2009 has come and gone. We welcomed Baby Joe (Joseph Michael) into the world on August 7th of this year, which easily is the highlight of our year.
Makenna is almost 3 years old already. She’s come a long way from the first posts of this website. She is very smart and observant and wants to know about everything. She has been fascinated with Santa Claus and the moon lately.

It’s championship time again, and as you can see, Makenna is ready for the big game this weekend. The Storm are in the championship game for the for the 5th straight year, having won the last three. So it’s number 4 that they are looking for.

The family has been doing very well. As you can see, Makenna is growing and getting bigger. She has a lot of curly hair, but also a lot of attitude to go with it. Our daycare provider is on vacation this week, so Mom & Dad are splitting time watching her and going to work. It is so fun to watch her experience things and learn at the same time.

Some of what she knows: Nose, Ears, Mouth, Hands, Belly Button
Some of what she says: Mama, Dada, Dog, Hello (sounds like Lello), baby

Recent pictures have been posted to the photo album, so be sure to snoop around!

We must first apologize for being so bad at updating this website/blog. A lot of great things have happened since the last post and we must share them with you.
First of all, Makenna was baptised. It was a small Saturday night service, but it was performed by Pastor John, whom also was the pastor that married us. Because grandparents and godparents were all in town, we decided to celebrate Makenna’s first birthday a little early.
Which leads us to the second big happening; Makenna turning 1-year old. Can you believe it? We hardly can. This has been the best year of our lives. Makenna continues to fill our lives with joy, hope and laughter. We find ourselves saying, “She is so awesome!” all the time.
And finally, Makenna’s learning curve. She is now walking, however, it is very much like Clyde the Orangutan in Clint Eastwood’s “Any Which Way But Loose.” She is also very good at signaling “touchdown” and giving people her “lineman face”. She can clap, wave good bye and give you a “high-five”. She loves playing with Izzy the golden retriever, as she will roll into the dog and get her to lick her face and nudge her around with her snout. Very funny to watch them play together.
Please make sure to head over to the photo album for some updated photos of our little one-year old.

Makenna’s Birth (10 Month) Announcement

Merry ChristmasGreetings from the Aldrich Family (dot org).
Makenna’s first Christmas was great. We traveled to Wessington Springs, SD (just over 100 miles west) to spend Christmas with Great Grandma & Grandpa Edwards and their family. Makenna received gifts of clothes and dolls, which she adores. And she gave us a gift on Christmas Day while spending time with her Great Grandpa; she waved! It was awesome.
Makenna fell right into line with the family on new year’s eve and day, when we spent most of it watching college football bowl games while eating mom’s famous nachos and chili. Makenna had to eat mushy squash and sweet potatoes though! As Makenna went to bed early (lightweight), she didn’t get to celebrate the midnight new year’s, but mom & dad did while watching Dick Clark’s special. We also found out that one of Mike’s players, Matt Lien, was at a party with Dick Clark later in the night.
We hope everyone has a safe and happy 2008! We can’t wait for what the year has in store for us, as 2007 was unforgettable.

Things are going well in the Aldrich household. We have all had our turns at getting sick and battling colds, strep throat and now rotavirus for Makenna!
Thanksgiving was awesome as we traveled to Minneapolis and spent the holiday with Grandma A, Uncle Matt, Auntie Chrissy, Uncle Al, and cousins Amanda and Lisa. It was a lot of fun and we have a lot of pictures in the album from the weekend.
We also have added more pictures from the past months, so check them out.

Well we have officially been slacking when it’s come to updating the website. Mom and Dad have been working so much that we haven’t had time to sit down and let everyone know how things are. Mom has been going into work at 4:30am everyday and putting in 50 hour work weeks, while Dad is in the middle of the football season (which speaks for itself).

Makenna is now 7 1/2 months old and is every bit awesome. She hasn’t learned how to crawl yet, but she is right on the brink. She is scooting everywhere and she just needs to coordinate her arms and legs to work together and off she’ll go. She is rolling around like a log in the water too. As soon as you lay her down on her back, she’ll flip over on her tummy right away. Make it difficult to change her diapers sometimes!

Makenna is starting to eat solid food as well, including her favorite, peas! Along with the news of her eating beginning to eat solids, we officially felt the little nub of a tooth on her lower gum, right in the front. Can’t wait to see that fully grow in!

We had some of the Augustana football players over tonight for our defensive back party, where we serve ice cream and root beer floats. The boys just grab Makenna right away to hold her, play with her and even feed her. Some of the guys have dubbed her as their official house mascot. It’s neat to see these 18-23 year guys showing their sensitive side around baby Mak.

We have recently uploaded some pictures from the summer, so please check the photo gallery when you get a chance.

This is a big week in the Aldrich household. Makenna turned 5 months on July 1st, can you believe that? She is making all sorts of noises and loves to hear herself. She is becoming so aware of her surroundings and people, and she interacts with people either through smiles or little noises.

July 3rd was the 3rd Anniversary of Kristen and Mike’s wedding day. Can’t believe that it has been 3 years, seems like it’s been much longer. In a good way!

And Izzy dog will be 2 1/2 years old in the next week too. We had a little scare with Izzy last week as we found an infection and a lump on her back hip. Mom took her to the vet and after doing tests and a biopsy (and a couple long days of waiting), we found out Izzy contracted a staff infection and the lump was her body reacting to the infection. The lump is just about completely gone and the staff infection has been treated with medicine and is almost all gone as well!

Finally, today is the 4th of July. In the middle of the week is hard to go anywhere, especially with work tomorrow and football games on the weekends. But we have big plans for a long family walk, making homemade ice cream sandwiches and going to a friends house for a cook out. Then try to find somewhere cool and bugless for Makenna to see her first firework show! Be sure to check out the new pictures in the gallery!

Baby Mak had her 4 month check-up and shots yesterday.  Everything went great and the doctor said she is very happy with Mak’s growth.  She weighed in at 11 lbs., 5 1/2 oz. and was 22 inches long.  She is still on the small side in terms of the growth chart for 4 month olds, but she is also 7 weeks early, so it is to be expected.

She did well with her first shot, but the second and third were doozies!  The second shot drew some blood and Makenna was going to scream so loud that she couldn’t even get it out of her mouth right away.  It’s not hard to see them give her the shots, but it is very hard to see her in pain, knowing we are supposed to be protecting her from the pain.

But she eventually calmed down (because of her mama) and slept real hard after that.

Memorial Day weekend was a huge success for the family.  We road tripped out to Denver, Colorado to visit Grandpa Grohs for his 60th birthday.  Mak was awesome the whole car trip.  She slept the whole drive.  We stopped every 2-3 hours to change and feed her and she handled it very well.  It was good for the Makenna to see all of her great aunts and uncles from the Grohs family, of which most had never seen her before.

Grandpa Grohs couldn’t keep his hands off her and even jumped at the chance to change her when we first arrived.

There will be pictures from the weekend that will be posted soon!