Cousin Wyatt

We are so excited to announce the birth of Wyatt, Makenna's newest cousin. He was born on September 21st at 1:50am to a very proud mommy (Beth) and daddy (Jason). He weighed 6 pounds, 15 ounces and was 18 3/4 inches long. He is such an adorable little guy and is sleeping well. We were so blessed to be able to go and visit Jason, Beth, and Wyatt at the hospital on the day of his birth; just at a little more of a respectable time in the morning. It is going to be so exciting to see Makenna and Wyatt grow up together. We are so happy to have this little bundle of joy in the family.

Los Angeles County Fair

We love going to the LA County Fair. It has been a tradition of mine for a long time. My sisters and I used to enter table settings, collections, and photographs into the fair when we were younger. We don't do that anymore but I still love going to sightsee. We went with my mom and Jim and met Toby's mom, sisters (Renee and Beth), and brother-in-law (Jason) at the fair.

This year we got to bring Makenna and I was particularly excited to take her into the petting zoo because I thought that she would like that animals actually come up to her instead of running the opposite direction, as is typical of any animal that knows Makenna and still wants their fur. It was one of those moments that I really wish that I could know what she was thinking. All of the sheep and goats were coming up to her, she got licked, sniffed, and her clothes got chewed on a bit by one hungry goat. She would pet the animals a little and preferred the soft wool of the sheep to the rough fur of the goat. She was not incredibly sure that she liked it and a few minutes after we got in we quickly left because she had had enough of the animals. I think she was getting mad because she is teething and I wouldn't let her put her hands in her mouth while we were petting the animals. I think she prefers the animals from a distance.



We love that it is the one time of year that you can get deep fried anything and not feel bad about it. We always get the blooming onion, mmm...so good. We have never been adventurous enough to get a deep fried twinkie, snickers bar or butter though. Usually we leave with our stomachs happy from tasting such yummy food but upset from all of the grease but this time we were a little smarter and shared the food with others so we didn't feel awful later. Another reason I love going to the fair is that we always seem to run in to people that we know and haven't seen in a while. It was great catching up and showing off Makenna. All in all a great day!

Swinging

On Labor Day we went over to my grandparent’s house for lunch with my sister and brother-in-law. They have a swing set in their backyard and Makenna has never been on a swing before, aside from the indoor little baby swing that she sleeps in sometimes. She had so much fun! She had the happiest smile on her face and cried when Toby took her out of the swing. I guess when we go to our mom’s groups we can now actually play on the playground’s swings instead of just watching all of the other kids playing. How fun!!

San Diego Vacation

So we decided that we wanted to go on a vacation, but since we have the little one it limited where we could go because she doesn’t sit well for long car rides and we really didn’t want to go on a plane with her. We were too worried that we would be the family with the screaming baby on the flight; we know how much everyone loves that family. We had been to San Diego several years ago with just Toby and I and decided that we would go back because there was so much more that we hadn’t gotten to see there last time. You can’t beat the weather and the drive was only 2 hours.

We stayed at a hotel down in San Diego for five days. I am a bit of a germaphobe when it comes to hotel rooms so it was a little nerve racking for me just going to a hotel with Makenna when she is in the crawling stage. We brought a large sheet to put down on the floor of the hotel room so that she could crawl and I wouldn’t have a heart attack thinking of everything gross that was on the floor Even with a space to crawl, Makenna didn’t like the hotel room. It was also a little different for Toby and I that we had to go to bed at 8:00pm because Makenna wouldn’t stay asleep if the television was on. That made for an interesting experience.

We did so much though since Makenna didn’t care to be at the hotel we left as soon as we were all ready each morning, usually around 8-9am and didn’t come back to the hotel room until around 7pm. We went to Balboa Park and laid out a blanket almost every evening to let Makenna get some energy out by crawling around before we headed back to the hotel each night. It is such a nice area and gave us so much to see whether we wanted to just sit and relax or go through museums and gardens. Makenna loves fountains so she was very happy when we stopped to gaze at one of the fountains.



We went to La Jolla and saw the Sunny Jim Cave where we walked down 144 fairly steep steps in limited light to see the beautiful sea cave. Makenna liked the sound of the waves as the water came rushing through the cave. We went to the Children’s Pool where there are supposedly a lot of seals and sea lions but we unfortunately only saw a few. There were people in the ocean swimming with the seals; I would not have been that brave.


We also went to the Birch-Scripps Aquarium. Makenna loved the sardines at the aquarium the most. Finally, after taking Makenna to a lot of places with animals over the many months, she finally liked the animals more than the people. Although, she still liked the people too:-) When I was younger this used to be my favorite aquarium, so it was nice to go back and see what has changed.


We went to Old Town San Diego, Seaport Village, Coronado, and Cabrillo National Monument. We had been to Old Town and Seaport Village in our previous trip, but we hadn’t had a chance to see Coronado and Cabrillo National Monument. It was fun to see the lighthouse and the pretty views at Cabrillo, although we were disappointed that we didn’t get to go up to the top of the lighthouse. Oh well.


The place that we most enjoyed was the Maritime Museum. We got the extra ticket so that we could go on a boat tour of the San Diego harbor and it was really neat. Makenna absolutely loved the boat ride. It was awesome to get to see so many different types of ships all in one area from submarines to yachts. Makenna was even a captain and steered the ship that they used for the movie “Master and Commander”. Hehe.




It was a good trip but a lot more difficult with a little one that wanted to crawl all over the place. I think that the next time we have a baby, we will go on a vacation before they are crawling or after they are walking. I am still glad that we went.

Wedding Bells

My youngest sister Alycia got married on August 21st in beautiful San Clemente, CA. It was a wonderful ceremony and a great reception. Alycia looked so beautiful in her dress and Scott looked handsome in his suit. I was so worried; since I was in the wedding, how would I manage to do all of that and still feed Makenna when she was hungry? I was so glad that everything seemed to work out perfectly. When she was hungry, I ended up having time to feed her. Toby did have to stand in the back for the ceremony because she was getting cranky, but other than that she did extremely well for not having a normal routine. I was only able to do all of it because Toby was willing to take over everything except breastfeeding for me on that day. I couldn’t have done it without him.