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.