9 month baby genius

Mikayla is a genius, or so I think. She got a new toy for Christmas that came with 5 colored balls. She quickly attached herself to the blue ball and without fail, will always pick up the blue ball whenever she is playing. It doesn't matter what order they are in, or where the blue ball is, she will always find it and pick it up.

Christmas

Christmas was so much fun this year. Having a child just seems to bring back all of the feelings and excitement that I had as a little girl. I was so excited to see Mikayla on Christmas morning, opening up all her presents and playing with the paper. We went up to my parents on Christmas Eve and spent the night with them. It's nice to be with Grandparetns who did a first rate job on spoiling her. She has a lot of new favorite toys and cute little outfits. I'm just going to post a few pictures for all of us to enjoy.

Grandma and Grandpa Handy got her this leap frog table that she loves!

Grandma and Grandpa Gee

Christmas morning with her new pony!

Hanging her stocking by the chimney with care

Acting out the Nativity with cousins Corbin and Kaycee. Mikayla is the youngest so she played baby Jesus

Neil Diamond

After the disappointment of Celine Dion, I didn't think that I would ever be happy with any sort of entertainment again. But to make it up, Steve got me tickets to Neil Diamond (he is tied with Celine as my favorite singer in the WORLD), and we went last night to his concert. I was worried we wouldn't be able to make it, because we had just had a huge snow storm and the roads were horrible. But we pressed through and arrived 20 minutes early. The moment Neil walked out on stage, I thought my little heart would burst. It truly was a Christmas moment. I would also like to take the opportunity to share a slightly humorous moment... We were in the absolute last row at the Energy Solutions arena and there were two girls sitting in front of us. One girl kept taking out her camera to catch a picture of Neil, which was illegal. Twice the ushers had to ask her to put the camera away, but she would never listen. Finally on the third time, they asked her to leave the concert and they escorted her out. Somehow she managed to come back after about 20 minutes and what do you think she did the moment she got back? She took out her cell phone and started taking pictures! We thought she wasn't a very bright girl.

Disappointment

Last year for my birthday, Steve got me tickets to go see Celine Dion in concert on Nov. 21, 2008. After waiting for over a year for the event of a lifetime (Celine rocks!) I couldn't believe that in less than 6 days I was going to watch my girl rock it at Energy Solutions. However, disappointment struck when it was just brought to my attention that the concert has been postponed due to illness and will be re-scheduled. When I first heard that, I thought, "Well, I've waited a year, I can wait a little bit longer." Surely it couldn't get any worse than that, but I was wrong. We went online to find that the concert has been rescheduled for Feb. 22, 2009. What's wrong with that date you might ask? Of course, it just happens to fall on a Sunday! I think I'm going to cry.
I still love you Celine!

Along came a spider...

Halloween was so much fun last night, we were able to jam a lot in considering we have a 7 month old. First we went with our ward to a local shelter to go trunk or treat. Mikayla was a spider,


I was Little Miss Muffet and Steve was Curds and Whey. We weren't sure how to make Steve's costume, so we settled on name tags that said, "Hello, My name is Curds and Whey".


After the trunk or treat, we went over to the Handy home (Steve's Parents) and went trick or treating with all of the nieces and nephews on that side. We also had a party to celebrate Steve's birthday (it was the 30th). We partied all night. This is the whole clan who went.


My little nephew, Josh, grew this pumpkin in his backyard, it was so huge! I think it weighed like 50 pounds. We had to get a shot of Mikayla next to it.


This is one of Mikayla's very first doors when we went trick or treating. I know she had no clue what was going on, but Steve and I scored on some major candy!

Hammin it up

Lately Mikayla has been doing this funny squinting thing when she smiles and it is so hilarious. She does it when she thinks something is particularly amusing, but not enough to get her to laugh out loud. I was determined to capture it, but of course, she wasn't going to have that. Tonight, as she was eating carrots and peaches, she decided it was time to pose. The only time she would smile was when she saw the camera. The minute I lowered the camera, the smile disappeared. I was able to get about 6 or so really good ones, but I will only post a few. She kills me. I love that girl!

6 Quirky Traits

I was tagged by my cousin Diana and my friend Crystal, so here are the six things that are quirky about me:

1. I have a food fetish. If the food I'm going to eat looks weird in any way, or has a weird texture, I will not eat it, no matter how good it may be. For example, I don't eat the end pieces of a loaf of bread, I don't eat any fries unless they are perfect (I give all the "reject" pieces to Steve to eat, which ends up being the entire box), I don't eat left overs (even if they have only been in the refrigerator for a day-I can imagine all of the bacteria and germs all over the food item and it makes me gag), I don't like sea food of any kind (nothing, not fish, crabs, shrimp, nothing), I could go on, but I think you get the point.

2. I don't like walking bare foot in environments that are foreign to me and my feet. That means hotel rooms, locker rooms, or even other people's homes. When I served my mission in Chile, for the entire 1 1/2 years my feet never touched the floor. I either had socks, slippers or flip flops on (even in the shower).

3. I was deathly afraid of roller coasters when I was younger. The first time I went on a roller coaster was about 5 years ago in Lagoon. The funny thing is that I absolutely love riding them now, and can't believe I never did it when I was younger.

4. I am very susceptible to infections. I have had almost every kind of infection you can think of. Athletes foot, thrush (that's an infection on the tongue), my belly button has been infected, my finger, my eyes, you name it, it's been infected. The good news though, is that I respond very well to antibiotics.

5. I have a secret dream to go to the Olympics and compete in curling.

6. I am very competitive. I like to make mini competitions of everyday things where the other person doesn't know that we are competing so I can increase my odds of winning. Even though I win all the time, I am a very good sport and I never rub my victory into the face of the person who lost. (That is probably just because I don't want them to know that I was competing with them-they might think I was a freak!)

I think that's enough of embarrassing quirks about me.

6 months old!

I can't believe that my little girl is 6 months old! She's growing up so fast. Her half birthday was at the beginning of the week and we realized as we were bathing her that we hadn't taken pictures of her on the actual day. So I quickly grabbed the camera and snapped a few. Lately she has been grabbing the wash clothe and sucking on it. I try to get it from her but since I was taking the picture, she got away with a few drinks of bath water.


She loves splashing the rubber duckies.

She was reaching for the camera right when I took this one. I hope the flash didn't blind her.

Disneyland

We just got back from our trip to Disneyland and it was so much fun. Mikayla was so good, we couldn't have asked for a more perfect trip. She slept in the stroller and Steve's arms when she got tired and when she was awake, she just looked around at everything. I was worried that it would mess up her schedule, but since we've been home, she has adjusted back to her old sleeping routine. I can't wait to go back again.

These were Mickey ears that I got when I was 12 when my family went to Disney World

In front of California Screamin, our favorite ride (Steve and I)

We ate at the Blue Bayou which is a restaurant in Pirates. I like her pirate hat

In toon town, trying to escape. (I love her face in this picture)

We met Mickey Mouse at his house and Mikayla was obsessed with his nose

Celebrity

A couple months ago, the Handy side had pictures taken of the grandchildren. We went to a woman who provides costumes so that the kids can dress up in different themes. We did the princes and princesses theme and they turned out really cute. A couple of weeks after the sitting, the photographer called us and asked if she could use the picture for advertisement. We said yes, and haven't thought much about it since then. Today we got the weekly fliers (you all know, the big mass of advertisements that just ends up in the trash) and I was going through it and, lo and behold, I found Mikayla's picture. I feel like such a proud mother. My baby's a celebrity. (If you can't tell, I said that dramatically). The picture here is a little small, so just click on it to enlarge it. The photographer chose the picture with just the girls.

Tupperware

It's official, I am now your typical mom. On Thursday I was invited to a Tupperware party (I didn't even know they still did those) and purchased my first set of Tupperware. It was a tough choice, but I settled on the set of "Tumblers". With the arrival of Mikayla, I've realized that none of my dishes are baby proof. It's all either glass or ceramic. So the lifetime guarantee should keep us pretty safe. The tumblers even come with lids so we can take the beverage on the go. The only thing I don't get is why does Tupperware have to be so extreme in their color choice. I bet all of us grew up with the lime green and orange Tupperware dishes that had the flowers on them. One day this beautiful Tumbler Bouquet will be so outdated that my children will laugh and wonder what I was thinking. But I must say, regardless of the colors, I feel pretty grown up about now. :)

Leakage

Diapers are so much fun.

First Solids-Rice Cereal

We started Mikayla on rice cereal this last week and it went somewhat well. She liked the taste, but got most of it all over herself and the chair. She's getting better at eating, but still wants to suck in everything. Next week we plan on starting her on fruits, so we should get some good reactions. I love being a mom!




In these last two pictures, Steve was playing our piano and decided to put the head phones on her head. I love the way it squishes out her cheeks.

Family Pictures

We took some family pictures in June and we finally got them today! Here are some of the pictures of our little family as well as the entire Gee clan. As you can see, we have grown to be quite the family. 23 grandchildren with two more on the way.




This last picture shows the 7 children that were born in our family this last year. All of my brother's and sister's and I had children and are all within a year apart. The last three had a little problem sitting up by themselves, so I had to lie down behind them to help prop them up. We plan on photo shopping that out.

Laughs For Daddy

We have been trying for many weeks now to get Mikayla to laugh. She will smile at any little thing we do, but to get a good belly laugh has been difficult to say the least. This last week we went to a movie while Laura was babysitting and, low and behold, she got Mikayla to laugh. Of course we missed it, so we made it our goal to get her to laugh for us. Yesterday Steve was playing with her and got her going. I caught the tail end of it on video and it is so cute. She's so funny, as soon as she saw the camera she got quiet, but we got it anyway.
She's so cute!

Roley Poley

Mikayla has reached a major mile stone this last week. Last Tuesday, on the 7th, she rolled from her back to her stomach for the first time! We were so excited, but she wasn't too thrilled because she still hates being on her stomach. Then two days later she figured out how to roll from her stomach onto her back! It's fun that she can roll now, but diaper changing has become a new challenge and in the middle of the night she will roll onto her stomach and yell at us until we flip her back over. If we don't go right in to help her (she doesn't do it herself because she is too tired to do it) she gets very upset and definitely will let us know. I'm trying to catch it on video, but of course as soon as she sees the camera, she becomes immobile. I can't believe my little baby is growing up (tear drop).

Bed Time

Steve was putting Mikayla down for her nap and took these pictures of her. I thought they were so cute. She loves to hug her blankie and suck on her binkie. She is so good and puts herself to sleep, I don't know how we got so lucky.


One of Mikayla's new "tricks" is to pull herself up into a sitting position and then from there she likes to stand. She started doing this a couple of weeks ago and it's so funny when she has been standing for a while her little legs start to shake. You can tell her thighs are starting to burn and she has to sit down to take a break. Babies are so funny.

Cute Pictures of Mikayla

Life continues to be good for us here at the Handy home. Mikayla is nearing her 3 month mark and she is doing great. We made the big move from our room to her crib last week and she took to it like a duck to water. She usually sleeps from 9:30-4:30, wakes up to eat and then sleeps until 8:30. She loves her crib and if we aren't home in time to put her down, she is not happy. She is starting to imitate the sounds we make and she smiles at every little silly thing I do. She is such a good baby that it makes me scared for the next one. :)
Steve has been busy like crazy. He has been attending conferences for CES, as he got accepted to student teach this fall at Diamond Fork Jr. High. He also just got called to be the Second Counselor in the Bishopric, so the weekends will be crazy too. The Lord continues to bless us and I'm very thankful for all of the blessings we have. Life is GREAT!

2 Month Check Up

We took Mikayla to her 2 month check up today and she got her first set of immunization shots. I did not like the experience, and I know Mikayla liked it even less. Never the less, she was such a good girl. When she first got the shot, her face turned bright red, she let out the loudest scream I have ever heard her scream and cried for about 1 minute. We quickly snuggled her close to us and before we knew it, she was asleep. She slept the rest of the car ride home. She's been a little fussy, but she's been such a trooper. I'm just glad that first one is over.

Her stats for 2 months
She is in the 50th percentile for height and weight
75th percentile for her head circumference. I guess that is her intelligence coming through. She's going to be a genius, I can tell.

Dress Up

It's been fun these past couple of weeks to dress Mikayla in different outfits and put a matching bow in her hair. Here are a couple of our favorite outfits

This is one of my favorites, Mommy's wake up call. Boy is that ever true

It seems every time she wears this one, she really does become Captain Drool.

I love that she has her hands up, "Mom, please, no more pictures!"

We are starting her early so that she will be a basketball player. I think she looks so different with that hat on, but still so cute

A touch of femininity

Blessing Day

Today we blessed Mikayla and it went so well. She was just a little fussy during the blessing and that was because she got the hiccups. After the blessing she went right out and woke up just in time for pictures. Her blessing gown turned out beautiful, thanks to my sister-in-law, Amy, who made it from my wedding dress. All in all, it was a great day.
This is a picture of all the men who were in the circle. We are missing two people, Shane, who had to get back to Chloe, and Clark who lives in Colorado.




This picture didn't have anything to do with her blessing day. We just put sunglasses on her and right when I took the picture, she spit up. I thought it looked funny and cute.