4 year Anniversary

2007

We got married 4 years ago today. It feels like we have been together for a lot longer than that (in a good way). In the 4th year of our marriage a lot changed. We moved, McKay started doing a new job at work, I got pregnant and we had a baby. The baby was probably the biggest change, but even though she physically keeps us a part at times, I feel like she has brought us closer together. I feel so lucky to be married to such an amazing guy. First, He works really hard to provide for us. Even when he is not a fan of what is going on at his job, he seems to remember why he has to keep working. He is also super thoughtful and sweet and is a good listener. He is my favorite person in the world to talk to, and he always listens, even if i ramble on longer than he would prefer. He is also incredibly supportive of me. I would not be able to do this new mom stuff so well without his love and support. I will always be so grateful that he is willing to work solo to provide for our family and allow me to be a stay at home mom. I will also always be grateful for the words of encouragement and praise he gives me regarding motherhood. Thank you McKay. I have loved the last 4 years being married to you and being your best friend and I look forward to many many more.

2011

Our Little Christmas Present

This week Foto Fly was doing a really fun promotion at Thanksgiving point. They had photo sessions with Santa in studio at Thanksgiving point. They also had it set up so that the parents could dress up as Santa Claus so that their kids would not be afraid, or you could use their hired Santa. We used the hired Santa because Madelynn is no where near old enough to be afraid of strangers. For $20 you got a 5-10 minute photo shoot and all the photos from your session to take home on a flash drive. My mom signed us up and paid for it as a little Christmas present for us and her (she ordered some of the prints). Here are some of the pictures we got.

Madelynn's 1 Month Pictures

It seems like this blog is pretty much going to become devoted to our little princess. It is really hard to think of anything else to write about because right now our lives (mine especially) revolve completely around her. I am a little late in posting this seeing as how Madelynn is actually 6 weeks old today, but her 1 month pictures are super cute just like her. McKay took them and I think he did a pretty good job!

A little bit about Madelynn at one month old... She really likes to look at lights. We catch her staring at the light fixtures on the ceiling, lamps, the television, the computer screen and most recently the Christmas lights we have around the house. She does not seem to really like to take baths, but we have found the she seems to enjoy taking a shower with mom or dad. I guess it is the constant warmth that being under a shower head brings. She also has to have her hands and arms free. If we try to wrap her arms in her blanket she will scream at us. She has to be able to wave those cute little arms around or she is not a happy baby. She likes to  lift up her head and look around but doesn't like to do so on her tummy. She outgrew her newborn size clothes at about 4 1/2 weeks old and has moved into the  0-3 month size. She does not like to have her clothes changed, which is too bad for her because I like to dress her up like a baby doll. She is my living baby doll and just has to deal with changing into a new outfit if she makes one messy at all, or I just feel like changing her. She is getting a little better at sleeping during the night, she just seems to think that night time doesn't start until some where between 1 and 2 a.m. 

Now enjoy an overload of pictures. I had a hard time picking through them so you get to see way too many.

Baby's First Bumbo

While McKay was at work this week I got a little bored and Madelynn got a little fussy, so even though she is still a little small for it I decided to introduce Madelynn to her Bumbo.

She has been doing pretty good at holding her head up, but as you can see in the pictures she is not quite sure if she likes it yet. Fan or not, it was really cute and  funny to watch her try and hold herself up.

2 week appointment and "single" parenting

Madelynn just had her two week appointment, and I just had my first outing with a baby and no husband to help.  I think I was spoiled having McKay home for 2 weeks of paternity leave. Now that he is gone, everything is harder! Even just getting her into her car seat and out to the car is more difficult with only one pair of hands. McKay, I miss you. I am glad you are out there being a great provider, but gosh dang it, I need your extra pair of hands so I can lock the front door behind me when I leave the house!

So Madelynn was a stinker at her appointment with the pediatrician. She screamed basically the whole time. I was amazed at how hard it was just to fill out the new patient forms while trying, without success, to make her stop crying. She cried when they weighed her and measured her and listened to her heartbeat. She cried even harder when they poked her heel and bled her for the PKU test. The poor nurse felt sooooo bad the whole time.  Luckily when it was all over and she was back in her warm clothes and blankets I was able to calm her down enough to finish filling out the paper work. However, the doctor informed me that I needed to start cleaning out her belly button with rubbing alcohol. Guess who doesn't have rubbing alcohol in the house? So we got to take a quick trip to the grocery store. Juggling a car seat, purse and grocery bags is not easy. I have so much more respect for all the mom's I see in the stores carrying around their kids and getting their errands done. I can tell this is going to take some getting used to.

Back to the two week appointment... The doctor was very pleased with Madelynn's growth. She has gained almost a whole pound and has grown an entire inch. It blows my mind that she has grown that much in just two weeks! 

Hungry baby...

Madelynn was really hungry the other day...but she tried to get her dinner from her dad. Not super effective, but soooooo funny!

Birth Announcement

Thanks to my wonderful friend Kayli for taking the pictures for Madelynn's birth announcement. I had a whole lot of fun putting it together in photoshop.

Madelynn Dawn Young

 On October 31st at 12:42 p.m. our sweet little baby girl was born after 36 hours of labor. She was 7 pounds 15 ounces, and 19 1/2 inches long. I can't believe she is a week old now. It has gone by fast, but it also feels like she has been a part of our lives forever. The love a parent can feel for a child amazes me. We love our little Madelynn sooooooo much. We also think she is just about the prettiest little girl in the whole wide world.

September and October Recap

The months of September and October felt like they crawled by incredibly slowly at the time, but in hindsight they flew right by. We started off the month of September with what we like to call our "Engagement Anniversary". McKay proposed to me on Memorial day on purpose, so that we could always have a day to celebrate in the years to come. So this Memorial day we celebrated 4 years by going up to Draper to go shopping for a new couch. We ended up finding the perfect one up at furniture row across from Ikea. Since it was memorial day weekend it was on sale, and it happened to perfectly match the rocker recliner we bought for the nursery a few weeks earlier. We planned on having lunch at Sweet Tomatoes in Salt Lake, but by the time we had purchased our couch it was only 10 in the morning and we were not hungry yet. So, we decided to head up to Snowbird and attend Octoberfest. I have never been to Octoberfest before, and we probably wouldn't have gone that day either, except for the fact that McKay's sisters and our niece were up there selling their amazing kettle corn and we wanted to visit them. After a few hours of experiencing octoberfest with our cute niece, we were ready to eat, and finished up our day by having dinner at sweet tomatoes instead of lunch. It was a good day.

On the 17th of September we had our baby shower. Kayli, Rachel and my mom were awesome at getting things put together and I think the shower was a success. There were sooooo many people there and we received a whole bunch of thoughtful gifts. Thank you everyone who was in attendance! It was a special day.

Now I am going to jump to October.

We enjoyed the fall colors by taking multiple canyon drives. We drove both the Alpine loop and the Nebo loop. We also went up Rock Canyon and took advantage of the gorgeous backdrop by taking a few maternity pictures.

On October 21st we celebrated McKay's birthday. My handsome husband is now 28 years old!

 It was kind of a funny day. I had fully expected to either have a baby or be in labor by the time McKay's birthday came around because I had started to dilate about 3 weeks before, so I got everything ready for his birthday weeks in advance. It was the most prepared I have ever been for his birthday! I had all of his presents pre-wrapped and stashed in various places around the apartment. We celebrated his birthday by going to a doctors appointment in the morning where they stripped my membranes to try and get me to go into labor. After that we did what we thought would be some last minute shopping for baby items, and then a really really long walk  to try and jump start my labor. That evening we had McKay's birthday dinner at Kohinoor, a really tasty Indian restaurant here in Orem. Surprisingly enough my entire family showed up and even liked the food (except Jonathan, he didn't like it). We were really worried about them not liking the food, but it ended up not being a problem. Later that evening we had birthday cake and ice cream at our apartment with our good friend Kaimii and some of McKay's family. I got extra fancy with McKay's cake this year. I decorated the entire cake with home made gummies. Anyone who knows McKay knows that gummy candies are his absolute favorite, and that he likes cowboy stuff. So I had fun making him home made gummy cowboy boots and a gun. Happy 28th birthday McKay!

On Sunday the 23rd we carved pumpkins with the Rogers family. We made some fun pumpkins, but never actually ended up putting candles in them...

Halloween was interesting this year. We had 3 Halloween parties to go to. Seeing as how my due date was October 29th I did not plan a costume, then when Friday the 28th rolled around and there were no signs of labor I decided I should find a costume to wear to the various parties the next day. I ended up being a hula girl because it fit, and McKay went with his classic cowboy attire. We went to the young family Halloween party at McKay's moms house on Friday and celebrated with the nieces and nephews. Little kids make Halloween so much more fun. On Saturday we started the evening at a party up in salt lake with McKay's co-workers and then made our way down to Provo to end the night at the Christensen's Halloween party. They were all a whole lot of fun. I was so glad that we got to celebrate Halloween with those parties, because just a few hours after we got home from the Christensen's party, we went into labor...and the results of that will be a whole different post.