Big Week for Mikaela

Turns out I don't seem to be a very good blogger. Who would have guessed? Anyways Mikaela had a big week leaning all sorts of tricks this last week. I can't believe she is getting so big it is seriously crazy. Tuesday she learned how to clap and is now a clapping maniac. Thursday she said mama for the first time which brings her to a vocabulary of three words including dada and baba. Apparently i come after dad and food in importance, but i guess if I have to come behind something those are pretty good choices. Friday night she started pointing and now points at everything she wants. She now points from person to person when we are trying to put her to sleep so that she can move around and avoid naps. It's pretty sneaky but we are onto her. Then on Saturday she took her first steps! It is amazing how exciting little things can be when you have a baby. I can't believe its half way through November time seriously flys by. Last month we got to fly back to California to welcome Matt home off his mission. It was so much fun to see everyone. We also had fun taking Mikaela Trick or Treating for her first time. Derik refused to go because he thinks you should be old enough to walk and say trick or treat on your own in order to go, but i feel like eating your child's Halloween candy is a right of parenting so we took her anyways. She had fun seeing all the other little trick or treaters. Other then that things have pretty much been the same. Derik is still loving his job and I am surprisingly liking Los Alamos. So basically life is good

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Crazy Month

Our last month has probably been one of our busiest months ever. A couple weeks before school ended Derik accepted a job offer from Ares Corporation so along with that came moving. We decided to start packing little by little so that we wouldn't be super busy the week we left. At the end of July Deriks parents came to Idaho to watch Derik graduate and help us move. After two days of packing and cleaning we were more then ready to head out. So after five years in Rexburg we are officially done. We spent the next two days driving to Los Alamos. We were really worried about how Mikaela would handle the trip but she did great she basically just slept the whole time. Sure beats her normal half and hour naps. I'm thinking about driving her cross country daily. We spent one day unloading the trailer before we headed to California to visit my parent before Derik had to start working. We had a great trip. Mikaela loved swimming in Grandpa and Grandma's swimming pool. We put her in a little floaty and she just kicked and kicked she was pretty impressed with herself, and I'm not going to lie we kind of were too. While we were there we also took her to the zoo for the first time. Turns out shes a little too young for the zoo. The one and only animal she did get really exited for was the flamingos. She thought they were pretty neat standing on there one leg. After a fun week we flew back to New Mexico and started moving in. We are settled in now and loving are new place all 33 stairs and all, not that I've counted. It actually works out great for us its like the perfect solution for lazy peoples workout. Derik started his new job the 10th of August and is really liking it. He is the youngest employee to ever be hired by Ares so we feel really lucky. In the last few weeks Mikaela has gone from scooting to army crawl to speed crawler. Needles to say we've been very busy chasing her all over. I always though life was going to be so much easier once she learned how to crawl because then she could get to whatever she wanted, but i guess what i didn't realize was that everything she wants is in fact everything I don't want her to have. It really is amazing how fast she how gotten in just a couple weeks. We were getting worried that she would fall down the stairs so we bought her a gate, but it hasn't really worked out because she has now learned how to pull her self up on everything. So now she's always trying to climb out of her crib and over her gate. To be honest though i am loving this month six stage. It seems like she is learning new things everyday and is always making us laugh. I can't imagine our lives with out her. Two weekends ago we went camping with Deriks family. We spent the weekend dirt bike riding, eating and playing games and had a really fun time. After a very busy month it is nice to be able to slow down and get into the swing of things here in Los Alamos. We have had a lot of exciting changes things year and are so happy with how everything has turned out. Life couldn't be better for us :)

Mikaela's 5 1/2 month portraits

Today we took Mikaela to get her 6 month photos. We decided we better go a couple weeks early since we will be moving when the time actually comes. Today she proved to me once again that she is indeed her fathers daughter. I don't know what the deal is at home shes always giving us her big cheesy grins but we get her to the photo studio and she refuses to do it for the camera. I guess she does what she wants when she wants. In her defence though the laugh the photographer was making trying to get her to smile was a little on the creepy side. Even I was a little freaked out. Anyways shes our baby with an attitude, and we couldn't love her more. Despite her refusal to cooperate we think her picture turned out really cute. They definitely show off her personality so here they are : )