Mackayla.

11 months old.

Loves. Dogs.

The day we walked in the door of our new house I set her on the floor. Never having crawled prior, she set off crawling like she'd been doing it all along and hasn't stopped since. It sure made traveling easier for her not to. Now she stands at things.

Most of the time she goes with the flow. But she can be down right stubborn sometimes! If Cody or Macey really upset her she launches at them and grabs their face or shirt with her vice grip. 

I think all that traveling ruined her, even sometimes going to bed for the night at 2 in the morning. She never slept at the same time or place for a month.  It took it's toll and she is kinda rotten at bedtime! Before that she slept great and now she'll wake up two or three times a night. Last night I had done everything I could think of and decided to just let her cry it out. Ben had just gotten home and said he would go in there. He went in asked her to lay down and rubbed her back for a second, then stood there for a second and she went right to sleep. Hired! If only he was home every night!

I just discovered the beauty of the magic bullet. I had been wondering how I was going to get her to eat protein since she is a little bit picky about what she'll eat- we had to long abandon baby food and I'm about to be done nursing. I blend up whatever we have for dinner and she loves it!

Still just two teeth - in the process of getting more

Once again, she LOVES DOGS!! Her little body can barely contain the excitement when we see one. And Oregon people love their dogs so we see them everywhere. The beautiful thing is they are all well cared for and nice. So different from our experience in Oklahoma with the most annoying 2,000 unleashed-barking-at-2-in-the-morning dogs in our neighborhood.

And dog is her first official word, pronounced "Gah."

 Just started pointing at everything she is looking at.

 

All the time:)  

  

we love this little girl

Time to Battle Mackayla!

Me: "No. I don't want you to make her cry."
Cody: "I promise I won't make her cry." He's playing with a "serpent ship"
Cody again: "But I will battle her later. Once my guys don't want to kill her."

Summatime

Summer is passing by and I'm not doing a good job documenting...I think that's a good thing!

The kids and I went to a "parade" in Corvallis on the 4th. I thought it was the funniest parade. Anyone can be in it. We could have stood up and declared we were part of the parade. Lots of bikes and walkers. Lots of candy that made Cody and Macey happy. People would hand candy out instead of throwing it. I'm not going to lie, it's not Kaysville parade but it did the job.

 After the parade we went to the aquatic center in Corvallis, just a $1 entry fee that day. Perfect! Then to a bbq to meet some of our sweet new ward members.

Berries grow like weeds around here. It's like heaven. We went and picked TONS of raspberries. This huge bucket was $3 and we ate as many while we picked (apparently they factor that into the price:))!

 This is at a street party we WALKED to (I love that things are close!). Cody is driving a robot that the high school robot team built. Kinda cool.

 This is a small part of our house. I had envisioned that I would clean and take a picture of every room, but seriously, it's summer and our house won't ever be clean. But we love it. Notice the not-white-wall. sweet! And you get the idea. Dining area to the right, living room connected to the left. Bedrooms back there.

 Before I get ahead of myself I have to say the first day we got here we decided to take a walk on our bike path. (Sidenote: Now, the bike path is so close to our house you could throw a cough drop at it. I know because right as we first got here I chucked one over our fence (we had never been here mind you) and I pegged a biker. sheesh.)
So, Cody and Macey hopped on their bikes and we went to two parks close by then on for a longer ride. We got tangled up and I ended up falling, holding the stroller and skidding down the street with my fingers pinned under the stroller. I saw bits of skin on the road. For the next couple days just having drops of water on my fingers was super painful. And Macey's hair was legitimately crazy those days.

I'm back. Here's a car show. Again we walked to it. Love it!

 Cody's favorite car.

 The kids shared a snow cone. I want to say this is the first snow cone they've had. maybe. They sure enjoyed it though.

I've progressively gotten worse at pictures. Today we went to Alsea Falls. It's beautiful there and just a short windy drive from our house.
I love that there's so much to do in the summer!!!!!

The Coast Post

The coast is a little over 45 minutes from our house. 

Just as soon as we got settled at home we drove on over to see what we could find.

  It was cool by the beach but not too cold to enjoy

 Happy kids

 Sad Macey.  Those darn waves:)

Next time we'll bring a change of clothes!

Just as a quick side note. I do Macey's hair...it just never stays in. It might have to do with the fact that she rubs her head on everything.

 The green anenome stick to your hands! 

They release toxins to catch their prey (but don't hurt our fingers).

 This is a tide pool

With hundreds of star fish and little sea creatures!

 Lighthouse

 You can't see them, but way behind those guys are some harbor seals

  

 Cody and Ben climbed over 100 stairs to the top of the lighthouse, but since Macey and Mackayla were too little we just peaked up the winding staircase.

 Here they are at the top.

We also stopped by the Chowder Bowl for some clam chowder. YUM!!!!
We'll be visiting there often!!

Lagoon

Macey, who in the past has been known to be afraid of going down slides, had some unforgettable faces on some of the rides like this one:

 But we are proud of her, she was super brave.

 The kids lasted from opening to closing of the park and we could have stayed longer!

The babies even did great:

 I've never been to the kid section of Lagoon before. Hi five papa!

 There are tons and tons of rides there.

 Blake and Lucy

 We piled on the log flume with Amy, Blake and Luke and got SOAKED!

 So cute driving cars. Cody actually tried not to hit anyone because he loved driving the car.

Purdy's in Pictures

There's something irresistible about a picture of a messy baby. They just enjoy dessert so much. 

 Oooh. This is the closest Ben has ever been to a messy child of ours:) haha

Time with cousins. Macey and Micah

 Vanessa and Cody

 Benson and Jon

 Dad and Brigham, our newest cousin

 Still messy!

 Our neighbors have a bunch of lambs in their barn

 They like to suck your fingers!

  

 At the water park

 In the mountains:

 eating rocks

 This is Brigham's home:

 My dad's friend invented instafire. Pour some out and light it=instant fire. You can also light it in your hand and put it out by covering it. Kinda cool. 

 Brigham's blessing day and the homemade root beer

 The cake for the tradition of smashing the baby's hand in it

 My parents, Micah and Yolanda

Macey and Mackayla are 2 yrs 9 months apart and we figured out the space between Nette's 1st and 3rd is 2 yrs 9 months. Power to you!

 Benson, their second, has SMA and will never walk. They have also been moving for the last year every couple months for Jon's schooling which ends this August. Things are about to get more stable but this little family handles it like champs.

Jumping fun

 awesome hair

I don't know how I missed a picture of the new gazebo and sandbox, one of the new favorite places to play! And let's not forget the day the kids went to a hawaiian luau and we went shopping!! We had a fun week!