Family Visit

Kathy's sister Nancy and her family was the first to arrive for Thanksgiving week...soooooooo happy to see the baby!

Next was Kathy's sister Marlene and her kids - Samantha and Aaron - are featured below.

It happened to be Samantha's birthday when she arrived, so grandma made a special cake - with special candles. Turned out they were hard to blow out while holding a baby!

Here are a sampling of the cousins that Kaelyn has joined. From left to right - Kerry, Samantha, Kelly, and Aaron, are the youngest four of the 10 cousins (now 11) on Kathy's side.

Everyone had such a great time holding the baby and did such a great job of cuddling with her. She will surely miss all the company!

Grandma enjoyed some belly time. Apparently good for getting the "gas" out, it also provide at least 10 minutes of fun for baby. She gets to show off her strong neck and arms - seems to be ready to crawl. I think we're in trouble!

1st Thanksgiving

Our First Thanksgiving! The only Thanksgiving where Kaelyn will be smaller than the turkey!

More visitors!

Helen and her mom Kathy came to see us. Unfortunately Aiden was not available for the photo - we have to make some time next week for the two of them to get together!

Mentor and colleague Robin came to visit little Kaelyn. It was her first lunch out. He's smitten, as you can see!

Our friends Chris and Megan, with their twins Lucie and Ryan (visit their blog on the right...) came to visit. They brought a yummy lunch. It was the first time we had additional children in our house and it went really well. Of course, Lucie and Ryan are little angels, so that helped! They really liked the baby - Lucie even put a little blankie on her so she stayed warm!!

Andrea had been trying to see Kaelyn since day 2 and she finally made it. I think she could have held her all night ;-)

First Photo Shoot

Today was our first official photo shoot. Tim Otto (www.timotto.com), who was our wedding photographer, came to take Kaelyn's first pictures. You'll get to see them in the announcement when we send that out. I took a quick pic of Kaelyn in her "pre-photo" dress (didn't want her to spit up or do other things on the fancy dresses for the "official" photos. Her cousin Delilah bought this cute white diddy. It was finally warm enough for her to wear short sleeves. The outfit is completed with Mary Jane socks from our friends Megan and Chris. Too bad you can't completely see them in this pic - they are really cute.

Here is a sneak peak of one of the dresses she's wearing for the official photos. She did pretty good for the photo shoot. Of course, she got fussy after outfit number one. Leave it to mommy to think it was a good idea for a costume change mid-session! I got these shots after Tim left and her tummy was full again. Hopefully Tim's will be even better since he is a much better photograher than I!

Grandpa, grandma, and our first dinner out

Hard to keep Kingston away from his baby girl!

We went out to our first dinner with our good family friends Ken and Debbie Dubs. Their son Kenneth and his wife Erin just had a baby boy (Joseph Henry) two days after Kaelyn was born. We like to sing "Joey and Kaelyn sitting in a tree..."

Although grandchildren are old hat to this grandpa (Kaelyn is #11), Kaelyn enjoyed her turn on his lap! He loves to watch her smile ;-)

Dad's First Bottle

Here's dad's first bottle feeding. The doctors say to wait 4-6 weeks to introduce a bottle. We waited two. She's doing great with it and so is Mikey!

Here you can see how much she's eating...isn't she growing fast? She officially weighs 10 lbs now and is 22 inches long! She gained 1 pound and 1 inch in less than 2 weeks!

Fun with Mom and Dad

Mom and dad are really getting the hang of things. We even made it to a 1st bday party for our friend Aiden.

Dad loves the Baby Bjorn - makes multi tasking helpful. Kaelyn sure likes to be held all the time ;-)

She's been sleeping 5-6 hours at a time once per night so the bags under our eyes are a little less this week.

Visitors for a very popular girl!

Kaelyn has had about one visitor every day since coming home from the hospital. She's very loved and her mommy and daddy appreciate the extra pairs of arms and of course - the food!!

Stacy got some happy baby time!

Cousin Karen is an expert at keeping Kaelyn happy and quiet! Of course, Kingston loved seeing her but was sad the visit wasn't exclusively for him...

Mommy's friend Karen came to visit - with presents and treats for Kingston and Fremont too!

Aldo came and again made the dog very happy!


And posed for a quick photo with the baby.



A visit from Shari!



And finally - grandma and grandpa Rippy arrive!