McQuay Memories

Thursday, June 7, 2012

{May Books}

I got through one book this month. One is better than zero. Progress, friends, progress.

Amazing. CS Lewis takes you on a journey through heaven and hell. Very profound and thought provoking. Makes you look at "good" and "evil" in a new way. It made me stop and think about my life. Far too many times in the book I was similar to the "evil" characters more so than I would have liked. Thoughts on what is really good and what is not - what the important things in life are, and fears that humans have of being completely good. The first few chapters you have no idea what's going on but it eventually all clicks.

Super good read. I recommend it with a warning that it might teach you more about yourself which might be uncomfortable - but in a good "changing" way.

Monday, June 4, 2012

{Happy 8 Months!!}

Happy 8 Months to my Baby Girl!!!

This month has been such a big month! Evette has learned to crawl. Yes, folks, you heard me right, she crawls. On Saturday, May 19th she could take a few scoots at a time and after a few days she was crawling through the whole house! She can also pull herself up to standing position with the help of a couch, box, crib, wall....that strong little girl.

She also loves to walk holding onto our hands. I'm nervous she'll start walking soon, too! Her Daddy started walking at 8 months and I started at 9 months so we'll see.... She can't stand up on her own yet so we still have time.

She sleeps 11-12 hrs at night and takes 2 naps [1-2hrs each] during the day.

She nurses 4 times a day and eats solids for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She loves all sorts of foods - all sorts - Peas, graham crackers, pizza crust, french onion soup, guacamole, refried beans, scrambled eggs....everything. You name it, she loves it. Even if it's not food she loves it....cardboard, dirt, rocks...anything that's not supposed to go in her mouth - loves it.

I thought taking pictures when she could just roll over was difficult - now it's proving to be impossible.

[ps - notice our lack of green carpet? it's lovely...]

[ignore my toes in the next few pictures...]

"Mom!!! No more pictures... I don't want to take anymore pictures!!!!"

She won that battle.

Happy 8 Months Baby Girl!!

{Memorial Day Picnic}

On our Memorial Day the husband had the day off so we decided to take a little picnic down at the lake. We brought sandwiches, cookies, and a lot of watermelon :)

Check out her new shoes :) With all the walking Baby has been doing we needed to get her some shoes - check out her cute little sandals!

It was great to actually relax during a vacation day and not have to worry about homework which has been the case for the past who knows how many years.

{McIntosh Family in Town}

My family came into town over Memorial Day weekend. They left super early in the morning on Saturday and got here in time for a breakfast of eggs and bacon - always awesome.

Scott and Rachel then watched Baby Girl while Mom, Daddy, the husband, and I went to the temple! We only live 15 minutes from the Dallas Temple - so awesome! It was great to be able to go to the temple with my family. It had been a while since the husband and I have been able to go due to moving and vacation so it was quite refreshing to go back.

After the temple we changed our clothes and headed to Lowe's. Daddy came to help us change out the lighting in our kitchen. [Who's idea was it to put track lighting with 3 15watt bulbs in a large kitchen with no windows? Terrible.] So the husband and Daddy went to go look at lights while Mom and I went to go grab us some flowers/plants for the house.

Thanks to Mom's super good looks we got a killer price on the flowers. We thought we were getting them for a steal - a flat of 12 for about $9 - until a worker came by and told us he'd give them to us for $2/flat if we buy them today. Hooray! So we bought kazillions of flowers.

[here are just some of the one's we bought]

[we also got the lights for the kitchen and a grill - Happy Father's Day!]

After a lunch of fried chicken [thank you popeyes] we all got to work. Dad and the husband worked in the kitchen, Rachel played with Baby til she napped and, Scott, Mom and I worked in the garden. Lovely!!! The house looks so much better now!

After we finished all of our work we decided to cool off by watching Baby Girl play in the pool.

Evette loves her Grandpa

Scott climbing our tree.....

me: "Grab a picture of Scott in the tree!"

Scott: "I'm not 5 years old...."

me: "I am! Get a picture of him!"

This is as good as we got.... punk.

After a long hard day we had burgers for dinner [awesome grill] and hung out/played games.

I think we wore mom out.... I swear we do fun things and not just work in the yard and scrub toilets with her....Thank you family for all of your help!!!!!!!!!!!!

They left midday on Sunday after a breakfast of waffles and sandwiches for the road.

It was way fun to have my family over and to be able to have them in our home!! I love living so much closer to my family :)

{First Day of Work!}

This is a picture of the husband on his first day of kindergarten :) isn't he adorbs?!

Now 20ish years later here he is on his first day of work, May 21, 2012. Still adorbs :)

The husband says he loves his job so far and that it is really rewarded thus far. Unfortunately, his blog posts will probably be less frequent than they have been in the past so you're all stuck with me. I'll try to get him to write one about his thoughts on his work that's more insightful than, "He's got a grown-up person job with a salary and benefits so we're all super pumped about that :)".

Friday, June 1, 2012

{Rachel's Concert}

My sister, Rachel, is a star. She is a musical genius. She is so talented and works very hard at what she does.

She plays the french horn beautifully. I left the house while she was still a beginner and so I have not been able to hear how much she has grown musically until recently. Rachel was always dragged to all 3 of her older siblings' band/choir concerts and then we all moved out of the house and have been unable to attend hers. Now that we live in Dallas I have the opportunity to travel only a few short hours to hear her perform! Woot woot!

So, on Tuesday the 22nd Baby Girl and I loaded up the car and headed down to Houston for Rachel's full orchestra concert. It was absolutely lovely! They had a great selection of pieces that were exciting and quite moving. There were also some killer horn parts and Rachel even got a few solos. Did I mention she's only a sophomore? yeah, she's pretty awesome.

I'm so glad I was able to go listen to her concert! Proud of you, Baby Sister!

[She's the gorgeous horn player right in the middle]

[Special thanks to Daddy for watching Baby Girl during the whole concert so I could sit and listen to Rachel. Evette was not a fan of the applause and is a bit too vocal to sit through a concert at this point.]

From Evette

Momma and Daddy have been pretty busy the last couple weeks so I've had to keep myself entertained. I usually pretty good at it. Some of the things I've done these past few weeks are:

Playing with bowls of water on the kitchen floor...