Pumpkin Carving

Addison enjoying a tasty piece of the pumpkin

Here I'm am creating my masterpiece. Oh the focus and the skill as I make razor sharp cuts within micrometers of the line. I should've been a surgeon.

The pumpkins shriveled up a little bit so they don't look as good, but here are the final products. Brittney's is a witch, and mine is a skull.

Thoughts for Today

today i am sick. i think i have strep throat - not fun. every time i answer the phone the person on the other line thinks i just woke up because i sound so awful. i have gargled and am drinking my second glass of water of the day. i know i should drink more but it hurts so much to swallow. i have no appetite for food at all - which is not like me. is it common for your ears to hurt with strep? mine do, especially when i blow my nose. i have a photoshoot tomorrow morning so i hope i feel better soon. my day has been filled by sitting on the couch, changing diapers, and watching my wedding video. right now i am listening to classic christmas songs by mahalia jackson, the andrew sisters, bing crosby and more. christmas music makes me happy.addison started giving kisses this week. she isn't consistent with it yet, but it is so cute to see her lean forward and open her mouth! it is a sweet, slobbery kiss and kyle and i can't get enough of them! it has been really hard for me to not kiss her chubby little fingers and cheeks today so i don't get her sick. just today while i was sitting on the floor addison crawled to me and pulled herself up. then for some reason she chose to let go of me. there she was standing all by herself. i quickly grabbed her and sat her down, but she did it again two more times. i couldn't believe it! is it common for babies to do this just before eight months?

today i am feeling so greatful for kyle. kyle works so hard for our family, making sure we have everything we need and keeping me in line. i know he loves me very much and he certainly spoils me in many different ways. (since he doesn't have work until the late morning, he will get up with addison and make me breakfast while i sleep.) i love talking to him and cuddling on the couch. this morning i couldn't sleep and i found kyle on the couch, online. i told him how growing up when i didn't feel well, my dad would sit on the couch and hold me for a while. sometimes he would talk to me, sometimes we would watch tv together. i asked kyle if he would hold me while he was typing. kyle kind of laughed as if to say, "you're 21 and you still need to be held when your sick?!" but he was so sweet and held me for a while. that's the kind of memory i never want to forget. i love you so much kyle!

Jackrabbit PRIDE!!

Last Friday the fam went the the Mesa High Homecoming game to show our support the Jackrabbits and show our pride. We all dressed up in our royal purple and gold to cheer the football team as they crushed the Desert Vista Thunder 19-0. It was fun to go back to our roots with me graduating in '03 and Brittney graduating in '07. That's pretty crazy to think that my wife was a "squash" more while I was a hot and popular college guy preparing for my mission. It was fun to see the homecoming nominees and the floats from the different classes. The funny thing is that the juniors won the float contest (usually the seniors win by default) but this year the seniors must have been really lazy putting together their float because it looked like a junkyard sale on a old trailer. Addison loved the game and was a great cheering Bunnie. Everybody loved her bunny ears! Though I think she'll be a better powder puff player than a cheer leader, but we'll see.

MESA RABBITS WE ARE #1!!!!!

Double the Fun

last tuesday for a birthday celebration, kyle, addison and i went to DISNEYLAND with kyle's parents. wednesday was my 21st birthday and it also happened to be kyle's dad's birthday too! mickey and i have been tight since we met when i was five, so he pulled some strings to get us in for free. don't you wish you had such a friend?! the five of us left tuesday night after kyle got off work and arrived in anaheim at 2:30 am. addison was great - she slept the whole way!

the weather was amazing - in the low 70's during the day and the 50's at night. great change from the summer heat. we had such a fun time together. i hadn't been to disneyland in fifteen years and many of the rides had changed or were completely new. kyle got really tired of me saying "COOL!" to everything. california adventure was awesome too. i love toon town!

i love roller coasters, even though i am scared of heights. but the one thing i refuse to ride at theme parks is free falls. tower of terror is a ride with a story that takes you to the twilight zone. the 11 story-high elevator is equipped with hydrolics to make you fall faster than the pull of gravity. just as kyle's dad got our fast passes, i started to feel sick and decided not to go. while kyle's parents got in line, kyle began to try to persuade me to go with him next. he wasn't nearly as pushy as he usually is with something he wants me to do, which told me how badly he wanted me to go with him. when he finally gave up, he sent me to find some food. i came back and he was gone with his dad on the ride. i felt bad (why do i always feel bad when he is trying to make me do something i don't want to do?) so when he was done i told him i would go with him. i got so nervous that i made myself sick, but i went. yes, i had fun. my face was so funny we had to get a picture. notice how everyone loved the fall except me. we are in the middle:here is a close up of our faces. i thought i was going to die with every drop. this was the highest one that lets you look over the whole theme park!
addison loved the rides she went on. this was the winnie the pooh ride on grandpa's lap. her favorite was the merry-go-round where she even went with no hand on her second turn!my favorite ride that i can remember from 15 years ago. it is the one i chose to go on first.

i got a birthday tag to where around disneyland - it's amazing how many birthday people were there.

if you go soon, make sure to get clam chowder in a delish sourdough bowl. you won't regret it! oh and tell mickey hi for me!

McKay Happenings

i wanted this blog to be a journal of my family and our life. i realize that i have not been writing about the things i will want to read about later, or at least the things that will continue to be important to me. i write too much about crafting (the lack of it) and food (more like wanting it) rather than all those things in my life that are so little, yet important to me. i need to write more about addison and the milestones she is reaching and passing, as well as the fun things kyle and i do with her. i don't want to stop writing about orange rolls and how i love fall decor, i just don't want those to be the main subjects of my blog.

i'll start with kyle. his new job at balboa insurance takes more time than he would like. balboa only offers full time employment and kyle wants to work part time so he can take more classes and get better grades. he is always thinking about our future and can be found reading any financial or investing book. these books are so boring to me. but he gets so excited reading these with all the ideas spinning in his head that he can hardly contain himself. rarely will you see a night that he is reading one of his books where he will not have to set it down several times to do his "excited fingers".

kyle let my buy some things the other day at the thrift store and wasn't even upset that it was home decor. it's hard being students and wanting to buy that kind of stuff in your price range. i love you kyle!

funny story. last wednesday i was talking to kyle about going to his dad's office the next morning. thursday afternoon he calls me on break. here is our conversation.

ME: kyle, you forgot to tell me something yesterday. i can't believe you would forget.


KYLE: (silence).....um....(thinking)..... happy birthday?

ME: (laughing so hard i can hardly talk) no. you forgot to tell me your dad's office isn't open today.....

okay, so writing it here isn't that funny, but i tell it better in person. point is, kyle knew my birthday was really close but wasn't sure if he forgot it or not. the way he said "happy birthday" like he was thinking uh oh, i'm in for it now just made me just laugh so hard, i couldn't talk for a while. i was just caught off guard. it was very cute.

we just got back on friday from house/teen sitting for the olson's again for several days. being with teens is kyle's element. he knows how to get along with them so well and at the same time be their older brother. he's also an excellent tease. it'll be fun doing it again starting tomorrow.

as for me, i have been going to school every monday and wednesday for intermediate photography at chandler community college. addison is watched by my mom during this time. my mom actually suggested that addison spend the night for my first day of school. it was so much easier to have her spend the night, that now she does it every sunday and tuesday night. that is such a huge help for me. if it wasn't for my mom, i don't think to could make it to school. i think that once kyle graduates, i will go back to school to became a nurse in the labor and delivery area. i have always been fascinated by watching babies come into the world. i remember when i was in young women's, i told another girl what i wanted to do and she made a crude comment about how i was so gross that i wanted to see a baby come out of "there" plus some other stuff i won't repeat. i was so mad at her. i was dumbfounded at how she could take something so beautiful and special and make it sound so sick. i hope to be able to change the way people view childbirth!

addison has come so far since i last wrote about her. she is seven and a half months old. five weeks ago (at five months) she started doing what kyle and i called a snail crawl. on her stomach with her head low, she would pull her legs forward until her butt couldn't go any higher into the air. then with her elbows, she would pull her upper body forward until her butt came back down to the ground. she got faster and faster. two weeks later, she stared a regular crawl that she taught herself. it is very cute to see her crawl while carrying things in her mouth like a dog. i can just see her wheels turning!
when she was doing the snail crawl, she learned the word "dada". kyle was very proud, although i don't think she knew what she was saying. about a week later, i was doing laundry at carson and jen's when addison, crying, snail crawled to me saying "mum muma". jen said that addison was definitely calling for me and knew what she was saying, i couldn't believe it! (addison calls for me all the time, but she says "dada" a lot less which makes me think she still doesn't understand that word yet.)

three weeks ago, i found addison crying in the living room. she had pulled herself up into a
standing position against the couch. she was scared, holding herself up at an angle, about to fall and was crying for me to save her. i had been on the phone and ignored her crying for a few minutes. i felt awful when i realized why she had been crying. now she pulls herself up all the time and knows how to get herself down too. she has even taken a few steps while holding on to something.

this will be addison's Halloween costume: addison loves food. i can't remember how old she was (maybe four months) when she started recognizing her bob. ( i began calling her bottle "bob" or "the bob" when she was born, kyle caught on pretty fast and now my sisters and even kyle's mom calls it that) now if she hears us shaking it, she will start crying in anticipation. it's so funny to watch. she eats solids too. when she is hungry, she will cry in between bites if i don't feed her fast enough. she definitely likes adult food a lot more though. chili, pizza, bread - she loves everything.

if she wakes up in the morning and i am too tired to get up yet, i will bring her in bed with me. sometimes she won't go back to sleep though so i will hold on to her ankle while she crawls to one side of the bed, gets bored, crawls all over me, and then crawls to the other side of the bed. needless to say, i can't really keep sleeping if i am trying to keep a hold of her ankle. i do try though.
even though i want this blog to be more centered around my family, i will continue to throw in all that other stuff. i think it adds personality. blogs are so fun!

McCleve Family Camp and Hunt

This year Brittney's uncles were drawn to go bow hunting for elk and we all decided to make it a extended family camp out. Brittney and her family left Thursday night, and I went up with her sister Michelle and husband Jesse Friday night to the nice cool mountains just a little past Flagstaff.

It was tons of fun with most of the aunts, uncles and cousins up there. Cameron built a zip line, teeter totter, and swing for the kids. Uncle Lauren had a quad and Jesse and Cameron had dirt bikes that we zipped around on. We went on several little hikes with the cousins and found petroglyphs and some small caves.

We had quality bonding time playing phase 10, Scrabble, and other games. Dad brought the projector and we watched movies at night. We loved sitting around the camp fire, and telling stories and laughing at uncle Kevin and aunt Jenelle's dating stories. Brittney and I had a water fight (She started it and I finished it with her soaked to the bone). I think it all started with her giving me a hard time about losing the phase 10 game. I starting to tickle her, and after she poured water on me from a water bottle, and after chasing each other around for a minute, it ended with me dousing her with a few gallons of water form a jug.

I was able to get Brittney to ride the dirt bike, much to her dislike. She tried every excuse in the book and even tried hiding from me to get out of learning to ride (when I found her, I lifted her up over my shoulder in a fireman's carry so she couldn't escape). Finally I was able to get her on, teach her how to shift, and ran along side her as she rode. After her first attempt (not very successful) she tried running away, but I graped onto her shirt and pulled her back on the bike. Her second attempt was really good, and after a few more tries, she was shifting through all the gears and riding like a pro in the X-games. Addison was born to camp. She probably gets it from both sides of the family. She loved the outdoors. Poor girl had to be held most of the time because we didn't want here crawling around in the dirt. But she enjoyed hanging out with the family, swinging and quad riding with her dad, chilling on the hammock, and being fought over on who got to hold her by family members.

The food was amazing thanks to Mom and Dad. Some of the items on the menu were, dutch oven pizza, pazooki, Navajo tacos, hobo dinner, french toast, peach cobbler, smores, bacon, sausage. (Mom also brought some cold cereal for me) There was so much food, we had tons of leftovers.

The hunt didn't go so well. Uncle Lauren and the cousins would leave around 4:30 am and wouldn't get home till dinner with nothing to show. The saw a lot of good elk, but they were too far away for the bow.
Sunday afternoon we had a nice informal church meeting with talks from Jesse, Cameron, and Chantell.

I can't wait till next year! This was a fun family outing and another adventure to add to our list.

The fam!

Addison and Dad enjoying the wind in their face and the thrill of the ride

Addison on the swing

Camping Season

this is what addison looks like right now. i love that baby along with her adorable fat rolls and buddah belly!

tonight i am packing for a camping trip. addison and i leave tomorrow afternoon and kyle will join us friday night with michelle and jesse. my dad's family made it a tradition to camp as a family while those who get drawn for hunting season do their thing. when grandpa mccleve unexpectedly passed away six years ago while hunting with my uncles, the tradition was put on hold. i think that some of my uncles have gone a few times since, but it hasn't been a whole family affair again until this year. i am so excited to be able to spend time with my family around a campfire, sing songs, play cards, explore, eat, build forts and all sorts of stuff i haven't done in so long! this will be addison's first campout and it's gonna be great. she is just shy of seven months now. my mom is cheating and isn't really camping. she insisted on renting a motor home; said she's done her fair share of camping in a tent. i can't wait to show you pictures of dirty faces and ratty hair topped with huge smiles!

here is most of the stuff i am bringing. i still have to pack a tent , sleeping bags and stuff like that. isn't kyle cute all squished to one side? what are you doing for your weekend?