeper! She is sleeping a good 8 hours a night! Sometimes she wakes up and wants her pacifier and goes right back to sleep, she loves sucking on a paci!

I've been back to work since last Friday, returning has been much easier with Mckenzie here with the nanny.  The nanny was sick 1 day this week which I assumed I'd have to take vacation, but my boss knew I wasn't super busy so it worked out and she was asleep a good half anyways.  Mckenzie is doing well taking a bottle since she was pretty much exclusively breast fed, we would give her a bottle about once a week since I have friends that their baby wouldn't take the bottle upon returning to work.  She does great, even if I feed her one.  The nanny does great with Mckenzie, our plan was to do it for a few months and then slowly transition her into daycare.  If we stay under $1,700 for cash wages for the nanny then we don't have to deal with a bunch of taxes since they are considered a household employee.  If we consider doing it long term then we have to pay a few different type of taxes.  The tax place doing our taxes can handle it all and the W2 we'd have to produce at the end of the year.  I'm not sure if we'll do it long term or not because we'll be paying more in daycare expenses if we do the nanny since there are tax regulations and pay regulations.  We'll see, we just started so we can see how it goes and then decide.

We went to the breastfeeding bunch which St. Luke's has once a week. It's a group where new moms, moms with 3, 6, 8, etc month olds get together and chat, feed their babies, weigh them and there is a lactation specialist that puts it on.  Last Thursday she was 14 pounds 11 ounces!

I have to go to Oregon once in March and April for work and am staying the weekend too! I'm throwing my best friend's baby shower at the end of April, she just found out she's having a girl today! I've been saving all of Mckenzie's clothes in case we have another girl, so Julie's baby can get some use out of her clothes too.

We're in the process of finishing our taxes, we decided to hire someone this year with the baby and relocation expenses wanted to do it right.  Thankfully they caught that my W2 was wrong, my company didn't switch me over to working IN Idaho until 8/18 when it was 8/2 so it messed with my state taxes.
All and all everything is going well, the transition back to work went much smoother then I expected.

Bentley is doing great! He does wonderful with Mckenzie, he is very gentle with her and often will stop her swing from swinging to give her a kiss on her hand.  If he can reach her he will always give her a little kiss, she usually shoots him a look like what are you doing?1 LOL  He is starting a puppy class next week, we did one with Dixie and was totally worth it! He is really a smart Pup! My mom & Dan got Tank from Bernadette (who we got Bentley from) who is a 4 year old show Aussie.  Bernadette has been competing him with agility and what not but he is on the smaller side for a male so he wasn't really placing, she decided to keep Mojo (Bentley's brother) when she heard my mom would be interested in taking Tank since she only wanted him to go to a loving family and not just anyone.  Bentley's brother Mojo is 35 pounds! Big boy! Bentley is only about 20 pounds!

Tank is beautiful, with gorgeous blue eyes!

3 months

We did Mckenzie's 3 month photos last weekend.  Dani who did the newborn ones did a wonderful job

This rocking chair was Jeremy's when he was little.  His grandma refinished it a few years back :)

I made Mckenzie a tutu, they are so expensive to buy already made, but I found out that it was way easier to make and only cost me about $7 to make!

I returned to work on Friday and our nanny did great with Mckenzie.  I even heard Mckenzie laughing at one point and went to check on her, the nanny was making noises and got her laughing it was so cute! Going back to work with Mckenzie being watched in the house was a breeze since I work from home, made going back to work much easier! :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Daddy bought Mckenzie a Valentine's card, she's been getting good at holding stuff and held onto this for a few minutes.  We just went to dinner at Red Robin last night, which was yummy :)

3 months old!

Mckenzie is 3 months old today!

We had professional pictures done here at the house, Dani did her newborn pictures and did a great job that I can't wait to see them.  Our friend Shalane made her some more hats and a diaper cover :)

Can you tell I love my new camera? I LOVE it!

Mckenzie weighs 14 pounds now.  The hospital has a breastfeeding bunch where you can go and weigh and feed your baby to see how much they're eating.  She has definitely filled out.  I love the rolls on her thighs and arms :)

She is still a very relaxed baby, and is sleeping great! She's now doing 7-8 hour stretches! We are trying to transition her into her crib and have been having her nap in there.  She is smiling all the time now, every morning when she wakes up with a ton of smiles! She usually eats around 7am ish and sleeps until 10am regularly, eats and is up for a bit and then naps for a good hour or two.  I've been noticing that around 3pm she usually crashes for a good 2-3 hour nap.

I return to work on Friday, I'm think I'm ready to go back. I absolutely have enjoyed every moment being home with her these last 13 weeks! We're going to have a nanny watching her here at the house so that'll be nice and then late spring/early summer.  We'll slowly transition her into a in-home daycare that we found that was recommended by someone who takes their little boy there. So that makes going back to work a bit easier.

My family came into town this weekend and we had a wonderful visit with them :)

Baby Love!

Sorry I've been MIA lately! I'm good at uploading pictures onto Facebook! ;)

Mckenzie and I went to Oregon last weekend for a long weekend and stayed with my mom and Dan. It was a nice low key weekend.  My Auntie Connie mentioned that we should open a cupcake shop one day...and I've always wanted to check out the cupcake shop Saint Cupcake in Portland.

                                  
                                    

It was a neat little cupcakery in the Pearl District.  The cupcakes looked really good, but we were a bit disappointed.  They only had 4 cake flavors - red velvet, vanilla, chocolate and carrot cake.  The cake wasn't moist and airy like my cakes are and they put way too much frosting on them.  So Auntie Connie and I are certain that we would have an awesome cupcakery! Its just a dream for now but we can dream right? :)

Mckenzie is doing great! She's growing and changing! She is such a ham, wakes up smiling and has started a new thing when I'm nursing her and go to switch sides - starts grinning up a storm at me! I love it!  Her neck is still super strong and she enjoys tummy time and playing on her play mat - she's really good and kicking the toys that dangle above her, I should video it!  She's always cooing and talking up a storm, in fact about 11pm last night she was talking away! She also LOVES bath time! :) Even Bentley enjoys coming in the bathroom and watch us give Mckenzie a bath :)

I go back to work in about 2 weeks, I'm not dreading it [yet].  We had an idea on what we wanted to do with daycare but didn't make any decisions until last night.  We got the name of a daycare provider that does it in her home and checked her out this week.  We had checked out 1 center, 2 in-home daycares and interviewed 3 nannys.  We were torn on what we should do.  So we decided to hire a nanny that will watch Mckenzie here at the house for the first 3 months or so and then transition her into an in-home daycare.  She's just starting to nap in her crib but loves napping in her swing, and I would prefer to work with her on napping in her pack -n- play so when she goes to daycare its an easy transition for her, us and the daycare. We'd love to do the nanny all year but there are a lot of tax hoops, doing a W2, and what not we'd have to jump through if we had a nanny all year.  I figure by the time she's 6 months she'd probably enjoy being around other children too :) I feel good about our decision!

Bentley is doing really good - he's such a lover, and likes to nap during the day when Mckenzie is napping. :)

We have my mom, Dan, Scottie and Nathan coming into town next weekend.  Jeremy, Scottie and Nathan are going to go snowboarding up at Bogus Basin when they come, we had got them gift certificates for Christmas, so they're excited to go snowboarding with Jeremy :)

2 months old!

Mckenzie had her 2 month appointment with her pediatrician today!

She now weights 12 lbs 4 oz and is 23 1/4"" long

85th Percentile for weight
77th Percentile for height:

She also had to get 3 shots and one oral vaccine.  Poor thing screamed her head off, never have we seen her cry that hard! :( Thankfully she calmed down pretty quickly.

She is growing fast, I am still amazed at how strong her little neck is, it's been super strong since birth but she has no problem sitting on our lap and looking all around and moving her neck.  Tummy time basically consists of her rolling onto her back.  She is smiling more and more.  She is good at following our voices and moving her head to look at us :)

Now she's totally zonked out which is to be expected

December

So this will probably be really long with lots of pictures :)

Arggh! I tried multi-tasking with uploading photos and writing a blog, it didn't work so I'm re-trying all this and am not going to re-type ALL of it since it took me a while! Dang it! Oh well!

We spent 2 weeks in Oregon visiting family and friends!

My niece Savannah and Mckenzie

We went to our friend Dustin's for his annual white elephant party! I was so excited to see our friend Trish, because I found out the day before she got a job in Boise, which meant she was moving.  When I saw her I said Congrats on the new job, and hugged her, she then held out her hand....bling bling...she had a beautiful engagement ring on her finger...Bryan had proposed to her earlier that day! I've known for 6+ months that he had an engagement ring custom made...and was anxiously waiting for him to propose! :) She starts her new job on Monday and will be arriving here for good today!

Here's the happy couple!  

Much of the trip, Mckenzie spent snuggled on someone's chest

We celebrated Christmas early at Jeremy's grandparents on the 20th since his aunt, uncle and cousin were in town.  Here's our annual picture in front of the Christmas tree at his Grandparents.

And the whole family...

Christmas eve Mckenzie and I went to a Christmas eve service with my mom, Dan and Scottie.  We then drove to Forest Grove where we had dinner at his grandparents and then went to church where we got married.  After we came back and had dessert and relaxed we headed back to his parents house.  On our way, I realized we were supposed to go to our friend's Matt & Julie's house! So we turned around and called them they still had all their family over but said to come over anyway since they had something for Mckenzie.  They got her a cute sweatpant outfit, and us a cool Oregon Ducks ornament.  They also gave us this....

We were so excited to find out they were expecting! We knew they had been trying and at Dustin's party Julie didn't have anything to drink and everyone gave her the side eye but then she said "My period is due on Christmas..." I still gave her the side eye but didn't say anything.  I had met her for lunch a few days later and we had Mexican because she "was craving it..." I gave her the side eye again and figured she might be pregnant but I knew it'd come out sooner or later.  It was such a cute way to announce.

There is another baby boom! My friend Caitlin, Crystal, Felicia and Kelsey are all expecting next year!

Mckenzie found her thumb after a bath!

After she rolled over during tummy time, she is really good with her neck and most of the time rolls over instead of doing 'tummy time!'

With Grandma-ma!

Being held by Uncle Scottie for the first time! It was hilarious because I put her in his arms and he was a bit panicked because he had never held a baby before...I didn't even realize that but he did very good holding her ;)

Her Santa outfit from Great-Grandma Gracie

We spent Christmas day with Jeremy's parents and other Grandma in the morning.  We then headed to my mom & Dan's for an early dinner.  I was soo excited because my mom's best friend Connie---well she's my "Auntie Connie" and her boyfriend Eric had driven up on Christmas eve and we were planning to surprise my mom on Christmas day, so we stopped by their hotel and they followed us to my mom & Dan's house.  Dan asked if I needed help getting stuff out of the car, I told my mom I needed her because she had to help me get Dan's Christmas gift...she walked out and found Connie and Eric standing outside! She was so surprised and excited that they came up for the wedding.  They of course loved Mckenzie!!

The 26th, my mom & Dan got married and it was a beautiful ceremony and reception.  They served Kahlua pork, rice, chicken, salad, rolls and other yummy food!  On the 27th, they headed to Leavenworth & Seattle for a few days.

We went to Lincoln City where I went and did a glass blowing class and made my own glass float.  The city hides floats on the beaches every day but I have never found one before, so Jeremy's parents got me a gift certificate for my birthday last year.  I finally got over there and made it, the glass I was working with was 2,000 degrees and my float had to cool in a 900 degree kiln, otherwise it would have broke if it cooled too fast.  The glass studio is shipping it to me, and I hope to get it any day, I'll post a picture when it's done :)

On the 31st, we went and picked up our sweet puppy Bentley near Eugene! He is such a sweetie and does really well around Mckenzie.  

My parents made us some bells that we got for Christmas, at first I wasn't sure what they were...but she told me a friend of their's had something similar on their door and had trained their dog to nudge them when it need to go outside.  Bentley is so smart and picked up the concept right away and nudges them when he needs out.  Of course she had my brother paint the bells to be Oregon Duck colors :)