Keeley's Firsts

First Visitors
After Sareny got home from school, Bampa brought the kids to come and meet their new baby sister.

This was Sareny's first glimpse of her.

Finley is a really sweet big sister.

Isaac likes holding the baby too.

Apparently the above photo is the only pictographic evidence that Grammy Jo was in fact present. :( We did get a picture of Bampa holding his newest granddaughter.

And the next day John, who was in Arizona visiting his mom and dad who were unfortunately both in the hospital at the same time, came by to see her for a couple of hours before he had to head back to Chicago.

First Kisses

It was pretty much love at first sight.

First Footprints

First Bath

Any guesses how much she loved that experience? Not at all.

The nurse held her up for me to take a bum picture, which I hadn't been planning on taking, but apparently this is an important photo opp...

A nice amount of hair on the back of her head. Not so much on the top.

She pretty much cried throughout the entire experience.

First Time Wearing Clothes

Welcome to the world, baby Keeley

For a variety of reasons, none of them medical, I was scheduled to be induced on Monday, April 30th. My due date was May 6th, and I was kind of glad to avoid a May birthday since the beginning of the month is already kind of busy with Mother's day and our anniversary. Anyway, we were told the hospital would call anytime after midnight on that day so we all went to bed at a reasonable hour just in case. As it turns out, they called right when our alarm went off to get Sareny ready for school. It worked out perfectly except that Lexi ended up with no time to get ready, because the plan somehow got confused and she got Sareny ready for school instead of Bampa. We straightened that out and she threw on some clothes in record time and we took off for the hospital. Because I was being induced, grammy and bampa were both able to come to our house. Grammy Jo and Lexi came to the hospital and Bampa stayed home to take care of Isaac and Finley.

Being induced was way different than going on my own, because we just kind of sat around waiting, and I was perfectly comfortable throughout the experience. Here I am, waiting for some action.

Lexi decided my hair was a little bit too much wild wahine, so she straightened it while we were waiting for the pitocin to kick in and do something. Grammy Jo helped out by feeding me ice chips, and I checked out was on the TV. Which was nothing.

After a couple hours had passed, I started to feel some of the contractions. They weren't super painful, but I wondered why I could feel them again, since I had an epidural. I asked the nurse and she didn't seem concerned about it and sat and chatted with me for about 10 minutes. Then she decided she might as well check me. Once she did, she said in a falsely calm voice, "I'm going to go call your doctor right now so he doesn't miss the birth of your child." This was maybe about 5 hours after they had started the pitocin. The doctor came in and told me to push on my next contraction. I felt one coming and started pushing. I hadn't finished my first push when the dr. said, "That's enough pushing!" and I heard a little baby girl crying. She was crying before she was all the way out and kept it up for quite a while.She wasn't sure about this new world where she was poked and prodded, and I don't really blame her.

This picture was taken immediately after she was born and they put her up on my tummy. We called bampa and the kids using facetime on the ipod, and they got to see her just seconds after she was born as well. That was pretty cool. She cried the whole time we were talking to them.

Still crying...

She liked when her daddy held her.

I wish I had a "hi kid" sticker for this picture, but oh well. Maybe someday she will be mad at me.

Keeley River was born at 3:25 pm and weighed 7 pounds 13 ounces.

In this picture you can kind of see Keeley's old man hair. She came out completely bald on top, with a nice ruff of hair along the bottom.

Lexi and Grammy each got to hold her, although I have no pictures of Grammy holding her. I am holding myself blameless in this situation, since I was laying in the hospital bed relatively oblivious to the world and with legs that wouldn't have supported me for half a second if my life depended on it. Grammy Jo was going to cut the cord like she did with Finley, but at the last minute she said Lexi could do it.

Me and my brand new baby girl, less than an hour old.

She finally settled down and slept.

She was just so precious and sweet!

Wearing the giant hat some sweet old ladies must crochet for the hospital.

Build a Bear

The kids got giftcards to build-a-bear for Valentine's day and we took them to make their bears on April 22nd before we had a new baby to deal with. After picking out their bears, which was no small feat, they each had to help fill their bear and go through a whole routine with their bear's hearts.

They took this job very seriously.

Finley was so cute making sure to push all the buttons when they told her to.

Then she had to rub the heart on her knee.

After getting filled, the bears were on to the tub.

Finley picked out this cute little bunny, which she named Rainbow. She and Isaac had been wanting to name the new baby Rainbow but since I knew that wasn't going to happen, I suggested it for her bunny. She was hugging her new bunny so tight, it was very sweet.

Isaac picked out this monkey that he dressed in a navy outfit. He named him IJ Isaac.

I don't have a picture of just Sareny with her bear, but she is the only one who got an actual bear. She picked out this cheerleader outfit and named her bear Odystelly. They were so adorable with their bears.

Then they put their new bears into their boxes and proudly carried them home with them. We had such a fun outing!

Adult Prom

Our stake is part of a tri-stake prom for the youth and since they put on such a good production, they hold an adult prom night the Friday before the youth dance. This year we finally decided to check it out, and had a great time. It was held on April 21st and was just over a week before I was scheduled to be induced to have a baby girl. We went with a bunch of people from our ward and ate at Arriba's Mexican Grill. Which I don't think I'll ever be able to eat again, since I ate too much that night and ended up getting really sick and puking in the middle of the night. No fun.

We had a really huge group, and met up with even more people at the church that we knew. The decorations were really cute, and they even decorated the outside entryway to the building. It hardly even looks like a church.

This is probably the silliest picture I have ever seen. I think I was standing kind of crouched down so as not to appear taller than Keith, and the result was that my belly poked WAY out. Everyone I have shown this picture to has burst out laughing. Honestly, while I felt this big, it was really only the strange angle that made me look this big. But go ahead, have a good laugh.

We really had a great time just seeing people and hanging out with friends, because let's face it--we didn't actually dance. And that was just fine by me. I mostly just wanted to get out and be social!

The Bow Monster Attacks

One day Finley put all these hairbows in Lexi's hair and said that she was the bow monster. It was pretty cute, and she was pretty proud. We also celebrated Lexi's birthday on April 13th while Grammy Jo was still here . Scott came over with a cake he had made for her.

Easter

We had a really nice Easter this year. The kids got to inspect their baskets in the morning before we headed out to church. The Easter bunny gave each of them an adorable outfit, along with some candy. Since we have to leave our house at 8:00 to get to our building for 8:30 church, the Easter egg hunt had to wait until we got back, but the kids were certainly scoping out the hidden eggs before we left.

I like to take a picture of the kids on Easter Sunday, but the above picture wasn't so fabulous. We tried again when we got home, but the results weren't much better.

And then the hunt was on.

In addition to the regular eggs, they each got to find two special golden eggs that had a dollar in it.

There were quite a few eggs hidden!

Then we colored Easter eggs.

Everybody had lots of fun making their eggs special.

Lexi, of course, made some eggs as well before she had to head of to her late church.

Cute kids!