Austin Vacation!

Last week, we took a little family vacation up north to the hill country of Austin and San Antonio.  

On Wednesday morning, we headed to Schlitterbahn water park in New Braunfels. Brett is able to get free tickets as a member of media. Its ridiculous how big this water park is. You have to take a bus to get from the older part to the newer part. Unfortunately, our camera was dead when we got in there so I don't have any photos of the park. We also discovered that Kayla isn't really the right age for water parks yet. The kiddie areas were mostly still a bit too big for her - too deep of water and big kids running around, and while Brett went on a few big slides by himself, apparently waiting in long lines alone isn't that fun. I'm getting too big in the belly to go on anything too wild. We thought we could enjoy the 6 or 7 different lazy rivers, but infants aren't allowed to ride on their parents laps. They have to have their own tubes.......whoever made up that rule is obviously not a parent. We finally found one lazy river that we could hold her on our laps and we stayed there he rest of the day. It was fun enjoying the weather and the park was cool but we're glad we didn't pay for our tickets. :) For a free day, it was pretty awesome!

That afternoon, my friend Leah met up with us for a couple days since we were half way to Dallas. We hit up the outlet malls that evening and ate yummy Panera for dinner. The next day, we headed to this awesome lookout in Austin called Mount Bonnell. After hiking up a few stairs, we saw a breathtaking view of the river and the entire Austin skyline. I can't say enough about how nice it was to be up on a hill looking at a beautiful view. There are no hills where we live. Austin is really so beautiful!

Me and my love at the lookout

21 weeks - I feel like I suddenly got huge!

Kayla hanging out with Leah

Heading up to the lookout

It was so beautiful!

The cloud cover was wonderful because it kept us cool while up there.

Austin skyline

We heard a lot of people go up here to makeout. I totally get it!
Since we had a friend and Kayla, we just snuck in a few kisses ;)

Me and Leah

Kayla loved playing on the rough terrain. She fell on the rough
rocks a few times and didn't even phase her. She's pretty tough!

Running down a trail to get her daddy!

Jumping into mommy's arms!

 For lunch, we headed to this Irish pub called Fado. Leah's uncle is one of the owners of this chain and he insisted we go visit and he'd comp the meal for us. It was awesome! All the waiters were from Ireland and the food was both authentic and delicious. I love finding fun places to eat! PS Austin has so much amazing food - I could spend forever eating my way through that town. Its a good thing for my already growing belly that we were only there a few days!

After lunch, we headed to the Austin capitol and took a tour. It was pretty cool and a very unique capitol. Texas pride is very real......

The inside of the very top of the dome. Texas pride....

Kayla was running wild and loving the acoustics of the giant dome area.
Luckily, most people seemed to think she was cute. 

This was what the hinges to the doors looked like
heading into the senate and house chambers. Texas pride.....

Hanging out in the house chamber. 

Kayla was pictured out. :)

I love this picture of her running into Brett's arms.
She really loves her daddy!

I loved this Austin sign. There is a lot of wall art there and this is probably the most famous one. They just repainted it last year. 

Our Texas baby!

Next, we headed to the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum. It was really interesting and informative. The 60's are such a fascinating decade and we learned a lot.

This was funny because she's imitating LBJ exactly listening to the Beatles music. :)

She gave Ronald McDonald a high five but was freaking out while she did it, haha!

Every child loves Sesame Street! LBJ started PBS.

After the museum, we headed to the park for Kayla to run around in the splash pad. It was really hot and humid. She had a great time and loved playing with the 'bubbles' coming out of the ground. This park we were at was huge! We ended up spending most of the next day there doing all the different activities they offer. As we were leaving, I was getting a fresh diaper out of the car to put on Kayla and we were parked next to this car below. Kayla came up and opened the door a little more and it very softly bumped the other car's door. The lady was sitting in her car and immediately popped her door open and said in the whiniest voice, "Did you just hurt my car!?!" I assured her it didn't make a mark and apologized for my toddler. She slammed the door shut and sat in there watching our every move while we loaded up to leave. She was very high maintenance and when we backed out, I noticed her license plate. It was so fitting that I snapped a photo. :)

We ate dinner at a place recommended to us by Brett's co-workers called Trudy's. It was yummy Mexican food and they had delicious stuffed avocado. Kayla was acting really badly so Brett took her out of the restaurant for awhile. It wasn't the best experience because she was so badly behaved but the food was yummy! We then headed to the Congress Street Bridge to watch the famous bats. This huge swarm of bats flies out at sunset every night and its quite a popular attraction, as you can see. 

We were waiting forever and Kayla was wandering up and down the hill we sat on saying hi to everyone and then trying to take their water bottles. She was quite popular by the end of the evening! We noticed some lightning, so Brett checked the radar and a HUGE storm was coming in. We waited until the lightning got bad enough and then left, sadly without ever seeing the bats. We did get quite an awesome electric show though. We headed to the hotel and Leah headed back to Dallas (she's a night nurse so she likes driving late at night). The next few hours were spent watching one of the craziest storms we've ever seen. It was huge and lasted forever with CONSTANT lightning and thunder. There were a few tornadoes that touched down around us. There was no damage done near us, but other parts of the city saw some damage. Brett was loving the crazy weather! 

Kayla was having a blast and avoiding taking a bath at the hotel.
She thinks her daddy is so funny!

On Friday, we spent some time touring the UT campus. They had a natural history museum and Kayla loved the dinosaur exhibit. 

A display in the museum

Afterwards, we headed back to the park and went canoeing on the river. Again, I can't tell you how nice it was to be enjoying nature besides just going to the pool, like here at home. It was so beautiful and I really love canoeing. Kayla enjoyed it too once she got used to it. 

I sure love this little girl!

There were a lot of little turtles in the river swimming around us!

We had lunch at a cool Hawaiian/Tex Mex place that was super yummy called the Hula Hut. This was Kayla's best meal, as far as her behavior went, so one of the best for us too! She's teething and has a sore tongue so meal time was always a bit of a struggle. But we loved the yummy food and the ambiance was awesome! It was so chill!I had a delicious Mahi sandwich.

Brett told Kayla to wave at the camera. She's such a cheeser!

That afternoon, we headed to Barton Springs pool. Its a natural spring that has been turned into a pool. The water was really cold and the bottom was slippery so Kayla couldn't walk well, but it felt so good to be in the cool water and again, enjoying nature. 

Everyone sat on this pretty steep hill. It was steep enough that Kayla almost fell down it a couple times. We talked about how much we miss even having hills. There really aren't any down here in the Valley (which isn't a valley at all, fyi.)

After we had our fill of the pool, we took Kayla back to the splash pad where I got some adorable photos. I only included a few, don't worry. She had such a great time!

Every few minutes, she'd run back over to where I was sitting in the shade with her arms open just like this and hug me. It was so sweet!

We drove to San Antonio on Friday evening and had dinner at Steak and Shake, which was nothing like Brett remembered as a kid. I still thought it was yummy though. 

Kayla was living the life in the hotel. She snuggled right up
under the covers on the bed. 

On Saturday, we were able to attend the temple together while a friend watched Kayla. It was the perfect way to end the trip. I really loved having a few days non-stop with Brett. He worked 10 days straight before the trip and the next 8 days after we got home with no breaks. He works so hard and we all definitely deserved this little getaway. We had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory and then headed home. We were all happy to get home but had a wonderful trip!

Leah's Visit to the RGV

Leah, one of my awesome friends from my Rexburg days came to visit us for a few days last week. She is now working as a traveling nurse and is currently in Dallas. Because she's so 'close' we had her come over Memorial Day weekend. It was so fun to have a visitor, to spend time with a good friend, and to have a little taste of home. We tried to show her some of the fun things about the Valley and it was nice just to visit too. 

We took her to the new Pharr water park, but unfortunately her shorts had a button so she couldn't get in the water. We still went in and had a fun time! Kayla is really starting to warm up to the splash pads and she's getting more fun in the water. 

On Saturday afternoon, Brett was working, so Leah and I hit up the outlet malls and we took her on a tour of Brett's studio. On Sunday we just hung out. Brett works every Sunday and has to leave church after Sacrament meeting. I had to teach the young women so it was great to have Leah there to watch Kayla while I taught. On Monday, we did some more shopping and hung out some more. We had fun cooking and eating lots of yummy food. We also enjoyed eating out on the patio. It was probably one of the last times we'll be eating out there until summer is over. Its already getting blazing hot. 

Leah loved our hammock! That hammock is my favorite spot here. Again, its almost getting too hot to enjoy it though. 

On Tuesday, we took Leah to the Rio Grande and out to our favorite Mexican restaurant. We had fun at the little park by the river. After lunch, Brett headed to work and us girls hit up our pool. We had fun relaxing in the water. Its nice how warm the pool water is here since it never gets cold at night. 

On Wednesday, we took a trip to the Island. We had lunch at one of our favorite sea food places, Dirty Al's. We took Leah to the Sea Turtle Refuge and Kayla loved it! She kept saying "Fishy" over and over again. Since then, we've been working on saying turtle. :)

We headed to the beach and when we arrived a storm was rolling in. We ended up only staying on the beach for 30 minutes or so. While we were there, Kayla found some friends!

Look at those dark clouds!

Leah decided that since the storm was mostly inland rather than over the water, that she would head out to the water to watch the storm. Brett and I took Kayla up to the pavilion to wait out the storm. Leah looked so lonely out there in water but she said she really enjoyed herself, haha! She said we couldn't have picked a better day to take her to the beach, since she doesn't really like the sun or heat. We figured out pretty soon that the storm wasn't going to blow over, we headed home in the craziest storm! I wrote a bit more about it in an earlier blog post. 

When the freeway became too dangerous to drive on, we got off and stopped in at the station to see if they needed Brett's help with the weather. While he was inside, Kayla, Leah and I had a little dance party in the car. She loves dancing to music so much, but put her in the front seat and its a whole new world for her!

There was a great rainbow afterwards. We made it home safe, but some of our flowers were pretty well drowned. Southern storms are sure crazy! We loved having Leah here and we hope she gets stationed close to us again for work. 

Our upcoming arrival!

So, on Brett's birthday, I took a pregnancy test and much to our excitement, it was positive! I had actually thought I was pregnant for awhile and had a few negative tests so I was really excited to get a positve test. Plus, it was fun to find out on Brett's birthday.

It was early when I took the test. :)

We were headed home a few weeks later, so we decided to wait to tell anyone until we could see them all in person. We got Kayla this little shirt and she wore it when we saw all of our family for the first time. It was fun to see everyone's reactions in person since we told everyone about Kayla over the phone. 

We weren't really sure how far along we were until our ultrasound, which was March 19. We found out that our due date was October 23. 

 I've been very blessed in both of my pregnancies to not get very sick. I was a little more nauseous with this pregnancy while we were in Idaho but I think its because I was tired from traveling. I have also been a little more tired too but that's probably because I have an active toddler to chase around. I have never thrown up and now that I'm in the 2nd trimester, I feel pretty great! I still take naps more often than I'd like to, but I can't complain one bit. I don't have as much time to work out but I go walking with a friend a few times a week and have been doing some workout videos at home. I feel so blessed to feel so good, let alone be able to be pregnant at all. I don't take that for granted one second. 

Here's my first baby bump photo at 16 weeks.

IT'S A BOY!!!

On Thursday 6/5, I was 20 weeks exactly and we had an ultrasound to find out the gender. I've had a feeling for several weeks now, I've had a feeling that its a boy. I hesitated to say anything though, because I'd hate for anyone to think I was disappointed with the gender of the baby. I would have been overjoyed, regardless of the gender, of course. I thought it was a boy because this baby is so much more active than Kayla was. I first felt the baby move at 13 weeks and I've felt him quite a bit ever since. He's always rolling around in there. Even during the ultrasound, the tech commented how active he was. She was also laughing at how obvious it was that he is definitely a boy. :) I am measuring a little over a week early and baby boy is measuring at about a pound. I measured a little early with Kayla too and she still came on time, so we'll see when this little guy arrives! Everything looks perfectly healthy with the baby, which I'm very grateful for. I love ultrasounds so much. It makes it so much more realistic to see the baby, especially as they develop and look more and more like a baby. Life is truly a miracle.

We came home from the ultrasound and made these yummy blue cupcakes. This is my favorite color and I noticed it at the store a few weeks ago because its not a common cake mix. Brett said we should buy it in case the baby was a boy. He was right!

Kayla loved the cucakes! She really was excited to be eating a cupcake. :) She obviously isn't old enough to know what's going on, but she does love babies. Whenever we see babies, she runs up to them and wants to hug them. I'm sure that she is going to be a wonderful big sister! They will be 21 months apart. 

We asked her if she was happy about getting a baby brother and she clapped her hands and said 'Happy happy!' :)

I joked with Brett after the ultrasound that we all had worn blue to the appointment. I had of course not dressed Brett and hadn't put Kayla in blue on purpose, but I did choose to wear a blue shirt with a pink tank top underneath. :) 

We're really excited to have a little boy! Its a bit of a new world for me since I never had a brother and the majority of kids I babysat were girls too. I think having watched Iosepa for the past year has probably helped prepare me a bit, though. I'm excited for Kayla to have a little brother and to see her transition into the role of big sister. Most of all, I'm excited to see Brett with his son. He's such an amazing father to Kayla and she adores him. But I'm so excited to see Brett with his little boy. They can bond over the boy things that I don't really understand. :) He will be such a good father to this boy just like he's been to Kayla. I'm so blessed to have found him to be the father of my children! I've already started thinking about the things that come with a son, and I'm so excited to raise a baby boy to grow into a man. He's got great examples to follow after and I'm so humbled to have the chance to raise Kayla, this little baby boy and any other children Heavenly Father sends our way.

Quite a scare......

The past few days, we've had a couple of very real scares. Both of these incidents were things I've feared ever since we moved to South Texas and they both came to fruition over the past 48 hours! I had mentioned both on Facebook, but I wanted to document them here for memory's sake.

Last night, I worked until 11:00 PM. When I was almost home, I saw that the road to my house was closed. I assumed it was a car accident. So I went the long way through our subdivision. As I got closer to my end of the neighborhood, I was stopped by an officer who questioned where I was going. I told him what street I live on and he told to me to go ahead but be careful. I drove two more blocks my street where another officer stopped me and questioned where I was going. He again told me to be careful and go straight into my house. I asked him what was going on and all he said was that there had been an aggravated robbery and the suspect was hiding in the area and that they had a gun!!!

As I drove slowly down my street, I noticed five or six police right in front of my house. I pulled into the garage and closed the door before I got out of my car. I ran into the house where Brett was sound asleep (he had to leave for work at 3:30, so 4 hours from then) and immediately made sure all the doors were locked. We always lock our doors here, but once in awhile we'll forget. They were locked, so I woke Brett up and then saw the police spotlight out our bedroom window. The police were searching our backyard! I then ran and checked on Kayla, who was also sleeping soundly.

I realized that this situation could get very dangerous very fast if both the police and suspects were armed, so I grabbed Kayla and we sat in the middle of our house away from all the windows and outside walls. I've heard enough of Brett's reports and seen enough crazy movies that my imagination was going wild. Just then, we heard some pretty loud banging and shuffling that sounded like it was banging up against the east side of our house. I'm actually quite sure they caught these suspects either in our side yard or the next-door neighbor's yard!!!! Immediately after, the police seemed to clear out.

Brett texted the Edinburg Police PIO who was kind enough to find out the details for us. Apparently, there was an aggravated robbery a few miles away which led to a chase of the suspects. They stopped in our neighborhood, ditched their car and took off on foot, apparently on our street. By the time Brett's contact responded, they had caught two suspects, and like I said, by now, the police were gone as far as we could tell.

We put Kayla back to bed and then we tried to go to sleep. That didn't happen for a long time. We both laid there thinking and talking about what had happened. It was a crazy night.

I know that crime happens anywhere and everywhere but I really hate how much crime there is here. I think I know too much with Brett's job being what it is, but it doesn't change the fact that I don't feel safe here, and we live in a nice neighborhood! McAllen metro area was recently rated the #1 place where people don't feel safe, and this is why! I'm so grateful for police officers and law enforcement officers everywhere that regularly put their lives at risk to protect the rest of us. I'm not going to lie, I look forward to moving to a less-crime ridden area in the future.

Incident #2 wasn't nearly as scary in comparison, but its something I've feared. We went to the South Padre Island while my friend Leah was in town visiting on Wednesday. We had lunch and went to the turtle refuge and then headed to the beach. Fifteen minutes after unloading our stuff at the beach, a storm rolled in. We saw the buildings down the beach being struck by lightning so we decided to head for cover. After about 20 minutes, we realized the storm wasn't going to roll over, so we headed for the car. Once inside, we checked our phones to find out there was a tornado warning only a few miles from where we were. The next 40 minutes involved driving in torrential rain, weather warnings popping up on our phones, checking the radar, and watching for tornadoes.

As a disclaimer for the weather man, there was only a slight chance of rain that day, and Brett had been sick all morning. He almost didn't come at all, but decided last minute to join us. Needless to say, he wasn't thinking about checking the radar as we drove to the island and the sun was shining and the wind was calmer than usual. So we were all pretty surprised when dark clouds rolled in. Texas weather can change in a flash.

We didn't see anything, but the rain wasn't safe to drive in, so we got off the freeway at Brett's station and waited for the rain to slow down before finishing the drive home. I realize that weather threats and concerns are just a part of life, but I grew up where the worst thing that could happen was an earthquake and the real concern was blizzard and snow. But blizzards and snow don't destroy homes or kill people in parked cars!

Needless to say, I'm very happy and full of gratitude that we are all safe and sound and that we are watched over. I don't want to live in fear because that's no way to live, but its impossible to pretend like these things don't happen. The only thing we can do is be prepared for emergencies and be cautious in our activities.

Kayla 15 Months

 Well, Kayla is now 15 months old. She is turning into the funniest little thing. She's got quite the little personality and it shows a bit more each and every day. She had a checkup the other day. She's totally healthy and growing so fast. She's gained almost 4 lbs in the last 3 months! I feel like the minute she switched from breast milk to whole milk, she chunked up a bit more. Kayla is 24 lbs and 30 in. She has maintained the 50th% for height but jumped up to the 65th% for weight from the 50th%. 

I sure love this happy cheesy baby of ours!

Kayla is full of energy and is officially not a baby anymore. She doesn't have the time or patience to cuddle for more than a second unless its right before bed time. She is the friendliest baby around and waves to everyone she sees. Her favorite word is also 'Hi'. Sometimes she gets a look of confusion when people don't notice her waving and don't wave back, like, "Why won't they wave at me?" She also laughs all the time. Brett calls her Happy because she's always smiling and laughing. She courtesy laughs a lot too, which is awesome. 

Waving at strangers again :)

Church is getting more and more interesting. I miss the days when she could fall asleep in my arms. Now she is constantly snacking or roaming during the last 2 hours of church. There are a couple other babies and the 3 of them are entertainment for all. One lady asked me in Relief Society if she ever cried, because she'd never heard her. I assured her she does and moments later, she tripped over someone's bag and slammed her head into the chair. Now, the whole building has heard her cry. She really is pretty quiet through church meetings. She just won't sit still so I'm spending more and more time in the halls during Sunday School and Relief Society. I'm counting down until she's old enough for nursery!

Kayla has to go to so many church meetings and activities with me
and she is usually quite a champ. During the Women's Broadcast, I
was taking pictures of all the ladies during dinner. When I asked these ladies,
they thought I meant could I take their picture with Kayla (all was in Spanish),
so I said yes and they loved it! She wasn't too sure though. :)

Kayla is practically running now, especially if she is chasing Iosepa around the house. She's also a pro at playground jungle gyms and is pretty fearless when it comes to slides and climbing up and down, but lately has been hating the swings. Go figure. 

Kayla LOVES Iosepa!

She is always hugging him and he doesn't like it, but I asked
him to hug her and this was it. :)

She is talking more and more each day. I love seeing her focus and try to repeat words after I say them. Its like she's willing her little mouth to do what she wants it to. Her vocabulary list includes: Hi, Daddy, kitty, Jesus, Momma, bunny, Thank You, ball, uh-oh, What's that, where'd it go, Sepa (Iosepa), baby, tickle-tickle, and flower. She's great at pointing at pictures of other everyday items when I ask her to. I just love watching her little brain soak everything in.  She's great at nodding yes or shaking her head no to questions. We can ask her anything and she almost always responds appropriately whether she understands or not. Sometimes it's hilarious because she looks so serious and pensive before responding with her head movements.  Being a parent is so fun!

Friendly baby with her Daddy!

Daddy is her favorite and she says that all the time. She only calls me Momma when she really needs something, otherwise I'm Daddy lately. :) When Brett's gone to work, she loves pointing to him in the pictures on the walls and saying Daddy over and over again. She gets so excited when she hears the garage door open cause she knows that means Daddy is home. 

She laid on her boppy and I snapped a photo to compare since we
laid her on it just like this when she was 2 days old.

Comparison! This was the day we got home from the hospital.
She's changed so much!

Kayla will still put everything in her mouth. I can't wait for this phase to be over. She eats crayons, rocks, flowers, you name it. My finger has been crunched really hard almost daily with all of her teeth! She has 12 now, 4 on top front, 4 on bottom front, and 2 molars on each side. She is getting more picky with her eating, unfortunately, although I wonder if its more of an independence thing. She loves feeding herself with a spoon and is getting better at it, but its still so messy. I try to feed her to save the hassle and she won't have it. So I'll deal with the mess and hope she gets better. She dislikes getting her teeth brushed, but as soon as we're done, she plays with her toothbrush and is happy as a clam. 

She is such a ham!

Her favorite foods of late are apple slices, cuties, crackers, sliced deli meat, cheese of any kind, scambled eggs, cereal, pasta, peas, and ........sweets! With Easter here, Brett snuck her a few pieces of candy here and there and she LOVED it! She always wants whatever I'm eating so its a good reminder for me to only eat healthy food. 

Helping mom workout

She loves playing outside and will stand at the back door whining to go out. Its been so beautiful the past few months that we've been outside a lot, but its now getting hot and HUMID so our time outside is going to be cutting back. I go walking with a friend around a park on the mornings I'm off and Kayla loves to wave at the people we pass. We also go on walks around our neighborhood a lot. They're building lots of new houses and Kayla will just stare at the construction workers. She's so fascinated with them. 

Enjoying the sun on the back deck. 

Kayla is also pretty interested in the potty. Any time Iosepa goes, she stares in wonder and when she sees me going, she tries to hand me toilet paper and says "What's that" over and over again. I got excited and thought I should start introducing her to it more. So one day, during bath time, she made the face like she needed to poo so I whisked her out of the tub and plopped her onto the toilet. Well, I think I scared her to death. She freaked out and wouldn't go potty. I just hope I didn't scar her for life!

My only concern/frustration is her bottle use. She wouldn't take whole's milk when I started weaning her until Brett finally thought to try it in a bottle. She only had a bottle occasionally when I was at work, but she took the milk from the bottle without any problem. Now, we keep trying to get her to drink it from a Sippy cup, which she uses daily for water, but she refuses. As soon as she gets a taste of milk from the sippy, she makes a face and spits it out. It's so bizarre. I don't know what to do about this. I'm open to suggestions. :) 

One of my favorite things about Kayla though is her dancing and singing. Whenever anything with a beat starts to play, she little arms and hips start moving. She has got good rhythm too! Her dance moves are hilarious and unique and she will try to sing along. Her favorite dancing song is "Best Day of My Life" by American Authors. During the 'Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh" part of that song, she sings her own little Oh Oh and I love it! I'm so happy that she loves music! I'll have to post a video of her dancing. It really is awesome. 

We love our little Kayla Rae!

In San Antonio with Kendra!

A little Selena hat!