Christmas in Iowa

This year we spent Christmas in Iowa. We were there for 6 days and were able to spend time with many of our family and friends. McKinzie met her Uncle Nick for the first time. She welcomed him by sticking out her tongue (yes, she is Ms. Personality!) but she warmed up to him quickly. We had Christmas with my parents on Christmas Eve and then spent Christmas day at Grandma Passick's (Great Grandma to Kinzie). On Christmas day, Kinzie was also visited by some cousins on the Cook side of the family. On Wednesday, we ate lunch with Uncle Lonnie and Sandy who were in town from Colorado. We had a wonderful Christmas surrounded by lots of family. It's hard to believe Kinzie's first Christmas has come and gone. She LOVED opening presents. Her personality is in full swing and she is quite the character to watch. She loves the camera and is not afraid to strike a pose (scary, she's so young!) I am sure I am forgetting a lot of what happened, but I have been sick all week and am pretty exhausted. McKinzie is battling another ear infection so her and I have been sick together. It's time to get some sleep, but I'm sure I'll remember some things to add later! We hope everyone had a very merry Christmas!

South Carolina

Here are pictures from our trip to South Carolina for Jodi's graduation and the Smith Christmas. We went down for a long weekend December 13th-16th. Then we were back for a few days before we headed to Iowa for the Passick family Christmas (pictures to come).

Kisses

McKinzie loves to give kisses!

It's been awhile!

So it's been awhile since we posted. Our camera has been out of commission, but Sony just fixed it for free!! YAY! Mom has been using her old camera and just found her cords to hook it up. Anyway, here are some pictures from Thanksgiving and then picture from today when we got our camera back.

What's new with us...
Let's see, over Thanksgiving we went to South Carolina to the Smith's. McKinzie was diagnosed with an ear infection the day before we left, but we got numbing ear drops so the plane wouldn't bother them. She did well flying as usual. Grandpa came back with us from SC and watched McKinzie last week. Mom just completed her student teaching (BIG YAY!!!). So now I am home again with McKinzie for awhile. I will probably be doing some subbing so that I can get some experience but also spend time with Kinzie. Other than that, not too much else is new. Next week we are going down to SC again for Jodi's graduation. Then to Iowa for Christmas. It will be a busy month!

Relaxing weekend

Happy Halloween!!

My pumpkin has more teeth than me!

She's good as closing her eyes for pictures!!

Pre-pumpkin carving

One tired little bug

Sorry we didn't get too many pictures of Halloween because mom's camera broke. :( Oh what will she do??? (Take it back and have them fix it of course!!) So we won't have new pics for a little bit unless I get out my other camera (which I just might do!). I might have some other pics from Halloween. We stopped at my cooperating teachers house on our way to our party to see her little guys all dressed up. McKinzie loved playing with her boys Sage and Samuel.

Our Little Love Bug

Showing off my costume @ the bowling alley

Goofy girl

Love bugs

Silly girl

McKinzie tested out her halloween costume a couple nights early. So we thought we'd post some pictures of her in her lady bug costume. She was definitely showing off a little bit when we put her in it. It was pretty darn cute. Enjoy!!

New car seat

Seat belts work!

Seat made for a princess :)

Checkin' it out.. lovin' it

So we installed McKinzie's new car seat this weekend so that she'd be a little more comfortable as she is growing out of her old one. Here are some pictures of the little ham checking out her new seat.

Mom's Birthday

Mom's birthday present from Kinzie was Rascall Flatt's tickets (yay!!) So Lyssa, mom, dad and Kim went to the concert on Saturday night. It was amazing... i am even more in love now. :) Here are a couple of pictures from the concert and weekend.

Update

Just thought I'd update everyone on what is going on in our lives these days. A couple of weeks ago, we went up to Alexandria for the weekend and enjoyed to beautiful fall colors while daddy bowled a tournament (don't ask how he did :( ). Then this past weekend we went to South Carolina to visit grandpa and grandma smith and aunt jodi. We had a long weekend cause mom didn't have school because of mea. It was a pretty relaxing weekend and it was amazing how well McKinzie did traveling. She is a real champ. Daddy got bumped a few times on the way back so he had a long day in the airport on Monday. Things are pretty much back to normal now except McKinzie has had some... umm... digestive problems since we've gotten back so we are battling that right now trying to keep the little girl hydrated. Grammy and Papi Passick and Aunt Lyss are coming up this weekend. Aunt Lyss and mom are going to the Rascall Flatts concert on Saturday night (YAY!!!!). We are looking forward to another relaxing weekend at home.

Mom is in her last week of full time student teaching (YAY!!!) Next week, she will just be teaching math and science and then the week after she will only be teaching science. Then she is officially done on Nov. 30th!!! It's amazing how fast the time has gone. I am really loving student teaching. I have an awesome class that is extremely diverse so it has been a really good learning experience. I think I might even miss the students when I'm done. She is going to take the month of December off (because she won't have her license until January) and then we will see where to go from there. She is looking forward to spending December with McKinzie and shopping... :) That's all we really have going on right now! Enjoy the new pics of McKinzie, who is by the way an expert crawler already and trying to pull herself up already!! (Help!! I still need to baby proof!)

pumpkin patch

So my buddy Riley and I took our parents to the apple orchard and pumpkin patch. Then we all had dinner together at our house. We had lots of fun. I got some honeycrisp apples from the orchard and 3 pumpkins (a big one for daddy, a medium one for mommy and a little one for me!) Riley got her own pumpkin too. We had lots of fun playing together and we can't wait to go next year when we are big enough to ride the cow ride at the pumpkin patch! Enjoy our pictures!

6 months!

So McKinzie turns 6 months old tomorrow!! Hard to believe... the past 6 months have flown by but definitely been the best 6 months of our lives. McKinzie saw the doctor today and said she looked great. She lost 1 1/2 lbs. since last thursday, but she hasn't felt well so he wasn't concerned unless she continues to do that. Tomorrow we are going to the pumpkin patch and apple orchid with mckinzie's buddy riley so that will be fun! We will post pictures tomorrow when we get home. Here are her 6 month stats:
Weight: 17 lbs. 8 oz. (75%)
Height: 27" (90%)
Head: 17 1/2" (95%)

Here are some pictures from our weekend!! We just relaxed and watched daddy bowl and went to church. mommy and i are sick right now, but i am feeling better tonight. enjoy my pictures!! --McKinzie

ps.. tonight i gotta give a shout out to my aunt lyss!! Love u lyssy.. see you soon!!! and to uncle nick in cali and my aunt jodi.. i love you and miss u! and uncle david... wassup!!! ok thats all for now. past my bedtime. as daddy would say peace out cub scouts

My First Tornado!!!

We had our first Tornado siren tonight in my life! I thought I would be scared but Mom and Dad held me tight and made sure we were hiding out in the bathroom in the shower with the curtains closed.... I thought they were super wierd!

Anyways, I had a great night, just giving you a little extra bonus today with some pictures from our downtime in waiting out the loud sirens that Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, Wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, Wwwwwwwwwwwwwooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Or something like that.

Anyways, time for my bed time.. I am up late tonight!

Goodnight all!

Kisses from Me (McKinzie!)

ps... i wanna give a shout out to both my grammy and papa passick and my grandpa and grandma smith! i love you and miss you!(--McKinzie)

new pictures

Update

Well life has been pretty busy since we last updated. I went back to school (student teaching) 2 weeks ago. It has been pretty good. I love the school I am at and teacher I am working with but I'd always rather be at home with McKinzie. The days seem to fly by though which is good. Aunt Jodi watched McKinzie for the first week of my student teaching and Grandma Passick watched her this past week so McKinzie hasn't had to go to day care yet. Her first day is on Monday. I have been ok with leaving her so far, but I think Monday is going to be harder so say a prayer for me!! We are also looking for day care closer to home because day care right now is in Minneapolis and I am student teaching in Eden Prairie so I would like something closer to save us the 3 hour commute (round trip). So if anyone knows anyone, let me know!!

Other than that, we've just really been hanging out. McKinzie is sitting up by herself now. She can sit up for a few minutes at a time so that is pretty exciting. She is working on crawling. She can scoot around to where to wants to go but we aren't up on all fours yet. We are also working on her first teeth. We are hoping for them ANY day now. Poor thing has been teething for some time now. Her gums are turning white so hopefully soon. I think that's all we have for now!!

YA VIDEOS!!

So Blogger now has an upload video feature (YA!) so I can put up some of the cute little videos of McKinzie!! This one is a couple weeks old but it is of McKinzie laughing at Jason. McKinzie's new thing the last couple days is talking. In the evenings, she will start talking and blab for about 20 minutes. We will take a video of that and post it tomorrow!! It's HILAROUS... ok maybe just to me but oh well.

So what else is new with us.... not much. Jason's sister, Jodi is here now and visiting for the week (and also babysitting McKinzie this week! ) McKinzie and I have been enjoying our last few days together before I begin student teaching. I am pretty much dreading tomorrow morning. I know McKinzie will be in good hands but it's still hard leaving my little girl. I am afraid I am going to miss her growing up but I know that I need to get my student teaching done. Hopefully it will only be 12 weeks and then I can try to stay home with her again and work nights or something. Thankfully, Jason's sister is watching McKinzie this week and my mom is watching her next week, so that will give me a chance to ease in to going to work and sending McKinzie to daycare. We visited her day care Friday and we totally love the lady that is going to be watching her but it's still not the same as staying home or leaving her with family. McKinzie seemed to like playing there and really liked watching the older kids play. It won't be long before she's chasing the big kids around. Anyway... say a pray for me in the morning as I leave McKinzie for my first day back to school.

Last week of summer fun

New Pictures

Cutie

So McKinzie got her pictures taken at Portrait Innovations on Sunday and I just HAD to post them because I think they are so stinkin cute!!! McKinzie was such a good girl giving lots of smiles. :) Portrait Innovations also did an awesome job taking the pics! I highly recommend them!!! (Thanks to Amy S. for the gift certificate to there!! We wouldn't have known about it w/o her)