Happy 1st Birthday Makayla!

It is hard to believe that one year ago I was in the hospital having Makayla! She turns one today and boy how the time has flown. I remember last year we checked into the hospital at about 7:15am for me to be induced, no I was not having any problems, I was just progressing and the doctor gave me the option to be induced or wait for it to happen on its own. I didn't want an April fool's baby so I decided to go ahead with it all. It wasn't too bad at first and I thought I can do this with out drugs. About 2-3 hours into it I decided drugs were a good idea. After the epidural things were smooth sailing again until the actual pushing started. When it was time to push they lost the baby's heart rate, come to find out the cord had been around her neck, and I had to lie on my side until the doctor said I was really ready to push. In the end I was in labor for about 10 hours and at 5:33pm Makayla Marie Lorenc was born weighing 7 lbs 6 oz and measuring 20 1/4 inches long! She had dark hair and we fell in love with her the minute we saw her.

I can't believe how small she once was!

She has grown so much in the past year, and has accomplished so much. She is almost walking. She can cruise around the room holding on to things, but has yet to take those steps on her own. She has a mouth full of teeth and enjoys eating big people food. If we are eating she will have nothing to do with her food, she just wants ours. She says mom and daddy, hi and bye, and of course other jumbled words that we are trying to figure out. She goes to sleep all on her own and sleeps through the night! (It is heavenly!) She gives loves and kisses all the time and makes our life complete! We love her so much and couldn't imagine our life without her! Here are some pictures of her growing throughout the year.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAKAYLA!!!

We Love you!

Crying It Out!

Caleb and I are trying to get Makayla to go to sleep in her crib without us having to rock her to sleep at night. I know what you are thinking she is 10 and 1/2 months old and we still rock her to sleep at night! Well it really wasn't a big deal to me to just rock her to sleep when we first put her down, but for the past two weeks it hasn't only been when we first put her down. Caleb, yes I did say Caleb, has been up almost every hour from 2 to 7 having to rock her back to sleep after she wakes up in the middle of the night. What a great husband I have, but he and I are both pretty tired in the morning and it is starting to take a toll on us. We tried to let her cry herself to sleep a few weeks ago, but it would just brake my heart to let her cry. We would let her go for like 20 min. and nothing would happen and I would give in and rock her to sleep. Well last night she fell asleep in the car, so we put her in bed and when she woke up 30 min. later we decided to be strong and not go in and pick her up. I have been reading helpful hints on the Internet and something I read said that to just let a child cry all alone in their room sometimes doesn't work. Some children just need to have their parents presence for a little while until they get use to it. That was the route we decided to take. We sat by her crib and talked calmly to her and after a little bit she finally went to sleep. She did wake up again and it was amazing how easily she went back to sleep with just me putting her binky back in her mouth and then she slept for a solid 5 hours or so which is a big improvement for her.

So this afternoon we decided to try again to just lay her down for her afternoon nap. Lets just say it wasn't pretty. She didn't like the idea of being put in that crib again. We stayed with her again, because she screams so loud when we leave, but just whimpers when we are in there. She was so tried it was so sad and funny. We started to sing to her to try and clam her down and both Caleb and I couldn't stop laughing at her. She was just staring at us and almost falling over as she was trying not to fall asleep. We couldn't even get through the song we were singing we were laughing so hard. Just look at the picture!

Need I say anymore?

She is so cute even when she is so tired! Needless to say she finally went to sleep. This is not a fun part of being a parent! We just hope we are doing it the right way to get her to start falling asleep on her own.

Grandpa Remembered

GRANDPA!!!!

This post is dedicated to my Grandpa who passed away Friday Jan 9th at the age of 83. My Grandpa was a great man who did a lot of great things in his life, most of which he did before I was even born. One thing was he was a great teacher and principle and left his mark on so many people. I like to think that I followed in his footsteps, well his and my mom's, when I became a teacher myself.

Me and my Grandpa at my graduation from BYU. He was always so supportive when it came to things like this.

I remember him as a loving man who cared so much for his family and always put them first. Here he is with his eternal companion, my Grandma.

He loved the gospel and was a shinning example of how we should live. He was easy to talk to and always knew the right things to say. He could make you laugh and teach you important lessons at the same time. Some of my fondest memories of him are of me and my cousins sleeping at his house, playing games, and eat his homemade bread and cookies.

One thing I am so glad I got to share with my Grandpa before he passed away was my beautiful daughter Makayla. He loved her so much. Sometimes when we needed to distract him we would ask him if he wanted to hold her and he would say sure and sit and just cuddle and love her. I am so glad he got to meet her.

Here he is holding her when she was born.

He was a great man and I love him so much and am so thankful for the plan of salvation and the fact that I can see him again. I will and already do miss him so much, but know he is in a better place and I wouldn't wish it any different!

I LOVE YOU GRANDPA!!!

Colorado

After Christmas we took Makayla on her first airplane ride to Colorado. We went over to visit Caleb's Dad and Stepmother. I was scared to death to fly with Makayla. I already panic when it comes to just me flying so having to be responsible for her too was not fun. How did Makayla do you might ask, she did pretty darn good. She only fussed a little bit and then played the entire way over and slept on the way home. The flight home was late at night and not many people were on board so we got to take the car seat on without paying for a seat and she slept in that most of the way home.

While in Colorado we got to see some of Caleb's other family members that live there and that were just visiting. It was a lot of fun to see everyone. We had a great time so thanks to everyone in Colorado Springs for making it a great trip!

On one of the days that we were there we went to Garden of the Gods, it is an area that has red rock formations. It was really pretty and only my second time there. We took some fun family pictures while there thanks to Stephanie.

Here are two of many that we took.

After Garden of the Gods we headed over to Manitou Springs, it is a little town that you walk around and there are shops that you can go into. Caleb was lucky that it was late and most of them were closing or he would have been in trouble with me. I love these little towns.

While we were there we found this little area for kids that had arcade games and little rides. We thought it would be fun for Makayla to ride some of the rides. Here she is riding a pink elephant. It was a little bit rougher than we expected, but Makayla didn't seem to notice at all she loved it. I had to hold on to her so that it wouldn't buck her off.

Here she is flying a plane. It was a lot more calm than the other one.

Here she riding in the train. Caleb said this one was boring, and I would have to agree with that. She didn't like it much because there was nothing for her to hold on to, but she still looks so cute on it.

This is my favorite one of all, here she is driving the Batmobile!! Isn't she so darn cute! She loved this one because she got to hold on to the steering wheel.

After riding all those rides it was about time to leave and this is what happened as we headed back to the car. Boy was she tired!

We had a great time in Colorado Springs. On our last day there we went to Denver and spent the day with my Uncle and his family. We played the Wii and went to a movie. It was Makayla's first movie too and she did pretty good with that too. Thanks Uncle Mike, Aunt Stacey, and Shayla for a great day!

Christmas 2008

I know I am little late posting about Christmas, but we were gone after Christmas and I haven't had time to post about it until now. This post is kind of long, sorry. Christmas was a lot of fun this year, especially because we had Makayla to share it with us. We spent Christmas Eve at my parents house. We had a scrumptious dinner with ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, and much more. Thanks mom for a great dinner! Makayla had her first taste of her dad's favorite thing in the world, mashed potatoes! We think she liked them, but we know she loved to play with them! After dinner we played the traditional candy bar game. I ended up with the biggest stash at the end of the game. We also played chicken foot. It started to get late and we decided we needed to get Makayla home and into bed. Before we left Grandma Hunter gave Makayla a new pair of pajamas to wear for Christmas Eve!

Makayla and her mashed potatoes!

Grandma Hunter and Makayla in her Christmas Eve P.J.'s

This year we spent Christmas morning at our own place with just our little family. We got up gave Makayla her bottle and then ventured into the living room to open presents. Everyone kept telling me it won't be much fun this year because she won't really know what to do. I beg to differ! We had such a blast helping Makayla open her presents and try different things on.

Here she is with her winter hat she got. We tried it on her and she immediately wanted it off! She got some fun things, but probably her favorite thing was her first doll. We didn't get a picture of it, we only got a video of her opening it. She is so funny when she sees that thing. Her face lights up and she reaches for it and starts her babbling. Also I have taught her how to give kisses, they may be open mouth ones, but they are kisses all the same. When we tell her to give her dolly a kiss she grabs it and puts her whole mouth over the dolls entire face! It is so cute!

This year I made Caleb and Makayla their very own blankets! Now before any of you freak out thinking I sewed something, I didn't I made them their very own fleece blanket, which isn't very hard to do. Since Caleb likes baseball I made him one with baseballs on it and Makayla's has lady bugs on it to keep with her bedroom theme.

I also gave Caleb one of the funniest presents ever! See for yourself.....

If you can't read it here is a close up.

He is such a good sport and even wore the shirt all day long!

After opening presents at home we went to my parent's house again to have breakfast and talk to my brother who is on his mission in Ohio! It was great to talk to him again, but it made me miss him so much more. I can't wait for him to be home! We were talking about Makayla and he kept saying she doesn't exists, because he hasn't seen her yet. He said she isn't real until I see her. It will be a huge shock when he sees her for the first time because she will be 18 months old!!! We had a great Christmas this year and are grateful for all we have, our families, and especially for the Savior!

As Makayla's shirt says our best Christmas present this year was her!! We are so grateful she is in our family and look forward to many more Christmas with her!

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.