New Pictures!

So it seems I only update the blog when we get new pictures

Better late than never, I always say :) 

Sam is 3.5 and Olivia is 1. (I'm 30 and Jake is the ripe old age of 31.) 

Sam is a hilarious little boy. Every time I hug him I think "he's getting so skinny and big!" 

Sam is becoming a Lego maniac. I'm fine with that because I love playing with Lego's too. 

It's one toy I can get him and it will ensure both Jake and I will play with him lots. 

(HUGE SPIDER just crawled across our floor. I think I want to move!) 

The other day Sam was telling me that he wanted to go on a picnic to Lake Hastings. He wanted sandwiches with pepperoni and frosting. Gross. So I kept ignoring him and took ham and cheese sandwiches. He kept telling me he wanted pepperoni and frosting. (lol...) So we got home and for dinner he wanted pepperoni and frosting... and I kept thinking about it and thinking... 

Finally I thought "He's thinking Miracle Whip!" I laughed and got out the Miracle Whip to make him a sandwich... but nope. He saw the bottle of Miracle Whip, and the container of frosting....

He really did want the frosting. 

Whatever. He's nuts. 

Olivia is this crazy little girl. She's super sweet but she's got an attitude. 

One day about a month ago I had put her down for a nap and I could hear her waking up.

She wasn't making a lot of noise so I left her there for 30 min or so to play. 

When I walked in to get her, I was almost knocked down by this horrible wall of poo smell. It was so bad!

So I look at her and she has poop on the floor, all over her stuffed animals, 

a VOLCANO of poop coming out her pants, and all over the crib rails and slats. 

Nice. 

So I put her into the tub where she's contained and I use a million clorox wipes to clean her crib. 

I hear Sam going into the bathroom and tell Livvy "That wasn't very nice!"

lol...

So I get everything cleaned up there and I head in to clean up the girl. I take her clothes and diaper off and start the water. I got a cup and started throwing the water all over the tub so I could corral all the solids at the drain and then pick them up before I started washing her. 

I turned my back to get something to grab the solid poop with.... 

turn back around...

and she picks up a piece of poop and eats it. 

AAAAAAAAAaaaaahhhhh. This girl is nuts. 

At least it was just a raisin. She probably chewed it better the second time around.

And I didn't fish it out of her mouth. 

I was done with her poop by that time.

Jake and I - We have been married 5.5 years now. 

We began in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2007. 

Moved to Nacogdoches, Texas in 2009.

Moved to Lincoln, Nebraska in 2010. 

Moved to Hastings, Nebraska in 2012. 

Couldn't decide which to keep - black and white or color.

So I kept them both in.

Love these kiddos - even though we have our crazy moments :)

This girl LOVES her dad. Yesterday (Father's Day) it was my turn to get up early with the kids. 

Which always basically means Livvy. She's the early riser here. 

So I had given her some milk and set her on the ground. 

She got her milk and walked back to our bedroom to see Jake. 

She fell a couple of times, but she was so determined to climb up on the bed to see Jake and take her sippy cup of milk. 

Cute little girl. 

Till next time!

Olivia

Well, we are a family of four now! 

Olivia Claire Keller was born May 9, 2012

She weighed 7lb and 4 oz and was 20 inches long

She's beautiful and we love her already. 

Our good friends, Ammon and Liz Ashby came by the hospital and took some pictures - they are awesome. I had a hard to choosing which ones to post. 

This girl has some serious hair. 

It's one of my favorite things - I was hoping for a girl with a bunch of hair and I got it! 

When we first found out we were having a girl I was a little scared. I felt like I knew how to be a mom to a little boy but a little girl would be a whole different ball game. And I didn't (don't) want her to be super girly. I want her to wrestle and get dirty and play sports. But I don't really get that choice. But so far so good - I think it has been so fun to put a bow on her and let her wear some (not a lot!) of pink. :) 

The blanket in the photo below is AWESOME. It was really easy and I used this tutorial from Dana from MADE. I would recommend it for anyone with a new baby. It works especially well for Livvy because she's a summer baby and it allows me to wrap her up really tight without making her too hot. It's a gauzy material and I sewed stars on it and I have another one with teal swirls. 

Seriously ignore my face in this picture. I don't know what I was doing. But I love this pic because I think Jake looks so cute. He's quite my handsome man, huh? I think we have really enjoyed having a newborn around here. With Sam I feel like we were both a little nervous, but this time we are more relaxed and just enjoying every minute. It also helps that Livvy is a super easy baby. Last night (4th night in this world) she went 6 hrs without needing to eat. I was asleep for 4 1/2 of those hours, but she's super awesome. I mean, what's to be nervous about when that's what your dealing with? She's great! 

When we were getting close to having Livvy I kept wondering if I was going to like having a baby again - not the whole labor process, but more of the newborn stage. I mostly love the 2 1/2 year old stage Sam is in right now. I'll have to report how it is having one in the newborn stage and one in the 2 1/2 year old stage. I'm sure some days are going to be absolutely insane and others will be really fun. Right now Sam has been really funny about Livvy. The first time he saw her, he said "Hey Mom! There's a baby right there!"

This morning while I was helping him get breakfast before church he kept laughing at Livvy. I had set her on the ground in the boppy pillow after I fed her. She was just sucking her fist and she had the hiccups. Sam said "it's eating her hand!" and "It's making noises!" Then he would just laugh. What a sweet little boy. :) 

And this is the only picture of them both I have right now. So far Sam is adjusting well. I think it was more weird for him that I was gone and grandparents were here than that we have a baby. Jake's parents were so awesome to come and literally take care of everything. They played with and watched Sam, cooked, cleaned, stocked the fridge, etc. Eva and Sid are absolutely amazing. My parents come tonight and I'm looking forward to spending a week or so with them. Then reality will hit and I'll see how it is having two kids with a husband at work and no help. Maybe I'll go insane, maybe I will be fine. 

P.S. Any suggestions on how to NOT go insane with two or more kids? 

So Lame So Lame

This blog is SO lame. Oops - I obviously don't update well.

So here's the low down on us:

1. Jake's parents came to see us in the middle of November! It was SO NICE to see people that I knew from before my "Lincoln Life." We played a lot and went on walks. I love Sid and Eva - they are the best "in laws" I could ask for. Sam had a great time, and I was able to get some good time off. I love grandparents :)

2. We had a great Thanksgiving. We stayed in Lincoln with friends and had a couple of feasts. It was wonderful and even though we weren't able to be around family, I love when I get to the point where my friends become my family.

3. In the midst of November, we were travelling back from Lincoln to Hastings (both in Nebraska) to find a place to live in Hastings. Wow - can I just say Hastings is NOT a renter's market. It was SO HARD to find something to feel comfortable in. We looked at a lot of homes that should and been condemned. Even some apartments that should be condemned! For example, there was this one old home we looked at. It was really old and to say it was a 2 bathroom place, they stuck a shower in a bedroom closet. You just open up the door and there's a shower curtain and a shower. Fishy, eh? It was scary. We finally found a place we could live with but we weren't too happy about having to sign a year lease (seeing that we only KNOW we will be here 6 months....)

4. December 3rd Jake turned 30! HA HA! I can't believe he's 30. I always thought that was SO OLD :) We celebrated by taking Sam to the babysitters and going out to eat at Red Robin. Poor Jake, I chose where to eat because I was craving a garden burger.

5. December got crazier by us moving - I don't remember the exact dates, but I think it was a Wednesday night we had some ward members (so many - THANK YOU) come and load all of our stuff up into a U-Haul. We stayed at our apartment that night and Thursday morning I went to get a massage (Happy Anniversary to Me from Jake!). Jake drove the U-Haul to Hastings and a friend watched Sam. Then I picked up Sam and cleaned a bit of my apartment (a sweet girl from the ward was already cleaning it) then Sam and I drove out to Hastings. We unloaded our stuff and spent Thursday and Friday unpacking.

SIDE NOTE: Friday morning was HORRIBLE - We were SO tired from all this packing, unpacking, moving, unloading, etc. So Thursday night we go to bed about 9. Friday morning at 5:10 or so our upstairs neighbor's alarm goes off! It's that BEEP BEEP BEEP over and over. I get up and get a bowl of cereal thinking he will turn it off. 15 minutes later it's still going. So I ring his doorbell. Nothing. His car is in the garage, but Jake convinces me that he's not there (maybe a friend picked him up or something and he left his alarm on). So we clear stuff off the couches and make a bed for us in the living room thinking the noise won't be SO LOUD. Nope - we can still here the beeping in the living room. So we head back to the bedroom to at least be comfortable even though we can still hear the beeping. But I turned on the bathroom fan and it kind of drowned out the beeping noise (it's about 7 by now - the alarm going off for OVER an hour!). I want to shoot this guy with a sniper rifle. Seriously. So - about 7:30 I'm getting back to sleep, and guess what? Mr. Upstairs Neighbor WAKES UP! And he proceeds to get ready for the day super noisily. So I'm awake. I can't sleep through that. And then Sam wakes up at 8. I swear I could kill that guy. I wanted to go out and talk to him at 7:30 but Jake told me not to. Anyways - Jake went to talk to him later that day about sharing the garbage can. Then Jake just said offhand "We heard your alarm go off really early this morning, like 5 or so..." The guy just said "I don't know what you are talking about - my alarm doesn't go off until 6:30." So I called management and told them how ridiculous it was - they agreed and talked to him about it. Since then his alarm has woke me up once again and Jake had to go up and knock on the door. Thankfully the guy now has a roommate who was awake and told him to shut off his alarm (after about 15 minutes of it going off). There's not many people I can't stand, but he's one of them. And I've never met him. I've really only seen him twice when he was getting in his car and I was looking out the window. Anyways - back to our moving in...

So we spent that Thursday and Friday unpacking (and not getting a lot of sleep!). Then Saturday morning we woke up at 4:30 and drove to my parents house for Christmas.

6. Christmas in Monticello was awesome except there was no snow. We played a lot and relaxed. I spent one day with my sister and her kiddos. She has a new baby who is FAT! He is MASSIVE. At three months, he weighed 18 lbs. That little boy is a chunk. Sam didn't get to be 18 lbs until he was 6 months old, and I thought Sam was a fat little boy. But we had a great time in Monticello with family.

7. Christmas Eve we drove up to Jake's parent's house and spent 4 to 5 days there. We saw his sister and brother in law we hadn't seen in a year. We played and relaxed so much there too! I got Jake some awesome high powered dart guns for Christmas. He shot me both in the face and the crotch (accidentally) and I hit him hard. We ate some yummy Indian and Chinese food there and played a cool new game called Sabetour. It was really fun and Jake and I want to get it.

8. Then we drove back to Hastings Dec 30 and started a new life here. Since then I have just tried to stay busy. I really miss all my friends in Lincoln - there was always someone to hang out with and Sam had a ton of friends and so did I. Here it's different. We have a children's museum pass. It's definitely not as cool as the Lincoln Children's museum, but Sam doesn't really know the different. He just has a lot of fun - which is important. We also got a YMCA membership. This has been really great for me because I've been able to work out regularly and they have a child watch so I can go during the day and Sam can hang out. They also have a great little climbing area that Sam really loves. So after I work out most of the time we go climbing or to the children's museum before we come back from lunch and naps. Then we intermix that with some Toddler Time at the library and I do have one friend here (I'll get to that later!) and we try and do play dates once a week. Different from Lincoln, but it's pretty good here.

9. We're having another baby! Ha - I bet you suspected such seeing that I never update, but I guess that's not too out of the norm, is it? So I've been sleeping and puking instead of blogging. I'm 25 weeks now and we are due May 9th. This pregnancy has been pretty similar to the one with Sam, I was just lucky enough to have Zofran from the beginning. I got my regular Dr. to prescribe me some pills at 6 weeks. I still was super nauseas and threw up, but it wasn't as bad as with Sam. After we came back from Christmas we had my ultrasound and the baby was super active. So the ultrasound tech didn't get an awesome view of the baby, and she only checked ONCE, but she said it looked like a GIRL! Ha - I don't know if I believe it. But I'm still buying little girl clothes and making girly blankets. But we will see when she/he comes out if we name them Max or Olivia. Oh - and the sickness has not left! My Dr wanted me to wean myself off of Zofran. So I've got down from 2 pills a day to 1. So Friday I forgot to take my pill immediately in the morning, so I thought, "Why not? I'll try to go without it today." I was fine for the day, but the night came and I was puking again! Seriously? Doesn't this qualify me to have other women have babies for me? Just get my egg, Jake's sperm and grow the baby in their bodies that don't hate being pregnant, then give the baby to me? I want more kids, but this pregnancy thing is crazy.

10. Another random, but tender mercy from the Lord. So while we were trying to find a place to live in Hastings, we were in contact with the ward and bishop here to see if they had any information on housing. They didn't, but that's because there is nothing here. Anyways, the Bishop had heard from this other couple planning to move to Hastings in January about housing. He asked us to tell them what we had heard about the options. So we end up calling them and guess what? I was college roommates with the girl! YEAH! We only lived together for a summer and didn't hang out all that often, but it really made me feel like at least I would know someone. So they have a little girl about 7 months older than Sam (also named Olivia - if this baby is a girl he's going to be confused with 2 Olivia's!). So we hang out and I swear if she didn't move here I wouldn't have a normal girl to girl conversation at all. The only hard part is they moved into a house about 20 miles from Hastings, so they don't come into Hastings every day - So we just see them about once a week for play dates then at church. But even that little bit is better than nothing!

11. I AM DONE WITH SCHOOL! I finished my last paper and I am done! I should be getting my diploma here soon and I can officially write my name as Stephanie Kaye Keller, J.D. :) So now I just need to get a schedule together so I can start studying for A bar. I don't know which state to take it in yet, but I will probably take it in Utah. That way if we stay in Nebraska, I can "waive" into Nebraska's bar. (Nebraska's bar will accept my Utah bar pass). But since the Bar is only offered in July and February, I will probably be taking it February 2013. I don't know if it's in my capacity to take a bar when I have a 2 year old and a 2 month old. Maybe a 3 year old and a 10 month old. Does that even sound better? I hope so! I'll try anyways. :)

12. Sam started doing some really great independent type things: He can now climb up and down into his carseat. YEAH :) Now I don't have to lift him up and down - which was really hurting my back being pregnant. He just climbs up into the 4-Runner (tough boy) and into his seat and helps me buckle himself in. :) We also took the front of his crib off so now he's in a toddler bed. I was really afraid for his that he wouldn't sleep as well (or nap at all) or get out and play early in the morning etc... But there really hasn't been a change with his sleep habits! I asked him last night if he liked his bed this way, and he said "Yeah, but I fall." Lol! poor little boy has fallen out of bed a couple of times... We keep a couple of blankets on the carpet so it's not hard, but he's a tough kid. I think the first night he fell out and just kept on sleeping. I went to check on him and he was just sleeping on the ground. Lol... I love him. :)

Well, I'm tired and I've got to get to bed! I'll try and not have my next post be pictures of a little baby.... Hopefully you get more updates before that!

Pictures

Last week Sam turned 2! I never thought I would be a mother to a two year old.

He's beautiful and so fun to be around. I mean he's handsome, right? :)

We had a Lightning McQueen (from the movie Cars) cake and friends over. He's obsessed with "Queen" and always carries as many Queen cars around as he can.

We are doing good - we are probably in our last semester here in Lincoln and are getting ready to head out for an internship in Hastings Nebraska in January. We will see where life leads us after that!

Sorry about the lack of updates, I just couldn't help but share this picture - he really is the cutest little boy I've ever seen.

When did we get here?

As usual, I'm not good at keeping up.

But here's a bit of info from today. We had a stake softball tournament today and our ward WON! Awesome! I only played in a scrimmage game, so I can't claim too much credit, but it's my claim to fame. :)

While I was playing in the game Jake was with Sam. Sam actually had a good time watching. In the last inning (like I really know softball/baseball talk!) I was in the outfield and we needed another player so Jake came out too. I was keeping my eye on Sam and saw him walking around with his little snack cup and playing. He went behind a little building and came back out a couple of minutes later. It wasn't a very long inning and we were done. We slapped the other team's hand and Jake and I said to each other "When did we get to the point where we could leave Sam to play by himself and we can BOTH play softball?"

Life is grand isn't it? I love this stage.

He's a climber!

Stinky Picture

So the picture above stinks but I'm done messing with blogger for tonight!

This is when Emily (Jake's sister) and I took Sam trick or treating at the law school. He really didn't like it until the end. Too bad! But we got a lot of candy I'm still eating. :)

I made his costume! He's Pigwidgeon from Harry Potter. :)

I'll get a better picture of his costume on here soon! I'm just lazy uploading photos from my camera now that my computer is dead. Oh well!

Good news: Only THREE more weeks left of classes! Yipee! I can't believe I'm almost done! Only two more classes after this semester and I can sign my name

Stephanie Keller, J.D.

Jake thinks it's a little arrogant to do that.. you know, mostly on the roll list in church or something. I don't really see the problem. ;)

UPDATE - sorry - I changed the picture again! I'll get a picture of Sam in his awesome Owl costumer with his tail featers.. :) Sweet!