FUN FACTS ABOUT BERKLEY

Berkley and her new "OH" face

Having fun with Daddy

Looking pretty

In front of the fountain at the Ogden Temple

Another "OH" face

Berkley is just changing before our eyes and doing new tricks on a daily basis. She has officially discovered her tongue and is enjoying all the new sounds she is making with it. Aside from her new found growl, she is making an O shape with her lips and sometimes like to stick her tongue out at the same time. She is also licking everything that she can.

This isn't necessarily new, but whenever she wants more of something we have given her (ie. ice cream) she screams if she doesn't get it right away. It was sort of cute at first because she was expressing herself and I knew what it meant. It is sort of obnoxious now, especially if we are in public. Instead of this nice, sweet, quiet baby we have this nice, sweet, screaming if she doesn't get what she wants baby. We are working on the sign language action for "more". Hopefully she will get it down soon.

She is also OBSESSED with the outdoors. We now have to either sneak out of the house or leave very quickly, because she races toward the door if someone even looks like they are going out. The other day I left the door open and she was between the door and me, and she looks at me, and then turns on a dime and races to the door. I would just leave it open, but our screen door doesn't latch and she can just push it open to two cement steps.

One fun incident that happened yesterday. Matt was at his mom and dad's to drop Berkley off before work and decided she needed a diaper change. Well it's no secret that Berkley HATES getting her diaper changed. She tries to get out of it every time. So Matt let her roll onto her stomach and crawl around for a second.....Bad decision Daddy....Berkley started to pee. She got pee everywhere. And much to her enjoyment, got to have a second bath that day.

YAY for Halloween!

It's just cruel that we are given an opportunity to dress our kids up any way we want and they can't say anything about it...of course until they reach a certain age. I hope everyone found cute costumes that their kids won't be upset about in the years to come when they see what you dressed them up as...and that includes Berkley. I think being a ladybug was extremely adorable, but we will see what she thinks when she gets older. She was in her costume for quite a while and did wonderful in it. We took her to see our neighbors and let her rome around in the grass like a real ladybug. Then we went up to Grandma and Grandpa's house for a photoshoot. She spent a good chunk of it being her serious self, but we got some good ones of her smiling. After we came home we went to our other neighbor's house to say hi and she gave Berkley a pumkin cookie, which she destroyed before we got home. No more trick or treating for her this year. Next year we will probably go to a few more houses, but as for this year her bed time was before everyone was out trick or treating. Actually the doorbell rang twice while I was trying to put her to bed.

(OH! And her second tooth showed up today! Right next to the other one!)

Our flying ladybug

Trying to get up her tree

Enjoying a pumpkin and some sawdust

The Family

THE 9 MONTH MARK!

Berkley is 9 months old today! She is just growing so stinking fast! Here are some fun facts about the 9 month old Berkley McKay:

* she is now wearing 12 month clothes

* she has finally started crawling on her hands and knees (she seems to prefer the army crawl, but is slowly abandoning that)
* she is climbing up everything she can
*she is walking along all the couches
* she LOVES laughing and being tickled
* she eats anything that is put in front of her
* her favorite toys are electronics
* she likes to share her things with you
* she has moved from 2-3 naps to 1-2 naps each day
* she likes to make lots of noise, especially when she isn't getting what she wants
*she is feeding herself (with her fingers)
*she likes to go to the grocery store or any other public place and just stare at all the people
* her #1 favorite thing to do is go outside
* along with the last one, she LOVES her walks
* she lights up whenever Matt or I come home from being gone all day

* she has a tooth!
* and did I mention she LOVES electronics?

Here are a couple pics from today (check out her tooth!)

Here are some pictures from the last week or so.

BERK'S FIRST TOOTH!

This week Berkley cut her first tooth! Wasn't so much fun the 2 days before it came, (it didn't feel very good coming out, poor thing) but once it was here we cheered! She is constantly feeling it with her tongue and putting her hands in her mouth to feel it. We even brushed it, and she seemed to like that. She smiled the whole time. (when I get a picture of the tooth I will post it)

She also climbed her first flight of stairs this week! She is growing up so fast! In the last few weeks she just seems to be progressing at an incredible rate. Everyday she does something new, and it usually involves her getting to a place that she hasn't before, and me trying to figure out how to somehow baby proof that part of the house. She also now knows that we are able to ban her to the living room, because we have a gate that blocks her from the rest of the house. When she is bored with the living room she crawls to the gate, stands up, and screams till she gets what she wants. Not a sad scream, but a "give me what I want" scream. It's kind of funny now....but when does it become not so funny?

But we couldn't have asked for a more wonderful daughter. She is so easy to be around and to please. She likes to play the "I'm going to get you!" game, and that is pretty hilarious. We just love her guts and can't believe she will be 9 months in a week!

UPDATE

Matt:

Matt started back at Weber State University last week with a whole 6 credits! He has one actual class and he is doing research with the Head of the Psychology Department for 3 more credits. He is researching Youth Drug Abuse and Addictive Personalities. It will be a lot of work, but will help him in what he wants to do when he graduates. He will be taking the GRE (Graduate Record Exam) in September, and finishing applications to Grad School. On top of school he is still working at Crossroads Acadamy as a Staff/Mentor to kids that are in rehabilitation.

Val:

Well I'm not doing school (graduated a couple of years ago....whoohooo!) but I am working and being a mom. I'm working 2 days a week as a nanny for two energetic girls and a couple Saturdays a month as a personal trainer in SLC. (You'd think since I'm a personal trainer I'd be in a bit better shape, but I'm working on it.) I play volleyball twice a week for an hour or two, and I'm trying to exercise 3 or 4 days a week. I've started cooking again, which has been kind of fun. Matt's parents have an awesome garden so I have been trying to make recipes with vegetables I can get from their garden. Last week I made a chicken ravioli dish that had zucchini and red peppers with stuffed zucchini as a side. Other than that, nothing too exciting...just trying to keep a clean house and be a great mom.

Berkley:

Well Berkley is getting more and more mobile. She is army crawling everywhere! She gets into places I didn't think would interest her, but I was wrong. She likes to get things off the bookshelf, she crawls to the shoe mat by the door and tries to eat the shoes, and inbetween the furniture is especially interesting to her. We thought she wouldn't like the hardwood floors but we were wrong. So now I have to keep them extra clean so she isn't ALL dirty all the time. The other day I was in the bathroom and she crawled all the way from the living room to see what I was doing. I was surprised because she couldn't see me from the living room, but she knew where to go. She loves to stand and loves to walk. She is consistantly staying about 3 months ahead in clothes which has forced us to go and get some 9 and 12 month jammies. She is just growing so fast! The other day I was complaining about her not sleeping through the night anymore, but we are quickly on our way to fixing that problem. She still wakes up about once a night but goes back to sleep after a couple minutes of crying. I feel bad sometimes about just letting her cry, but I know she isn't hungry. If she was she would cry in the morning when she gets up, but instead she just looks at you and smiles. I think she is teething also. So we are anxiously awaiting her first teeth.

Well I think that is all that is going on with us right now. We are doing great and just enjoying all our time together!

Family Picture!

Cute little B

Playing outside in the grass

Playing with flowers

Sweet glasses!

Hangin with Grandpa in the hot tub.

7 MONTHS?! NO WAY!

Our little Busy B is 7 months old today! Simply crazy! She is totally into walking...with assistance of course. She just holds on to your fingers and away she goes. She still isn't interested in crawling though. She's got turning in a 360 down though, on her tummy. She eats 3 solid food meals a day and lots of snacks inbetween. She is crazy about any food that she can eat. She is starting (very slow start but it's there) to drink out of a sipee cup which is nice. The faster I can get rid of these bottles the better! She doesn't get the whole concept of tipping it up to get the liquid out, but that will come in time. For now she just lies down and holds it.

She just had her first ear infection last week, which was not fun for anybody. Poor thing! I felt so bad for her! But she has recovered quickly. She is such a trooper.

We are loving every moment with her. She is so fun!

VACACIONES DE MEXICO (FOTOS)

In Tia Coco and Uncle Bob's pool

Becky and Miche at Tio Marcos's house in Soto La Marina

Four generations of ladies

Hmmm...bananas

Berkley and Matt in Abuelos front yard

Abuelos with granddaughter Denise (Checo's daughter)

Sarita and Whitney

The biggest crab we caught

Matt and Berkley at the beach

Me and Berkley on the front porch of the beach house

Mom, Aaron, and Berkley

Matt and I at the Tampico Temple

Lunch by the market... 17 tortas, 15 drinks...less than $40

La Torta

Matt and I in Abuelo's yard

Becky, Matt, Gabe, Selene and I on top of Abuelos house

Matt buying a hot corn on the cob

All the grandkids who came to the beach house

Abuelita and her brothers and sisters

Tio Marcos, Tia Linda, Marquito, Alex and Roberto

Tio Marcos and Berkley

Tio Pepe and I

The Segura Family

Berkley and her cousin Denise

VACACIONES DE MEXICO (THE DETAILS)

This will probably be the longest blog I have ever written….just a forewarning.

Tuesday, August 4th, we got up at 3:45am, and headed to the SL International Airport, to catch our flight to Corpus Christi, Texas. But of course there are no direct flights there, so we went via Phoenix, Arizona and Houston, Texas. We are always a little worried about how Berkley will be on the airplane, and she always amazes us. She sleeps most of the time, and has never had a problem with the change in pressure.

We got into Corpus Christi, which is my birthplace by the way, around 1:30pm. My Aunt and cousins were on the flight too, and we were picked up by my cousin Bryan and my Tia Coco. My mom’s sister lives in Corpus so we stayed at her house. When we got there we were met by loads of family that I haven’t seen in about 5 years. My cousin Bryan, his wife Kelly and their 2 daughters, Michelle and Lucy. My other cousin Bob, his wife Anna and their daughter Kristina. My cousin Sylvia, her husband Josh and their daughter Mya. My Aunt and Uncle, and their 2 kids at home at the moment (just got back from their missions within the last 2 months) Becky and Stephen. It was definitely a full house. We had a total of 18 people, including babies, stay at my Aunt and Uncle’s that night.

We had a very optimistic attitude about leaving for Mexico the next morning at 10am. Guess what didn’t happen. That many people getting up and getting ready, loading all their stuff into vans, getting fed…you get the picture. 12pm rolled around, and then 1pm. We then decided to just drive to the border that night, get our papers to cross and go across the next morning. And we did just that. It was dark by the time we got to the border to get our papers, which was a little scary. They have military guarding the borders with very big guns. And Matt being the funny guy he is, wanted a picture with one of them. So while at the border you have to register your vehicle, and you need to have your registration with you. Well one of the vans didn’t have the registration, so they had to go to the DMV in the morning to get a copy of the registration. They also had to take one of the vans into the mechanic to get a part fixed, which took a while. So we just stayed in the hotel and hung out with our cousins. We ended up leaving for Mexico around 3:30pm with a fixed vehicle and car registration.

I don’t know if any of you have ever driven in Mexico, but it is insane!! You pretty much have one and a half lanes on each side of the road, and the drivers are LOCO! Everyone is passing each other, and swerving and the road is bumpy anyway…it’s like being on a wooden roller coaster for 6 hours. If any of you haven’t experienced a wooden roller coaster, it is a very bumpy ride.

We stopped in a place called Soto la Marina, where one of my Tio Marcos lives with his family. They have a cute little house, with lots of dogs. They gave us some fresh mangos and our favorite soda pop, Esquis!

After we left Tio Marcos’s house, we had a 3 hour drive to Tampico, where my Abuelos live. I think we ended up arriving at there house around 11pm. My Tia Juanis, and her daughter Whitney were already there. They had flown in from Canada earlier in the day. My Tio Checo, was also there waiting for us. And of course Abuelita and Abuelito were anxiously waiting. Abuelita had made a big pot of posole, a Mexican soup, and had made some tamales for us. It was delicious of course. It was just the start of the amazing food we were going to have over the next few days. We slept about 19 people in my grandparents small two bedroom house.

The day after we arrived at my Grandparents, we packed up everyone and headed to the beach, where we stayed for 2 nights. We played in the water, played sand volleyball, soccer on the beach, caught crabs at night, had barbeques and played group games till early in the morning.

One of the days we went to the market to buy some souvenirs of our trip. It was very crowded, but a lot of fun. We picked up some good Mexican vanilla and a couple things of jewelry. We had lunch right down the street from the market and we had our first Torta. It is a sandwich on French bread filled with beans, 2 kinds of cheese, chorizo, avocado, onions, ham and I’m sure a couple more things. They were delicious!

On Sunday we went back to my Grandparents house and had a Segura (my Abuelita’s side) family reunion. About 73 people showed up and ate a great meal and just enjoyed each other’s company. I had taken a nap while everyone was showing up, so when I woke up I was set on finding Berkley and playing with her. Well I found her with one of the cousins that doesn’t speak English (only a few do), but she didn’t want to give her up. On the first try I just reached for her, but she made no move to hand Berk to me. So I waited a few more minutes and finally just took her. She made no effort to give her to me. Matt had told me he had had a similar experience earlier in the day, but he knew the Aunt that wanted to take Berkley.

Monday morning we got up early, had a great breakfast, packed up the van and made the 9 hour ride back to Corpus Christi, Texas. Berkley was such a trooper! She slept a lot of the time and played the rest. When we got back to Tia Coco and Uncle Bob’s house, Tio Pino and Sarai were waiting for us. They had a great dinner waiting for us on the barbeque. They had their daughter, Millie and their son, Jordan with them. They are just so cute. They next day we were leaving so we made the most of our last night in Texas and didn’t go to bed till about 4am.

We made it home safe and sound the next day.

NO TECHNOLOGY FOR A WEEK!

What am I going to do?? This Tuesday morning at 6:45am, we (Matt, Berkley, my mom, Aunt and 2 cousins and I) will be on a plane to Corpus Christi, TX. Then Wednesday we will make the 9-10 hour drive to Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico.

Seriously...what am I going to do without Facebook, Etsy, email, Hulu, Youtube and Blogspot for a week?! I guess it will be a nice break, but I have a feeling I'm going to be so happy to get back to my computer. :) What has technology done to us? I didn't write a paper on a computer till my junior or senior year of high school, I didn't have email till my freshman year of college (2000-2001), I didn't have a digital camera till 1/3 through my mission (2005) and I didn't know about photo editing, youtube, blogs and other things till I got engaged and married to my way technology savvy husband....WOW....I've come a long way. I give ALL the credit to Matt. Well we will update when we get back and hopefully tell you all the awesome things that happened on our vacation!

PUTTING YOUR FOOT IN YOUR MOUTH

We've all put our foot in our mouth metaphorically, but my little girl does it several times a day physically.

(I am sure all kids do this, we just wanted to throw a short video up as a test run on blogger for our first time)