More snow and tons of standing December 23, 2008

It has been snowing a lot since the other day and the snow on the ground is not melting.  It is not supposed to let up soon either!  We attempted to sled on the lid of a big plastic storage bin, but it didn’t work.   I just hope it doesn’t keep us from getting home to AZ for Christmas.

Maci is standing all the time now…she’ll pull herself up on anything she possibly can.  

Here’s some more pictures…

First Christmas Party…at Reyna’s house

Her newest face…scrunching up her nose and showing her teeth

Second Christmas party at Justin’s house

With Santa Joel

Joel is our friend.  He is deaf and autistic, and communicates in pretty much all the same ways that Maci does.  We all got pictures with him and he loved it.  He held Maci so good too!  It was fun.

Our street!

The Chocolate Shop at the end of our street

Greenlake

A house in the neighborhood

Maci’s first encounter with a snowman

The snowman on our front porch

It feels like a real christmas when the weather is like this.  It is gorgeous and fun!  But I can’t say that I will be complaining about the 60 degree sunny weather I’m heading to! 

Maci’s first car December 20, 2008

Of course it is made of cardboard…

Maci and Daddy December 20, 2008

This picture is just so amazing…I had to post it.  A friend of a friend took it at a christmas party the other night.

 

Maci’s first snow!! December 14, 2008

It snowed all night last night for the first time this winter and Maci was so excited to go play in it!  We went to the park across the street and made snow angels and let her taste the snow.  She loved it!

Mom’s snow angel

Maci’s snow angel

8 Months December 11, 2008

Maci is 8 months old!  That is only 4 months away from a year!  Time flies!  She is so active now.  She is not doing an actual crawl yet, but she may as well.  She scoots so fast sometimes it’s like I look back to where she was a second ago and she is across the room!  Her favorite thing right now is climbing on things, especially me or Jeb or her friends.  She will climb and climb until she is absolutely exhausted and just passes out.  Lately that’s how she has been going to bed.  I just get in bed with her and let her climb all over me until she falls asleep!  She loves it.  Yesterday I was sitting on the floor agaisnt the couch and she climbed up on me and then moved over to the couch so she was standing.  She loved that.  She stood there for almost 10 minutes!  She says “dada” a lot, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t actually understand that that means Jeb yet.  Sometimes she mutters a “mama”, but again, I’m not getting too excited.

She had her first Halloween and Thanksgiving and she is getting ready for Christmas.  She was very tired on Halloween and would not let us dress her up, but that is ok because we didn’t really have a costume.  Karen gave us a Pooh costume if we wanted to use it, but she just let me take one picture of the hat and that’s it.  We went to a party at her friend Reyna’s house and she played with her friends and a couple of dogs.  She absolutely loves dogs!  We will have to get one as soon as we live somewhere where we can have one!  

For Thanksgiving we went to Forks to Justin’s cabin and had a delicious family dinner with Justin, his parents, and Scarlet.  Matt and Agi joined us the day after Thanksgiving.  We spent two days in a warm cabin in rainy forks playing cards, sleeping and eating delicious food!  It was great.

We got a tiny, Maci-size Christmas tree since we are going to AZ for the actual holiday.  It is very cute though.  She loves to look at the lights.

It’s getting colder in Seattle and Maci is getting used to being all bundled up all the time, or at least I like to think she is getting used to it.  She only complains some of the time.  It also means more rainy days though, which means not so many walks which her and I both miss.  We will do a lot of walking in AZ while we are there to make up for it!  She loves to read books too, so we will spend more time in the warm apt. reading good books and playing the guitar.  She is an awesome page turner…it’s her favorite thing about books!  She’s getting pretty good at plucking guitar strings too.

Her Pooh costume hat

Talking to family in AZ on Skype

Picking pumpkins with Elvie and Reyna

Her cutest “Where’s Waldo?” shirt

Mom and Maci playing

 

Maci fell asleep at her dad’s birthday party

She’s eating a lot more food now…she loves the spoon

She doesn’t know what to do with all these toys!

Cutest overalls ever and best toy ever

Playing with Reyna

Sleeping in the camper by the river on Thanksgiving

Playing Uno with Agi

And then eating Uno!

And then playing with Dad

Playing with Mom’s hat while waiting for the ferry

Playing with Dad

Climbing on Dad

Climbing on the Guitar

Lessons with Dad

Playing by the Christmas Tree

Our Tree

Standing with the help of her trusty chair

Yay! President Obama! November 5, 2008

6 months October 26, 2008

Maci has made it to the half way mark of her first year! She is doing new things so quickly these days. She started sitting right at her 6 month birthday and she is now a pro. She quickly decided that now that she can sit, she wants to try getting across the room. She is not crawling, but she is definitely scooting. She looks a lot like a wounded soldier pulling herself across the floor with her arms and occasionally using her toes to push a little farther. She’ll also add in a few rolls to go to the side and she will turn in a complete 360 on her stomach in a matter of seconds! Just recently she started making a new sound that is very adorable. It basically sounds like bla bla bla or da da da, but her facial expression is so exaggerated when she does it that it is so funny. A few times now she has pushed herself up into the crawling position on her hands and knees and stayed like that for a few seconds, but then just plops back down on to her stomach.

I finally finished knitting her baby blanket that I started almost a year ago in hopes of having it done before she was born! It is beautiful and so soft and she loves it! I then knit her an adorable little beret and I checked out a bunch of books from the library to get some patterns of other stuff I want to make for her. But, I need to hurry because she’ll most likely grow out of the stuff before I’m done making it!

Dad got a guitar and has been playing it for her all the time and even letting her play it a little bit. The other day he was playing and she was singing…pretty good stuff.

We got our pumpkins from a local farm and we picked our own and carved them yesterday. Maci loved to play with the pumpkin guts…she even snuck a little in her mouth to taste. I don’t think she liked it very much though.

I’m behind again on posting pictures on here so there are a bunch. They start with Sara and Mirah’s visit and go up to yesterday…Enjoy!!

Maci meet Mirah!





Mirah showing off her new crawl!
Maci’s first day of sitting by herself! (I think she was trying to show Mirah that she’s a big girl too!)


Still a little wobbly




Swinging!


Maci and Mom at the park




The girls loved the grass


If Mirah and Maci had a band, this would be the album cover art =)



Sitting so good!
Mirah and Mom (Sara)





Celebrating Birthday’s with cupcakes! Maci – 6 months, Mirah – 8 months



Getting ready for fall!

Chillin in the Thing

Just adorable baby playing



Mirah and Maci Owls that Mom’s made as a memento of the trip



Morgan babysitting Maci! Mom and Dad got a date! Thanks Morgan!!
Learning to play guitar

Learning from Dad






Flying her first kite!
Maci and Shamus the French Bulldog
Swinging again!




Fall day with Dad
Maci loves the fall leaves




Mom finally finished knitting Maci’s blanket!



Then she made a hat!
Maci likes to suck on her toes in the bath now

Playing with fall leaves again






Picking Pumpkins!



Carving Pumpkins!




Our Pumpkins! Maci, Daddy, and Mommy

Maci Flew…and more! October 5, 2008

Maci and Mom recently returned from a week’s vacation to Arizona. Let me start out by saying that I can’t believe two places not very far away from the other can be so unbelievably opposite in every way. When we left AZ it was about 100 degrees and when we got to Seattle it was 60 degrees…it feels like winter after a week there. I actually almost want to turn my heat on!

We had so much fun…she had so many more firsts! She met her Grandma Harper, all of mom and dad’s friends, her cousin Hayden, and even more friends and family. She went swimming for the first time and absolutely loved it. She loved it even more when the dogs decided to go swimming with us. She was just cracking up. It was adorable. My sister has video of it, so as soon as I get it I will post it on here! Grandma Mckay gave her apples and bananas to try…she loved both. I don’t think we will have any problem with foods Maci wont like!

She is a great little traveler. She slept most of the time on the flights and when she wasn’t sleeping she was hammin’ it up for everyone on the plane, so it seemed like everyone knew her name by the end of the flight! She’s gonna be trouble with her little smile…she’ll get away with anything!

She missed her daddy so much! He missed her too…he was all smiles at the airport!

Sara and Mirah just left after a 6 day visit. We had so much fun! The girls loved each other…of course. I’ll post more about that soon.

Check out the pictures!

First time eating solids!



With Dad



On top of the world!


With Mom


First time swimming!


With Grandma and Grandpa McKay



With Aunt Cassie

With Trista and Saylor




With Grandpa Gast, Uncle Casey, and cousin Hayden


With Grandma Harper
With Illya

5 months September 8, 2008

Maci is now 5 months! She’s been busy since I last posted. She’s had lots of visitors and many new experiences. She’s now got her own crib. She is a champion at rolling over. We had to get her a “big girl” car seat because she’s grown out of her other one. At the same time we got her an awesome bouncer that she can’t get enough of (video below). Grandma McKay came to visit again and Grandpa Gast came to visit for the first time! She got to meet some of mom and dad’s awesome friends from AZ, Ira, John, Ryan, and others who were in town for a moped rally. She also got to meet her second cousins, Brendan, Lucas, and James. Ira’s mom made her a great quilt that has a lot of different colors that she loves to look at and she also knitted her some adorable little socks. She absolutely loves being outside and going for walks. She got her first two teeth and they are sharp little buggers. She’s tried some solid foods and she loves sweet potatoes and rice cereal. We aren’t going to give her too much though until we talk with the pediatrician all about it. We are ready though…we got a highchair and some soft baby spoons! She’s working on sitting. She can sit by herself for a few seconds, but then falls over. Mommy and Maci are taking a trip to Arizona for a week and we are looking forward to seeing everyone and showing Maci where mom and dad grew up. I guess we’ll see if she likes hot weather or not! Also, Sara and Mirah are coming to visit! I can’t wait for them to meet…they are totally going to be best friends! Mirah’s gonna tell Maci all about what she has to look forward to in the next two months of her life! This coming month will be pretty exciting. Up next will be eating more solid foods and sitting on her own and then on to crawling…oh man! Check out the 300 pictures below =)

Her wrestling outfit

Scaring her friend Reyna!










Laying in the park
Feeling the cold water of Lake Union



Sailing…she hates the life vest
Fun with Dad
Chillin
Eating with Dad
Sleeping like a baby

Checking out her new car seat

Lucky’s Second birthday party
Playing(?) with Lucky and Ferrin

Ira’s mom rocked her to sleep
Maci and Ira

Not so sure…
Loves it!!
Grandma McKay and Maci on the beach

With Grandpa Gast


Maci and her second cousins

The perfect size Maci table and chairs
The Lavender Farm

Maci Bouncing August 26, 2008

Maci loves this bouncer!