A Sister for Kaylee

I have been woefully slacking in the announcement department.  I'm not sure why, but I would be remiss if I did not document the arrival of my second niece with equal fanfare and excitement that I did when Kaylee was born!    Megan Alexis was born March 6th weighing 10lbs 11oz and 22" long. 

She arrived early, but healthy and happy.   They kept mommy a bit longer to help make sure that her blood sugar was acting appropriately, but I think Jennifer would agree that the delivery of Megan was a much more idyllic situation than her first delivery with Kaylee.    Hooray for happy and healthy. 

Grammie was probably equally if not more excited than the proud parents.  You see, grandbaby #4 was the first that she got to meet BRAND NEW!   Yes, with both Ace and Mae they were over a month old before she got to meet them, and when she met Kaylee she was nearly two months old, so to meet hour-old Megan was a special treat and a special experience just for Grammie and Megan to share. 

Megan has of course been thriving and at her one month appointment was pretty similar in weight but had stretched long, just like her daddy.   She is a good sleeper and I am told she loves to be hugged and cuddled.  

When Megan was just a few days old, I finally got to *meet* her... via Skype.   Sadly it hasn't worked out just yet to make a trip there personally.  Still trying to work that out.   Ace and Mae both enjoyed seeing both of their cousins.

Megan has already enjoyed her first holiday and season change which has included evening walks with the family, trips to the park with her big sister, mommy and other Auntie, and lots of warm weather to get used to.  :)

Kaylee is a great big sister and loves her sister and Derek is loving being a dad of two.  Here is my favorite picture of my little brother to date.   Cuddling in the rocking chair with his two daughters.

Welcome to the world, sweet Megan!   I've enjoyed every picture of this little girl that I've been given and can't wait to meet her in person!  And after nearly two months they have finally given me a family of four picture!  

Friends, Family, and Fun!

I always love when I get to go home. It isn't often that I get to go, but when I do it is fill with so much fun and so many people to visit and it is always exciting to show off my newest addition to the family: Mae! Ace is ever changing too so it's always new and exciting for people to see him too. :) I love my family and friends in California and love that I am blessed with them and the ability to go and visit them all.

We ventured to LAX from NOLA on Sunday, July 10th after a very successful airplane ride, wahoo! Shelley picked us up from the airport and we headed home to enjoy some Bakers! WOOHOO! (Why can't that food make it out of So Cal???) Ace was SO excited to get to Grammie's house to play. He had his own itinerary of "1. Play, 2. Go to Grammies, 3. Eat" and he stuck to that schedule. :) He had a blast. Becky came over and I got to rub her baby belly and talk to my soon to be nephew! It was nice to spend time with friends and family. After a while at home we ventured over to my other parent's house and showed off the kids there while Shelley and I played with camera settings. :)

We headed home after that and met up with Derek, Jennifer, and Ace's cousin, Kaylee! Where they gave him his birthday present in person, a pirate hat and an eye patch! He was in love.

 Ace and Kaylee played together a little bit, at first Kaylee wasn't too interested in sharing, which was amusingly caught on film...

But later she came around and wanted to read to Ace. Ace is a year and 2 weeks older than Kaylee, but they are just about the same height. It's adorable to see the two of them together. Playing and reading together. Ace after 20 hours of being awake with the exception of a 20 minute nap finally went to bed.

I was really glad it worked out to see my brother. Originally with his work schedule being shifted around it was iffy if I would see him at all. Thankfully, they made it work - even if my brother was a bit more sleep deprived because of it.
Monday was pretty low key. Ace received his birthday present from Grammie and he enjoyed playing with that: bug hunting gear! We spent some time just relaxing, running errands, actually having 'nap time' for Ace and just not doing much. :) It worked out nicely. Ace was so excited all day that 'Aunt Shelley' was coming back, he kept saying that he missed Aunt Shelley - even got super excited when he saw the back of the neighbor saying "Aunt Shelley's here!!" (sadly she was still a few hours away from her visit.) It was so cute how excited he was to see Aunt Shelley.


Tuesday and Wednesday were Disneyland Days! Oh boy! Lots of fun was had on those days. :) Look for separate posts upcoming for those.

Thursday was another low key day after the craziness of Disneyland the two prior. Derek and Jen brought Kaylee back over, along with some toys to entertain Mae and all the cousins played together for a while. It was cute to see them interacting together. Derek had to head to work and so was only able to stay for a short while, but he and his niece got some good bonding time. :)




Friday was another low key day and then in the evening we went over to Becky and Dave's place with Shelley and Kelley. It was nice to all be together and hang out. Ace of course was super excited to spend time with Abby and Isaiah. He's really starting to enjoy playing with other kids and he LOVES Abby. :)


Saturday was the much anticipated baby shower (a separate post to come!) followed by a birthday party for my brother whose birthday happened to fall on the week that I was in town. It was nice to all be together to celebrate. Ace had yet another late night of going to bed after playing with his cousin and playing 'the leader' as they ran around the front yard playing with glow in the dark chalk that Derek had bought and put together. Shelley and Kelley stopped by and hung out for a bit and we obtained the grandma shot with all three of the kids. :) Derek and Jen finally left around 11:30pm and I finished packing up the suitcase and my mom and I went to bed.


Sunday morning once again we were off early during the underwhelming 'Carmageddon' and heading to the airport to say goodbye to a great visit to California. Until next time!

2010 in Pictures

California Cousins

I'm not sure how I managed to skip this post when I was blogging about our California Adventures, but somehow I did *GASP* and that was the noteworthy event of Ace getting to FINALLY meet his cousin Kaylee. They are almost exactly one year apart. Kaylee was born last September 8th, so when we visited she had just celebrated her first birthday. She's adorable! She looks like her daddy so much.

Ace and her did great playing together. It was funny, Ace who typically is an excessive sharer... to the point of being taken advantage of even - exhibited his first sign of attachment and selfishness with his cousin Kaylee when it came to his tiger. It was adorable. He wasn't mean or forceful, but he looked at me like WHAT?! when she had him. He also when playing with the little 'house' that my mom had kept saying he needed the keys and when he finally found a set of keys (because that house has none) he locked the door! hahaha we found this extremely amusing. Even though he 'locked her out' he really wasn't being mean about it - just expressing his opinion which he ultimately relented to when she came crawling through the 'locked' door anyway. :) It was pretty adorable.

I wish that we lived closer - I'd love to live closer to my brother in general, but to be able to allow the cousins to play together semi-regularly would be so awesome. The time they did have together they had fun and we still say prayers for them on a regular basis, so they left a lasting impression on Ace. :) Can't wait to see them again, I hope it's sooner than later!

Memorial Weekend!

Why on earth would I travel ALL the way to San Diego to see a movie?! Well, because I can :) and if you saw my post from yesterday, it was my turn. :) It was a great three day weekend to spend with friends and family! I was able to see some of my closest and dearest friends and all of my family! I even was able to meet my adorable nearly-nine-month-old niece!

I left home early, hugging my Bear goodbye as I departed with my sis-in-law to the airport in the wee hour of 6:45am (that's an icky hour for a Saturday!) the airport was pretty calm for being a holiday weekend. The flight was uneventful and I landed in San Diego around 11:30am. Becky and her family picked me up from the airport and we headed to my favorite Mexican restaurant! It was great to spend some time with all of them, after that we dropped off Dave and the kids at their hotel and Bec and I went to the mall for some girl time :) After a few hours shopping we headed north to Carrie's house. Where I said goodbye to Bec, and Carrie and I started to get ready for our evening of girlie excitement!

We decided that ordering in would be the best bet, since predicting the amount of people around the theater and in restaurants was impossible, and we didn't want Carrie in her very pregnant state to have to stand for a long time - we ordered in Thai food and made cosmos and fosmos (2 real ones for Lys and Christine and 2 fake ones for us pregnant ladies!) We then snapped a few pictures and headed out to the theater.


We arrived in time to get in line - which only had about 10 people in it ahead of us - we stood there for less than 5 minutes before they let us in and found our seats front and center. There were a told of like 20ish people total in the theater - so it wasn't packed or crowded. Which was nice and we were glad we hadn't arrived an hour+ in advance to 'get in line' :) We all enjoyed the movie and headed home.


Carrie and I stayed up and watched more SATC episodes for a while and then headed to bed. The next morning my mom and Shell met us at Carrie's place (Carrie and Jason had headed off to church already) I told my mom that I was pregnant and then we headed out to meet the rest of the family in Old Town. It was nice to tell my Aunt and Uncle and then my brother and his wife and I got to meet Kaylee! I was so excited to finally get to meet her. :) She's adorable and has the sweetest temperament.

After some time wandering around Old Town we headed out and went to Sea Port Village on the beautiful sunny day! It was such a gorgeous day! We wandered around the stores, I stole Kaylee and Shell and we went to the hat store and I had fun torturing styling Kaylee in all the cute hats. :) After we had exhausted Sea Port Village we headed out to grab some dinner - we ended up at Carl's Jr. (We don't have those in the NW, so it's another Cali staple I like to grab when I can.) and afterwards departed ways. Mom and Shell took me back to Carrie's and Carrie and I enjoyed our evening with more SATC and relaxing.




We woke up the next morning and headed to the airport (at a more reasonable hour) with a quick drive thru at Starbucks first :) It was an excellent trip! I wish it could have been longer but I accomplished at lot in that time. It was a lot of fun!

Kaylee's Blanket

Ok it's been eons since I gave Kaylee her blanket, but it has taken me forever to post this blog about it. Yes, I've continued to be crafty as the weeks trudge on - in fact after Christmas presents are dispursed there will be a few more crafty blogs to come! However, since this was a Welcome to the World present that was handed to my favorite niece in September I certainly can blog about it now!

Yes, this project was done using the Pound of Love yarn in Lavender and the pattern that came with it. The pattern is relatively easy and it took me a few weeks of leisurely working on it to complete the blanket and only an hour or two to complete the hood and attach it to the blanket. I realized I could have made the blanket a tad larger since I ended up with about a skien worth of yarn leftover - so good to know for future blankets made using this pound of yarn.

Of course before shipping it to my brother and his wife I had to take pictures. Not wanting to have Ace complain in years to come that I dressed him in a purple blanket, so I used a teddy bear as my model.

I shipped Kaylee's blanket to her along with several outfits the day Jen went into labor. I was so excited to become an auntie! These pictures of Kaylee in her blanket are when she was just a few weeks old. She's so cute. It's hard to believe that she's already three months. :)

This one is just funny :)

Wordless Wednesday

My niece Kaylee, 6.5 weeks old.

She's Here!

I'm an auntie!!! We are all super excited that Kaylee has made her appearance (3 weeks early!) Please say a prayer for Derek, Jen & Kaylee. Kaylee is in the NICU being monitored and getting her blood sugar regulated. She's improving wonderfully. Jen still has not been able to hold Kaylee, as she herself is still recovering from the C-Section and getting a small blood transfusion to make up for what she lost during delivery. They are all in good spirits and it looks like Jen will be able to leave on Sunday or Friday at the earliest. Kaylee will be ready to go about the same time.

I've set up a blog for the new family of three here. More pictures are posted there!

Kaylee Lynn
September 8, 2009 at 11:17pm CST
10lbs 14oz and 21.75" long