Dear Jenni,

I am sorry we can no longer be friends. I do try very hard to remember to take pictures, but when you are having so much fun it is easy to forget (especially when you take the camera out of the diaper bag and stick it in the suitcase). I will be better, I promise! Hopefully soon you will forgive me and we can be friends again :-)

Mckenna hopes so too!!

See you Monday,

Cara

Something I am Not…

Spontaneous: arising from impulse, rather than from planning

 

Those who know me well know that I am 100 percent a planner, probably to a fault. I am actually quite obsessive with being planned and feeling organized- my husband calls me OCD sometimes!!! BUT… this weekend I WAS spontaneous. We got an e-mail late on Friday afternoon from Jeff's brother, Marty. The e-mail said that they had two Southwest vouchers that would be expiring on Tuesday the 28^th. We joked around for a little about all the places we could visit. Minnesota, Utah, Colorado, Arizona- you know places with family so that we didn't have to pay for a hotel…I know we are cheap!!! In our minds it sounded nice, but not probable. Then I remembered that my GREAT friend Brittany was having her baby shower in Arizona on the 25^th. We called my sister to find out details, talked to Marty and then decided TO GO TO ARIZONA THE NEXT MORNING!!! Yikes!! I stopped making my grocery list, started a load of laundry, called Jana to cancel our Halloween party and then made a quick trip to Target for some things that we needed. It was a whirlwind!!! We had our plane tickets printed off around 9pm and were leaving Texas within 12 hours. It was insane!

 

We hopped onto a plane on Saturday morning and arrived in Phoenix at 9:40am- AZ time of course! Brittany's shower started at 10:00am, so we rented our car and drove to Chandler. Before we made it to the shower we made two VERY important stops- stop number one was at Elmer's Tacos for some buttered tortillas with sauce…I wish you all knew how DELICIOUS Elmer's is because you would all be so jealous!!! Then we made our way quickly to QuickTrip, a local gas station, and got some delicious drinks with all of their fun mix-ins! When I got to Brittany's shower she was shocked. She had no idea that I was coming and it was AMAZING to see her!!! I got to see some many other old friends and got to catch up with them. Brittany got some adorable stuff. I can't wait to meet her beautiful baby girl, Hallie Pearl Hutchison- adorable name huh?

 

The rest of the weekend was filled with family, FOOD, and fun!!! We ate at some many great places. The first on my list was Serrano's- you just can't get a tasty enchilada anywhere in San Antonio. We also ate El Sol breakfast burritos, NYPD pizza and garlic knots, In-n-Out, and Basha's donuts!!! YUM, YUM, YUM!!!! Other than eating we got to spend tons of time with Marty and family and Cassi and family. Mckenna got to hang out with 6 girl cousins this weekend!!! I love Arizona so much and always want to move back so bad after our visits.

 

Our second spontaneous thing….we bought a new truck! Holy cow, I know that sounds so crazy, but this is something that has been in the works for months! Jeff has been watching truck prices and finding out how much our Corolla is worth. Because of gas prices through the summer trucks have been extremely cheap. Now that gas prices have gone down so much in San Antonio we decided it was a great time. ALSO- and this is the biggest reason- we are going to have to put money in to the Corolla soon. It will need new tires and other little repairs done in the next year, so we decided that instead of paying for that stuff we should put that money into a new car that has a warrantee that will last until we are out of school. We are so excited that we got such an amazing deal. The truck is an F-150 super Crew. It is black- I know two black cars…crazy… and it has some cool features that we didn't think we would be getting! Again, I didn't take a picture- but when we drive it out to San Antonio in November I will take pictures and post them!!!

 

We got home last night. It is nice being here! And Mckenna did wonderful on the flights again! Yahoo! She doesn't like to travel very much, but we have learned from our last two trips what we need to do to keep her happy, especially on the first day! Thanks again to Marty and Heidi for the tickets, we REALLY appreciated getting them!!!!

We hope everyone is doing well!!!

 

 

PS… I took the camera, but never pulled it out of the suitcase- oops! So no pictures this time, but I will take plenty when we go to Arizona for Thanksgiving!

No comments? NOOOOOOOOOOO!

Cara told me that our comments haven’t been working since blogger did some updating to their software yesterday. I did find a work around until they fix the new style. I’m going to post it since Cara told me some other blogs she reads were having the same problem. To fix the no comment problem:

Log in to blogger with the primary account for the blog.

Click customize at the very top of your blog.

This will take you to a page where the layout tab is selected; you need to click the settings tab.

From the settings tab click the link to comments, then scroll down to "comment form placement."

Change the option to either “Full Page” or “Pop-up Window” – the embedded option is what was causing the problem for us and others.

Scroll down and click “Save Settings.”

That’s it!

Now all you blogaholics can return to commenting as usual!

--Jeff

Before Mckenna turned 3 months old she got....

A passport....


because we get to go here....
and here

BUT, best of all....

MCKENNA GETS TO MEET GRANDMA AND GRANDPA JONES!!!!!


If you haven't figured out by now we get to go to Spain and France from December 11th-23rd. We have been very fortunate for things to work out for us to go. We were able to use our credit card points to buy plane tickets. We are also able to use a time share (THANKS again Mom and Dad Jones!!) for our hotel in France. It even has a kitchen, which will be so nice in helping us save money on food! The hotel is located next to Disneyland Paris and is about a 30 minute train ride to Paris. We are so excited for that, but are even more excited for the time we get to spend in Spain! It will be great seeing Jeff's parents and I can't wait for Mckenna to meet them!!

If you have any good travel tips with a 5 month old (that is how old she will be at the time we go) we are all ears. Also, if you have any favorite spots in Paris for us to visit, let us know! We have also heard it is cold and rainy in both places during that time of the year (we are excited anyway)- What kind of things do you use in that weather with a baby?

After this I will have two stamps in my passport now- WOOOHOOO!

Mckenna's Trick: A wide mouth kiss

This is mostly for Mckenna's two Grandmas, it's a video of Mckenna giving Cara a kiss. I just figured out how to post videos from our camera, so we'll probably have more later.

--Jeff

Cakes!

My Mom has started making really cool cakes as a great hobby! She took a couple classes and then has learned a lot from books and the internet. She has made some awesome cakes- I wish I had pictures of them all ( you can see some pictures on her blog)!!! When we were in Utah she roughly "taught" me how to do fondant on cakes and then shared some of her cake secrets!!! I decided I would try to make a cake (and continue to make a cake so that next July I can make a spectacular 1^st birthday party cake for Mckenna… haha) Anyway, here is my finished project! It was fun, but a great learning process. I know exactly what I can do next time to make it better and EASIER! The cake tasted delicious, we shared it with my sister-in-law and her family!!!

The "blue" is ACTUALLY dark purple! I am sad that the picture looks blue because the purple makes much more sense for Halloween!

A side view!!

 

Also, posting from Microsoft Word is easy, but to do pictures you have to do something different. I don't really know how to explain it, but if you are interested in learning you can call me!!

Nicknames

I think I am queen of giving people shortened names or nicknames. At 3 months old Mckenna probably has 20 different names that we use!! Some of my favorites include Mck Grace, Squawks, Squawk Box, Toot-Toot, Kenna Wenna, Chubs, and the list goes on! I do have to laugh at myself though because I am anti-people calling her by dumb names, BUT I can give her all the ridiculous names that I can think of! Mostly, I just don't want her to be known only as a nickname and not as Mckenna- anyway, not important! Well, Ms. Mcken is doing VERY well. She is growing so much! I know I haven't posted pictures in FOREVER (and thanks again Jana and Chad for letting us borrow your camera until our camera issues are resolved), but you guys would not believe how huge she is getting. She goes into the Doctor in November, but I am sure she has gained a pound or two and grown an inch. She is right between sizes right now. 0-3 months fit her, but some (mostly pants) are getting too tight. I put her in a 3-6 month outfit today! It makes you feel a little sad, but it is also SO exciting to watch her grow. She is getting to be more fun! She "plays" with you and is startin to entertain herself more. She also gives "kisses" which I love! She has found her toes and could watch hem ALL day long! It is adorable! I wish you all could see her everyday :-) haha! Anyway, there are tons of pictures again. So, have fun!!!
She loves the Jump-a-Roo from Cousin Jax!! Thanks again, Jana!!! She likes to lick the seat and watch the lights. I like that it keeps her entertained!!!! Wooohoo!
DROOL FACE!!! She is drooling ALL the time now! I hope those teeth come soon!
Trying to suck her thumb!!! This adorable Polo outfit was given to her from Brittany Hutchison. She was only able to wear it twice before she was too big for it :-( sad! It was one of my favorite outfits on her! I wish I had a better picture of her in it, but she looks dang cute in it!
She is starting to be such a wiggle-worm at night. She un-swaddled herself and moved from the head of the bed down to the foot of the bed. She usually doesn't ever come close to the extra blanket or bear at the end of them bed, but this night she was trying to snuggle them I guess! She must have been freezing because her bottom half was totally hanging out of the jammies!
She is such a good carseat sleeper- yippy! I attribute that to the fact that I was stir crazy from the moment she was born, so she went tons of places with us! Notice that she is only wearing one sock- that is a normal thing in our house!!!!
Mckenna's favorite past-time LICKING!!! She loves licking this blanket!!

More to come!

Trying Something New!

Well, I decided that I would try to do new posts using Microsoft Word 2007. I will let you know how it goes once I post this J. For now, if it is all jumbled, etc don't worry I WILL FIX IT!!!

 

Conference weekend we went to Utah to visit my family and to attend Conference. It was SOOO fun and the weather fantastic! We also got to see our great friends Cody and Amber and their new little baby, Chandler!!! We ate TONS. We had Brick Oven, Spaghetti Factory and Tucanos (Brazilian Rodizio)…YUM! Seeing my parents, siblings and some extended family was really fun too!!!

 

Here are some pictures!!

 

This is in front of my parents house. Mckenna was asleep and she started waking up in this picture- I think it is adorable!

Great-Grandpa Charlesworth and Mckenna! I know you can't tell in this picture but they have VERY similar eyes! I think Mckenna's eyes look like my Dad's eye (of course, I only think that from the pictures I have seen of my Dad)

Aunt Rylie and Mckenna wearing their "footie" PJs together! I think my older sister has a picture like this of her three girls with Rylie in her PJs. I think at Thanksgiving we will have to get a picture of Rylie with all four nieces in their snuggly PJs.

I have some other pictures, but they are on the film camera. And, I haven't developed them film yet! So, look for more soon!!!

It's About Time!!!!

It is SUPER, SUPER late and I really should be in bed, but I haven't felt good all day- but now I do AND Mckenna is asleep (plus, the fact that I took Excedrin- which contains caffeine- a little too late) so now I am up for awhile!

The good news is that I FINALLY have pictures and something new to post about--- the last part of Sept. until now (all through pictures)


First, Jeff had his 24th birthday. We had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory with his sister and fam. Then we enjoyed some ice cream birthday cake that I MADE! I thought it was delicious (and I think he did too). I even stuck 24 candles in the tiny cake. Here are some pictures from that night. We got some adorable ones of Mckenna. She was stinking out her tongue SO much









More to follow- blogger is being too slow to finish tonight!!!

Backgrounds

I just learned how to put my own blog backgrounds up. It is kind of fun! I made this one in Photoshop with lots of little scrapblog things that I found free online. Aren't the birds adorable? Now, I have to try to create a cute Thanksgiving one---any ideas?

Update...

I know I have been awful at updating our blog!!! We have been busy, but I haven't had anything great to blog about. BUT this last week we ventured to Utah to visit my parents and to attend General Conference (which was AMAZING!!) We decided that we would attempt flying with Mckenna for the first time and she did really well. Jeff rates her trip to Salt Lake (with a stop in Denver) as a "C". She cried herself to sleep on the first flight and then only at the landing on the second flight. However, she doesn't do well after the flight! We had dinner with my mom's side of the family the night we landed. I was excited for my aunts and uncles to meet her and she only cried for them! I think the stress of traveling and being in a strange place, plus having a messed up sleep schedule, gave her a tummy ache! Other than that first day we all enjoyed our trip. Mckenna was continiously passed around and got lots of snuggles (especially from Aunt Rylie and Grandma). On our trip home they let us use her car seat (because the plane was very empty). She slept the ENTIRE trip home (minus the 20 minutes she woke up in the Denver airport to eat). It was amazing! I think it would be worth it to pay for a ticket for her EVERY time (of course we would have to be able to afford that, haha) because she did so well!

Conference was so great. I have never attended a "live" session, so it was an extra special conference for me! We were able to go to the Saturday afternoon session and the Sunday morning session. Sunday morning was awesome because we got to be there for Music and the Spoken word. I love MoTab and in that Conference center they sound beautiful and so powerful! I loved Elder Worthlin's talk- we all could use a little mor laughter in our lives! I also really enjoyed Pres. Monson's Sunday morning talk on Enjoying the Journey! I was totally reminded again that we need to enjoy everyday and every small thing. What a great weekend!

In other news- Mckenna turned 3 months old yesterday (typed while wiping a tear from my eye, haha). She is getting SO big! She has to weigh over 13 pounds and is around 23-24 inches!!! She is growing out of her clothes. The 0-3 month onesies still fit, but she is starting to wear 3-6 months too (which drown her, but still "fit"). We also think (and are pretty positive) that she is teething--- I know she is too young for that, but I read it is not UNcommon in 3 month olds and my nephew Jaxon got his first teeth around this time. She has been extra whiny and clingy and DROOLING like a mad woman, not to mention showing a lot of the classic signs of teething (diarhea, low grade fever, etc). She also has the white gums and she hates when I touch it! We hope that this all gets over with soon and when she does finally cut the teeth I will definitely post pictures!!

Well, I think that is all for now! My sister-in-law is letting us borrow a camera until everything with ours is taken care of (and that has been a HUGE headache), so I will try puling the pictures off of it tomorrow and posting some!!

PS---Congrats to the Phillips Family and the Kimball family on the arrival of their baby boys last week! We got to meet baby Chandler (Phillips) and look forward to meeting baby Cason (Kimball) sometime!