Sweet Brynlee Jade

Here is my darling niece Brynlee Jade. My sister Bree had her yesterday morning. Unfortunately for Bree, she had to have a hysterectomy to save her life. My sweet sister, the one that dreamt of being a mommy time and time again, won't get that gift anymore. It breaks my heart that I can't be there with her-even in the lobby with everyone else. I want nothing more than to hug and kiss her and snuggle her new little one. Living far away is hard. It makes me wish I could be there....we send our love Bree and our prayers for you to hang on-Baby Brynlee needs to know how amazing you are and what you went through to get her here.

Life is like a box of "chocolates"

Friday. Mark is home watching Mckinley. Being that she is so regimented, she has a particular "schedule" for leaving a little present in her diaper. Mark said she was playing on the floor facing the TV, grunting away, and he decided to let her do her business in peace. She started crying and turned to face Mark. He saw some brown streaks on her face and thought, "How did she get into chocolate over there?" She started to crawl toward him and he realized the brown stuff, yeah, that wasn't chocolate. Yes, our child had her first taste of poop. She had pooped out of her diaper onto the carpet and had decided to play in it, and then see what it tasted like. There are no picutres of that, Mark was frantically going through a package of wipes trying to clean her up.


Saturday- found a $5 pre-lit Christmas tree @ a yard sale. I have been wanting one since the one we have is a $16 gem we bought from Wal-mart when we first got married. No lights....basically our Charlie Brown tree. I am sad to see it go because I can remember setting it up in the apartment in Logan. It was HUGE then because our apartment was so small but we had a GREAT Christmas.

Also stumbled across a moving sale where there was a Dyson vacuum calling to me from the street- got out and there was a few people going in and out of the house- I asked the lady if it was for sale and she said she sold it for $15?!?!?! I offered her more but the woman in her house was buying EVERYTHING- I could hear her dumping silverware and she had bought all the furniture too. I was sad I didn't get it but oh well :)


Here are a few cute pictures of Mc- one in her swimsuit cover up (XO mimi). Who knew that a Pampers box would entertain for so long?

PiNk is the new black

Thanks Bruce for capturing the pink so well in this picture. We are so happy with them! We got up early (don't be fooled, still went yard sale-ing) and took this gem. There are plenty more but this was the first to come by email. This was the first picture he took-she loves the camera. Thanks to Bridget for the darling necklate too. LOVE IT. How precious our little girl is!

Behold, the Great Mustachio

Whoa- I checked the date on the last entry and realized it has been a little while since I had posted. Sorry, things as a single mom are hard. I zoom home, pick up Mc, feed her, bathe her, cuddle her and I am off to bed.


In Williamson news- our baby is going to be 10 months old next week. I can't believe it. I will say, she is so much fun. She is such a little ham. Loves the camera, bath time, food (especially chocolate molten cake - I mean who doesn't), and she has now learned to put things inside each other. She also has discovered button pushing and the Power button for the DVR is her new favorite. Her pettiskirt for her first birthday came- LOVE IT, BRIGHT pink and two lbs. or glorious Chiffon! Pictures soon to follow hopefully.


Mark is in a mustache growing contest with the boys he is working with- I venture to say he will win. What will he win you ask, besides the hearts of all the ladies, he doesn't have to buy the other guys a steak dinner.
And to calm your hearts after that troubling image :) (you know I love you honey), a video of Mckinley on the move.

Defying Gravity

I can sum up the play "Wicked" in one word, AH-MAZING! Mark and I went and saw it Wednesday night and I can honestly say, it was THE best play I have ever been to. Loved it! Mark was impressed too. I absolutely loved everything about it and can't wait to go again.

The music, the cast, the costumes....all of it. I loved it so much I dropped $39 on a T-shirt but well worth it. I already had Mckinley's Halloween costume planned out but now I think a more Elphaba inspired costume is in the works.

This week was an interesting one. Mckinley got sick for the first time ever- throwing up, major diaper blow outs, lots of crying. I guess we should be lucky that we made it to 9 months with nothing but teething runny noses. The Dr. said it is a virus but that it could last two weeks! AHHH! Just glad to have Mark here for the weekend :) I missed him while he was working this week.

I love the sound of squeaky feet

The summer heat is officially here in AZ. We hit 112 degrees on Friday and it was painful! Ballet flat shoes were never made to withstand the heat of asphalt at that degree. In other news, Mckinley is 9 months old of of Thursday! Seriously, she gets more fun everyday. As you all know, I have pirated my child to a "Cutest Kid" contest. Hey, my kid is darling, we all know that, so why not throw her out to America to decide if she is worth $2500!! Vote for Mckinley!!http://www.wetv.com/cutestkid/rating.php/8328/?pos=154

Today is Saturday- got up early and hit the yard sales with Lindy Iund as my sidekick. I played wingwoman today (the one who looks out for the signs). I got a few gems- an original Cupie Doll for $2 to go in Mckinley's room, some clothes for Mckinley (.50 cents-$1 a piece) and there was a random lady selling things like Quattro razors, ziploc bags, etc- all for $1-$3 so we both scored there. Last night we went to the Elders Quorum game night@ the church and busted out some Rockband and Uno. It was fun and we got to leave Mckinley with a babysitter- our sweet neighbor girl Kristen. Tonight, Mark's brother Matt is coming in from Utah so we get to go out and see "Harry Potter" YES!

I get to play single mom this week as Mark and a few dudes are working in Eager, AZ. They are going up there to paint an apartment complex Mon-Thurs. for the next four weeks. That should be a good time and I am not looking forward to getting up @ 5:00 to be on time! It will work out and it will be nice to have the money plus there are a few dudes going that need the work for their families too so it is a win/win for everyone involved. The Lord is really looking out for us :)

Here is just a cute video of Mckinley in her squeaky shoes (Thanks Sunni!!). They are still a little too big but the feetie jammies held them on pretty well. What was even more funny, Cory (the dog) was going nuts too thinking there was some squeaky toy somewhere for him to play with.

Summer time and the livings easy

Mckinley and I just got back from a wonderful trip to Utah. I have said it once and I will say it again, you forget how green a state can be until you get to Utah in the summer. There are so many gorgeous flowers and the trees and grass are a shade of green that could only be sustained in Arizona with gallons of water daily. We did a lot of visiting and were lucky enough to be in town for the blessing of her cousin Jill. Such a darling baby with mounds of black hair.

While we were in town we got to go to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. The temple is truly an amazing place. At the beginning we watched a movie and Elder Holland said that he doesn't think about heaven in the paradisical sense but that "no place is heaven without your family". It was good and so true. I cannot imagine life on the other side without all of my family there.

Here is my family (sans Brayden and Tyler) @ the Temple. If you look closely you can see the burn mark on the angel Moroni from being struck by lightening a few weeks ago.

We got to visist a little bit with everyone- not everyone I would like (sorry roomies...I am horrible I know) but we are coming home for a full week in Sept. so bare with us! :)

This was one of the cutest pictures of our darling little girl who will be nine months next week...amazing! She is crawling and quite well I might add. She is very quick! She loves solid food and will eat anything! She now says "Mama" which I was totally stoked for. She also pulls herself up and can stand for brief periods on her own too.

No pics of Mark and Tony from the races in Cali but rest assured that Mark had an excellent time. He said the weather was cold, his driver lost (but did beat Tony's driver) and they filled up on cherries from a grove there. He brought Mckinley two shirts and I got a Honda shirt. It was weird being on vacation without him but I am glad he got to go and have a break for a bit.

Back to work this week and this weekend is the ward pool party. It is also going to be 115 here in Phoenix...one night in Utah I sat outside talking to my dad and thought, "man, it's cold". I had to stop myself from saying it because I would love to have that here in Phoenix. We miss Utah and every day I converse with the Lord (well, almost every day) about what we should do. We miss family. Summer. Grass. We know we will end up there eventually but it doesn't seem like the right time now. We really are blessed and have too many super good friends here that I would be sad to leave. There is also much to look forward to that will make the time to Sept. fly by. Next week, Harry Potter...YES! We are stoked #1 being as we are rabid fans and #2 it will be the first movie we have been to together since December. The week after, Mckinley's 9 month appt and WICKED!! I am so excited to see it! Nothing planned for Aug. and normally I would be soliciting all those that read my blog to visit but in Aug. Arizona resembles an oven/blowdryer as far as heat goes so hold off until Oct. How is that for an update? Until we meet again!