Daddy's Girl

Daddy's girl -- no question about who she looks like. People try to tell me that she looks like me, but that's only because they haven't seen Kevin, or haven't seen her with him. She lights up like a Christmas tree when she sees him and there is no mistaking where she gets her smile.

Afternoon nap

Uncle Knucks/Sweetheart Dance

Friday, Feburary 10 was Copper Beach's annual Sweetheart dance. It is the once a year opportunity the girls have a chance to take a speacial man in their life to school and show them off and dance and eat junk food. Hannah has many special men in her life and has previously taken her Granddad, Uncle Bob and Kevin, but this year she took Uncle Knuckles (James). The two of them got all dressed up (they clean up good) and went to the dance and from all accounts had a great time.














Earlier in January we got to let James know how special he is to our family and surprised him with a birthday celebration complete with an ice cream cake with a few candles on it.

Hannah's 1/2 Birthday

Because Hannah had never had an "Official" Birthday party -- one where you invite friends and everything, on or about January 13 we threw Hannah a Happy 1/2 Birthday birthday party complete with theme, decorations, cake, friends, etc., etc... (I'm not sure how I let the guilt get me talked in to these things). At any rate, the planning and decorating was a lot of fun and Hannah was so excited about having her friends over I wasn't sure she'd be able to wait for the afternoon to finally come.

Finally, the time arrived and the party started. Everyone seemed to have a good time, but I think Hannah's friends commented that her mom yells a lot.



At least we've now had the obligatory party and Hannah turned 9 1/2 in style.

More Fun

Everyday is something new. When we finally quit weebling and could sit up in the middle of the room unassisted, well, you can see how proud we seem to be of ourself.

Holidays

Christmas is one of my favorite holidays and it has nothing to do with the packages. We spent Christmas Eve at church and all of the kids sang in their respecitve choirs. Kevin even met us at church when he was finally done working. Christmas day was kind of laid back -- we actually slept in till almost 8:00 o'clock (don't anyone rat me out to the kids that I used to have to get everyone up before 5:00 a.m.)

The day after Christmas the Jeffersons all got together, which has become a wonderful family tradition. Bob and Beth are kind enough to always host the family gathering at their house (they're in the middle for everyone). We all looked forward to the first Christmas with all three babies and they did not disappoint. The twins shared Mary Elizabeth's dinner and tried so hard to play with her. The best part of the day for me, and I think for Beth, too, was when we presented Mom and Dad with the portrait we had had taken of the seven grandchildren, complete with a choronology of the day attached to the back, along with the picture we had taken with Santa as an added bonus. Needless to say, another wonderful and successful holiday.

Everyday stuff

I don't think Jason realizes how much the dogs love him. He just gets annoyed with how they follow him everywhere. Here Rusty is watching Jason play computer games. Maybe Rusty is thinking that if he had opposable thumbs he could play, too.

The new kitchen is the center of the house and the best place to be in an exersaucer so that you can see what is going on everywhere -- everyone has to pass through the kitchen

Mary Elizabeth is getting computer lessons from Mallorie. Not quite sure that's a good idea. Between the computer and the phone I'm not sure we'd ever see Mallorie if she had her way.

Here's Hannah!!!


Mary Elizabeth with her Aunt Meghan -- she was able to get one more day in this outfit so her Aunt Meghan could see her in the outfit she got her -- you can see that gut starting to stick out a little.

Halloween

Halloween 2006!!!! Jason was Dr. Evil (from Austin Powers), Mallorie was a beautiful witch and Hannah was some sort of fairy witch. Mary Elizabeth was our little flower. She let us dress her up and pose her in a giant flower pot!!! We went trick or treating around the neighborhood and the older kids got their fair share of candy -- and them some. This is probably the last year we'll all go together, I'm sure the older ones will start having more grown up things to do, but we had alot of fun this year.

Flurry of Activity

As you can see, there is always something happening at the Keys household. We have the regular dance off, the occasional pony ride and of course tubby time.

Mary Elizabeth loves her bath -- especially now that she can sit up in the tub and play with her bath toys -- rubber duckey is still the favorite.


Even when she's tired, Mary Elizabeth is agreeable.

Updates

Well, I'm sure we will have lots of posts in the next couple of days just to catch up on all the goings on around here with photos to share, but then I promise I will slow down a little bit. At any rate, here is a picture of Rusty watching over Mary Elizabeth -- this was taken just a couple of days after we got home from her heart surgery. I have to say that for all the fear and anxiety associated with the entire experience -- her being sick and then going into heart failure before we got her heart fixed -- the doctors and nurses at CHOP were absolutely wonderful. It was a stressful time, but the entire family pulled together to keep on keeping on while I stayed in the hospital with the baby. Who knew that I would miss the chaos of my own house but after a while having nothing to do but wait for things to happen gets very old. She certainly was a trooper and now you would never know there had been a problem.

Mary Elizabeth

Clearly I am a little behind in communicating with everyone, and I know that these pictures of Mary Elizabeth are now outdated, but they're still precious. These pictures were taken on Memorial Day Weekend, 2005, when Mary Elizabeth was not quite a month old, though she looks older than that here.

She certainly has grown since then and she is now bigger than the Winnie the Pooh she is laying with. Mallorie, Hannah and I enjoyed her first photo shoot -- the photographer came over to the house and set her up while we watched in amazement as she posed her for all her different shots.

She continues to amaze us and I will really need to post some more pictures from the last nine months -- can't believe it has flown by so quickly already. She's doing her best to stay my little (well not sooo little) peanut, though. She still plays with the crawling idea -- she scoots all over the place on her butt, but just doesn't seem all that motivated to crawl. We kind of figure she has decided she doesn't really need to put forth all that effort because there are always so many people to answer her every need. She's been a lot of fun this past year and the whole family is getting a real kick out of her -- even Hannah who was the most skeptical about the whole baby idea.

Hello!!!

Thought I would try my hand at blogging so that I could share pictures and happenings with our family so far away. Often I talk to some of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but not all of the people all of the time and I often forget what I've shared and what I haven't, so this way I can share with all of the people all of the time and will be less likely to forget to pass along some of the very funny happenings around our never dull house that tend to keep me in stitches most of the time. Hope you all enjoy hearing about what my "set of keys" are doing as much as I enjoy experiencing them.

Pam