Gingerbread Houses

I am so glad that I married a man that enjoys doing things like dying Easter eggs, carving pumpkins, and making gingerbread houses! A few days before Christmas, when I was finally done with school we got together with some friends and made some gingerbread houses. It was a lot of fun. Although it was Caleb's idea I did most of the decorating. He put the house together and then he let me do the rest. It was a lot of fun and I have to say I think I did a really good job!

Here are all three of the finished products. As you can tell some of us cared about what the houses looked like and some of us didn't! Ours is the middle one!

It was a pretty interesting job trying to make a gingerbread house and entertain a little child. All she wanted to do was eat the house! As you can see dad finally gave in and let her have a little taste. Don't worry I didn't let her destroy my master piece.

!!!!Snow!!!!

We have waited and watied for a good snow storm to hit so that we could dress Makayla up in her snow outfit, thanks to Caleb's Aunt Shauna, and take her out and let her have her first real taste of a Utah winter.

Yup you gussed right she really couldn't move in this outfit. We were reminded of the sceen from the movie "A Christmas Story".

Makayla had fun ridding the raindear that was outside!

Daddy even insisted that she make her first snow angle. She wasn't a big fan of the idea of laying down in the snow. Here she is making the snow angle and then there is a picture of the final product, sorry you can't see it real well, but it was so cute!

Then of course we had to let her try the snow. At first she wasn't sure of it, but by the end of the pictures she didn't want to stop eating it. Yes we did make sure we gave her clean snow, none of it was yellow, or so that was what Caleb told me!

All in all she had a pretty good time in the snow and she stayed pretty warm. All of her except for her little nose that as you can tell was a little cold.

Tub Time!

Makayla has moved up in the world she no longer has a bath in her little green tub, no now she enjoys a bath like a big girl. It makes me a little nervous to give her a bath in the big tub, but she was just getting to big for the little green one.

One of her favorite things to do is splash in the water. She sure can make a mess on the floor as well as on whoever is giving her that particular bath. She really does love her baths. It makes us excited for next summer and letting her swim in a pool!!

One thing that Caleb is amazed at is the fact that when he needs to lay her down so that he can wash her she just relaxes and doesn't fight him. He thought she would freak out being laid down in the water, but he was wrong and she just lays there and lets him do what he needs to.

Don't you love the first picture. Sometimes she just starts sucking on her upper lip. It really makes us laugh!

Christmas Dress

I know it isn't really something to blog about, but I wanted to show off Makayla's first Christmas dress. Grandma Hunter bought it for her, thanks Grandma we love you!!! She sure looks cute in it! She didn't like the little black shoes we bought for it. All day long she would rub her feet together and try to make them fall off. If she accomplished it she would smile real big and it would make us laugh so much!

In this picture she is playing with "our" new stuffed panda bear. I say ours because I have a tradition of getting a new panda for each Christmas and I am trying real hard to convince Caleb to continue the tradition with Makayla, but he thinks we already have too many pandas!

Santa......No Way!!!

I was interested to see how Makayla would react to Santa Claus, this being her first experience with him, so when our ward said that they were having a Christmas party and Santa would be there I was very excited.

Saturday morning we went and enjoyed a breakfast with the ward and waited patiently for Santa to arrive. We took Makayla up to see him, and what happened can best be described by the pictures that follow.

Here we are waiting in line to see Santa. Happy little girl with her daddy wouldn't you say.

Here she is sitting on his lap. The minute we set her down this is what happened. It is weird because she is usually so good about going to people she isn't familiar with. Notice Caleb's smile in the picture. Even though it was sad to see her cry we couldn't help but laugh about the whole thing. These will be priceless pictures when she grows up! It won't be too long before she LOVES Santa!

Here she is with her candy cane. At least something good came out of it, right?

That lasted only a few minutes, until she tried to bite through the plastic and we had to take it away from her. Then the crying started all over again! We are such mean parents!

We at least wanted one good picture with Santa so we went back and this time I held Makayla and we had a family picture with him. I can't wait until next year, maybe by then she will like Santa!

Mohawk!

Caleb keeps commenting about how long Makayla's hair is. He wants to cut it! I keep telling him no way! He decided instead to spike it and make it look like a Mohawk.

These are seriously his favorite pictures! He has been so upset that it has taken me so long to get them up.

Christmas Tree

Since Caleb and I have been married we have always gone out and gotten a REAL tree for CHRISTMAS. This year was no exception! The Saturday after Thanksgiving we took Makayla and went and found the "perfect" tree. It sure was a lot of work: going to Lowe's, looking through all the options, loading it in my dad's truck, and finally setting it all up in the house! One day I hope to really go on an adventure to get our Christmas tree, but I guess Lowe's will have to do for this year.

We waited to decorate the tree until the next morning because we were so tired when we finally got home with the tree. We even let Makayla help out with hanging the ornaments.

(Makalya and daddy hanging the panda ornament.)

(Shae, Michelle, Meghan, Rachel, and Zac look closely, it's the ornament you gave us last year!!)

After the tree was all decorated I couldn't help but take a few cute pictures of Makayla in front of it all dressed up and ready for church! Luckily for us she isn't crawling yet, so she can't get to the tree! I do have a feeling that she might be crawling by Christmas!!

Too CUTE for words!!!

Thanksgiving 2008

I know, I know I am a little late with this post, but hey at least I am getting around to it this year rather than next year!

We spent Thanksgiving with a few people from my mom's side, it was an off year for most of the family. We went to my Aunt Bonnie's house this year and ate yummy food, and believe it or not I actually made something and took it! I made a pretzel jello salad and people actually said it was good! I love Thanksgiving and have so much to be thankful for this year. Most of all my wonderful family! My loving husband and beautiful daughter! I am also thankful for the Gospel in my life! There are many more things that I am thankful for, too many to name.

(Here is Makayla with her "First Thanksgiving shirt!")

After dinner you can guess what everyone did, watched football. At one point everyone "watching football" was asleep on the couches including my dad, Caleb, and Makayla. When I went to take a picture of them my dad woke up and he wouldn't pretend to be asleep for me. I thought I will wait a few minutes and he will be asleep again, most anyone who knows my dad knows that to be the truth, but he wouldn't go back to sleep so I had to just take one with him awake!

(My Dad, Caleb, and Makayla all tuckered out!)

The next morning we did go out and shop. We didn't do the 5 am thing, although Caleb wanted to. Instead my dad, Caleb, my cousin Missy, and I got up and went out around 8 am. We got all that we wanted to and didn't have to fight much of a crowed. My mom stayed home with Makayla and a few hours later we picked them both up and did some more shopping!

Happy Birthday!!!

Well I know that I am a day late in doing this, but

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CALEB!!!

Yesterday was Caleb's 27th birthday! OLD I know!!!

I am just kidding. There is no way that Caleb will be old because he will always act like a big kid! Seriously though I want him to know how much I love and appreciate all he does for me and Makayla he is such a great husband and father! Makayla and I LOVE YOU!!!

Sick of being SICK!!!

Yes you read that correctly we are sick here at the Lorenc house AGAIN! Makayla started to not feel well again on Thursday night, but we thought maybe she was just teething or something. Then on Friday the babysitter called and said that she wasn't eating and keeping anything down and that she had a fever. Caleb and I both left work and took her to the doctors to see what was wrong with her. She had a fever of 100.7 while we were there and they said they didn't really know what was wrong with her. Her ears looked great and her breathing was fine, so they thought maybe it was a bladder infection, so they did some tests and nope not that either! We took her home and just decided to watch her. That night she didn't sleep and she was burning up! We gave her Tylenol and hoped it would help with the fever. All she wanted was to be held, so I slept on the couch with her.

Saturday wasn't any better. She wouldn't eat very much and all she wanted to do was sleep in my arms. That night she was burning up again and wouldn't eat so I called the doctor again. This time her fever was 102. The doctor said to watch her and if she got worse to take her to the ER. She was concerned that she might be getting dehydrated. We tried to keep liquids in her. Again I slept on the couch with her in my arms. She slept much better, but was still the same on Sunday. She didn't want to eat much just be held and sleep. Finally Sunday night her fever stopped. Today I took off work to stay home with her. Hopefully by tonight she is feeling much better. She still won't eat much but she isn't burning up anymore. She still wants to sleep all the time, but that is ok I guess.

Oh and to add to Makayla not feeling well, Caleb got the stomach flu again yesterday! Twice in one months time! ARE YOU KIDDING ME! I am just waiting for my second turn with the flu!This last month has been miserable! We have spent each weekend in with someone not feeling well.

So I am really sick of people at my house being sick!!!

Halloween 2008

On Thursday night Caleb came home and said that he wanted to carve another pumpkin, since the ones we did last week were shriveling up. So while I slept on the couch he carved another pumpkin that he drew by hand. We couldn't resist taking pictures of Makayla with the gigantic pumpkin.

Here is Makayla on Halloween morning. Look at how excited she is and she doesn't even know what that day has in store for her!

Here she is wearing part of Caleb's Halloween costume! It fit perfectly on her little head. She wouldn't move her head up and down while it was on. I think she thought she was stuck in place while it was on her head!

After many years of not going trick-or-treating, because Caleb and I are so old, we finally got to go again! I know Makayla is only 7 months old, but we took her out anyway. She had so much fun trick-or treating, and she has thoroughly enjoyed the candy that she received! She was a little bunny this year and boy was she cute!

Hey don't look at my butt!!!

Dad carried her for most of the trick-or-treating. Don't they look so cute together! These two are my favorite people in the whole wide world!

When we got to grandma and grandpa Hunter's house we talked grandpa into going with us around their neighborhood. He carried Makalya around like one proud grandpa! We sure are going to miss him when we leave!

After trick-or-treating we went to dinner at firehouse pizza and then rented "The Secret Window" and watched it. We wanted a scary movie, but I am a big baby when it comes to scary so everyone settled for this one instead.

Pumpkin Carving

Last week we participated in one of our very favorite traditions,

PUMPKIN CARVING!!!!

For the last 4 years, as long as we have been married, we have carved pumpkins for Halloween. 2 years ago we "forced" my parents to participate with us and then last year we got my brother and sister-in-law to do it too. After the fun we had last year we decided to do it again this year with the whole family, minus Eric of course. This year EVERYONE carved a pumpkin. Usually my mom and dad "share" a pumpkin, really my dad does all the carving while my mother watches. After seeing her pumpkin this year we all know why that is the case! Just playing with ya mom!!! We loved your......cat???
We had a lot of fun carving our pumpkins and we all did a great job. After we were all done we had one of Jerilyn's friends come over and judge them. We are really competitive when it comes to pumpkin carving! After all the griping and complaining about having to participate it was my dad that won the prize! Caleb took second place and was awfully proud of himself.
(he should have been one of the best since it took him the longest to carve his pumpkin)

Here he is STILL carving his pumpkin while the rest of us wait for the judging to begin.

Here are the 2008 Halloween pumpkins. Top row: Cory's-the headless horse man-, Marci's-a spider's web-, Caleb's- a haunted mansion-, and Dad's- Dracula-. Bottom row: Jerilyn's- a ghost that said BOO- and Mom's- a cat-.

Family picture with our "fun" pumpkins. Yes I know Makayla is missing in the picture. She was asleep in the house. She slept most of the time that we were actually carving the pumpkins, but I know she will learn to love this tradition.

Oh and a little side note, the night we carved the pumpkins I got sick with the nasty old flu bug. Two weeks in a row our poor little family had to be stuck in the house because someone was sick with the flu. Makayla and Caleb got it the weekend before. I am so glad we are finally over it this weekend and we got to enjoy Makayla's first Halloween!