First Pigtails!

I don't think you can get much more adorable than this!

Mykelle Loves Animals!!

Sorry this post is so late from the last! We have been busy, and honestly, I haven't been feeling too great with the pregnancy thing. But I just caught this cute video of Mykelle saying "turtle", so I thought I'd share it while we had a second. Her first word was woof, and she can also say hi, dada, nana (for banana), and now turtle. (She must be teasing me because turtle is so much harder to say than mom!) She's also tried saying duck, and she likes making monkey noises (oh-ah-ah), thumping her chest like the gorilla, and stomping her foot like the elephant. We have an animal lover on our hands! Time for the zoo pass this summer!

Mykelle and her dogs

At a baby shower for Mykelle, she got a little Ty dog. She was only a couple months old at the time, but she bonded with the dog. Mykelle ALWAYS sleeps with her puppy dog, loves to chew on him (especially the ears it seems), and often carries him around as she walks through the house. About a month ago we noticed that she seemed to have a special voice when "talking" to her dog. It's usually very high-pitched, and sometimes it would be this guttural rolling sound. We've worried a little what would happen if something ever happened to this little stuffed dog. Just a couple weeks ago I was at the store with Mykelle and found the exact same pattern of a Ty stuffed dog, only it was a dalmatian and not plain tan. (I was amazed at how much stuffing the new dog has compared to the other! That's what several washings through the washing machine will do!) She seemed to talk to it like her dog, so I bought it as a potential "back-up." She will play with both, but she definitely prefers he original puppy dog.

Here is a picture of her two Ty dogs

Here's a video of the original talking to her dogs voice

Mykelle has now learned how to "woof" to her dogs. She also thinks that's the noise all other animals make too. It is pretty funny to hear her conversations with her puppy dogs! For Valentine's Day she got a third Ty dog--a little husky--from Grandma Gibb! We call him Juneau.

Here are a few "woof"s.

Mykelle's One!

Mykelle turned one on Sunday!

Opening her presents: she got her own piano/xylophone, twin baby dolls, a cool feeling book called "Tails", and clothes!

Then it was onto the cake! Stan made a little chocolate "Hershey Kiss" cupcake for Mykelle with whipped topping on top. Here's her first couple minutes going at the cake! She ended up making a big mess with it all.




The best part was her sugar high afterwards. For about two hours after she finished the cake and ice cream we gave her, she walked around jabbering and playing with her toys. She got to go to bed an hour later because she was just too excited!

We can't believe she's been with us for a whole year, but we've loved everyday!

MLK Weekend Fun

I had to change the background of our blog because this January weather in Portland has been really nice! Hello Sun!

Here are the contents of one of Mykelle's favorite drawers to pull things out of in the kitchen. She's just showing her like for cooking early!

Stan did awesome (again!) on his test last Friday, so we were able to really enjoy our weekend together! Mykelle learned a new trick over the weekend: climbing the stairs! Here is her after climbing her first stair on her own Friday night. Saturday night she climbed up the whole staircase! Today I was in the kitchen working and I could hear Mykelle talking in the living room. I thought, "I wonder what Mykelle's doing?" Well, I found her on the second step standing up looking down the stairs! Luckily I found her then! She still needs to figure out the height/depth thing because she just walks off them. And now the gate is up 24/7!

We also got to go swimming on Monday. Mykelle liked it a lot when Stan turned her in circles on her tummy a lot. She was laughing! She also loves seeing everyone else there.

The other really exciting thing from the weekend was that we got a piano! Anne and Stewart went and visited Jane and Don up in Maple Valley over the weekend. Jane and Don decided to let us use their piano and then when we sell it, we'll send them the money! That is so generous of them! We are so grateful. Stewart and Anne brought it back, and we are so excited to have a piano in our house! Mykelle also likes playing it=)

Mykelle is getting really good at "blowing kisses" and she is also giving slobbery ones too! I'll ask her to give Mommy some kisses and she'll put her open mouth up to my cheek! It's so fun. She says "up"--but not in regards to the direction; it's just fun to say. And she is blabbering so much, we just know she'll start saying actual words any day. Here is one last picture of Mykelle playing "peek-a-boo" after her bath. It's one of her favorite games.

Christmas break went too fast!

December went way too fast for all of us! For two weeks we were able to enjoy a break from med school, which we all really needed. We also got to visit both Nicole's and Stan's families for a few days, which was fun as well. Plus, Mykelle had her first Christmas! She definitely got spoiled by all her grandparents, and we think she has enough new toys to last her until her birthday in 2.5 weeks =)

Mykelle is quickly becoming a walking pro! Even though she got tons of new toys over Christmas, her attention isn't held by them for very long. She pretty much just wants to walk and walk and walk some more. On her way, she easily finds anything she can to make a mess. Drawers, stuff on the lamp table, pulling books off the bookshelf, you name it and we are endlessly picking it up after her trail! She has also finally started figuring out the crawling thing and is now able to maneuver to pull herself up on what is in reach. We've started baby-proofing, but she's already figured out how to pull the outlet covers off... This little video was taken 3 weeks ago, so she's already cruising around faster than this shows!



Mykelle also learned how to click her tongue over break. Luckily Grandma Taylor was able to get a video of it (it's really hard for Stan or Nicole to get a video because Mykelle knows it's the camera and smiles for it as soon as she sees it rather than keep doing what she's doing).



Here are a few other picture highlights from our break!


Mykelle with Santa at our ward Christmas party


Going after the presents!


Mykelle must have been good this year!


Mykelle in her Christmas dress on Christmas

Now we're back in the swing of things. Stan is starting work tomorrow for Kaplan. He'll be teaching the MCAT prep course for them. Nicole is also going to start teaching piano lessons to three students on Friday. Unfortunately, working means getting to see even less of each other, but we think we'll be able to manage it all! Plus, we always have next Christmas break to look forward to =)

Our December Update

Wow--it's only 15 days until Mykelle's first Christmas! Thankfully we have all of our Christmas shopping done! Stan is getting so excited for Mykelle's first Christmas. He talks about it several times a day. I'm sure he's also pretty excited for a two-week long break from school as well, but Christmastime is just so much fun!

Grandma Gibb came and visited this last week. We did a lot of shopping and were crafty while she was here. Mykelle was a good shopper too! She loved walking around and touching all the fun fabrics, etc. Here's a picture of her shopping through Old Navy.



Before my mom came down, my dad was in the John Deere store, and he just had to get a present for Mykelle. He then said, "She needs to open this present before Christmas to get some practice in opening presents!" So here's the first Christmas present Mykelle got to open. As you can see, she really like the paper and the bow!



One of the last things we did was to go the Portland Children's Museum on its free night of the month. Mykelle really likes going to new places and seeing new things and people, especially little kids! We're thinking about getting an annual membership, and Mykelle will really be able to interact even more with everything in just a few months.



Mykelle is busy walking around all she can. Toys don't hold her interest very long right now. She thinks she needs to be cruising around the house constantly. She's getting really good at it too, but she still has the occasional fall, with the knee bruise to prove it. She also loves making new friends wherever we might be. She'll tilt her head to the side and smile at the new person, wave hi, and even clap for them. She's much better at making friends than we are! Her second bottom tooth also came through this week.