Summer in a Nutshell (No, Really!)

St George

 Baseball

(Maybe next time he could give me a little more warning before snapping.)

Lots of Bear Lake

(Aaaa, squish squish.  I love her.)

Paris Ice Caves

Sprinklers

Splash Pad

Tractors

More Tractors/Cache County Fair

(Yeah, they might look a little alike)

Attacking Loving On Daddy 

(Loving on Mommy not shown-attacking each other also not shown)

Smores

Baking

Park City 

(Cam & Mark on the Alpine Slide)

Bus Rides

(On our way to Swiss Days in Midway)

(PS There were so many people there we couldn't move between booths)

(PPS At least we got to ride the bus)

TV Time

We had a great summer, and there's lots of things I didn't take pictures of.  For instance, I don't take pictures when I think my kids are being brats, or when I'm being a brat.  Mark's never a brat which sometimes ticks me off more than if he had been one.

It's a different challenge than I ever thought it would be to get my kids to share and I think we all have some scars from our many adventures of learning this concept this summer.  Who knew that a little girl with such a beautiful smile could suddenly turn into something resembling Sharp Tooth from Land Before Time when she's coming at you with those chompers.  I'll tell you who knows.  Cameron, that's who.  Now, if he'd have the attention span to remember this before he takes all her toys away.  

Well, I won't share all the juicy details of our summer because remember, this is supposed to be a nutshell.  Suffice it to say, though, we are still here and kickin' and living it up.  Hope you all survived the heat and had a great summer!

Happy Summer and Cheers to Autumn!  

Reflections

Do you ever make the mistake of checking your reflection in the mirror while holding a beautiful baby or standing by an adorable toddler?  Why is this a mistake, you might ask.  I've found it misleads me on how "adorable" I'm looking before I leave the house for the day.  Ah well.  Now I know why we had children-so we'd look presentable in pictures even without the haircut and amazing makeup.  Enjoy the family pictures.

Check out our awesome photographer's art blog and portfolio!  Thanks Alyssa Harper!

Summer is here, and so are we...Really...

Ah summer, how I've missed, dreaded, and prayed for it.  Let's start with the dread.  I love warm weather and warm weather activities.  Hot weather, on the other hand.....mmm, no.  Thankfully, a lovely air condition showed up this year and magically made it's way into our hearts.  An ode to follow later this summer, I'm sure.  Uh hem....moving on.  Picture overload coming since there's 2-1/2 month of cuteness to catch up on.  

In all reality, I am loving summer, or at least the mornings and evenings when I'm not melting.  It's been so fun to have a yard in this year and not get incredibly dirty every time I need to water the garden.  Cameron though, still prefers the dirt to grass.  Oh well.  

Three months

Cameron has what we like to call Tractor Radar.  He can spot a tractor a mile away.  Literally, he will look out our windows until he spots one in the fields somewhere.   Our conversation as we drive from the north end of Cache Valley to the south is as follows: "Mom, can I see a tractor?  There's a tractor!!!  Mom, can I see a tractor?  There's a tractor!!!  Mom.  Mommy, can I see a tractor?  Mom?  Mommy?  Hey, Ang!  There's a tractor!!!"  So sophisticated, I know.  My end is as equally advanced.  "Yes, you can see one soon.  There's one coming up.  Right there.  Yes, you can.  Soon.  Uh huh.  There's one."  He's gotten me so trained I do this even when he's not in the car.  He's so proud of his mama.  


When we tell him we're going to someone's house, he asks, "Do they have tractors?"  He knows the difference between a backhoe, bulldozer, skid steer, front loader, plowing tractor, and crane.  When Mark asked what he saw out his bedroom window, he responded.  Um, Travis' (our neighbor) skid steer."  "Do you see anything else?  How about some fields?  A tree?  Some mountains?  A school?"  To all of these he answered, "No, just Travis' skid steer."  Yep, Tractor Radar.  He will dig in the dirt with or without tractors for hours.  We love watching him learn to pretend! 

Thoroughly spoiled by and enamored with these gorgeous ladies.  Orange power!

He talks constantly and says the funniest things.  I got out a pillow for him to sleep on a couple of days ago and let him put on a pillow case that I had made when I was a kid and he says, "What?  A pillow for me?  Thanks Mom for making this pillow case for me!"  

He sings everything, including his own rendition of 'Darn It" (Never heard of it?  Try stepping on a giant lego piece.  You'll hear your own rendition), 'Jesus Came to John the Baptist' (with the word chocolate thrown in random spots like, Jesus came to John the chocolate), and 'I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home' (with lip substituted randomly: I'm so glad when Daddy come home, glad as I can lip....Pat his cheeks and give him lip, a great big lip).  So fun to see his little sense of humor come out and for him to start grasping the concept of jokes, even if he doesn't grasp the concept that they're really only funny the first couple times.  


Jacqueline thinks he's funny all the time, maybe that's why he persists in telling the same jokes.  Why change what works, right?

Last month we had an outbreak of Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease in our nursery and Cam was lucky enough to have a trial run of it.  Hopefully he'll never get it again because it is one nasty little beast.  He mostly got the blisters on his hands and feet, so we were lucky he didn't get it really bad in his mouth.  He didn't think he was so lucky.  The poor kid could barely walk for a week.  Here we are over a month later, and his finger and toenails are all falling off.  Lovely.  


Baby J is now almost 4 months old!  Last week she decided to surprise us by rolling over from her tummy to back.  I should've seen it coming, but it kind of hit me in the face since I still think she's a newborn.  When you hold her, all she wants to do is stand up and see what's going on in the room.  She bestows smiles upon all who pay attention to her...and those who don't.  She's such a sweet, special spirit and we feel so blessed to have her in our home.  Of course, I think most parents will think this about any child who sleeps through the night.  

It's been fun to see the difference between Cam and J as babies.  Both are/were great babies, and I think a lot of the difference is actually ME and how I have been able to respond.  Jacqueline has made it really easy to transition to two kids, and I think I've been more easygoing and less stressed than when I had Cameron.  Although I am different, these two little kiddos are definitely different, too.  Cam always wanted to be moving, have a binky, eat, and would get frustrated pretty easily.  J also likes to move, but she will lay and play and be so content.  She doesn't like her binky very much and is pretty happy to go to sleep without it.  She's such a fast eater-anything is better than Cam's hour long feedings-and will eat in 20 mins or less.  Um, wow?!  

Grandparent love!

Zoo, June 2012

Two months

Zoo trip

We're loving life right now.  Not because it's perfect, but because we're living it and learning so much!  This June we celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary!  We have a lot of learning to go!       

One Month Down

This brave little girl has one month living in our crazy household under her belt! She has survived multiple "lovings" a day from big brother.

(One Month)
Cam has done surprisingly well...so far... with another little one in the house. We'll hope this continues. He doesn't like that he can't throw things in the house anymore (because they ALWAYS end up hitting baby sis), he can't jump on the couch right by Baby J's head, and he can't lay down on her. Life.Is.Hard!

I think Cameron likes having Jacqueline around. Last week I took Cam to story time and left Baby J with my mom. As we're pulling out of the driveway, Cam yells, "No, my baby come!" He likes to give (shove it in her face) Jacqueline her binky and tell (yell) her good morning. He's been very patient with the fact that I have to take care of this new little one a lot of the time and my arms are not as free as they were.

(Posing in true McKenna style)

Jacqueline is sure a sweetie. At least, we think so. She's not awake a whole lot, so that definitely puts her ahead on the sweetness scale. We've gotten a couple smiles out of her, but never when we're trying! She'll surprise us with these "I'm so glad to see you smile!" Completely melts the heart!

Baby J was the recipient of this adorable owl hat (thank you Julie) that matched one I bought for Cam Man a little while ago. Love it. I also love that Jacqueline looks so silly and scrunched in this picture, but Cameron was cracking me up. (Doesn't he look so big???)

Life is good. We're catching up with the new routine-evidenced by Cam doing the potty thing again. Yippee! Well, maybe I should say we WERE getting into a new routine. As I'm writing this, Cam is napping with a fever, so we'll see. Joyous.

I feel like my emotions are finally evening out and I'm not crying over the fact that my little baby looks suspiciously like a big boy, dishes in the sink aren't done, and my husband has to work. Ha. Dang hormones. I'm also adjusting to the fact that everyone's heads looks incredibly large now. Do you notice that when you stare so much at a baby's head, or am I crazy? For the first several weeks, when I'd look at Cam's or Mark's heads, I thought they looked giant! Okay, I'm crazy. Don't rub it in.

The end of the semester is looking deliciously close, and I can hardly wait to have a summer with Mark out of school. Whaaat? (Mark, that was spoken with as much Gus as I could put into it).

Just a last picture to show Cam's latest obsession. Scriptures. Taken from our drawers. Every day. Dragged around the house. Is nothing holy? Can I really complain, though, that my seminary scriptures are actually being put to some use? Oh well, it makes him happy, and I'm all about that!

She's Here!



We're pleased to introduce

Jacqueline McKenna

Born March 7, 2012
at 11:20am

5 lbs 15 oz, 18 in

After a whirlwind 3 hrs of laboring, we were blessed with this little beauty!

She has dark hair like Cameron's was, just not as long, and eyelashes that make up for the difference!
Already she's a little girly-girl and likes her hair to be washed and combed :) I think Dad did a pretty good job fixing her up!

Big brother Cam couldn't wait to get this little girl on his lap and threw a fit when we told him he had to give her up.
Luckily, he thought my hospital bed was the next best thing to chocolate!

First picture as a family of four.

Ready or Not

Well, this kind of takes the suspense out of it, but we're having our baby tomorrow! I was really hoping to go into labor on my own since I was induced with Cameron, but D-Day has arrived with no baby in sight. At least I've gotten in a little more in shape the last week and a half running up and down stairs, jumping some jacks, and chasing after Cam a little more vigorously than usual.

We're super excited to meet our little girl, and I'm more than slightly terrified to be the mother of two kids. Here goes nothin'!

38ish Weeks

Have you ever had one?

"A month," I mean? In February, we had "a month." Yes, I know we all shared this same month, but really, February was A MONTH!

At times I wondered if I would have a mental breakdown. Overreaction? Yes, but I was an 8-1/2 month pregnant woman running on 3 hours of sleep a night.

Halfway into February, Cameron woke up and would not go back to sleep and just cried and cried. Mark, being the wonderful husband he is stayed up with him for a long while until he fell back asleep then tried to put him back in bed. Immediate meltdown by the little man. By this point I'm saying we just let him cry for a while in bed to see if he'll calm down himself and go back to sleep. Fast forward some minutes later -we hear a big thump, run to see what's happened only to find Cam has thrown himself out of bed. (Don't worry, he didn't get hurt). Immediate meltdown by the big mama.

A couple nights of the same pattern and I decide to take him to Dr. Russel to see if there's anything wrong besides those pesky bottom molars coming in. Something like my angel sleeper being replaced by a demon child. Nah, he's healthy as can be, so I think the end is in sight-just get those molars in and he'll be right as rain. I get him home and put him down for a nap because neither of us has slept for a couple nights and he proceeds to have a meltdown and throws himself out of the crib again. The first time, I'm okay. I look in on him, he's standing in his room just fine. I wait outside his door to see what he does. Little man proceeds to have a meltdown, crawls back in his crib then throws himself back out (I'm not talking about climbing out here, folks). Big mama proceeds to have a meltdown-remember, 8-1/2 months and zero sleep. Mmm, I'm seeing a pattern here.

Well, it's determined that Cameron will not sleep in his crib without someone at least being in his room, so each night, we both give up and Mark pulls a mat in around 4:00 am and sleeps on the floor.

The next week, Mark leaves on a business related trip for the week. Let's just say that neither Cameron or I got any sleep at night or during the day for naps. WHAT? My empathy button is about broken and I'm ready to throw Cam out the window and run for the hills after a week of just us two. Finally, the day comes to go meet Mark in Salt Lake and spend a night with him in his hotel. The Cam Pattern continues and eventually we're able to get him to go to sleep in our bed (which before all of this he had never done before). Sorry to all those who like to share a bed with their kids, but being kicked in the front by a baby and kicked in the back by another just isn't my idea of paradise.

Anyway, after two and a half weeks, Cam finally pushed both molars through, but would not sleep through the night in his crib, and I could not leave him in there to put himself back to sleep because he so vividly proved that was not a safe option. We finally debated ourselves into moving him to a toddler bed the week before baby sister was to arrive, gearing ourselves up for another week of sleepless nights of sleep training.

So far, our prediction is thankfully off. He transitioned without a hitch and we have all been much more happy after enjoying a week of blissful sleep.

Here's to a new month and many more sleepless nights with a new baby. Hopefully fewer meltdowns by everyone involved. In between Cameron sleep-training me for a new baby, we did some of the following:

Don't let this angelic face fool you!

Everyone's still smiling

Mmmmm, brownies!

and...

Jello with a fork?

Grandma Wendy knew just what would cure demon childness. . .Daddy and a kite!

New Elmo pajamas can make anyone's night!

Thanks for reading, I know fully well many of you have all been here in my shoes! Isn't parenthood a joy and wonder? Ha. Really, though, I think it is; even more so after having "a month." Good news of the day, my empathy button was fixable.