BABY NEWS

So we are having a baby boy.  At least, the ultrasound technician says it is a 90% chance of a boy.  I guess he was too stubborn to open his legs well enough to be completely certain.  We are going to have to start buying some baby boy clothes.  I am excited to start looking around for some boy things.  Unfortunately, the technician also thinks the baby is a little younger than we originally thought.  She estimates the due date to be around December 20^th, instead of the ninth.  So we might be having a Christmas baby, but we will see what my doctor says in August.  Now we better start thinking of boy names.  We haven't been able to agree on any boy names yet.  Oh well.  We still have time.  So we are very excited for our growing family.

A quick trip

          Well, we have been busy visiting families this past weekend.  And it has been a lot of fun.  We always have a great time when we are able to get together.  It was a fast weekend with lots of driving, but Whitney got to meet her new cousin, Grant.

         On Saturday we went to Anna’s birthday party.  Anna is the daughter of Scott and Emily and she turns three in August, but we decided to celebrate her birthday early so we could all be together.

Here is Anna opening her presents.  She got some cute My Little Ponies toys which brought me back to my childhood when my sister and I would play with those for hours on end.

There were two little wading pools for the children to play in during the party.  I hadn’t packed Whitney’s swimming suit, so we just took off Whitney’s clothes to let her play in the pool.  Will and I were surprised that she liked the water so much because it was cold water and she has just barely started enjoying warm baths.  But Whitney got really angry whenever we tried to get her out of the water so we could do some other activities.

Whitney even got a chance to take a whack at the treasure chest piñata.  The younger kids hit at it without any blindfolds and didn’t cause much damage, but one of the older boys was able to break it open so all the kids could get some candy and some jewels and gold coins. 

We were able to get several pictures of Whitney with her cousins during the party and after Grant’s baby blessing on Sunday.

The three little ones with their parents.

Whitney has always been fascinated by babies.  She loved having two very small baby cousins to play with.  Fortunately, no one’s eyes were poked or got any scratches or anything.  Whitney mostly just liked putting her face really close to their faces and giving them hugs and kisses.  We were prompting Whitney to be soft and she did pretty good.

Dana is a bug collector and he got out one of his big black bugs for Whitney to examine.  It was funny because Whitney seemed to like getting close to the bug herself and wanted to pick it up.  But if the bug started getting close to Whitney, she would get scared and want it off of her.  I don’t blame her though; if a bug that size started crawling up my legs, I would probably not like it as well.

I think Whitney was trying to climb over Angie, one of Scott’s sisters, but then decided to stay for a little while.  I am not sure why because usually she likes to be moving around too much and doesn’t want to just sit.  But maybe she wanted a little break.  So she just sat there for several minutes.

Here Whitney gives Grant a goodbye hug before we left Portland.

And we had to get a picture of all five of them before we left.  It is hard to get a picture of five small children, so we did our best to get them to look at the cameras.  Now Whitney can say she was together with all of her cousins.  And aren’t they all cute?

We went back to Pasco for several hours before making our way to Cheney.  This happened to be the same weekend that my brother Michael and his wife Allison were in Pasco for Michael’s ten year high school reunion.  Michael and Will graduated from high school the same year.  Unfortunately, the reunion didn’t actually take place when it was suppose to, but we were happy to see them anyway.  Whitney is with three of her aunts in my parent’s living room.

This also happened to be the night that my Uncle Andy, Whitney’s great-uncle, came riding in town on his motorcycle.  Whitney saw him at our family reunion when she was really little.  I think Andy was surprised at how big she had gotten.

So it was great being able to see everyone this past weekend.  I don’t know the next time we will be getting together, so we feel fortunate for all the opportunities we do get to hand out.  Thanks for being such a great family to us Keelers in Cheney.

Back in Pasco

We have had an adventurous couple of days with my family this past weekend.  Erin and David came up from Utah, so we decided to go down to Pasco at the same time so we could all be together.  We did a lot of really fun things together; it is great being able to spend time with loved ones.  Even if it is only for a couple of days.

One day we went on a hike up Badger Mountain.  I don’t know if it was just bringing around a sixteen-month-old or if it was being pregnant, or the combination of the two, but that was a challenging hike.  My mom and Whitney and I went up the easy side, but I think it was just the long side of the mountain.  We definitely took breaks along the way to get some water and rest a minute.

Here we all chill on the top of the mountain.  It was a pretty view from up there, so we stopped for a picnic lunch before heading back down.  I figure I got the exercise that a pregnant woman needs to count for at least a couple of days.

We also did a lot of hanging out at home.  With all of us working together, we were able to finish a 1000 piece puzzle in just those couple of days.  It was nice to be able to play a bunch of games and talk while working on the puzzle and just relax to enjoy each other’s company.

Whitney has always loved dogs, but dogs have not always loved Whitney.  She is usually very nice to them, but she is a little exuberant and that scares the dogs away.  Zoey is my family’s dog and Whitney was always wanting to make friends with her, but Zoey didn’t like Whitney.  My mom came up with the idea of having Whitney give a piece of bacon to Zoey as a special treat and after that Zoey and Whitney got along fine.

Conner has this little tractor that you can sit on and push the gas pedal and it drives around.  One day he was being a nice uncle and he pushed the gas pedal and ran around the driveway with Whitney.  Every time he wanted to stop, Whitney kept signing ‘more’ and ‘more’, so I think poor Conner got pretty tired while Whitney was really happy.

This is only Whitney’s second time on a trampoline and she made us all a little nervous because she liked running close to the edge.  Thankfully, three of my siblings were also on the trampoline and they kept her from getting too close and falling off.  I don’t remember why we took her shirt off, but it came back on soon after getting back inside the house.

Will came to Pasco after work on Friday and then on Saturday we all went to Levy Landing for the day.  It is this great park which has a cool shady area with trees and BBQs, but also a beach area with a little lake for playing in.  We set up some camping chairs and Whitney decided she needed to try each one to see which she liked best.

Here Whitney and Will are on the beach and playing under the dragon.  It was a cool dragon decoration thing that appeared to be partially sticking out on the beach.

This is all three of us by the dragon with Whitney on its head.  She captured the dragon and saved the princess and all that good stuff.

The water was quite refreshing.  It was a little cool, but it didn’t start getting really cold until you moved farther away from the beach.  The bottom of the water was covered in mud.  So our feet got facials or footsials or something.  Whitney seemed to like the water for a little while, until she tripped into it one too many times and decided that she didn’t want the water on her face.

We stopped for a BBQ lunch and then there was a mud fight.

I didn’t participate because I didn’t have on good clothes and I knew Whitney didn’t want to be part of it.  But everyone looked like they were having fun.  And everyone got really muddy.

Whitney said goodbye to everyone on Sunday.  We had to get back to Cheney so Will could go to work and so Erin and David could catch their plane on Monday.  Whitney gave everyone some great hugs.  What a fun couple of days.

Picking Fruit

Today we went to Green Bluff Farmers right outside of Spokane to pick fruit.  We had some friends tell us about it last year, but we never took the chance to go.  It was almost an hour drive, so we won’t go back very often, but we all had a fun time.

This is  a picture of the farm and surrounding areas.  It is really pretty with the green trees and the mountains looming in the background.  It would be a nice place to sit and ponder for awhile or even take a short hike.

There was a funny little train just sitting on the grass outside of all the fields.  I think it is normally used to take people around the different fields for picking, but today it was just sitting there.  Whitney had to take a moment to examine it.

Whitney and I stand by this great big pumpkin.   I guess there is a big pumpkin patch in the fall and lots of people go to pick pumpkins every year.  So this fake pumpkin just stays standing all year to convince people to come back in the fall.

It is hard to tell from the picture, but this is us riding on the tractor to get to the strawberry field.  It was a really crowded ride, so we all squished together.  I think Whitney liked it bumping over the little hills and whatnot. 

I took this picture from the tractor, so we aren’t in the field yet.  But it was a crowded place because it was the first weekend for strawberry picking.  We were able to find plenty of strawberries though.  We are glad that we went in the early morning because by the time we were leaving, the farmers were turning people away because all the strawberries were gone.

Whitney did pretty good at staying on the paths between the strawberry plants.  We had to remind her a couple of times to not squish the berries in her hands or under her feet.  It got pretty warm, so I was grateful to be in shorts.  We made poor Whitney wear long sleeves though because we were worried about sunburn and bees.  Both of those were not a problem though, thank goodness.

Here is Will’s basket full of strawberries.  I had my own basket and we wandered up and down the field collecting strawberries and taking turns being in charge of Whitney.  (She tends to make picking strawberries harder).

After paying for our strawberries, we looked around a bit and got a picture of Will and Whitney in front of the “castle”.  We could have paid extra money and let Whitney explore the castle, but we decided not to do that.

So we had a great time getting strawberries.  We also picked a little rhubarb as well, but we aren’t quite sure what we want to do with it.  It has been a good day.

Happening in Cheney

Life in Cheney has been pretty normal.  We are going to do two blogposts today because there are too many pictures for just one.   And if you get bored, just read one today and one later.   Whitney had a friend over one day.  Courtney ended up babysitting another toddler in the ward whose mom felt sick; so little Jess, who is four months older that Whitney, was over for about six hours.  Whitney had a great time.

Here the two of them examine the toys.  They mostly did pretty good sharing.  Both of them being only children aren’t used to sharing with others.  But there was no major fights.

The two of them most have gotten pretty close while he was here because they give each other a “kiss”.  Oh…young love.  It wasn’t a real kiss because it ended up being chin against forehead, but it was cute and I was glad that I got it on camera.  I remember that I was extra tired by the end of the day.  Chasing after two toddlers who run in different directions is a lot of work.

Whitney loves going outside and picking up rocks.  There were a couple of days in a row last week that ended up being too cold and windy to go outside.  So Whitney has taken to going behind the curtain to look outside.  She will actually stay there for five or ten minutes just looking at the grass and things behind us.  This is Whitney’s shadow against the window.

We had to get a picture of Whitney’s bloomers.  Both Will and I noticed at the same time that the smiley face on Whitney’s bloomers were crooked.  We couldn’t just straighten it out either.  Then we noticed that Will had put Whitney’s legs into the wrong holes and the bloomers were literally on sideways.  So we had a good laugh and put them back on the right way.

This is Whitney’s ‘All Done’ handsign.  She also uses it for ‘All Gone’.  Like of we finish eating a food or if Whitney drops a toy and I ask her where it is, she will give that signal.  It is kind of funny.

On a nice warm day, we put Whitney in her coverall shorts.  She didn’t seem to mind them, but occasionally she remembered the straps on the sides and would try to pull at the buttons.  The only problem was the coveralls didn’t have snaps on the bottom and had to be taken all the way for every diaper change.  That’s a bit too much hassle for us laid back parents.

So Whitney likes the sunshine.  We try to go on walks three or four times a week.  I get more tired now that I am pregnant, so the walks aren't as long as they use to be.  Oh well.  At least we are gettting exercise.  Goodbye everyone.