Sprinkles

I've had 2 doughnuts covered in sprinkles over the last week or so. In the last 10 years I haven't had that many. :)

This past weekend, Shannon and I chilled at home, with no visitor and with no visiting. That was after our first week with Shannon back to work full time and me home alone with Keagan. Besides the obvious that I'd much prefer Shann to be home too, it went well. Keagan and I visited stores for food shopping, napped, ate, played, and watched World Cup soccer. By the way, it's too bad we lost to Ghana, but they played better than we did that game.

I haven't been taking many pictures this past week. But here is a decent one.


Keagan holds her head up pretty good now. Still wobbly, but there are times when it's very steady. She will turn her head when laying on her tummy. She makes more noises than crying now. And speaking of crying, that has gotten a lot less too. Although at 9:00 pm, she usually just cries, for no apparent reason, just to cry.

She is fun to hang out with. Smiling is becoming not only more common, but something I can cause now too. :)

Meeting 37 People

Last Tuesday Shannon and I took Keagan on her first long trip. We drove through Wichita to Garden City. Driving time was about 7 hours. And she was good for all but 30 minutes of those 7 hours. She got hungry but we were close to my mom's so we just drove through.

So what did we do? Well, Tuesday we left around 3:00 and ate dinner with Mom, Jayme, Maria, Charles, and Nikki at Hanger One Steakhouse. It wasn't bad. The knives to cut the steak sucked a lot, though. After dinner, we headed to Garden City. We got there around 2:00 am and met Gary, Michelle, Jenette, Chris, and Cassidy at IHOP. That is significant because Michelle got back from England the day before. We hadn't seen her in about 6 months. And it was the first time we got to meet Cassidy! She is a cutie! (Number of people met: 4)


Wednesday we went to a funeral reception for one of Rhonda's friend's father. We knew him also from church and hockey. It was nice to see people we havn't seen in a long time (and some I've never met before). (Number of people met: 5 + 4 = 9)


We did a lot of hanging out. We had food, watched World Cup soccer, did some shopping at Sam's Club, played games, went on a walk to a garage sale, and other such things. My mom worked in Dodge City last week, but had a hotel in Garden City. So, she spent the evening hanging out with us too. :)


Friday, Grandma and Grandpa in Lakewood came down! They brought with Randy, Jonathan, and Major (Randy's beagle). That was awesome! So they ate dinner with us and and hung out on Friday too. (Number of people met: 4 + 9 = 13)


Then Saturday was the main event, Grandma Fuller's 91st birthday party. We went to her house around noon and were there till around 11:00pm.


There were a lot of people there! I'm not going to try listing them all, but Rhonda and all her kids and their families were there (1+1+3+3 = 8 people), Marsha and all of her kids and their families were there (2 + 6 + 3 + 10 = 21 people), Grandma Fuller, my Mom, some of the Dick family (3 + 1 + 1 = 5 people), and a bunch of Grandma's friends that I don't know! So, there were about 40-50 people? (Number of people met: 21 + random + 13 = 37)


We had lots of food and cake. More games were played. And I got to meet Mason! He is a cutie.


We put together the pirate kite that we got from Newgen a while ago and tried to fly that. The kite is sweet, but the wind was not good enough for us to fly it very well. Shannon got it up a few times, but it wouldn't stay up long.


We had a party of people go out to fly it and had some come out to Grandma's driveway to watch also.


Then Sunday (yesterday) we did our last day of hanging out. It was Father's Day and we had two first time dad's with us, Shannon and Chris, and 3 other father's too (Grandpa Dick, Gary, and Kevin). So we ate at Lone Star and they did a great job this time. Which means it will likely suck next time, that's how they roll. But it was really nice to eat a meal with everyone (there were 15 of us there).


I'm so glad that I am a part of two great families and that these two families basically act like one big family. I am very lucky to have been close to my mom's family growing up. It stinks that we are so far apart now, but I always feel loved by them and going back to see them never feels like I'm a foreigner. And now, I have Shannon's family to be a part of (and have for the last 9ish years). They are all great people, too!

I'm glad Keagan gets to have so many great family members!

The Beginning of the Aunts and Uncles

Friday night Jayme, Charles, Maria, and Nikki came down from Wichita. We just hung out on Friday night, watched some Startles, or Star Worlds, or Star Wars. It was quite fun to watch with Nikki. She's now quite 4, and it was interesting to have her tell you about what was going on. :) She's such a fun kid and cute too!



Then Saturday we went to the Fox and Hound pub to watch the USA versus England World Cup game. It was packed and pretty fun. I'm glad we ended up tying instead of losing. :) Keagan was pretty good the whole time. Mostly just sleeping and then being in an alert wake state the rest of the time.


Saturday evening, me and my sisters went to Walmart to shop for dinner and Sunday's food. It was about 40$ for everything. So much cheaper to eat at home then eat out! We then came back and cooked some food, ate the food, and watched more Star Wars. Oh, and we went to the new prototype Quick Trip. Everyone got something fun. Shannon got me an iced hot cocoa and Maria got a horchata smoothie. :) Crazy.


Sunday (today), we made grilled fruit and waffles (just like with Mom). Yummy! It's so good. I didn't know that I'd enjoy grilled fruit as much as I do. Thanks Grill Masters cookbook! After some more Star Wars and some chillin', the siblings+ left. :( It was great to see them and spend some time with them. I wish we all lived closer, but maybe one day we will.


I had a nice time. Also, things are going smoother with Keagan. Each day we learn more about how to read her. And, she's getting SO much better at holding her head steady, especially when she's not sleepy.

Grandparents

My blog (and just about all of my time) has revolved around Keagan for the last three weeks. Which I guess is to be expected since that's about when she was born.

She has now met all her grandparents (not great grandparents). My mom was here for her birth and her first 5 days. Most of what we did during that time was just take care of me and Keagan. A lot of cooking, cleaning, sleeping, and talking. No real adventures (outside of learning to breastfeed, but that wasn't a fun adventure). Well, I guess we grilled some fruit and waffles again. Delicious!


Then Shannon's mom and Dave came up. They helped out a bunch and were here for almost a week. Dave even mowed our lawn for us while he was here. :) But that trip also consisted of mostly just cooking, cleaning, eating, and taking care of Keagan (I didn't really need too much care by then).


I tried to find a picture of Keagan with Rhonda and/or Dave, but I don't have one! We'll have to fix that this coming week.

Then we had some time to ourselves before Shannon's dad came up. He got here last Saturday and left yesterday. We did some shopping, tried to go to a baseball game (but it got canceled), and still did the eating/cooking thing.


Now, she will start to meet her aunts and uncles! Today Jayme, Maria, Charles, and Nikki are coming. :) Then next week she will get to meet Jenette, Michelle, Chris, and a bunch of other people!

Keagan Lesson 1

Lesson 1: Keagan grunts when she is pooping.

Funny story to go with lesson: The other day, she was grunting and pooping. You could hear the mustard squirting. I went to change her diaper when she was done. Only to be proved wrong. I undid the diaper just in time to hear a poo fart that was accompanied by, well, poo. It was projectile poo and I just happened to catch it in my hand!

Why Cry?

It's really hard, almost impossible, to know why Keagan cries. She was so good today! She ate well, slept well, smiled a lot in her sleep. But around 9:00, she just started to cry. Really, really hard. Is she hungry? Well, she ate about 20 minutes before crying. Does her diaper need changing? We just changed it. It was super-poopy. Is she hot? We took her dress off. Is her diaper too tight? No. Checked that. Does she hurt inside? Well, I'm guessing not because you can calm her down, the crying isn't constant, just inconsistent and really hard.

:( Poor Keagan.

:( Poor us.

But she's a cutie!

My current family. :)
(My face looks fat.)

First pictures "with" Keagan and Cassidy.

Yaaawn.

First Day Alone

And by alone I mean, just Keagan and I. I spent half a day yesterday with just the two of us, but today is my first full day with Shannon at work and Keagan and I home together.

It's been fine so far. I had a doctor appointment at 10:30, so most of the day has been spent getting ready for that and doing that. Plus I ran some other errands while we were out.

The doctor said everything is looking good so far. Asked how I was feeling, if I had any questions, and then I made an appointment for 4 weeks from now. I still am not supposed to do "bad" things for my incision for another 4 weeks, but that is fine. I don't want to cause more problems. As long as Keagan slows down on the weight gain (she was 8lb 13.5oz on Wednesday), then I shouldn't be lifting over 15 pounds. :)

She was crying a lot for a few days, and I know crying is normal, but I think a lot of it was gas. I've been making a better effort of burping and that seems to help. Also, I'm learning her "I'm hungry" hints. So instead of me waiting until she's crying hard, I can usually tell before she even starts crying. Which is much nicer. :)

I can not get this picture to turn!