Arizona

June 9-26th, McKay and I were in Arizona. We wanted to take one more trip before McKay turns two and we have to buy a plane ticket for him! We had a great time and got to see a lot of family while we were there. June 18-21st we attended the Cardon Reunion in Logan, UT and got to see a lot of the Mosers too. The only way it could have been better is if Jordan were there with us!

Highlights from our trip:

• McKay enjoyed jumping on the Luv Sac with his Porter cousins - endless fun.
• Talking to Dada on the phone
• Haircut, massage, and a nap for me!
• McKay wondering where baby (yaye) Kadence went after Melinda & Devin left.
• Playing with balls, especially the BIG exercise balls in the McCleve Marriott
• A cheerful 'Hi' and wave from McKay to whomever came in the room; and a continuous 'hi' until he was acknowledged. He also followed each person around when they got home from work etc.
  
• McKay noticed every time Champ (Dustin's dog) barked and rushed to the window to watch him and bark back at him. wuh-wah-wah-wah-wuh!
• Helped Chantelle tape & paint her room.
  
• Flying paper airplanes & rockets with Aunt Sheila
• McKay enjoyed the steps/loop in Aunt Nancy's house Sunday night when we went out to visit. He walked behind the wood stove (not hot of course), ducking under the stove pipe, behind the chairs, around and down the steps to the piano room, up the steps out of the piano room into the dining room and back around again. He also was very entertained watching Chantelle and the cousins play cards.
  
• Nanna Anna made puppets and McKay enjoyed playing with them with his cousins. taking turns having the giant caterpillar attack each other, as well as making sure there were never ANY puppets left in the bag at any time.
• Fathers day with my Dad.
  
• Family Home Evening searching for hidden bunnies & carrots and playing Don't Eat Pete. McKay didn't like the part where everyone yells 'Don't Eat Pete!' so he only had one turn. He loved looking for carrots and bunnies though and would have all night if we had let him!
• A 13 hr ride in the van from Snowflake, through Flagstaff to pick up Chris, to North Logan Utah to the Cardon Reunion. McKay slept about 20 minutes. Now THAT was fun. :)
• McKay went up and down the steps at Sam & Vicki's home at least 20 times each day. He also went up and down the hill outside from the back yard to the basement door over and over and over with only a few spills & scrapes.
  
• McKay took a 4 hour nap the day after we got there. It was a BEAUTIFUL day, literally the first day they had with no rain in weeks and I thoroughly enjoyed relaxing on the porch swing all afternoon. I love nap time!
• Family pictures in the rain.
  
• We went to dinner in Bountiful at Maddox with Jordan's parents, Robin & Reece, Travis & Brittany, David & Lucy, Nicky & Ira, & Shawn. It was great to visit with everyone & it didn't take McKay long to warm back up to his grandparents. McKay and Kamden played peek-a-boo across the table around a glass of water. They are almost exactly 1 year apart.
  
• Lots of visiting and staying up too late with family.
• Church in Benson with time after for McKay to swing with Chantelle & David on the tire swing at Grandma & Grandpa Cardon's house.
• Another 11 1/2-12 hour ride in the van back to Arizona. Poor McKay!
• Lots of dejunking.
• A couple of games of 'Seven'.
  
• A wonderful session at the Snowflake Temple.
• McKay enjoyed swinging and jumping on the trampoline with his uncles & aunt.

And now for the pictures...

Kindsey helping McKay put his shoe back on; only somehow it ended up on her foot! These cousins are 1 month apart and so cute together. They both pucker up with big lips to kiss so when we said our goodbyes, we had kissing cousins. ;)

He now loves to jump on anything that even remotely resembles a luv sac - blankets, pillows, sleeping bags, air mattress, etc.

My new haircut - love it!

Now that is the way to walk home from the park! We watched Chantelle's softball game. Thanks Uncle Dustin!

McKay enjoyed rolling the balls down the slide with Chantelle & Nanna Anna. He loves balls!

Kenton & McKay doing letters on starfall.com. McKay knows a lot of the letters but he can't run the mouse, so Kenton did that part. These two sat at the computer for at least half an hour, occasionally joined by Kardon & Kindsey.

Papa says 'if you finish your food, you can have a sucker!'

Sunday night fun!

McKay played with the stacking cups for hours.

He pushed the stroller up and down the driveway while Papa finished painting the house. I wasn't planning on staying outside but McKay had other ideas so we just put on his shoes. :)

Looks like McKay was helping Chantelle tape her room to paint!

Uncle Chris playing peek-a-boo with McKay on our 13 hr drive. Every little distraction helped.

Listening to music & looking at pictures on the picture key chain.

Up, Down, Up, Down...

B-E-A-UTIFUL Day!

Chantelle, David, Chris & Dustin showing how you really play crack the egg.

In case you can't tell, that is Chris & David. Cool guys!

Ethan is 1 year older than McKay and was very 'helpful'.

Train ride!

McKay & Talmage - Choo choo!

McKay ate all the ice cream out of the cone. We finally got him to eat some of the cone too. He knows what the good stuff is!

McKay had a blast jumping with Uncle David.

McKay adopted the Goofy cup.

Barking back at Champ.

Chantelle keeping McKay entertained on the drive to the valley to fly home.

Love Arizona sunsets!

So happy to be home and to see Daddy!

Pictureless Weekend

I have been enjoying my new conference issue of the Ensign. The first one I got was defective. It was missing about 40 pages in two spots and had another 20 pages duplicated. Apparently, it happened to several Ensigns since 2 of the 3 sisters I visit teach as well as my companion also had defective Ensigns. But now I have a new, complete Ensign to enjoy. My favorite quote for the past week was from President Uchtdorf's talk. I love his talks!

"Discipleship is a journey. We need the refining lessons of the journey to craft our character and purify our hearts. By patiently walking in the path of discipleship, we demonstrate to ourselves the measure of our faith and our willingness to accept God’s will rather than ours." (President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "The Way of the Disciple," Ensign, May 2009, 76).

This is another favorite from the June Visiting Teaching message.

“Prayer changes our lives. Through it we draw near to the Lord, and he reaches out his finger and touches us, so we never again are the same.” (Elder Bruce R. McConkie, “Patterns of Prayer,” Ensign, May 1984, 32). Love it!

As a side note, today I discovered you can download all the music from the last session of General Conference!

Friday night Jordan & I went to an Oakland A's game with a couple of his co-workers who happen to be dating. Beside the fact that we were 30 minutes into our drive when the guy with the tickets realized he had left them on his desk, which caused us to miss the first inning when the A's scored 6 runs, it was a fun evening. We did get to see a few more runs including a couple of homers, and the A's won, 9-1. They were playing the Oriels. Oh, and I forgot my camera. :)

Saturday morning we went to Vasona Park in Los Gatos. It was beautiful! Jordan had a good run and McKay and I enjoyed the playground and plentiful geese. Then we all walked along the Los Gatos Creek trail and Vasona Lake. We will definitely be returning, though next time we will go to the walk-in entrance we discovered rather than paying $6 to park. I did remember to bring the camera but BOTH batteries were dead. Next time I'll take pictures!

Mormon Messages

Today McKay and I were watching Mormon Messages on YouTube. I thoroughly enjoyed watching them with him as he waved 'bye bye' to Jesus every time the screen changed to something else and saying 'Jesus!' each time he saw Him. So sweet. The best was when he said, pointing to the statue of Christ on the LDS home page, 'Jesus... Yay!' What a great idea to put these wonderful little videos on the internet for everyone to see.

We are also enjoying listening to the new Mormon Channel. The only problem is when McKay hears the primary children singing, he wants to watch them too!

Father's Day

Since McKay and I will be visiting family on Father's day (oops!), we celebrated Father's Day yesterday. Every time I'd tell McKay we had a surprise for Daddy, he'd say 'BOO!' :)

This picture was taken after he opened a Garmin Nuvi 360 navigation system. He was pretty excited about it. He spent a couple of hours Sunday night discovering all the cool things it does, including connecting it to his cell phone for hands-free talking. This is going to be really nice. No more missing exits for us, right?? :) We also got him the Biggest Loser Protein drink to try, a $25 gift card to Amazon for music and a round of golf.

When Jordan decided he wanted to celebrate Fathers day yesterday instead of next Sunday, I went to Costco to get one last minute gift. I wanted to get him some sea bass, which he has been craving and drooling over every time we go to Costco. I got there early, before the lines were too terrible but they had awesome samples so it took me a little while to get to the fish. ;) I couldn't find the sea bass so I got halibut instead. A while after I got home, Jordan remembered he was going to have me get some halibut for Sunday dinner. I told him sorry, he could go get some at Costco if he wanted too. I knew he wouldn't go - Costco is not a fun place in the afternoon mostly because you wait for-ev-er in line to check out. Jordan was going through cookbooks to find the fruit crisp recipe we like and got distracted looking at what we could make for lunch for Fathers Day, possibly using the Mahimahi we have in the freezer. I didn't want him to pull the fish out of the freezer so I told him I didn't think fish sounded good. We never decided on anything and Sunday morning, Jordan was throwing out ideas again. So we opened gifts and boy was he surprised when I told him there was halibut in the fridge. He hadn't noticed it. I kept a straight face the whole time except for when he remembered he had forgotten to tell me to buy some. I just got lucky he didn't notice the look on my face because he was on his way into the other room. If he HAD asked me to get it when I was at the store, I don't think it would have sounded good to me then either. :)

McKay had been so hot at church that when I changed his diaper after we got home, I didn't put his pants or shoes & socks back on him. When Jordan grills, McKay loves to be outside with him. So I told him to bring his shoes & socks and I'd put them on him so he could go out. This is what we ended up with. He brought me white and blue socks but he really wanted to wear the blue socks. I don't think the fashion police check the back yard. :)

We had Barbeque Halibut Steaks with grilled italian squash and seasoned rice. For dessert, we had a cherry fruit crisp made with fresh cherries. Delicious!

We love you Jordan!

Things to Remember

5-29-09
I remembered last night when McKay was taking a bath and had his ankles crossed that before he was born it often felt like his ankles were crossed as he stretched out his legs causing a bulge on my left side. He crosses his ankles anytime he is sitting.

5-25-09
Jordan was giving me a hug and McKay came running over to join in the hugs. Tight squeeze sound effects and all!

There is something sweet and wonderful about little arms squeezing your legs from behind, giving you a hug. Love it!

5-21-09
McKay was 'helping' me organize the food in the garage. When he could reach my back, he'd give me a little pat/rub. He is such a sweet boy.

McKay gives lots of hugs with the 'tight squeeze' sound... only he doesn't squeeze tightly. He often hugs our legs, going between Jordan and I, giving us hugs. Last night when Jordan got home we had lots of hugs and McKay sandwich kisses.

When we go for a walk as a family and Jordan is the one pushing the stroller, McKay will hold out his hand for me to hold as we walk along.

We were at a church playgroup at the park and I was sitting in the shade on the side of the playground area visiting with other moms. McKay came and sat about a foot away from me and held my hand. So sweet.

5-17-09
We are trying to help McKay learn how to ask for something with words rather than just 'asking' for it. I said 'please what?' and he said 'thank you!'

McKay found a racquetball and it bounces a lot more than his other balls, so he has had a lot of fun throwing it from the kitchen to the living room and chasing it, back and forth. I love to watch him run and I get lots of opportunities because he runs everywhere!

Now McKay waves to everything when he is finished with it or we are leaving.

McKay says 'woohoo' when he finishes his food or drink.

McKay lays his spoon across his bowl when he sets it down to get a drink.

McKay notices every big truck whether he is in the stroller, in the car, or playing at the park. 'woah'!!

5-11-09
Jordan was giving McKay a bath and he kept saying 'O' and pointing to the clock. So Jordan lifted him up and he pointed to the 0 on the 10. He points to the O's on the oven (Off, Oven), the O's in his books, and even the 'O's on random pages of the Ensign, including within words.

Jordan was trying to talk on the phone with his mom for Mothers Day and McKay was running all over the house, yelling. He'd run over to me and give me 'five' then run over and knock on the bathroom door (where Jordan was trying to find a quiet place) then back in the kitchen to start over again... yelling the whole way. AAAaahhhhh! Too funny.

McKay likes to have Jordan help him eat his dinner by pretending the food is butterflies. For some reason, that is the funniest to him. He loves it. I can't do it as well as Daddy (I can tell by the look on McKay's face) so I stick to the airplane; not quite as cool but almost.

McKay loves to point to the pictures of Jesus (dadas) in our home. When he looks at the one in the kitchen, he puts his hand up to his cheek, just like Jesus is doing with the child in the picture (Del Parson's Christ visiting the Nephites)

5-4-09
When McKay and I were leaving church on Sunday, he kept saying 'byby bababa' over and over. Finally I realized he was saying 'bye-bye basketball'. He had been running around playing in the gym with the older kids just before we left to go home. Of course he wasn't ready to leave when I was!

McKay says 'aa-ye' for 'sorry'. He likes to point us all out in our family picture 'mama, daddy, me!(pointing to his chest) '

I finally put up the curtains I made for McKay before he was born. He LOVES to point out all the 'bababaa's (everything is basketball)

McKay's tongue is often in his cheek when he is concentrating on something.

5-3-09
Today we were watching home videos from when McKay was just 4-5 months old. McKay enjoyed watching himself (as always) and even tried to give the baby on the screen his sheep to play with.

5-1-09
McKay has started waving 'bye-bye' to his toys when we leave the house to go somewhere.

Today, McKay said 'strawberry'. Seriously! Not perfectly clear but I knew exactly what he was saying!

Helping Daddy prepare his lesson for church.

Memorial Day Weekend

This is a view of the bay bridge, with San Francisco on the right, taken from Treasure Island. No, we were not planning on going to Treasure Island; we were headed to the Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. Mapquest said we had 6 miles to our next freeway change when we really only had 2 miles. So we missed it. Luckily, the lady we got in the toll booth was kind enough to not make us pay and told us how to turn around (and NOT cross to San Francisco) and get back to where we needed to be. At least this time we went to a place we will return to intentionally another time. We've never been there before and it was really pretty! Of course when we do go to Treasure Island, we will go to San Francisco and cross the bay bridge to avoid the toll. :)

McKay was pretty excited to see a huge duck and was quack quack quacking happily!

(click on the collage)
We went to the dolphin show again since it was our favorite last time and then saw some other shows and animals we didn't see the first time we were there. We learned a lot about Walrus' and really enjoyed the Birds in Flight show. Even McKay recognized it when one of the parrots (I am sure there is a more technical name for it) whistled the theme song for the Andy Griffith show. It was fun to show McKay real giraffes since we have been working on recognizing them by their long necks.

The butterfly habitat was another favorite. There were so many unique and beautiful butterflies. It was tricky getting a good picture because they wouldn't hold still.

In the butterfly habitat there were some Kio. They have huge mouths and are a type of sucking fish. It was funny to watch McKay imitate their mouths! He really liked the fish.

I have a feeling we will be returning to the frog ride! It was so fun to hear him do his frog sound as we 'hopped' around.

Last time we just rode Harold at Thomas Town so this time we actually waited in line to ride Thomas. We heard a lot of choo chooing. McKay enjoyed waving at the people we passed.

We also rode Bertie the Bus. I have about 5 pictures of McKay with the same expression as in the top left picture. He always wants to ride more more more when each ride ends. We actually got the front of the bus - woohoo!

Yes, this is the same ride we took McKay on last time for his first ride ever. He loves it!

I am not sure how to clip video when I take it on my regular camera. I was trying to get McKay to look at me. He was enjoying the ride so much! Watch it... it is only 30 seconds and the end is worth it! Notice he was not prompted at all. :)

On Monday we went to the scout fundraiser breakfast and did some shopping. While McKay was napping, Jordan and I finished planting our 'garden'. We thought we would be done with potted gardening when Jordan graduated from BYU and we moved. Oh well.

Jordan planted the two tomatoes, peppers ,and squash a month or so ago and there are blossoms all over them. We have about 6 inches of dirt between the concrete and the fence so we thought we'd try the squash there. So far it is thriving! In the afternoon (when we were working back there!) it gets really hot and the plants are loving it. We planted another tomato plant, 3 bush green bean plants and an Italian Roasted Pepper. We also planted two pots of flowers that are hanging in front of my kitchen window.

The rest of the day we took it easy and enjoyed being together. It was a great weekend!

One Year

Today marks 1 year that we have lived in California. In some ways it seems like longer than a year and in other ways it seems like we just moved here. We are definitely enjoying ourselves!