The first couple weeks of this month was a McGary family ill-fest. I have no doubt Kallie picked it upand graciously shared with the rest of us. She made sure to pass along to Jaydavia sneezing directly in her face. Jayda ended up with bronchiolitis. I'm pretty sure all the doctor appointments in the world were huddled together this month. During every appointment that wasn't for Kallie, my friend Robin watched her.Robin's husband looked at their calendar and asked why Kallie's name was written all over it.
This month Jayda decided to refuse the bottle. I'm sure it's my fault she never got used to it because I didn't give it her often enough. From now on I shall have a Jayda on my hip at all times.
November is the month of Kallie's birthdayand with that comes a PARTAY! (full of running, screaming, drooling toddlers). I would say it was a success in spite of the fact that I'm the worst hostess on the planet. Ialways nervously run around breaking a sweat as I try to make sure everything is taken care of and hoping everyone is having fun (which is why I don't have very many pictures of the event). It doesn't end up being very fun for me but luckily all that matters is Kallie had fun. It seems a little extravagant to throw such a hoo-ha for a toddler who will forget the whole thing by the next day but I figure our family is small and when it grows into a brood of little people we'll condense birthdays into family celebrations.
The Girl
The Spread (minus the crockpot of delicious Sloppy Joe meat)
In the middle of opening gifts Kallie decided the only thing worth her time was the pen and paper Aunt Jen was using to record who brought each gift.
The after-party grazing. She pulled the chair up to the table and climbed onto it by herself.
Our friends Don and Robin invited us over for Thanksgiving along with the missionaries and we the guests got the best part of the deal. Don cooked everything by himself and we got to sit back and enjoy the fruits of his post-sous chef labor.That food was ohhh-so-good. Brad did not stand by me in my Black Thursday boycott but it actually turned out well. The stores may actuallyknow what they're doing this time because there were no long lines to wait for shoppers to trample one another, shopping was a breeze and he was home by 10pm. Again, I am a failure at capturing our life in great detail so here is the one and only picture I have of our Thanksgiving fun:
Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner Exercise
Donny & Kallie going for a joy ride...with their eyes closed.
Brad figured out how to use our laptop as a security camera and monitor
from our tablet. As we were at church waiting for sacrament meeting to
start Brad was watching a live feed of our living room and the fire
alarm started sounding! He drove home to make sure everything was ok but
by the time he got there it had stopped. I think it was God's way of
saying we shouldn't be playing on the tablet in church.
I guess Kallie got tired of begging to get out and walk.
Pony ride at Chick-fil-A (or in Kallie's words: Hosee!)
Kallie said her first entire prayer. She repeated after Daddy and it was adorable.
This month we flew to Minnesota for a few reasons. First and foremost, to eat my step dad's cookies and gain a significant amount of weight in one week. Second, so my sister and I could meet each others' new babies. Third, my grandma's funeral (you may wonder why this isn't first on the list. We were planning the trip before my grandma died and also, it's sad. I don't want a sad reason to be number one). Fourth, who doesn't love the shock of moving from Florida weather to Minnesota's freezing autumn in one day?
The Cousins
Before we left I was SO excited to see Kallie play with her cousins. Seriously, four years ago I never thought I'd be so excited about a bunch of kids. They played a lot but they didn't play together much. It wasn't until our LAST night there that they got all hyper and followed each other around the house giggling about something only toddlers know. I failed to realize it would take them awhile to warm up to each other and by that time, our visit was over. Have I mentioned how much I love living far far away from family? NOT. Sleeping arrangements worked out fabulously though: Jessa and Kallie slept in a walk-in closet together and Jayda bunked in a laundry basket with us. Win-win.
Kallie & Bina hugging it out
Brad and I didn't take many pictures in MN because everyone else did but I always forget that no one actually ends up copying their pictures and passing them out like they say they're going to so, we end up with none. Don't worry family, I'm not bitter. I know it's a big project. I just need to keep that in mind and take my own pictures. We did however reach our goal of binging on cookies, junk food, sugar, snacks and anything that helps us pack on the pounds. Mark even made a gallon sized zip-lock bag of cookies to send home with us.
Movie Night with Eden & Asia
I'm so glad my grandpa waited until we got there to have my grandma's memorial service but it kinda stinks cuz with two small kids I feel like half my mind is always on them (and that was WITH Brad basically taking care of them completely). So many relatives were there and I barely got to talk with a fraction of them. The whole thing went by so fast. I found out later a couple relatives were there and I didn't even see them. On the bright side, my grandma gave me her necklace before she died and when I wore it to my doctor's appointment the other day someone complimented it. It felt special.
Our day of flying back to Florida would have actually been pretty great if not for one little glitch in the radar: food poisoning. On both flights we got the entire back row to ourselves (three seats on one side of the aisle AND two on the other). So that was awesome. As soon as we got to our 2.5 hour layover in Atlanta though, I had blurry spots in my peripheral vision. That went away but then I got a headache. Then I had a headache AND horrible upset stomach. Then Kallie got cranky because she hadn't napped. Then Jayda started crying because she was hungry. All right before it was time to board our next plane.
Leg up? And left handed??
Our family was making so much noise it was ridiculous so we cut in line way before our zone was supposed to board and demanded we get on the plane right then so I could nurse Jayda. I even held open a leftover fast food bag because I felt like puking. We sat down, got settled, I started nursing Jayda and was still feeling horrible. I was praying to throw up, hoping I would feel better afterward. The whole time Jayda nursed I sat with my head in my hands trying to keep my mind off the pain. She finished eating, I sat her upright in the crook of my arm, the plane started taking off, I reached for a barf bag and as soon as I had it in the perfect position over my mouth I exploded into it. When I finished, Brad was holding out a napkin for me and as soon as I was nice and clean I looked down at Jayda and she was sitting quietly in my arm, looking up at me with a face that said, "What just happened?"
I have to count my blessings that 1) I was not sitting next to a stranger when I puked and 2) I felt totally fine afterward. Arriving home that night was pure bliss.
Every year since Brad and I got married I've declared, "This year I wanna start decorating for the holidays" but it still hasn't happened because we have no room for that stuff so every year we decide again to wait until we live in a house. We didn't come up with a cool family costume either because we missed the church Halloween party but we did dress up Kallie and go trick-or-treating with friends. We had a little pot luck together beforehand and my friend brought an old costume for Kallie but I had no clue what it looked like until we got there so we ended up winging it with matching the under clothes to keep her warm.
Our little fairy
Trick-or-treating with friends. This house left the bowl of candy unattended!
I discovered buckets work better than bags for a few reasons...
Sam's costume was awesome. Name that movie!
Even better with Dad
Jayda's Halloween outfit
Jayda is almost 8 weeks old and for the past week she's been sleeping on average 8-10 hours at night. Score!
Kallie's got dancing skills:
Donny & Kallie running off into their honeymoon sunset:
Ever seen a Halloween dance party at the zoo? This is what it looks like. I dunno what's going on with the vampire in the back round...
Little Jayda is almost 6 weeks old! We started actually putting her in her room a few days ago and a couple times now, she has gone 6 hours in between night meals. We LOVE our video baby monitor (thanks to all our friends that came to my baby shower and contributed toward it!) but it's kinda freaky when we can hear that baby cry in real life AND on the monitor at the same time. It's like a ghostly echo.
Jayda is totally smiling these days. Once in awhile I still catch her smile as she's staring into space (I wonder who she's looking at?) but almost every time we make eye contact with her, she immediately breaks into a smile. It's so adorable! She's definitely gaining weight. She's up to about 4 chins now (I found some dry milk curds in one of her neck rolls).
Earlier this week I decided to really hunker down on teaching Kallie her letters and numbers, come to discover she already knows almost her entire alphabet (English & ASL) and I had no idea! She must have learned from her Signing Time videos because at the end of each one the host finger spells and speaks the alphabet with the written letter showing in the corner.
Our new double jogging stroller! I love it
Brad has been exercising his engineering brain lately by inventing things. He's designing a swing that holds the car seat. We have a cradle swing at home but if we're out in public and Jayda needs to nap sometimes we need to swing the car seat to help her fall asleep but it's SO tiring and bad for the back. He's made two prototypes so far out of PVC pipe but is still working on reducing the amount of floor space it takes up. The only problem is, this invention would be most helpful if we could use it out in public but it's not portable.
A couple weeks ago I started getting headaches everyday. They got progressively worse and on the fifth day turned into migraines. This of course happened over the weekend and if it weren't for the leftover hydrocodone in the medicine cabinet from when Brad had dental work done, I would have need to go to the ER. It happened over General Conference weekend, which really stunk. On Monday I went to the doc and all she did was prescribe more pain meds so the next day I went to the chiropractor and the headaches stopped after two adjustments.
Our little froggy
The Spanish branch in our stake hosted a Latin Festival this weekend and Brad of course jumped at the chance to go since he served a Spanish speaking mission (Bolivia). I wasn't sure what to expect but we walked into the chapel gym and it was SO decked out! I must say, the San Jose branch knows how to decorate. They decided this year to wait until after the show to serve food but the show lasted more than two hours! The dances were great but most of them repeated a lot of steps over and over so they could have cut each dance in half and finished at a reasonable hour. We expected to eat dinner there but had to leave before they served the food because 8pm rolled around and the show hadn't ended so we stopped at Taco Bell on our way home. Very disappointing. Although I hadn't eaten a baja gordita in quite awhile...
We've been discussing our plans for the holidays this year. We know we won't be in Rexburg or Minnesota so we've pondered the idea of visiting Brad's oldest brother Dustin in Arkansas...but we underestimated how far away they live and how much time and money we'd spend driving there. It's still on our list of possibilities though...
We WILL however be going to Minnesota in two days! I can't deny being nervous for the plane ride (two kids on our laps?) so I'm praying there will be enough empty seats for us to snag a whole row to ourselves. This will be our LAST time flying our kids for free! Kallie will soon be turning two. Bittersweet. She'll only keep getting more and more expensive...
Yes, those are bloomers on her head, why do you ask?
Check out Jayda in the biggest pic on the left. Priceless!
