McKelle turns 1!!

I still can't believe that a year has gone by and my little Mckelle has turned a year old! But on July 13th that is exactly what happened. A year ago I was meeting this perfect angel, bringing her home and learning to be the best mom I could possibly be for her. It has been the most rewarding, fantastic, loving, enjoyable year of my life. And once again when I looked at her on her birthday on Tuesday, I let the tears come, on this day I still couldn't believe I was so incredibly blessed to be able to be her mom. Words can never explain the blessings of being a mother.

Throughout the day we decorated, and got ready for her very first party! I had been planning it for like 3 months haha. I wanted it to be so fun and perfect for her, even though I do know she won't remember it in years to come I know that I will, for it was HER day! The decorations and cake matched, I of course got her her very own cake, which she of course dug right into and loved it, and ate a lot of it! So many friends and family came to celebrate her life with us on this first birthday. We started with gifts, she was a little tired when we started gifts, but she held it together! She got so many, and loves them all. We moved on to introducing her cake next, and again let me tell you, she absolutely loved that, cake everywhere and loved eating it. While she was enjoying her cake, we all ate and visited, and enjoyed watching her devour it. It was a great day and night for her and were lucky enough to share it with the special people in our lives!

My mom and dad, my sister Carm, and her kids Adalene, Alex, and Ashley from Kansas, Quinn, Ryan, and Kaea. My brother JayC, and his girlfriend Larissa. Alex's parents, and three of his younger brothers and sisters, plus Ashley his other sister. And also our great friends James, Courtney, and Little Ava, were all amoung our guests. It was such an enjoyable and special night, and I am so thankful for all of them, that they could celebrate with us.

Happy Birthday McKelle, I love you beyond words!!


More pictures to come!!

4th of July

Her red white and blue shorts are covered, but she did enjoy dressing up for the holiday..haha. Throughout the week we did a few things. Auntie Ry, cousin Kaea, along with the two of us went to the Gateway, and hit up some sales..shopping always seems to tucker our little ones out, but they both seem to love the shopping experiences that we give them! On Saturday the 3rd, we had dinner with friends, then at 10:05 when the fireworks began, we were there to watch and enjoy! At the beginning when they first started, McKelle absolutely loved them, she clapped, and laughed, and smiled, she loved the colors and the lights. Towards the end though, she began to get tired, rubbing her eyes and yawning, and that is when she decided that the noise was to0 much, and kept saying mom, mom, mom. And I had to keep saying momma's here, and daddy too. She calmed down, but man was the little darling tired, then the colors would capture her attention again. When they finished we went home put her right to bed, and she fell instantly to seep. Overall we had such an enjoyable holiday, and another first for our little girl! How fun and exciting it is that we get to share all of these firsts with her!

10 months

It seems unreal that in a little over a month, that McKelle will already be a year. It does not seem that it was a year ago, that we were getting ready to have her. She is such a big girl, and so incredibly cute and fun. She is all over the place, my little explorer, if she can find a maze to go through, she will do it. She loves walking along the furniture and and walking as long as she has something to push. She hasn't quite gotten the hang of walking without having something to hang onto yet, because she is always in a hurry and just wants to take off! She eats everything, and if I am eating she better be eating the same thing, she'll eat anything you give her, and a lot of it! Her favorite I think though is anything pasta, I swear she can eat more of that then I can. I thought it would be good to start easing her onto the sippy cup, because I didn't want her reliant on a bottle after one year, well it proved to be a lot easier than I thought for she is completely on the sippy already and knows that she is a big girl. She's learning to wave, and give a five, although she is very stubborn as to when she will give them...it is up to her when she wants to, and nobody can make her haha..she knows nose really well, and ear almost as well. She loves baths, and she loves books. She has a pair of little sunglasses that she loves to wear and will wear them forever if she could, the girl just loves her sunny's! She is such a joy, and makes me laugh and smile everyday, she pulls the funniest cutest faces, and makes the funnest noises, and her personality is a joy to behold! I love her!

9 months...what????

Today we had McKelle's 9 month appointment, when they say the time goes fast..they mean it! I can not believe that in 3 months my newborn is going to be 1 year!!! She is still a little munchkin. 16 pounds 14 ounces, and 27 and a half inches, 16 percentile in weight, and 48 percentile in length, so she is a tall one! She really is just growing so big! She crawls (both regular, and army) whichever she feels in the mood for. She pulls herself to a standing position and walks along the furniture. She says both mom, and dada, and loves to say hi, be it to people she knows or strangers. Lately she has developed a very deep growl, that turns my sweet little gizmo, into a gremlin haha...but oh it is so dang cute! She really has a fun and loving personality!!! Man, I love her!!!

Easter fun!

We had tons of fun being able to give our little McKelle a fun Easter! We had tons of plastic eggs that of course had candy in them, she loved them! We also gave her lots of candy, although it will fall to her daddy and I to eat it...oh the hardship!!! ;-) Of course we also spoiled her with a couple of fun toys for her to play with..she loves mom's computer, so I got her her own, and gee what do you know, she still loves mom's...luckily she loves her as well! And of course, although it was conference Sunday we still got her a very cute Easter dress! I am so thankful to be able to have these fun and amazing holidays with such a doll!

Ode to Joy

Joy Collings was Mine and Jason's first. We were so very excited to have this little one, the baby's room was fun to decorate, green carpet (like grass) blue walls, and white clouds, and bees and whinnie the pooh decals on the walls...it was darling! Our doctor was in Evanston, and on our 4 month appointment we were very excited on that day because we were finally going to get to find out if we were going to have a boy or a girl!!!! Instead right off the doctor noticed that things were not as they should be (he barely looked to let us know what the gender was, he said a "boy"). He proceeded to point out things that were not right and was very thorough and extremely good about informing us on the truth. First off there was no amniotic fluid, and instead the fluid was where the kidneys and lungs should have been, he informed us that it looked as though it was what is known as Potters Syndrome, where they are born without kidneys, therefore could not develop lungs. We knew on that day that our baby would not live. We were absolutely heartbroken, it was unreal, and Jason and I went home, held each other and cried, the devastation of such news is hard to talk about. When I was almost 6 months we decided to induce, she had died the night before I had her, and she needed to be born, when she was, that is when we found out that our little boy that we were going to name Joey, was a little girl instead, and that is how we got our little bundle of Joy!!!! She was stillborn, but still so beautiful, I often wonder if she and McKelle would have any resemblance, since there is a lot of me in McKelle, I am sure there is, although if she would have had dark hair like her dad, that would have been so beautiful! Oh how I miss my angels! Mommy sure does love you!!!!

mcKelle Ryan

Although McKelle will be 8 months on the 13th, here are some of the things she does, and has learned throughout month 7. She loves sitting up, and thinks that she is a big girl, and indeed she is. Although she rocks back and fourth she seems to be completely content on doing the army crawl, she loves it, and goes so many places. It is darling and I love it! She loves to stand, and thinks its perfectly fine to start taking those steps to get her to where she wants to go, (us holding her hands of course). She smiles, laughs, talks, and blows raspberries all the time, and is such a happy little girl! She always wakes up very happy...most of the time I don't even know she is awake, til she starts talking and playing, and then when I go to get her out of her crib, she just looks and me and gets so excited!! It is only one of the highlights of my day!! I love this little girl!!! How lucky am I!!!