Alamaba- Part 4, Montgomery!

Before we flew home, we decided to stop by the capital city of Montgomery, AL for a quick drive-thru, early morning tour. It was on the way to the airport, kind of. :) Thanks Justin!

First White House of the Confederacy (directly to the South of the Capitol)The Baptist church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached and the Montgomery bus boycot was organized.
That's me in the bottom left corner.

Immediately to the east is the Alabama State Capitol Building (from the street in front of the Baptist church)

Cool water fountain with a quote from Dr. King in front of the Civil Rights Memorial (1 block SW of Church).

Old train station-nowhere near the church :)

Quarter Century!

It's true, I'm 25 years old! This birthday (on the 23rd) was different than past birthdays. For the first time, I didn't feel like the whole world needed to know it was my birthday. There wasn't this feeling of telling everyone I passed, "It's my birthday today!" :) Instead, I kind of felt like, "Meh. If people know cool, if they don't know, that's cool too." Does that mean I'm getting "old?"

Either way, I had a WONDERFUL day! :) It was so nice to have a birthday on a Saturday so Dan could be with me (and McKenna) ALL day! He spoiled me by making one of our favorite, easy Saturday morning breakfasts. Scrambled eggs, fruit (an apple), and Pillsbury cinnamon rolls. Delish!

Throughout the day, as we went about doing normal errands/activities, Dan kept surprising me by leaving my presents here and there where I would find them! He even put one in McKenna's lap, from McKenna. Here's a picture of my sweet hubby's gifts to me (THANK YOU!): A BYU water bottle holder, two more Disney movies to add to my growing collection (Robin Hood and The Rescuers), the David Archuleta CD, strawberry and chocolate milk (my favorite treats to get at the grocery store), Red Vines and a big bucket of Dubble Bubble (yeah, I have a sweet tooth), beautiful tulips, and a ShamWow!! All day I kept hoping something would spill just so I could clean it up. :)

That night, we celebrated by going to eat out at one of my favorite restaurants, Olive Garden! I ordered the Portobello Ravioli. Delish again!! Thanks to everyone who came to help me celebrate: Mickelle, Jonathan, Stewarts, Winegars, Jake and Ailin, Sam, and Mom and Dad Webster.

I also felt so special from all the Facebook b-day wishes and the many phone calls (Thanks Smiths in Alabama, Mary in Maryland, and Mom and Dad Thompson!)
The next day, the Webster Sunday dinner was also a birthday celebration pour moi. We had another yummy dinner followed by cake and ice cream! I also received some cute new clothes and a beach towel from the in-laws! THANK YOU! (Note: darling nephew Joseph with awesome stickers on shirt and no pants; a common occurance.)

Action shot! (Note: This photo has darling niece Kate in the background. Love those kids!)

On top of all this, I also received a card from my Condie grandparents (mom's parents) and the Nelson grandparents (Dan's mom's parents). Thanks!

I truly felt loved and celebrated!!

I'm pretty sure I'm getting more sentimental in my "old" age, feeling like I needed to document every little thing about my birthday. Oh well.

Swimming!

Utah doesn't have much of a Spring. So far we've had about a month where it's very pleasant outside. Then things start to heat up. That's ok by me; i'm a heat girl. And the heat also means swimming!!

Dan's friend from high school, Brett Blaser, was in town for a rotation through medical school and invited us up to his parent's house for pizza and swimming. McKenna really liked the break from the helmet and enjoyed the water too!

Watch her little legs kick, kick, kick!

This family has a huge private water slide! Yes even I, the non-adventurous-homebody, went on it, and enjoyed it! Dan and the guys tried to see how far they can go using the rafts. It was so fun for Dan to see everyone and catch up with some of his friends!

We also went swimming at my brother-in-law's parent's house.

Aunt Brynn with Kate, McKenna with crab floatie, and Aunt Sarah Jane with Whitney.

Cutest girl cousins ever!

Kate (10 mo) McKenna (7 mo) Whitney (5 mo)

Grandma Sibber bought the adorable matching bathing suits!

(I love that McBaby's got the cleavage going on and Whitney's rockin' the off-the-shoulder look.)

Re-cap

Last Saturday, our little family participated in Race for the Cure. It was a lovely 5K "race." We of course walked it and enjoyed the beautiful weather and great company of other members of Dan's extended family. (Sorry no pics)

Mother's day was Lovely! It was neat to have a totally different perspective on mother's day this year as this was my first as a real mom! Dan bought me a new dress; which I wasn't expecting considering he just bought me one for Easter. I also got some new Disney movies! I've been wanting to build up my Disney collection for a while now so I was very grateful for this jump start. He also made lunch and dinner and took care of McKenna ALL during church so I didn't have to miss any part of the days meetings! AND I had a wonderful NAP. (Sometimes it's the little things that also mean so much!) I was totally spoiled! THANK YOU DAN! I definitely felt honored and celebrated!

It's also very important to mention mine and Dan's mothers! We are who we are because of them and all they taught us by word and example.

McKenna's adjustment to her helmet seems to be going well. We had a few rough nights early on in the week. It was hard to tell what was making her wake up every 2-3 hours screaming. She had: a) a runny nose (no ear infection to go with it thankfully but it could still cause pressure), b) teething (her bottom right tooth came in Wednesday), c) possible sore neck muscles from sleeping differently with the helmet on, d) tummy troubles because of constipation. Really it could have been e) all of the above! :) Poor girl. So we gave her some motrin for two nights and now she's back to her "normal" sleeping! (only waking once to feed)

Daddy is still quite good at getting this little girl to giggle.

We also got to attend the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house with a tour given by Dan's grandfather. It is a STUNNING temple and even though it hasn't been dedicated, you can still feel special and sacred feelings there.

Dan is standing uphill from me which is why he looks like a giant. :)

McKenna will turn 7 months this week on the 19th! Nothing too new to report on her development. She still sits up like a champ, babbles all the day long, and gets cuter every time I look at her.

Here's the best shot I can get of her teeth so far. If you click the image and make it bigger you can see the white speck that is her tooth. :)

McKenna news!

So I don't know if anyone has noticed, but our sweet McBaby's head shape seemed a bit..."off"...

Where do I begin??

*It all started at McKenna's 4 month check up:

Me: McKenna's head shape concerns me.

Doc: It's a little flat. Let's see how it changes over the next couple months.

Me: Ok.

*At McKenna's 6 month check up:

Me: Her head shape still looks weird to me.

Doc: It's still a little flat. Let me refer you to a plastic surgeon.

Me: Thanks.

(This is kind of how the conversations went. :))

So we went to the plastic surgeon and he tells us she's quite flat and would definitely benefit from a molding helmet (which is just what we expected). He explained to us that if her head shape hasn't fixed itself by now it probably won't. So, he refers us to a prostheics office where they did a laser scan of McKenna's head and gave us a severity rating of 3.5-4 (based on a scale of 1-5; 5 being the worst). So we decided to move forward with the treatment and get her head "fixed." They made a custom fit helmet that is "tight" in the spots we don't want her head to grow bigger in, and it's open where we do want to head to grow and fill in. Here are some bullet points of our thoughts and maybe some FAQs you may have:

• Do we feel like "bad parents" for not doing as much tummy time and repositioning as we maybe should have? Uh- maybe don't ask that...
• Insurance does NOT cover this treatment because it's considered purely cosmetic. We are calling this her very expensive princess crown! :)
• Are we vain to want it fixed or just good parents to want to give her as much of a chance of normalcy later in life as possible? You can decide.
• We're slowly working up to getting her to wear it 23 hours a day for the next 2-3 months.
• The helmet cannot get wet, aka- take it off for baths and swimming.
• We must wash her hair everyday, and wipe the helmet out with rubbing alcohol daily.
• If McKenna ever gets a fever we stop using the helmet until she returns to full health.
• She will sweat a lot at first until her body acclimates to having something cover her head all the time.
• Limit outside time during the hot summer months because she may overheat.
• Her first adjustment will be after 5 weeks of wearing it. They will track progress by doing another laser scan and comparing her symmetry numbers from the first scan.

Here are a few "before" pictures of her head. It's hard to see just how asymmetrical it is unless you see her in person. But it was worth a shot.

They put a nylon cap over her head to do the laser scan so her hair wouldn't get in the way. Super cute!

Here she is at her first fitting. I couldn't stop giggling after the doctor first put it on her.

Not so sure...

To make sure people still know she's a girl, I put a piece of velcro on the helmet so I can rotate bows onto it.

Side shots

Back- holes for ventilation.

She's getting used to it and is still a happy girl! She's our little storm trooper, lego person hair, whatever you want to call it. She is still darling to us!

ALSO- In other McKenna news, the same day she got her "princess crown," she cut her first tooth! It was her bottom left incisor and we had no idea it was coming. Now that we're paying more attention to her mouth, I'm pretty the sure the bottom right incisor will follow shortly. We'll get a picture when they come up a little farther.

Anniversary!

So I'm a little late, but...

Dan and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary on the 3rd! We went out and celebrated on the 2nd.

My parents were in town and lovingly volunteered (along with my sister and brother who were hanging out with them) to babysit McBaby. THANK YOU!

We ate at Cinegrill (one of our favorite places to get hot corned beef sandwiches).

And got to go here.

It was a wonderful day! Before bed that night we reminisced about the past three years and expressed our deep love and admiration for one another. I'm SO grateful we are eternally sealed to each other! I can't imagine anyone else I'd rather spend the rest of eternity with. Happy Anniversay Love!

And of course, what would a blog post be with out a little bit of the face you all really want to see?? My little cabbage patch doll.



Here she is with her cousin Kate (3 months older).

She still loves the mirror...or maybe just the baby in the mirror.

6 month Professional Pictures

Melissa Sue Photography Rocks!! This photographer has been a neighbor and friend of Dan's for a long time and we are SO grateful for her talents! She's awesome! Check out this little preview of McKenna's 6 month professional photo shoot.

We, as McKenna's parents, OF COURSE think she is a stunning baby! We can't help but stare at her ALL day EVERY day! It's oh so nice when pictures of this quality can capture her beauty. :)

Is it bad that I'm already having guilt about not being able to document our second, third... children as much as we document her. Everyone tells me that's just the way it goes. *shrugs shoulders*