A few changes

As you can all see I have made a few changes to the page. The pink was really starting to drive me crazy, and I have always loved blue. I also added a link on the right side to the Flickr account that I have created. A lot of the pictures that are on there are going to be duplicates to what I already have on this page, but flickr is extremly easy to use. On those days that I don't want to type a bunch I can post a few pictures on there and leave short captions. The only thing about Flickr is there is a limit to how much I can upload each month... and I have already reached that limit. It's ok though. I will pace myself better next time. Hope you all like the changes!

Snow... snow... go away...

It snowed here in KY the other day, and the snow still has not melted. Me and Makayla had a chance to go outside and play in it. She didn't really "play" but it was fun. I don't think she was as thrilled about the snow as I was. I was excited for a while, then we had to do some running around. That is when I was ready for this suff to melt. I hate driving around in the snow. My Mazda seems so light when the roads are icy.

Here is my little Knox house... all covered in snow. One thing I love about when it snows is how beautiful the trees look when the snow is covering them.

As you can see from the pictures... I could not get her to smile to save my life. She wanted nothing to do with the cold. I think she was uncomfortable in all the clothes.

She has this thing right now about standing on cement. For some reason she won't sit down if you place her on cement. She will stand there until you pick her back up. In this picture she didn't want to let go of my finger.

Once I slipped my finger out of the tight little grip she stood there for a few moments while I snapped a shot or two and waited patiently for me to pick her back up. Not once while we were out there did she crack a smile. Not even a grin!

Now... there is a sunny day we went over to the park to swing. I think I already posted a picture from this day on a previous post, but I really love her look on this picture. It is so sweet and innocent.

This picture isn't so sweet, but it was the only way I could get a shot of her teeth. I had to make her mad so she would yell at me, then I took the shot and gave her lots of hugs and kisses to make up for it! She has all 8 of her front teeth finally and actually has 1 moller all the way in and another on the way. I don't know if you can see the two front top teeth, but my daughter has a GAP!!! I really hope that fixes it self!

Here she is a few moments before I decided I had to have a picture of the teeth. This was Valentines day and she is with the elephant her daddy got her. This is the second valentines day she had a stuffed animal that was bigger than she was.

I'm sure we all remember this picture! Look how tiny my baby was. It is really crazy how time flies. (Sorry it's so small. Last time I put this on the site I resized it down to this size and it won't let me go back to the regualr size without destorting the picture.)

Here is the big girl we are used to seeing! She was showing me her block that came with one of the toys Sally sent her for Christmas. This is her way to say "Thank you Sally. We love you!"

Here she is all bundeled up and ready for daycare. It gets really cold around her at 0530 (5:30am for you civilians).

This was another cold day. Are you seeing the pattern here? At least soon winter will be over. Then you all will see the cute spring/summer clothes she has already. She is in 24 months already... can you believe that?

Another sweet face for me.

Makayla is starting pick up on everything I show her. If you look at the toy in her right hand it is a blue cirlce. Well... in her left hand she is turning the container to find the right spot that it goes in. So far she has learned the red square and the blue circle. This little girl is so smart. It amazed me how much she picks up.

Here she has found the blue circle and is putting her toy in the slot! And incase you are wondering... yes that is a watch on her wrist. It didn't last to long, but is was really cute.

This girl loves hanging out with her dad. Especially when she lets her play with his phone. I don't let her play with mine so she loves this!

Makayla is still being stubborn and refusing to walk. She takes a few steps here and there, but once she realizes what she is doing she flops down to the ground. I don't know what else I can do to make her walk. I will just have to wait until she gets confident in herself.

Happy Bithday to us!

Makayla is officially 1 years old... and I am officially old! We had a party here at my house for Makayla. It was really fun. I think she was really happy to have other kids around the house. Here are a few pictures of her special day. Here she is with her hat and balloons. She LOVED those balloons.

She was concentrating really hard on what was going on here. She has become such a nosey little somebody.

These are two of her new toys that she is "sharing" with one of her buddies. No matter which one I gave her, she was more worried about the other. (Can you see all the curls in her hair. It used to be so straight!)

Here is her new wagon. She studied the box for a while after the paper was torn off of it. Of course the tearing of the paper had to be done by me or her dad. She still wants nothing to do with unwrapping.

Here she is watching her dad put this thing together. I think she wanted to make sure it got done right.

After it was finally done she got to go for a short ride. Looking at the weather you would never believe it was January in Kentucky. It is usally freezing and snow covered this time of year.

For some reason dad wanted to do a lot of "off roading." Surprisingly this thing never tipped over.

Makayla had a blast with her cake. We got her a regular cake that she shared with everyone, then we got her a cake that was just for her. She tasted a little bit of the frosting and then went crazy!!! She had both fists in the cake and was stuffing it in her mouth like she had never eaten before.

She really could not get enough of it. At one point she picked up the whole thing, including the cardboard it was sitting on and was trying to put it all in her mouth. Needless to say, after that she had to get a quick bath and a new outfit, but it was all worth it. That was her with her first experience with sweets, and im sure it wont be the last.

The rest are not from her birthday. Here she is reading. It is so funny to watch her read. She will grab a book and sit down with it on her lap. (Like her lap is big enough to hold anything) Then she will open the book and start "reading." She will even point at certain things on the pages as she "reads." Every night when I read stories to her before she goes to bed I point out things that are talked anout on that page. Im sure thats where she gets that from.

Here is some more reading... even though the book is up-side-down.

Here she is hanging out with dad.

And another trip to the swings. She really enjoys the swings.

OK... now this is where you see how weird my daughter has become. Here she is "making out" with the dryer. Her first love. LOL

But I think this is why she is in love with the dryer. Its her a place where only she can fit. I put her in her and she loved it for some reason.

She looked around for a while then made her self at home.

She just looks way to comfortable in there.

I think I mentioned before about how horrible her first bath was. All the screaming and trying to crawl out. Well... that has changed. She enjoys her baths now. I showed her how to splash with her hands, and she figured out how to spash with her feet, so now she has a blast. She still hates to have her hair washed though.

Thats it for the pictures for now. I hope you all enjoyed them. Kayla is in Virginia right now with her dad, so I have time to get some scrapbooking done. The only thing I have done so far is try to catch up on some sleep. I miss my girl already though. I can't wait for her to get home. She is going to get her first hair cut while she is there. She is going to get her first hair cut from the same person her dad got his first hair cur from.

Unbelievable

It is crazy to think that in 8 days my daughter is going to be 1 years old. I look at her and it is hard to believe that she has been on this earth almost an entire year, but at the same time it seems like she has been here forever. I ask myself all the time "what did I ever do before Makayla?" I can't remember life without this girl. She is the highlight of my day... everyday.

It is also crazy, or should I say embarrasing, to think that it has been 2 months since I have updated this page! How could you all let me get so far behind. I will have to say that Jill and Duncan have been on me about the page so I will give them credit. But rest of you should have been overloading my email about this. OK... I will stop trying to point the blaim!

Makayla is now NONE STOP!!! She can stand, but chooses not to. She has taken a few steps here and there, but would much rather crawl. I don't know why she doesn't trust herself. She has fallen a couple of times, but not enough to discourage her... I don't think.

Christmas was fun. We were trying to hold out on getting a tree because we knew Kayla would be all over it. When we were finally ready to get one there were no good ones left so we just got a fake one. It didn't look so small until we put all the gifts under it. It ended up fitting perfectly in that spot though.

Also... you can see three of Makayla's christmas pictures over the TV. They are so cute. I wasn't here for that. I was at one of my many boards, but Duncan did a great job at picking out the dress and getting the pics taken. It took him three days and a number of phone calls to me to pull it all together, but he got it done. Good job dad!

We decided to let her open one gift on Christmas eve. It looks like she was trying to open it but she was really trying to use it to stand up. We had to open it for her.

Christmas morning was no different. Her touching this elmo bag was as close as we got to her opening gifts.

After 3 nights of wrapping all these gifts Duncan and I sat there and opened them all back up. She would not touch the paper to save her life. Even if we opened it a little and let her see it. She would just point at the open part... like this.

When she got a hold of the toys she would play with them momentarily and then move onto the next.

This is definatley her favorite. Every time you shake elmo his mouth opens and he talks and laughs. It was cute for the first 2 mins. Now it is REALLY getting old.

She got lots of book to add to her collection. We still read every night, so its nice to have more variety.

These two are also favorites. I'm sure you can all guess which she likes better. Elmo... of course! They both do the hookey pookey. This was the point of the morning when I got mad and almost threw my tape recorder. I had it all ready to go but for some reason the stupid thing didn't want to work. Makayla was dancing with those two dolls and the recorder wouldn't work. I was so mad... I REALLY wanted that on tape.

Of course after all the gifts were unwrapped she sat in the middle of the paper and played for probably 20 mins. She kept looking at me as if to say "Now why in the world would you spend all that money on toys? You should have just bought a couple rolls of wrapping paper and some bows and let me go at it!"

Duncan's mom flew in Christmas afternoon and spent a few days with us. She lucked out because her grandson was also in the area. We went down to see them Christmas evening. Adam has grown so much. It was crazy to see them standing next to eachother. Adam is over a year older than Makayla and Kayla is almost the same height as him. Here they are playing with a walking and barking toy dog. I'm not sure Makayla knew what to think about it. She just kind of watched it. She stuck her hand out to touch it a few times but pulled it right back. Adam on the other hand liked touching it... mainly to puch it over.

Heres Duncan and his handson nephew.

Here's Chris (Adam's dad) and Kayla in a santa hat.

This is the sweat shirt we got for Makayla (and her grandma). We all got a kick out of it. She has almost grown out of it... so Jill...I will be sending it to you soon!

By the end of the night Makayla was so tired, but would not go to sleep. The crazy thing is that she wasn't cranky at all. She just laid in my lap or her dads lap and just watched everything that was going on.

Heres Makayla on a swing for the first time. She liked it, but a couple of times she started to look like she was getting sick. Most of the time she just stared at the ground.

Have I ever mentioned to you all that Makayla loves books? Here she is with her new leap pad. She popped the book right out of the base and started flipping through the pages. I sit with her and the leap pad, but I don't think she likes it as much as me reading stories to her. That is fine by me because I love reading to her. Watching her point to different things on the pages and turning the pages is the best.

This picture is for all of you that think my baby never gets stressed out. LOL I crack up every time I see this picture because she looks like she just has so much on her mind that she just can't take it any more. In reality she is just really tired.

Like I said earlier... she can stand! We had her distracted by looking at the moose on the noggin channel. (Another favorite of hers) She stood there for a while, but once she realized she was standing....

she lowered herself to the ground. Never taking her eyes off the moose... as you can see!

Here is Makayla checking in with her Bible. She goes over to this Bible a few times a day and just opens it and flips through a couple of pages. She never pulls it down to the floor and never tears any pages. I should probably knock on wood though.

Another favorite and first word of hers is the duck. My bathroom is decorated in rubber ducks and she loves them. She actually says duck now. Its more like "du" but were getting there.

She must be in heaven now... she has a duck in her hand and the moose on the TV!

While im thinking about the bathroom... let me tell you all. I have moved Makayla from the kitchen sink to the bath tub for her baths. The first time she was in the big bath tub she freaked out! She was screaming and trying to crawl out. She was acting like I was trying to drown her. It was funny.... and on tape! (That just sounds wrong) Well, now she is much better. Once the tears stopped I was happy but now I have shown her how to splash and kick her feet so she loves it. Getting her hair rinsed is still not a favorite but no tears and involved so we are good to go.

Here is little miss smiles!

And little miss sassy!

Look how lucky I am... I get to see this numerous times a day. Can life get any better?

"Give me five Kayla!" And she does it. Its more like 35 cause she just keeps going and going.

Here she is experiencing bubbles for the first time. She liked it but she looked confused at the same time.

Well, I really want to update you all on what I have been up to but I want to get this posted to night so that will all have to wait for another day. At least you all get to see the princess.