McKays: Louisville Zoo 11/12/10

McKays: Louisville Zoo 11/12/10: "So BIG! Maren is licking the glass.  What a goose!   Must be the closest I've ever stood to a tiger.  Wow! Easton and I at the sea lio..."

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A homemade Christmas

Here are our exchange names.  A couple of us wanted to have our kids exchange with each other.  We might start that next year.  This year I'd encourage the kids to be involved in the homemade projects.  Have lots of fun!!  Remember when we used to do secret stockings.  That was so great!!

Mike's family has Johnny's family 

Jackson's has Katie's

Johnny's has Matt's

Katie's has Amy's

Matt's has Isaac

Amy's has Jackson's

Isaac has Mike's

;0) Funny how that worked out, all of us in a row sort of.  

Christmas xchange?

Christmas is Coming!!
So what should we do for gifts this year? Does anyone have any fun new ideas? Or would you all just like to draw names again, rotate? Any themes or price limits?

I think we should do a name draw and then give home made gifts.

What are your ideas. Time is getting close. Lets get this settled. Love you.

Adelein's Baptism 10-16-10

      Addie was double dunked!  The first try her hand  wasn't completely immersed.   Daddy baptized and confirmed her, Mom and Grandma Bird gave talks, her brothers sang "When I am Baptized" (Rainbows) with her.  Then we enjoyed the beautiful Fall day with a picnic lunch.  Since then she has been busily recording everything in her baptism journal.  Everything was so special, we wish you all could have been there.  She even wore the dress I wore for my baptism.  I love it when my kids make good choices!!  

Check out the licorice sword fight.

Look what we can do!

The girls have been getting much more adventurous the last few weeks. Lily and Maren have learned to climb the little tree in the back yard. I am scared of having more broken arms but I and not stopping their progress. Lily was very proud of herself tonight writing her name all alone. She called me in and said "Mom you're gonna love this" She must be practicing a lot when I am not around because when I ask her to write letters they look nothing like this. The last picture shows true life every day for us...Cute as can be and equally ornery.

picture update

Cousins are awesome!!

When do we get to play again?

We miss all of you!!!

Our Bird Story

Hello Bird Family.  We have started a blog for the Jackson & Rachel Bird family.  You can link to the blog site by several ways.  Either you can click on the link in the contributor column on this blog under Rachel - Arkansas or you can visit http://www.birdsatheart.blogspot.com/ and check us out.  I recently uploaded pictures from Jackson's recent elk hunt.  We want to do a better job keeping everyone updated on our lives and let you see pictures of our cute and growing family.  We love you all.

Hansen Happenings

Marie loves to smile for the camera.

She was so happy to have everyone so focused on her. She didn't like the hat much but the girls wouldn't let her take it off. So she tolerated it here.


Almost a month ago now Marie had her first birthday. What a fast year that was. The cake was delicious, of course chocolate. I love choosing everyone's treat flavors. Marie loved eating it and loved spearing it around to make the mess even more. We celebrated with friends at the Zoo and water park on her birthday and then Sunday had more friends to eat cake with us. Fun times.
We just got home from this years Stake Fall Festival. Peter felt good enough he manned our ward ball toss booth while the girls and I played for 3 hours. We played in the Scooby Dooo jumping booth, watched kids get dunked in the dunk tank, went Velcro fishing, played the cupcake walk and got faces painted. Lily was so happy to have a beautiful butterfly face. Maren liked getting her face painted but just kept wanting more so they gave her a ring and faked several other places on her face until she was satisfied. Funny girls. I am totally pooped!

33 weeks and husbandless:(

Today I am 33 weeks and next week I have an ultra sound with my specialist! I'm so excited to see my sweet little boy again but sad that Matt has to miss out. I don't know if everyone knows this yet but Matt had to go on a TDY(kind of like a mini deployment) as soon as we got back from Montana. He is in California at Edwards AFB. They keep having some set backs and are a week behind schedule. He hopes things will get better so that way he doesn't have to catch a last minute plane home to come meet his new little boy! If all goes well he should be home in the middle of Sept so keep us in your prayers!! For now I'm just trying to keep myself busy and make this baby hold off until daddy gets home! We love and miss you all very much! Hope everyone is doing much better!!

Stress Reliever

We dressed up for all of 20 minutes to celebrate Pioneer Day. But the girls thought it was fun. We took Mom to the zoo and found a new place where we could feed the Lorakeets. The girls thought it was fun and wanted to hold them like the baby chickens at Peters brothers house. The birds thought Moms hair was the perfect perch. Marie kept reaching for all the birds in the tree but never saw the ones a foot away from her. Thanks for coming to help and entertain us Mom. I love you. Peter is about the same as he was when we left Missouri. He is going to physical therapy 3 times a week and will see a neurosurgeon soon. So hopefully things will start to improve more quickly.

Easton's Blessing

Sherry found James' blessing outfit for Easton to wear.  It fits him really well, it's just funny for our fourth son to get the outfit instead of the first.  We sure are glad to pass it on though.  James, Grandpa Bird, Uncle Isaac, President Turner, and a friend Bro. Nichols were in the circle.  It was a very special blessing.
This makes me think of the song "Fathers Are So Special . . . with a very special love."

Easton is our biggest baby which is probably a good thing.  With his crazy, rowdy, older siblings he will have to hold his own.  It's neat to see how similar each baby is and yet how different.  Each spirit is so special and individual, but as far as looks, they've all got MCKAY stamped in their genes.

It is such an amazing blessing to have a family.  Knowing we are sealed for eternity makes every day more full of joy.  We love you! 

A CAST!!

Those stinking monkeybars!!  We must have forgotten to feed Addie her banana because she wasn't very monkey like.  She fell on her wrist on Sat.  It wasn't feeling any better on Tues. so we took her in.  It was a small crunched area on the outside of her wrist.  That was 2 weeks ago.  All they had was white casts, a little disappointing for Addie.  So her artist mother used it like a canvas.  She loves it and is excited to show it to everyone.  She let her family and some of her friends sign the back.  Today she went to get it checked with James and came home with just a little brace.  The doc said it was healed enough to let her swim and that way she wouldn't miss out on too much summer.  I think that was the easiest and shortest cast and am thankful for a healthy happy family.  She said "Now she has something fun for show and tell next school year."

Hospital Peter

You can get a photo play-by-play of the water baseball game on Peter's sister Katie's blog at http://deargoodness.blogspot.com She got a shot of Peter on the ground just after the fall. These pictures were taken after the first couple days. You can see how much Lily had been missing and worried about her Daddy. You can just see the facial slackness and eye problems in these pics.
His blood thinness is finally in the correct range. It just needs to stay there and he will be able to be released. I can't wait to get back to my own house, but I am so glad this happened by his family instead of in Kentucky.

We made it back from vacation in colorado. We had a great time. The highlight was floating down the Arkansas River. We found a rafting company that would take Bowen even though he is only 4 (they said the youngest age was 5), but since he wasn't scared of water and fit in the life jacket they took us. We did a 14 mile float over a lot of rapids. At one point Bowen - who was dressed as a giant banana in his yellow wet suit- said "Now this is what I call white water rafting, let's get this show on the road!". He said this as we were going through the 'shark tooth' rapids, it was so rough our paddles would not reach the water! Brendan and Brice had a blast too. Brice had a wet suit on too and looked like a skinny little walking stick - he was funny.

We had lots of fun and are now dreading going back to work.

Easton Arwell McKay

Yippee!  He's here!!!         8lbs. 6oz.     20 in.     A healthy, happy baby.

Easton was breach when I went to my last appointment.  He had been head down and dropped for over a week.  So it was a surprise to us all that he decided to be a gymnist and flip around.  The doctor sent me right over to labor and delivery for an ultrasound to confirm his position and an attempt to turn him.  The turning attempt was put off a few times for other mothers who were in more emergency situations.  By the time we were ready to try I was in labor.  The turning didn't go well when there was only 4 minutes between contractions.  Blood pressure and heart beat dropped so we headed to a c-section.  All went well, it just wasn't what I was planning on.  I had to be doubly dosed with the epidural to be numb which made the next day or two miserable.  That stuff just stays in my system and I couldn't get out of bed for what seemed like forever.  Thankfully much better today so I can enjoy being a mommy again!

Broken Lily

This is Lily in the recovery room right after surgery. Her hair was a huge rat nest after several days of sweaty fevers and laying on her back. Peter was her constant companion. He snuggled and consoled her, carried her to the potty and combed all the tangles out without any pain. Such a good daddy.

Coming home from the hospital the first time, with still a broken arm, Lily lay in my lap on the floor. She was wearing a diaper and told me she needed to go potty. Since we were still 10 min from home and she was in lots of pain I told her to go in her diaper. The next thing I knew I was feeling awfully warm. I was sure that everything would be soaked. But when we got out of the car Lily and the floor were dry the only thing wet was my bum and Lily's diaper was a little damp. Peter is certain that I just peed my pants and blamed it on Lily.

This is her home from the hospital still broken. She was in lots of pain and was very sleepy.



This is Lily in the hospital bed after a very long night in 2 ER's waiting for some kind of results. Her arm is in a plaster splint wrapped in ace wrap. The other hand has an IV and the board is just keeping it secure.

Lily 3 days after surgery was feeling much like herself and getting rather wiggly. I am very surprised how fast after the surgery and the pain was under control she was back to normal. She was very brave and so sweet during this whole process. I wish she had not gone through any of the ER ordeals but we did get a very good surgeon and her arm is now on the mend.

This was Lily painting her bird house 2 days before the accident. Hopefully after all the long weeks of casts and trauma this cute little arm will be seen again.

Lily broke 2 pieces off the end of the humorous bone in her right elbow. This caused the radius and ulna to detach and separate the whole joint. Because of so much manipulation in the ER the broken pieces had rotated making a difficult surgery even harder. The surgeon was able to find the broken pieces by using live xray and a 2 inch incision over the joint. The pieces were put back on and the whole joint was put back together and held in place with 2 pins. She is now in a partial cast wrapped with ace bandage wrap that she is to wear for 4 weeks. She will then go back to the hospital (as long as all looks well) and be put to sleep again to remove the pins and stitches. Then they will tell us what to expect after that. It has defiantly been an eventful month.

Its a BOY!!!

We are so excited to announce that baby bird is a BOY!! We are so very excited to know what he is now!! Its crazy to think we are having a boy! It makes it so much more fun and real!! Now we are just getting ideas for the nursery and picking out a ton of fun clothes for his arrival! This is a video of baby bird waving his hand on the right side(of the screen) like crazy and kicking mommy a ton!! He is such a wiggle worm and lets mommy know he is their all the time!!

April

Matt and Dallas up against Carsten and I.  The cars are only made for kid size people.
Our pre-game Easter lineup.  At this point they didn't know I had hidden any eggs.  They just thought we needed to find our baskets for the well-known bunny to use the next morning.


Hello family!  I thought I'd post some recent pictures from us.  Everything is growing like crazy here.  The grass, the garden, the kids, and my belly.  I won't post any pictures of the latter.  We have had a busy and fun April.  We even pulled out the croquet set, thanks Amy and Peter!  Just think 4 rowdy munchkins with wooden sticks.  We had a great time.  I had a few less plants in the back yard thanks to Dallas' beating, but it was a good, competitive game.  James and I only have a couple weeks left of course work!!!  Just a few more meals of oatmeal for dinner and breakfast, just a few more overnight homework sessions!  Can you tell I'm excited?

Spring in Kentucky

This is a little of what we have been up to the last few weeks.

We had a great Easter with gorgeous weather. We have been playing outside every day and the weather just keeps getting better. Maren had her 2nd birthday. I made her a red rabbit carrot cake and she loved it. I got my hair cut and am still getting used to the bangs. I haven't had any since I was about 8. Marie has been entertaining us all with her seal like moves all over the floor. She is such a happy sweet baby.

Thunder is Saturday so there is still time to hit the road before the big show if anyone wants to come.