A Typical Week

This past week has been pretty boring and uneventful, but luckily I have an 8-month old little baby to entertain me.

Here are some pictures from the past week.

One of Makenna's new tricks. Whenever she is on her tummy, she either pushes herself up to this position, or up on her hands and knees. She can also now push herself back up to a sitting position. She is not quite crawling, but still manages to scoot, squirm, and shimmy herself across the floor. The other day I set her on the bathroom floor in front of the counter while I brushed my teeth, and I made the mistake of leaving the room for a minute. When I came back, Makenna had maneuvered her way over to the trash can, knocked it over, and was pulling things out of it! Note to self: keep trash cans empty.

Makenna has also learned how to pull herself up onto her knees. She is constantly trying to pull herself into my lap.

She also loves to put her hands inside of things. Whenever I have a drink, she tries to shove her hand inside the glass. It splashes all over, and is usually pretty funny as long as it is just water. Here she is trying to get her hand inside a jar of baby food.

Makenna loves to play with lots of non-toy items. Some of her favorites are mommy's make-up (the mascara is particularly appealing), the window blinds, and anything that has a cord.
This is probably my favorite picture from the past week. I was making dinner, and John was watching Makenna in the other room. I heard him laughing, and this is what I found when I came to investigate!

First Words and New Photos

Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma...
That is what I have been hearing non-stop for the past two days! Although I am sure that she doesn't know what she is saying yet, it is still super exciting to hear her say it!

I took Makenna to get her pictures taken at the beginning of this month, and although John thinks that I spent too much money, I just couldn't help it. The pictures were just too cute, and I had to have them!

Here are some of my favorites:

Viva Las Vegas!

Exactly one week after returning home from Utah, Makenna and I were back on a plane, this time headed for Las Vegas (and joined by John). We had been planning this trip for awhile, but I was a little nervous about it, since both Makenna and I had come down with colds since our Utah trip, and we had heard that it was going to be ridiculously hot in Vegas, but off we went!

We stayed at THEHotel at Mandalay Bay, which is right on the strip. It was definitely one of the ritziest hotels I've ever stayed in. We decided that going to Las Vegas by ourselves with Makenna wouldn't be the best idea ever, so we planned our trip with John's parents, and they had an adjoining suite to ours.

During the week, we enjoyed swimming at our hotel (there were 2 regular pools, a lazy river, a wave pool, and a large kiddie pool),

exploring the different hotels on the strip,

eating at lots of yummy buffets, and hanging out with John's parents.

The highlight of the trip however was the shows. On Tuesday night we all went and saw Mystere by Cirque Du Soleil. Makenna starting crying during the pre-show entertainment, and I thought oh no, this could be a disaster, but she actually did really well during the show, and alternated between watching and being excited, and trying to bury her head in my chest to go to sleep (it was WAY past her bedtime).

Here we are at Mystere before the show

On Thursday night, John and I left Makenna with his parents and we went and saw Phantom: the Las Vegas Spectacular. It was AMAZING!! We absolutly loved it, and of course had to buy the cd, which we have been listening to since we got home.

The trip was not without challenges, like when Makenna was awake from 12-3am the first night, or when I got really sick Wednesday night, but overall it was a really great trip, and we are glad that we went.

Thanks Mom and Da for coming to Vegas with us and helping with Makenna. It was great to share our week with you!

Trip to Utah

Last week, Makenna and I went to Logan, Utah to visit my sister Amanda and her 11 month old baby girl Kate. We had such a fun time. Makenna absolutely loved seeing her cousin; she got so excited every time she saw Kate. Unfortunately for Kate though, Makenna expressed her excitement by trying to grab any part of Kate that she could get including her hair, hands, feet, clothes, etc. After being tugged on a few times, Kate decided that it was probably in her best interests to ignore Makenna.

We did lots of fun things with the babies. Here are some pictures from our adventures:

Makenna snuggling with her aunt Amanda

Swimming in the baby pool on the deck. It was freezing cold the first day, so Makenna wouldn't sit down, but just wanted to bounce and splash.

Sharing bath time with Kate

Playing with the sunscreen bottles

Eating fruit loops and animal crackers at the aquatic center. Makenna learned to feed herself these yummy treats while we were in Utah!

Amanda and I made floral headbands for the babies. It was a fun project.

Although not quite as fun as it was when Amanda made a hat out of the extra flowers! I think it might have been a little heavy!


We bought Makenna and Kate matching outfits (same size too). It was quite the struggle to get a good shot of them together. Makenna was more interested in trying to grab Kate, and Kate was more interested in getting away.

This was the best shot.
We had so much fun, and are so glad that we made the trip out there. Thanks for letting us come Amanda! We can't wait for you to come to Omaha, so that we can play some more!

My Water Baby

From very early on, Makenna has always loved her baths. She is so happy in the tub, and loves to splash, play with her tub toys, and suck water out of her washcloth. Recently I have discovered that this love of water does not only apply just to her baths.



Makenna also loves to go swimming. We have a pool at our apartment complex (one of the perks of renting) and she absolutley loved it when we took her a few weeks ago. The water was pretty cold, so I was worried that she wouldn't like it, but she adjusted to it more quickly than I did (she does have quite a bit of insulation). On Saturday we took her swimming again, this time for almost 2 hours, and again she loved it.



On Father's Day, I took Makenna out to visit her Grandma and Grandpa Bailey at their new house on a lake. While sitting on the dock, my dad put Makenna's feet in the lake, and she immediately started kicking her legs, and leaning over to try and touch the water. She definitly wanted to get in; it was pretty cute. However, she didn't know quite what to think about the fish that her Uncle Morgan was catching. I'm so glad that it is summer, and I am looking forward to taking Makenna swimming some more, and just being outside (inbetween the storms of course).

Tornados Round Two

Well, my hoping that we wouldn't have any more tornado warnings for awhile was dashed to pieces on Wednesday night. John was out of town, so when the sirens sounded at 6:30pm, I was on my own. Makenna and I headed for the shelter (workout room) and this time were there for over 2 hours. The system that passed dropped 7 tornados! It was probably the worst storm that I have ever been in, and I grew up here! The closest tornado to us was about 10 miles away. Sadly, one of the tornados hit a Boy Scout camp about an hour north of Omaha, and 4 boys were killed. Watching the coverage of this particular tornado on the news has been really sad, but it has also been neat to hear the stories of the survivors, and how the boys took care of each other. It has also made me so grateful that my family has been kept safe, and we are keeping the families who have lost loved ones in our prayers.

One Stormy Night

Living in Nebraska has definitely been a change in weather for us. While living in constant rain in Washington, I used to say to John, "if it is going to rain all the time, I wish it would at least storm a little bit". Watch what you wish for, right? For the last month or so, we have had numerous severe thunderstorms, most of which happen in the middle of the night. Lucky for us, we chose to live in an apartment with big bay windows in both of the bedrooms. We thought they were different, and would let in lots of light (both of which are true), but what we didn't realize is that they seem to magnify the noise outside. We have all been woken up in the middle of the night (Makenna included) several times during the last month during big thunderstorms. So far though, we have only had tornado watches and thunderstorm warnings, but no tornado warnings. Well, at least not until Saturday night.

John and I were woken up at 2:30 am with the wind and rain on our window. We got out of bed and peeked out the blinds to see the action. As soon as we climbed back in bed, the tornado sirens started going off. We quickly turned on the news just in time to see the map of our area, with the tornado symbols exactly 2 miles south of where we live! We jumped out of bed, threw on some sweatshirts and shoes, and prepared to head to the storm shelter. When I went in to grab Makenna, she was wide awake, lying on her tummy just looking around. I grabbed her, threw a big blanket over her head, and we ran down the 3 flights of stairs to the car. We jumped in and drove over to the storm shelter (a.k.a. the workout room underneath the apartment complex office). There were probably about 15 people in the room already, with the news on, and as we waited, about 35 more people trickled in. Luckily Makenna didn't seem to mind the middle of the night festivities, and enjoyed just looking around at people, and at her reflection in the mirror. After about 20 minutes, the worst of the storm had passed, and our trusty weather man gave the all clear to come out from shelter.

After feeding Makenna and putting her back to bed, I laid awake for another hour and a half before I was finally able to fall back asleep. I guess it took awhile for the adrenaline to wear off. Thankfully the tornado stayed to the south of our neighborhood, and although it did cause quite a bit of damage, no one was seriously injured. It was a pretty exciting night, but one that I hope we won’t have to repeat for awhile. From now on, I am definitely going to watch what I wish for!