Omaha/Hunting Trip '09

The first weekend in November my mom and I packed the kids up and went to Omaha while my dad and Evan went deer hunting. We did this last year, but then it was only Denver and we went to help Kim get ready for the arrival of Jacob. Crazy how 1 year, can change so much!

We had a great time. The cousins had a blast playing together and it was fun watching Jacob wanting to keep up with Denver and Makenna wanting to keep up with Jacob. They help encourage the other to try new things! We spent almost our entire time at Kim and Jeff's house as 3 littles ones of all different ages usually means someone is sleeping. We did find time to make it to the park to play for a little while which was nice to help them get all of their leftover energy out before bedtime.

Here are some pictures from our weekend. I wonder what's in store for our trip next year!?

The kids had a lot of fun playing at the park, especially Denver. He loves to swing, slide, and run! I of course had a great idea of taking a picture with the pretty leaves that were still on the trees (unlike our ones at home at this point)....this was quite the experience...I did a little editing so that I had 5 heads looking at me, but I'm quite impressed we got a half way decent picture! :)

Makenna started eating food before we left for this trip, but hadn't been at it for too long. Finally on Sunday I stripped her naked to feed her because sitting in the bumbo seat instead of the highchair seemed to make her a messier eater and she thought she needed control of the spoon a lot of the time. Here's some pictures of her mess of sweet potatoes!

We played in the leaves before leaving Sunday afternoon. Kim and I had hoped to get some good, fun cousin pictures, but that didn't really happen. Denver HATED the leaves. He's a little obsessed with being "messy" and it bothered him (in our return trip for Jacob's birthday and baby dedication he was okay playing in them, thank goodness!). Makenna and Jacob enjoyed the leaves though as you can see.

Oh, and I suppose I should inform you on the deer hunting results. Evan got his buck and Dad got a doe. They both returned the Friday after Thanksgiving so Dad could get his buck and Evan got his doe. (For some reason the pictures of them and their deer are not loading, so sorry no pictures.)

Makenna Betty's 6 Month Pictures

Makenna turned 6 months old on November 5th.  This day came WAY TOO FAST for me.  I thought things went fast with Denver, but they have gone super fast with Makenna.  I always feel like she's doing things early and then I think about it and realize she's older than I think she is and she should be doing those things!  I decided to not make all of you wait any longer for the long awaited 6 month photo shoot.  I was looking forward to this photo shoot since she was 3 months old or so as I had planned to do a tutu for this shoot.  I originally was going to make a tutu for this photo shoot, but I found this outfit before I made one; hence I've put off making another tutu (since free time is so abundant around here, ha, ha, ha!).  Since I've been so excited about this shoot I also had my expectations really high; therefore I spent WAY TOO MUCH time trying to get just the right shots.  I spent most of her 6 month birthday taking pictures and then the next day Daddy was home and in 5 minutes we were able to get what I wanted and then I was satisfied with my photo shoot.  At first I didn't know if I considered it a successful photo shoot, but now that I've had time to look at the photos and just relax about it I'm in love with them!  I just love my little girl so much!!

I may not be done editing pictures, but as of now I am so here they are along with a collage of one with many of the pictures because there were just too many that I thought should be included (it's easier to download one compared to 10 or whatever it is).

"This tongue sure is good and fun!"

What a doll!

All smiles for her Daddy!

(Who wants to look at Mommy with a camera in front of her face!)

"Mom, I'm so tired, I'm done!"

"Oh wait...I found a baby in here, how fun!"

"Look at me, I'm a big girl!"

"Did you just say we're done with this photo shoot?!"

Our Happy Girl

Due to all the illnesses going around I have decided that I will only enter the pediatric clinic once therefore Makenna's 6 month checkup has to wait until Denver turns 2 (unless I call and complain...as they won't let me bring Denver in before he's 2 so Makenna has to be pushed back on her immunizations instead...grrr!) therefore I do not have a new weight to tell you, but I do know this....she's HEAVY!  I can barely lug her around in her carseat anymore.  I'm guessing her "stats" will be similar to her cousin Jacob's at 6 months...I'm wondering if she won't even be bigger.  Maybe when I have her 6 month check up information I can do an assortment of every day pictures of her.

We are adjusting to having a "big" baby compared to a "little" one.  The poor little girl gets lots of little nicknames dealing with fat, chubby, etc.  At least she's too little to care or have hurt feelings from it yet!  I am thinking she will start slowing down (or at least I hope) as she finally learned how to roll from her back to her tummy 2 weeks ago or so and now loves to roll.  She's also has been more willing to do tummy time since this discovery which is wonderful as I was wondering how we'd ever get her to work those muscles well enough for crawling and all those other big girl things if she didn't spend more time doing tummy time.

Makenna loves to spit!  She has learned how to projectile spit and thinks its great.  I on the other hand am not so sure about this as now that we're 6 months old we have to eat food and I don't care to be covered in food.  Makenna loves to eat and has tried quite an array of foods already considering I didn't start feeding her much until about 2 weeks ago or so.  At first she loved peas, but the last time she had them she didn't like them and continually spit them out.  She still is unsure of applesauce.  Bananas on the other hand she thinks are delish and that's how we got her to like her oatmeal that I switched her over to from rice cereal (as Denver preferred oatmeal to rice so I thought she would too).  Another love is carrots.  The first night she had them I was afraid she'd turn orange as she ate a whole container of them in one sitting!  Today she tried sweet potatoes and while I don't think they are in the love category they are definitely in the like as of now anyway.

Another thing that Makenna loves to do is talk!  What a surprise, right?  LOL!  Makenna makes the cutest little sounds and does a lot more of "different" sounds than Denver did...or at least I think.  She makes little sounds when she's sleeping or trying to go back to sleep after being awoken (which happens quite frequently....and believe it or not its not usually her brother's fault...she just easily awakens).  Makenna has also become a cat napper due to this easily awoken state.  If she falls asleep nursing before nap time and wakes up as I'm laying her down....there's a good chance the nap is over and its not nap time again until the time is up if she had her normal "long" nap.  I try to make her cry herself back to sleep until she's slept at least a hour total, but that doesn't always work.

I think that's all I have for Makenna at 6 months old.  If I forgot something I'll have to include it with her checkup later in the month.  I hope you enjoyed catching up on our "Kenna Betty" (Denver walks around looking for "Kenna Betty" all the time).