Playing outside

Since Mckenna has started walking, a whole new world has opened up to her...including the rock pile outside our townhome. Tonight, we were outside playing and she realized that she could walk over there and pick up rocks. But the fun didn't stop there, she found it even more fun to lick every rock she picked up....Yum Yum (I guess!). I guess kids will be kids. And I guess I can't blame her too much because her mommy used to eat red Moab dirt. So I guess Mckenna's cravings are just coming a little earlier in life!!

Another favorite thing Mckenna loves is eating GoGurts! She loves being independent and eating them while walking. It's cute and most of the time an outside activity because of the mess she usually makes!

We bought these sunglasses for Mckenna from Target. They were on clearance and somehow mommy snuck them into the cart when daddy wasn't looking. (Sorry again Chris! =D) But anyways...Mckenna plays peek-a-boo with them. It's really cute! Guess they turned out being a good buy after all!

Yay...My test is over!

Saturday morning I took my big PRAXIS test (with many, many other poor souls!!). It is good to have it done with. Hopefully all my random studying paid off and I passed. I will find out in about 4 weeks, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. It feels good to have that behind me, and now I can focus on packing for Hawaii! We're so excited. We leave next Monday for a week of fun in the sun!! We are going with my side of the family. It is going to be partly in celebration of Chris and my 2nd anniversary as well as my 23rd birthday! (which is tomorrow!!! YAY!) Hopefully Mckenna likes the plane ride over there and back....mom and dad are a little worried about containing her for like 6 hours in one spot. She is too mobile and doesn't like to be contained by anyone or anything so we are keeping our fingers crossed about that too!! If anyone has any traveling tips for traveling with an always-on-the-go baby, let us know!!

Fun in the Sun!!

While Sarah has been down staying with us for a while, we've been trying to think up new and fun things to do to both keep Mckenna entertained while also providing us with a little relief from the St. George summer sun.

The other day we decided to go to one of the parks down here and play in their little splash pad they have there. Mckenna really enjoyed it! She loved walking around and splashing in the water. She also loved playing with the other kids that were there. She would say "tids" and point at them playing and then walk up to the other kids and babies there and try to give them hugs or just play with them. It was really cute.
Mckenna enjoyed the fact that she could walk around all by herself too! (and so did mom!!)

Mom and Mckenna playing in the water!


Mckenna (and Mom!) have enjoyed having Aunt Sarah down to play with. Here they are together at the splash pad....I think Mckenna wasn't exactly liking being held. These days she much rather likes being independent and walking on her own...something Sarah had to learn really quickly since she has been down!!

It was a fun summer day!!! We had a lot of fun! It will definitely be something we do again!!

Mckenna...walking AND talking!!!

Mckenna started really walking last week. She figured out that she could walk from the TV stand to the couch and it has been nothing but more and more walking ever since. It's hard to believe that she is old enough to be walking!

This week Mckenna will turn 10 months old! WOW! Time sure does seem to fly by! This week Sarah is also staying with us. She is having a lot of fun with Mckenna and keeping me company as well. We are all having fun being girls!!

Mckenna also started trying to say a lot more words too. Not only does she say mom and dad, she started saying ball and kids too! This is a video of her playing with her new favorite toy (thanks to Addison having the same toy!! =) She loves playing with the balls and now she says ball too!! It's way cute! She also is taking steps in the video as well! (Thats especially for you Grandma!!) So, Enjoy!!!

Family Pictures

I just barely uploaded the pictures from off of my camera from the past couple trips to Moab. I think that these family pictures we took turned out really good. These two pictures were taken the night of Leonard's high school graduation. The one below is the last picture I have with my dad. What a special picture and memory for me! That was a really great time for my whole family. It was the last time we were all together as a family with my dad. I am so glad we took pictures when we were all together. Life is unexpected and it turned out being the last family pictures we have with my dad. What a special blessing to have these pictures. It was a special day that I'm sure we will all remember forever!


This next picture was taken the day of my dad's funeral. As sad of a day it was, it was such a blessing to have my whole family together once again. We have spent a lot of quality time together since my dad became sick. I think our family has grown so much stronger during these past few months. I am so thankful for the blessing of family in my life. Even though my dad is gone, I know that our family will be ok. We have been blessed so much since his passing and continue to be blessed. His legacy really does live on through our family. I know we all will miss him dearly and love him so much. The knowledge we have of eternal families really does bring us comfort at a time like this. I am so happy to have that knowledge and to know that I will see my dad again one day and that my family will be together forever! What better blessing could a family have?

Yay! We have a blog page finally!

So I was just reading Rebecca's blog and I decided to finally set up a blog page for me and Chris. I have wanted to do it for a long time so I'm happy to say we finally did it!! Now i can post pictures of Mckenna for everyone to see. She is growing up so fast. She is already 9 months old! She has started taking steps and is getting into EVERYTHING!! It's hard to keep my eye on her all the time. She crawls about 90 miles an hour too. She is a quick little girl! (Guess she has some Francis genes in her after all! =D)Chris is busy with work right now. He still works for Sierra Communications as a contractor for Baja Broadband. He installs cable and internet. He likes his job and actually might be taking over as the manager here in St. George. He was offered that job and also one in Fort Worth, TX. I am kind of hoping and keeping my fingers crossed that he gets the one here instead of Texas. Texas is just too far away right now. But we'll see what happens.

As far as me, I am busy right now just being a mom. I'm on summer break from school right now, so I'm soaking up the sun and also Mckenna!! We go swimming a lot and just play around the house. Mckenna loves the swimming pool. She is a little water baby, just like her mom was!! I'm also studying right now to take my PRAXIS test. It's at the end of this month. I'll be happy when that is over. I start school back up in August. I only have 3 semesters left in the Elementary Education program at Dixie. I'm excited to be done and actually start teaching.

Anyways...life is good here in sunny St. George. We like it here and will, well should, be here for a little while!!