Dolled Up

i have been waiting for addison's hair to grow out for a long time so i can finally do more creative things with it. it is still not long enough to do all the things i would like (braiding will be so fun) but i do have fun with it.

i always give addison something to play with or read while i do her hair. today she read and played with my over sized makeup brush. this is sassy addy: i love her wild hair. we looked at her reflection and laughed a lot, calling her hair "crazy". she loved to look at herself.

side note: you can see writing on the mirror where i wrote what started out as a love note to kyle and turned into me asking him to switch the laundry when he woke up. i think he was disappointed.

addison loves to suck on the hair spray bottle for some reason. one time when sucking on it, she angled the nozzle just right and got sprayed in the mouth. i laughed and she made a face, trying to use her fingernails to scrape her tongue. surprisingly, she still sucks on the bottle.

talking to her reflection:

finished and beautiful, ready to face the day.

We Love Bath Time with Grandma

this is what happens when your family gets halo reach for christmas. they become zombies in front of the tv, who only get up every couple hours to eat and go to the bathroom. as you can tell, kinsey loves it too and plays anytime someone will let her. (she kinda kicked jesse's butt the other day, but in all fairness it was his first time playing and he killed her a couple times too.) kyle asked for an xbox game for his christmas present, but i knew better than that. sorry kyle.

while the men (and kinsey) played reach, i decided it was time for charlene to have a bath. my mom LOVES to give babies baths. while i got charly ready, mom scrubbed the sink. she has this whole routine when it come to their baths, and a clean sink is first on the list. i handed a very cute, very naked charlene to my mom. she made sure the water was the right temp and started soaping up my chunky baby, scrubbing every crevice and lifting every roll. charlene loved it. she was kicking and splashing the whole time. she got serious when the camera came out, but i swear she was all smiles seconds earlier.

next comes lotion time. mom insists the lotion must be rubbed everywhere, even the bum. i personally won't be smelling that area, but she insists. if i try to stop her and tell her charly is cold, or she might pee, my mom will just start rubbing her lotion on faster. as a baby, addison peed on her several times.

this was charlene's first time being bathed and lotioned by grandma. she didn't like being exposed during lotion time, but loved everything else.
clean, smelling good, and all snuggled up. she fell asleep promptly.

Baby Time

charly mae took newborn pictures of this beautiful baby girl. she was a little older than the typical age to take newborn pictures - six weeks. it was harder and took more time to get her to sleep and stay that way, but i enjoyed it. totally in love with all her squishiness. love my girl.

A Quiet Moment

i was on the computer the other night when i realized addison and her daddy had been awfully quiet for quite some time. i got up to check on them and found this...notice addison telling me to be quiet while her daddy sleeps in her house. kyle had gone in there to play with her, but obviously fell asleep, even with toys making commotion around him. so tired. it was so cute. love his legs hanging out like that.

a close up of the tuckered out daddy inside the hippo house...addison was using kyle's legs as a seat while she tried to take off her jammies. this is as far as she got before she gave up. adorable.

Ending 2010

we rang in the new years at my parents' home where my sisters were hosting a party. they had a lot of fun food made when we got there and i took the opportunity to eat as much of the homemade spinach dip and salsa as i could. all the furniture had been moved from the family room and into the living room to create enough space to play their xbox connect. the living room was made into a movie theater where the new release inception was projected onto the wall.

at midnight everyone at the party followed my parents to light their fireworks on top of their black barrel. a few other neighbors on the street did the same thing, but not too many people were outside surprisingly. after my dad had lit all of his fireworks, (not the most amazing display, but the stores aren't allowed to sell the good stuff, bummer) porter mclaws asked my dad to light his firework - a cherry bomb he smuggled from mexico. of course my dad did, and as he was quickly walking away from the cherry bomb it exploded, sending out a huge aftershock that pushed him forward. the noise was huge and i was shocked that such a small thing made such a big bang.

after everyone left, kyle and i were too tired to leave so we spent the night. addison of course loved every minute of it. the next day michelle and jesse came over with their puppy jet whom addison loves. so cute to see them play together.

some goals i have for myself this year are:

1. organize my time better. i have so much time that i waste everyday with things that aren't productive. if i prioritize my list of to do's i will be successful with the rest of my goals so this is the most important one to me.
2. lead a healthier lifestyle. while i have an idea of how much weight i'd like to lose, i'm going to focus more on preparing healthier meals and exercising several times a week.
3. going along with preparing healthier meals, my next goal is to come up with a meal plan for dinner every week so we can eat a healthy dinner as a family. family dinner is important to kyle and i, and making this a habit now will make it easier when my kids are grown to keep it up.
4. exercise. specifically, running. right now i am a couch potato. i wasn't active at all while pregnant with charlene but i hope to change that. as a senior in high school i ran cross country and our meets were always three miles long. i hope to work up to jogging three to five miles several times a week. this will prepare me for a half marathon i want to run at the end of the year.
5. play with my girls and go on more dates with my cute hubby. spending quality time with my family all together and one on one with each of them. kyle gave me a dating jar of ideas for christmas in 2009 and we hardly ever used it. i would love to change that. of course i will try to document as much as i can with my lens.

this is gonna be a great year.

A Very McKay Christmas

we woke up and spent the first part of christmas morning with great-grandma mccleve. it was so fun to watch addison open up her presents that santa got her. she was so excited about everything.

we gave grandma a picture of our family with my parents and siblings - (for the picture we took that red couch she is sitting on and posed around it. very cute.) addison checking out her walking and barking dog with daddy. all her pants are too big on her and we constantly tell her to pull her pants up:

then we went to my parents' home to open more presents and eat breakfast. charlene had a blast and was quickly tuckered out so jalee was first to hold her. i think charly looks very comfy here. makes me want to cuddle with her so bad.addy ripping the wrapping paper off (of course she was the center of attention) ...

and daddy assembling her new bike from grandma and grandpa.christmas breakfast: dad's famous french toast made from italian bread and fried with so much butter (or love as he calls it) that your arteries start to clog while you watch it cook. homemade buttermilk syrup and fruit top it all off. best breakfast ever.daddy and addy in her "hippo house". she LOVES it. she is into building forts right now and this present could not have come at a better time!great-grandma charlene brown-stradling holding baby charlene mckay. love it. trying out her new bike. we love that daddy can push her right now until her legs can reach the pedals a little bit better.we left around late afternoon and went to kyle's parents' where the whole mckay clan was gathered for food, a movie exchange, and tons of laughs. babies were passed around and pregnancy stories were exchanged. some fell asleep from full tummies. it was perfect.

after extended family left, we opened presents.

below: addison and her cousin cameron eating together christmas night. love cameron's cute little dimple!unfortunately this is where the pictures stop. i got a few more repeats of addy and cameron but, if i don't take the pictures, none get taken. charlene made it clear i was not to put her down for the rest of the night. i feel terrible about not having more pictures to document to fun, but i will get better at juggling the camera with everything else!

one thing's for sure: christmas is so much more fun when you have kids!