Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday Dave!

Today is Dave's 28th Birthday! Wow, we are getting old! I am so lucky to be married to such a wonderful, thoughtful, kind person who is a amazing Dad. He makes me so happy! Happy Birthday Dave!

Hawaii Part 1

Aloha! We have actually been home for over a week now, but we have had so much going on that I haven't taken the time to post about our amazing trip! Dave, McKenna and I went to Hawaii with some of our friends, Chris and Rebecca Nagel. We spent ten days on the beautiful island of Oahu. I was planning on just one Hawaii post, but we have an insane number of pictures, so I am going to do at least two posts on this one.
McKenna was a champ on the trip, she not only had to deal with a 3 hour time change, and her schedule completely being thrown off, but she ended up getting an ear infection on the plane ride over. She was such a good sport, in spite of everything.

Here we are at the Polynesian Cultural Center

Chris and Dave in the Tahiti village learning to do the "chicken" dance

During the canoe show

The New Zealand Canoe

The Tahiti Canoe (Dave and Chris' favorite)

On Easter Island (Dave is trying make the same face as the statues!)

At the Luau

Again at the Luau

McKenna wearing our Lei

While we were here Oahu had one of the largest swells they have had in about 40 years. The ways on the north shore got up to 50 feet! Most of the beaches were closed down on that part of the island. The good thing about this was there were a few surf competitions while we were there. Here we are at the Billabong Pipeline Masters. The prize for the winner of this competition was a million dollars!

Dave and McKenna at the competition

The huge waves! I am sad that you can't really see how big they are in the pictures!

My little beach babe!

Dave and McKenna just chillin

Dave heading out to boogie board

McKenna getting her daily sunblock (I am proud to say that McKenna was just as white coming home as she was going to Hawaii! I was so militant about her sunblock)

My cute husband and daughter

Dave and I boogie boarding

McKenna and I at the Hawaii temple

Our Family at the Hawaii temple

My little Hawaiian Babe

McKenna at Hanauma Bay

Dave and Chris at Hanauma Bay Snorkeling

Dave's favorite Hawaii outfit for McKenna

McKenna at Waikiki Beach

McKenna and I at Waikiki Beach

Our Family

Halloween

Wow, Halloween really changes when you have kids! For the last couple of years Dave and I have had pretty low key Halloweens, but as soon as we had McKenna, we all of the sudden have so much going on. We couldn't really decide what to dress McKenna as, so she had two costumes, a cabbage patch kid and a leopard.

On the Friday before Halloween we dressed McKenna up in her leopard costume and took her to see all of the Great Grandparents, that way we could just go to the Grandparents on Halloween. We took so many pictures and so many of them turned out really good, so I am going to share them all with you!

McKenna and I at Gardner Village

Our pumpkins on our porch

(Dave's, McKenna's, Mine)

Dave and Our Little Cabbage Patch

Great Grandpa Stokes and our little Leopard

Great Grandma and Grandpa Stokes with Kenna

Great Grandpa Behling and Kenna

Great Grandma Garlick and Kenna

Kenna and her Grandpa Bott

She didn't want to sit in the leaves all by herself

All of the "Bott Grandkids"

(Jocelyn, Dallin, McKenna, Landon, Ella)

Our Happy Little Cabbage Patch

Kenna and I

Steve, Gracie, Kenna, and Dave

The Lloyd Family

Miriam, Stephanie, Lia, Claire, Derek, and Brynn

The Darais Family

Abi, Jenette, Danny, Kylee, and Jacob

The Garlick Family

Breanne, McKenna, and Dave

The Delgado Family

Julianne, Gracie, and Steve

Starting Solids!

McKenna is now almost 6 months old!! I can't believe how fast she is growing! A couple of weeks ago we started feeding her solids. It has been a funny experience thus far. She is getting better and better with rice cereal, as you can see with the video below. A couple of days ago we decided to feed McKenna avocado, that is when we got these two great pictures. She had a hard time with the texture, it was so funny because she doesn't want to swallow it when it is in her mouth. It is like she doesn't know what to do with it. We are going to keep working on it.

Wow, It has been a while!

We have had so much going on lately, at least that is my excuse for not posting in a while. I was looking through the pictures on my camera this morning, and I decided that the best way to show what we have been up to in the last month is just to post a ton of pictures and then tell about them. Originally I was doing so good and had all of the pictures in order by what came first. Unfortunately that didn't last long!

These are pictures from our annual Murder Mystery Party. This year was a medieval theme, it turned out to be a lot of fun! I have to say every year the costumes just get better and better.

Ashley, Callie and I


Ryan and Callie

Dave (in a great wig) and I

Here is almost our whole group


Okay, so here is one place where I jumped out of order. This is the day of the first BYU football game. The one where they played Oklahoma, and won! Dave and McKenna are showing their BYU pride!

This is the first year that I have been to Swiss Days. McKenna and I went of Friday with my family and then Dave, McKenna and I went again on Saturday with his family. It was a lot of fun, just so crowded! I am modeling my new sling on got there. I wanted one since McKenna was born and I have to say that both she and I like it a lot!

My little sleeping Angel!

Here is McKenna with her
Great Grandpa Behling

A couple of weeks ago McKenna and I went up with Ashley and Ryan and Callie and their family to the Sundance Harvest Market and then after we hiked Stewart Falls. The leaves were amazing! I haven't done that hike in a couple of years, it was a lot of fun. McKenna is a great sport when it comes to the outdoors!

Callie, McKenna and I

The Fall Leaves (they never turn out as good in a picture)

Ashley, McKenna and I

So these next pictures are way out of order. For Dallin's birthday, which was in August we went to the Dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. We had never been there before and I was really impressed. It was a lot of fun because Dallin knew all about each of the Dinosaurs and he told us about all of them.

A couple of weeks ago we went to Las Vegas for a few days. It was a fun little trip to just get away. I have to say, Vegas is a totally different experience once you have kids. It is not nearly as fun when you have to be back in your room by 7:30. Not that Dave and I were ever out there partying or anything, but it is fun to walk around Vegas when it is actually dark.

Here are Dave and McKenna at the Forum Shops

McKenna and I at Cheeseburgers at the Miracle Mile (while we were waiting for our food Dave taught McKenna to blow a really good raspberry, so if when you are holding her you get spit on you can thank Dave for that!)

Dave and McKenna in front of the fish tank at the Forum Shops

This last weekend we went to St. George with Dave's family. It was our annual Garlick Family Vacation, and it was a lot of fun. We rented one big house and each family got their own room. Initially I was a little worried with all of the babies that we have in the family, but it worked surprisingly well. I also got to celebrate my birthday while we were in St. George, which was a lot of fun. We were able to go swimming, shopping, and to dinner and a movie for my birthday! I know that Dave made a special effort to make it a great day, my husband is so wonderful!

The sad thing is the only time we brought out our camera was at the pool, but we did get some cute swimming pictures.

Kylee and Brynn at the pool

Steve and Gracie

McKenna (we didn't buy McKenna a swim suit at the beginning of the summer; and then when we tried to get her one at a couple of months ago all of the stores were sold out of them!Hence the topless baby)

This is the first time that McKenna actually enjoyed swimming!

My Baby and I