Good News!

Good news: We were trying to figure out Nate's schedule for next semester. I tried for weeks to "encourage" (I use this word to replace Nate's word of "nagging") Nate to get his schedule ready for registration. Well, when there was only a few days before we had to register, he was in a frenzy to figure out which classes he needed, what his emphasis and cluster were going to be (things that needed to be decided long in advance), and generally what he wanted to do with the rest of his life needed to be decided in a few days. In my view, the business department tries to "innovate" things, and just makes everything really complicated. So we couldn't find classes he needed, he only had two semesters left to fit everything in to graduate, and so he went to talk to someone on campus. The magical words, "You don't need to take these 9 credits." It seems like where graduation is concerned, things never work out in your favor, but this time they did! Nate now only needs 17 credits to finish his bachelors degree and we are graduating next semester. July 18, 2008 to be exact. The other perfect thing is that I finish my schooling next semester, too. We are so excited (and almost equally as scared), to be done with school and enter the real world. Woohoo!

Mackay had a blow-out while at CeeCee's. Here she is wearing a Beetle's shirt. Her face is pretty cute, too.
Mackay is trying to learn how to use a spoon. Actually, her 1 year well-check is coming up, and I just found out that one of the questions they ask you is if your child can eat with a spoon. Well, Mackay can't. We haven't really tried. So I feel like we're cramming for a test trying to get ready for her doctor's appointment and so I don't look like a bad mother.


Mackay's favorite past-time is playing the guitar. We believe she will be something like "August Rush" (good movie). She has learned to strum, but her favorite thing is banging on it and holding the strings down when Nate is trying to play.

Mackay loves riding on the horse around the house.
I taught Mackay that she can jump in her bed. So now she never wants to get out. We just hang out in her room, she jumps up and down, and I dance while I sing a song.
Here is Mackay with her chair. This is from her great, great grandma Gwen, who she is named after and who died 3 weeks after Mackay was born. She loves to sit in it, drag it behind her around her room, and take it away from anyone else who wants to sit in it.
For Valentine's Day Nate got me "flowers". He was actually at the grocery store and saw people making bouquets of chocolate covered roses. They were selling them for $15, and he decided that he could make it himself for much cheaper. He bought the strawberries, chocolate (even milk chocolate, which he hates and is my favorite), and skewers. We found out Mackay has a passion for strawberries, especially covered in chocolate. He placed them in a vase with a head of romaine lettuce as the greenery.

I went to get Mackay out of bed one afternoon and saw that she was missing an arm. She also thought it was really funny.
Pretty self explanatory. I love Mackay's face. This is her wearing my mittens.
Mackay loves (or should I say loved, she gets sick of food quickly), spaghetti. I strip her down so I don't have to stress about keeping her clothes stain-free, and then put her in the sink to clean up. This is her first experience with bubbles, and she just kept trying to eat them--though she doesn't do that anymore. She loves being in the sink, and one evening we couldn't get her out without her having a tantrum, so we left her in there while we ate dinner.
I was folding laundry one day with Mackay's help. (I give her the socks to play with). I left the room for one second, and I came back to her having totally demolished any clothes I had neatly folded. I think it's funny that they ended up on top of her.

Walkin' in a winter wonderland

My dad sent us a picture of the snow they were getting in Utah. We decided to show him what Idaho was made of. This is the very beginning when Mackay was still enjoying herself.


Nate threw (maybe tossed is a better word) Mackay into the snow. It would have been a good picture if the snow didn't cave in on her face. Nate still thought it was pretty funny.
Mackay fell between her walker and the couch and thoguht it was so funny to be stuck between a "rock and a hard place." (Good book!)
Nate was trying to fold the laundry (I came down with a life threatening cold--or that's how it feels, anyway). Mackay was "helping" dad, but Nate was just getting frustrated, so he put a laundry basket over her. She thoroughly enjoyed it.

This is Mackay making her way around the house. She now only uses her walker to get to a stable place, from there she can go pretty much anywhere she wants. This is her making her way into the kitchen.

Mackay's swimming suit. We are getting really excited for summer.
Mackay has been having respiratory problems the last little while, so she needs to have a breathing treatment every four hours. This is our first attempt, she has gotten a lot better since this picture.
Those eyes make me feel so bad!
This is an example of Mackay getting better at her breathing treatments.This is my first attempt at putting Mackay's hair in pig tails. She hates getting them in, but she hasn't learned to pull them out yet, so it makes it worth it.

We're back in school

Sorry, but blogs are still few and far between. Nate and I are both going to school full time and Nate is working two jobs. Somehow we have worked out our schedules where Mackay is with our cousin, Ceecee and her little girl Alyssa, for only two hours on Monday and Wednesday. I feel the need to share with you our humorous schedule, so try to keep up:

7:45 I have class. I have to walk, so I wear snow boots, thermals under my clothes, a sweat shirt, coat, hat, mittens, and sometimes a face mask if it is too freezing.
8:45 Nate is waiting outside in the car with Mackay all bundled up in the back seat to make a switch. Nate goes to class while I take Mackay home--for an hour.
10:00 I am waiting outside in the car with Mackay to do another switch. I go to class.
10:30 Nate takes Mackay to the babysitters so he, too, can go to class.
12:45 I pick Mackay up from the babysitters.
1:45 Mackay and I go to get Dad again, so that I can go to my final class of the day.
3:00 Nate and Mackay pick me up, we drive to Nate's work, drop him off, and we are finally home for the day!

Luckily Mackay takes it very well. We try not to do homework or anything else when we are with Mackay so that she can have as much quality time as possible. We are also very blessed that she goes to bed at 7:00, which is when studying really begins. Here are some pictures of the fun we have during our free time:

Mackay went and played with Luke, the closest in age to Mackay in our little neighborhood, while Nate and I went to serve as ushers at the open house of the Rexburg Temple--for five hours. It was a great blessing, and Mackay came home and showed us a little trick she had learned while observing Luke. So now Mackay is all over the house pushing her walker. Her new thing is walking up to sturdy objects and just holding on. She loves to pull clothes out of my dresser.
This is Mackay and the infamous Luke. From the looks of it, it looks like Mackay has a crush.
Mackay's new favorite past time is reading books to herself. She knows how to turn pages, and she even "reads" out loud the stories.

This is Mackay's desk.

Mackay has a fascination with the fish tank and the little shelf under it.
I'm pretty sure Nate came up with this idea. We found some pajamas that are a little too big, so Nate stuffed socks in the bottoms and made her look like she had really long legs. She wasn't too happy about it, as you can see. This is the only picture we could find that didn't look like we were torturing our child.

And here's Mackay pushing her walker. Oh, and no, she is still not crawling yet.
Notice the hair hanging over her collar!
I took the tray off of Mackay's high chair one day after she was done eating, and her legs popped out. She then proceeded to try to get out herself, but it didn't work.
Mackay with Luke again. They were fighting over who was going to push the walker, and since Luke can go a little faster than Mackay, it wasn't working out too well. I thought of this great idea where everybody wins.
Our friends, Mark and Christine, invited us over for a fondue night. Christine's sister had her husband die in a car crash four years ago, and so every year on his birthday she invites over the entire neighborhood and has a fondue party, which was his favorite meal. Christine decided to carry on the tradition. We were priviledged to attend.

I said that Nate was holding a stick in front of my face, but no one wanted to retake the picture.
Misery loves company.
This picture was taken when I wasn't home. Mackay is in her diaper bag. Nate said he tried to zip it all the way up, but her head was getting in the way. Poor Mackay!
I thought this was a great model look.

The New Year is Here!

The new year is here, we still have a cute baby who is growing every day, and I am done with my class! That's right, Kalli's back. Though the bad news is that I start a full load, as does Nate on January 9th, with Nate trying to work two jobs at the same time. Needless to say I am enjoying this last week of freedom by doing absolutely nothing but reading my book, "New Moon" (from the Twilight series). Here are some pictures, mainly of Mackay, that brings a little sunshine into our lives during these cold winter months.

This is my talents at cake decorating. My mother-in-law got me a cake decorating set for Christmas and I was dying to try it out. When I was frosting the cake Nate was next to me the whole time telling me exactly what I had to do. And every 30 seconds he would say, "Is it my turn yet?" He got a hold of that knife and by the time he was done it looked like the cake had been smoothed out by a professional! I asked him if he had ever frosted a cake like this before and he said he hadn't, but just watched his mom.

This is the paper that was attached to the turning base-thing. I tried to get my cake to look just like this.
To keep Mackay occupied I gave her a cup that had the icing scraped out. Needless to say it kept her quiet for a while.
This is Mackay playing with Dad.

Mackay and I out in the snow.

We sat her down for pictures and her first encounter with the cold, white powder. She liked it at first...
...and then she touched it.
This picture is of Mackay and anther one of her friends, Estin--that's the nice thing about living in a college town. I took this mainly for my brother, Andy, who is always calling Mackay a chunk. And for the record, Estin isn't a chunk, he was just blessed with the cutest cheeks I have ever seen.

The day after Christmas we went up to Island Park to go snowmobiling. It was a blast, though a little cold. For some reason I was the only one that complained of a cold face. I don't attribute this to my wimpy-ness, but some other unknown factor.

Nate eating a carcass that had been dragged onto the trail.
I just thought the snow was so amazing. This truck especially caught my eye.

The snow was extremely deep--it snowed every day, non-stop while we were there. I was afraid to step off of the snow machine because this was a frequent thing that would happen.

The boys occupied themselves with pulling each other on their snowboards off of a jump.

Nate next to a stop sign--obviously.

This is Mackay on Christmas morning out my family's house. We had to wake her up early so that we could open presents. She loved helping everyone tear the wrapping paper off of their presents.

One of the toys that she got was a walker to help her learn the art of using two feet. Though an even better idea was being pushed around by Uncle Chad.
This is Mackay with Cammie's (my best friend from high school) little girl, Jane. Jane is 28 days older than Mackay and they loved playing together--or at least taking each other's binkies.

This is Mackay with her second cousins at the Harvey family Christmas party. They are also all born within about a month's time.
Matching binkies--how cute.
Four generation picture with Grandma Harvey, my mom, me, and Mackay.

Mackay standing up and playing with her new toy from William. She loves it!

This is our attempts at getting all the cute grandkids (and Kerstin) together to take a picture in their Christmas outfits from Grandma Barker. I'm experiencing deja vu with their Halloween outfits--with William still crying. He must not like getting exploited for grown-ups amusement.
Deja vu again with William leaving. But they looked so cute! I was bribing Mackay with Cheerios so that she would sit still. I tried to offer Nicholas some but he didn't need baby treats, he was waiting for ice cream.
Emilie and Mackay in their cute dresses.
I loved this picture of Emilie trying on Mackay's shoes. The angle of the camera makes her legs look incredibly long and her feet incredibly huge!
And Nicholas got his ice cream.

One day Nate left town and left his car at work--Mackay and I needed it, so we bundled up and walked the three blocks to get the car. I put on this hat, and Mackay just started laughing. So I put it on her and it got the same effect.

This is me thinking I'm a good mom. I put her on the ground with some little candies that were wrapped up so that I could get dinner ready--lasagna. I remember the thought of how perfect this was, I was able to get dinner ready, and Mackay was just entertaining herself quietly behind me. Who knew so much damage could happen in so short a time. She learned how to get the wrapper open--twice. I know you think this is probably my fault, but I blame the Barker's. First Nate for introducing Mackay to the world of addictive chocolate, and then his mom for introducing it to Nate. It is a vicious cycle that I see continuing for many generations.

This picture was meant for our Christmas card that we never got out, but we could never get a really good picture, plus it was freezing cold and everyone was cranky, so we just went home. The Rexburg Temple--how exciting! This is from a very long time ago, but we just took it off of the camera--long story. We decided to do a theme night with our friends, Mark and Christine. It was Chinese night, me being outnumbered as the only one who didn't like Chinese--though it was actually good. We went a little overboard. We bought star fruit (don't know if that's Chinese, but it was expensive and looked cool), wore robes to greet our guests, had signs taped around the walls with "Chinese" symbols on them, had oriental music playing in the background, used chopsticks, and sat on the floor with a card table folded up and a Tupperware box underneath. Needless to say it was a memorable night. Oh, and the homemade egg rolls were to die for.

Nate has been playing with this toy of Berkeley's every time we went down to Mark and Christine's. Well, he finally popped it and put it on his head.
This is a picture Nate insisted on getting with Mackay, who was rushed out of bed and thrown under the bright lights of the kitchen. Don't ask me what we were thinking there.