Dancing Girl

Makenna is in a stage right now where she loves to dance. If you can't get her to smile then all you have to do is turn on music and have an area big enough for her dance expression. She askes every night for us to turn to the music channel on TV so she can dance. She then proceeds to tell Toby and I that we need to dance too. And then if we accidentally step onto the tile floor off of the carpet she reminds us that the dance floor is on the carpet. She also does not hesitate to tell us if we are doing dancing that she doesn't like.  Apparently dancing like a teapot or the pharaoh dance is not an approved dance.  I can't wait until I can get her into dance class!

San Diego Zoo Birthday Bash

We had the awesome priveledge of getting to go to the San Diego Zoo with Beth (Toby's sister), Jason (Our brother-in-law), and Wyatt (Our nephew). We were going for Wyatt's first birthday. So we all crammed into one car to save on gas and got the opportunity to spend more time together. It was Wyatt's first time to the zoo, so it was so exciting to see how interested he was in the animals. He loved looking at the animals and I will have to say that Makenna actually enjoyed the animals way more then she ever has before. Although we didn't stay as long as everyone had hoped, we got to see all of the important/big animals: the giraffes, zebras, elephants,

vultures and other birds,

panda bears, flamingos,

polar bears, camels

and oh so much more (I won't bore you by listing any more animals). Taking a short break to eat and play on one of the play areas was nice too.

We had such a fun time and felt so blessed that we got to experience this time with Wyatt, Beth, and Jason. Happy birthday little one year old!!

Terrifying L.A. County Fair

Makenna and I got the privilege of going on two separate occasions to the L.A. County Fair. So here are how our days went:

Day 1
We loaded up my mom and Jim's car with all of our stuff, Makenna, Toby, my mom, Jim, and me and headed on the road to the fair. When we got there, we decided to give Makenna a few minutes to wake up since she had been sleeping in the car so we headed over to the dinosaur exhibit hall first. Let's just say that she was thoroughly terrified even after assuring here that they were pretend. She didn't appreciate the exhibit until the very end when they had a dinosaur nest to play in with eggs (balls). And she actually warmed up enough to go and get a picture on the big dinosaur too.

Next we headed over to the almost as terrifying princess and knights area...hehe. Makenna didn't want to dress up in a princess costume, but she enjoyed wearing the high heels and purse. But because Toby longed to fight with swords and battle dragons over in the knights area, we decided to let Makenna decide what she would prefer. Wisely she decided to wear high heals, a purse, and wield a sword. The best of both worlds:-)

Now that Makenna was awake enough, we headed over to the animal area. She was appreciating her time and identifying the animals when we thought it would be fun to take her into the petting zoo area. She thought she wanted to go in and pet the animals until she was actually in there. She hated it...she got upset every time that the animals came near her, refused to pet any, and was convinced that the goats were trying to eat her...hehe. Terrifying experience number 3. So that didn't last long and could possible have scared her for a life of no more petting zoos. I feel awful for saying this but, it was pretty funny! Even days after she would say "goats eat" with a terrified look on her face. On from our horrible petting zoo experience we tried to watch the pig races but I think Makenna was the only one that actually got to see anything. We finished walking through the rest of the animal exhibits and found a little Dude Ranch section where she wasn't afrait to ride the horse...

Okay, so it is only a rocking horse, but it counts:-) The highlight of the trip though was when Makenna got to do this hands-on exhibit showing the stages of planting, harvesting, and shopping. She started off planting the seeds,

milking the cow, 

and collecting an egg. 

Then she got to the next section where she picked the fruit,

harvested the vegetables, and sold them. 

She then received play money to go to the next section and buy groceries at the store. The store had a shopping cart and Makenna grabbed that cart so fast and went running down those aisles to get her supplies. Apparently she is mimicking my shopping...how fast can I get it done with a toddler in my cart:-) She chose her items carefully (Styrofoam plates, ice cream, and bread) and then she paid for the food at the end.

She loved it so much that we sent her back a second time only this time instead of going with mommy and grandma she went with daddy and grandpa. She showed them exactly what she was supposed to do.  Excepts this time she planted one of the seeds inside of herself...this picture was taken right after she swallowed it.

So a total terrifying fair experience was averted!  Saved by the shopping cart.

Day 2
Since we had such a great day when we went with my family, we decided that we should go again with some friends who had never been to the L.A. County Fair. The details are about the same as the first trip so instead I will just show you some cute pictures. These girls love being together...and the kids love it too:-)

Our Baby Dinosaurs

Milking Maidens

Our Brave Crew

We always had a family tradition of going to the fair every year and I hope this will continue on into the future.

Hollywood Bowl

We went to see John Williams at the Hollywood Bowl. We had seen him once before and absolutely loved it. So we decided that since there was a large group of us (9 family aside from us) going that we would bring Makenna for her first experience at the Bowl. We had our picnic before hand at the parking lot picnic area and then headed up to our seats. We never get the expensive seats so we get the experience of hiking up the hill to the nose bleed seats, but I wouldn't have it any other way. We got up to the seats with just enough time to spare. Makenna occupied herself by admiring the lady's shirt in front of us with all of it's animals. As the lights dimmed I looked to try to scope out the quickest way to get out of the Bowl should Makenna inevitably have a meltdown or be too noisy. To my surprise she was so great the whole time. Mind you the Hollywood Bowl never starts until 8ish when it gets dark and then doesn't end until 10-11ish and Makenna is used to going to bed no later than 8pm. She was mesmerized by the music, but her favorite part was the clapping at the end of each song. She would start to doze off and then there would be clapping and she would pop those eyes open and be clapping with the rest of us. We didn't have to get up and take her for a walk and we didn't bother anyone because she was a perfect audience member. She stayed awake until the very end. 5-minutes before we left she finally laid her head down on me and was out. It made the walk down a little more taxing...I never realized how heavy she was until I carried her all the way down the hill when she was sleeping and giving me all of her weight to hold:-) The only sad part of the night was that Toby didn't have a light saber to wave around like all of the other cool nerds in the audience. But maybe next year:-) We had a marvelous time. Can't wait to go back next year.

Theatrical Makenna

After my cousin's wedding we got up early and headed back down to church to make it for Makenna's first performance. We had been practicing the song with her for one month and she would do some of the hand motions. She performed better then I thought she would for being up in front of the church for the first time. She of course did it better at home but that's ok. It is very cute anyways. Makenna is on the very right side of the video. I cut down the video because Makenna only does her hand motions for the first minute and then she was lost the rest of the time:-)