Keeney Latest

Some of the latest pics of the girls. They are having so much fun playing together and Emma gets sad when Tess isn't able to play with her on certain things. Soon enough. You'll see pictures from Koben's birthday party and also Hailey's birthday party. Such cute friends! Tess enjoyed being outside and has really gotten the hang of the toy, she now runs and runs around in circles while she plays. The pictures toward the end of Tess looking out her crib are some of my favorite...this is how she greets us in the morning or after nap, she basically will talk and talk and sometimes yell until we come in and she's staring at the door the whole time watching over her crib bumper. Just seeing those eyes are so cute and then she smiles and laughs when we get there. Favorite sounds. Then you'll see Emma taking pictures of Tess and of me. Cute.

Tess is 7 Months Old

Tess is now 7 months old. Though she thinks she is much older. She is really trying to crawl and can spin herself around on the hard wood floors in the kitchen. She is also able to run circles around her walker. She is so big.

First swim trip & Tess sitting on her own

We have hit some milestones this month. We finally took the kids swimming and both Tess and Emma had a great time. Tess continues to grow and is turning into a beautiful little girl. She has started sitting on her own and playing with her toys. Tess is also working on her first two teeth. They should pop through any day now. These girls are so cute.

Christmas 2009

So the season is over but it takes a little longer to get things published with two kids under three. We had a wonderful Christmas again this year. Emma really, sort-of, kind-of, knew what was going on. We had Becca, Todd, and Issac over for Christmas Eve brunch. We enjoyed going out to see lights and opening Christmas jammies (Abbey made them) on Christmas eve. In the morning Emma was amazed at the presents under the tree. I made a magnetic chalk board for the girls which I think turned out really nice. After fighting the wind and the blowing snow when finally made it to the Georges for another Christmas with Dave, Debbie, Brian and Laura. Along with Laura's two great danes and Dave's new puppy Maci.

Tess is 6 Months Old

Tess is now half way through her first year. She is getting so big. She is getting much better at sitting on her own. She has the rolling from back to front down but gets stuck on her arm when trying to roll back over.

Holiday Time

Holidays are so much fun when you have little kids. We have had a very fun month decorating and doing fun Christmas projects. Cody the Elf has joined our family and has been watching over Emma and Tess. He returns to the North Pole each night and reports back to Santa. This years tree again comes from Abbey's parents land. However instead of the Charlie Brown tree, we decided to go with a shorter wider version. I think it looks very nice. Both Tess and Emma look really cute in their Christmas outfits. They both also did very well when visiting Santa last weekend.

Friends are always fun to have around during the holidays. Hanna and her family came over so that the girls could decorate cookies and exchange gifts. As always they were super cute together. I think the goal of the evening was to see just how many sprinkles they could get onto each cookie. We also made a trip down to Littleton to visit Becca, Todd and Isaac. We had a yummy breakfast and then went to St. Nicks which is a shop where Christmas exploded. Lots of fun.

Tess is 5 Months Old

This post is about 15 days late. Here Tess's 5 month pictures. So cute and getting very big.

Thanksgiving 2009

Some pictures of Thanksgiving up at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Dave has some really cute pictures that I'll add when I get copies. Tess seemed to love eating her high chair tray for Thanksgiving. We managed to get Dave's 19 foot Christmas tree setup with only minor difficulties. Dave caught the tree as it was falling over. Not the easiest things to setup. We also got a very nice tree from their property for our house.

Keeney Thanksgiving Party

Our annual Thanksgiving party was Saturday. The party has grown over the years and we are getting close to the point where the kids out number the adults. The party was another success, everyone having a fantastic time. The kid lineup (Koben, Max, Emma, Riley, Rachel, Molly, Tess, and Anna) has a few new kids this time. The newest member is Miss Anna Rose who is almost a month old. Betsy is due in early March and Leanne is due in June. Next year we'll have even more kids! So much fun! Thanks for all the great food and the good times.

Keeney's Latest

Just a few fun pictures of the girls. We went to the zoo and say a burning car in the parking lot. Emma had fun watching the firetruck and police. It was a nice warm autumn day. Unfortunetly it was also free day, which we did not know, so the zoo was paked. Tess is getting so big.

Halloween

Halloween was a lot of fun again this year. Emma was a very beautiful princess and Tess went as a pea for a princess and the pea theme. We tried to find Emma a carrot costume but had no luck. We met up with Parker who was a very cute Minnie Mouse. The big girls actually understood what to do this year and they had a blast. Now we are trying to figure out how to limit Emma's candy intake.

Tess is 4 Months Old

Tess is getting SO Big.

Tess's First Cereal, Pumpkins, and More Snow

Tess's is getting so big. She now plays in her stationary jumper and can also sit and play in the high chair. We gave her her first rice cereal last week. She did very good, only gagging a few times. Abbey forgot how much fun it was to feed babies stuff other than formula. We had Hanna and her family over to carve pumpkins last weekend. Juli found a cool Mr. Pumpkin Head pieces which worked really well for younger kids. We did carve two pumpkins and toasted some yummy pumpkin seeds. We got another snow storm in the middle of last week, causing mommy and daddy to have a snow day. Emma and daddy had a lot of fun in the snow again. Tess looks adorable in her pumpkin onesie from Grandma Keeney and her doggy hat.

Anna Rose

Our friends Rick and Allena gave birth to baby Anna Rose Kendall. She arrived a little early, and by emergency c-section. She is in the NICU now, but is doing very well. She weighed in at 4 pounds 14 ounces. Please keep her and the Kendall family in your thoughts.

Anderson Farm, Riley's 2nd Birthday and the Denver Half Marathon

Last weekend was action packed. Saturday we took our annual trip to Anderson Farms for their fall festival. The girls were super cute. Emma and Daddy rode in the barrel train again this year without dad getting stuck. This year they had a pumpkin cannon that shot very large pumpkins several football fields. There was also an alpaca that was less than 24 hours old. Sunday morning at 4:30am dad left for Denver to run the half marathon. Had a really good race and seeing my girls at mile 12 was a major emotional lift. Was sort of disapointed that I did not decide to do the full marathon. We then went to Riley's 2nd birthday party. Had a fun time visiting with friends and watching Em play with the kids. They are all getting so big!

First Snow

Last weekend we had our first snow. Emma was just getting over a week long sickness and was happy to get outside and play. It's typical for us to get an early fall snow storm and than warm back up for a month. All this snow was gone by Sunday afternoon. There are some pictures of family dinner "parties" were Tess is doing great in her bumbo. The cats continue to sleep anywhere they can squeeze into. And lastly there are a few pictures of the cabinet that has been sitting in our garage for the past year. It was a real POS when we picked it up off Craig's list but after some hard work turn out very nice. Abbey added the very cute squeezey pumpkins to add a fall feeling to our dining room.

Tess is 3 Months old

Tess is now three months old. Man the time goes by fast. Getting so big.

Elk Bugling 2009

The annual trip to Estes Park for elk bugling was again a success. This was Tess's first bugling. A little rain and snow and pretty cold but a lot of good elk. We even saw two groups of bull elk fighting which is sort of a rare occurrence. Tess slept for most of it but this year Emma was much more aware. Emma has a very good impression of an elk bugle. Remember that scene in Dumb and Dumber where Jim Carey makes the most annoying sound in the world? Sounded pretty much like that.

Keeney's Latest

Here are a few pictures of the girls, well mostly Tess. She is growing so fast and has excellent control of her upper body. Tess seems to enjoy "tummy time" much more than Emma did. She is rolling from her tummy to her back very consistently now. Her smiles are often and beautiful. She has become much more vocal and will talk to her "buddies". Her current favorite one is the black and white cow towel.

Snowmass Balloon Festival

Here are some pictures from our trip to Snowmass for their annual Hot Air Balloon Festival this past weekend. You'll see a picture of Tess with crud in her eye, that was a while back and mostly for the doctor to see. Lots of pictures of the hot air balloons, our ride in the gondola, naked donut eating (just Emma as this helps with the mess), our quick walk around Maroon Lake, and then pictures of the Balloons at night lit up by their fire. It was a really fun weekend and the kids did great. We enjoyed the condo we were in and everything went very well! Emma did great sleeping on the pull out couch too. There are pictures at the end of the drool hanging off Tess' chin. This has been her only symptom of teething so far, no fussing at all, just a lot of slobber! Super cute girls.

Differences

Tess and Emma are different kids in many ways. Emma would stare and talk and coo and babble at us for EVER. Tess, while she does this a little, much prefers talking to her animals, the mobile or any other object (including her favorite, the blue hand towel in the bathroom). She is too funny and her face just lights up when she see them, like "hey buddy, where have you been?" and then just smiles and talks away. Day care has even commented about how much she talks to her "animals" on the mobiles. It's too funny. She definitely cares more about her "environment" than Emma did. Perhaps Emma will be the psychologist and Tess the scientist?

Tess versus the cardiologist

This journey began when Tess had her 2 month wellness check and her pediatrician heard a "flow" that was slightly abnormal, "but nothing to worry about" and referred us to Children's Hospital Heart Institute. He was adamant that we shouldn't worry and could even wait to see someone until after her 4 month check so he could see if it was still an issue. We decided to go ahead with the eval since I was already mental about it. Plus, there is a slight family history of issues, though not serious, but I have a mitral valve prolapse and even though it is mild and a non issue, we want to make sure she is as fine as possible and if not, catch it and treat it as early as possible. Knowing these tests were non invasive also helped convince us to do it now instead of later.

So today was her evaluation. It was an interesting trip. First, beyond emotional was I...goodness, between wanting to throw up or cry, my body couldn't decide which to do. Luckily I just cried. It started when the nurse brought us into the room. The tears were flowing. I apologized, just let her know I was worried. She was wonderful and very comforting.

They checked Tess' blood pressure which I assume was fine as they said nothing to us about that. Then we moved into another room. It was time for her echocardiogram. Another room, with a naked baby. They hooked her up to a machine and we got to watch her heart on the ultrasound machine. Lots of blue and red colors and movement. I could see 4 chambers, that made me happy.


Then back to the second room. Then came in the EKG machine. They hooked up, I think 12 electrodes to her tiny little chest with wires coming off all of them. This took about 30 seconds once she was still. So far so good.



Then came in a cardiology resident. He examined her and asked us questions, was also very nice. While he was listening to her chest he commented that he heard the same thing her pediatrician heard and that "I don't think it's anything to worry about". In comes the cardiologist.

She was very quiet, somewhat impersonal. Not reassuring. She listened to her chest. Mumbled some medical terms to the Resident. She then asked him if he "heard the clicking", he said no and they both listened some more. Then she said, to him, nothing really to us at this point, "we need to go get the diagram". Out they both go. After a minute of me freaking out in my head "my kids heart is not supposed to click!!!" I kept screaming in my brain....she came back in and said "she's ok" or "she'll be fine", something to that effect. I let her know, politely, that she may want to lead with that next time. Here comes the waterworks again.

She proceeded to tell us that there are two issues. 1) (pulmonary stenosis) she has a slight "clicking" in her pulmonary valve which indicates that this valve is "thicker" than normal, but not an issue. She said this is something that "only improves with age" and is so minor that nothing needs to be done. 2) (atrial septal defect) every baby is born with a small hole separating the top two chambers of the heart; majority of babies this closes on it's own shortly after birth. Hers has not closed yet, and she actually has "several very small holes" all along this portion. Again, she says "they are so small we don't need to do anything" and assures us that Tess will likely outgrow both of these going on to lead nothing short of healthy and happy life, and likely not have these issues in the future.

We do a re-check in 6 months. Tess is growing very beautifully, eating, sleeping, and acting perfectly. There is nothing to be concerned about for her and like the doctor said, she will probably outgrow both of these conditions.

As far as what caused these, from what I can tell from online information, these are both genetic or random occurances that happen in utero before 8 weeks! They don't really know the cause.

Here are some websites if you want to know more about either of these conditions. For both, she has very MILD cases.
Pulmonary Stenosis
http://www.childrenshospital.org/az/Site512/mainpageS512P0.html
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=1321

Atrial Septal Defect
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=11065
http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec23/ch265/ch265b.html

Boulder Creek Festival

Here are some pictures of Tess. She has terrific head control and is very aware of her surroundings. She loves tummy time and seems to be learning new things everyday. Abbey's aunt Carol and uncle Dennis are in town to visit Carol's mom for the month. We visited over the weekend so they could meet Tess and see Emma. Tess also loves to play on her play mat.

On Labor day we went down to Boulder for the creek festival. Hannah and her family joined us and the girls had a ton of fun. They are so cute together. Both girls had fun in the barrel train, (dad stayed behind this time so as not to get stuck like last year). At first they were a little hesitant at the water spouts but after a few minutes were getting soaked. We finished the day with a very large snow cone which the girls loved.

Fun with Grandma

Here are some latest pictures of the girls. Tess has graduated into the bigger girl bathtub and loves it. She enjoys the room to splash and kick. It was fun to have them both in at the same time too. Playing play-doh with Grandma Keeney and picnic in the park. Tess is also starting in the bumbo though she's far from mastery. We're enjoying trying different settings on the camera, hence the different coloring. Tess said "mom" the other day, and I'm almost convinced she knew what she was saying! Brilliant baby! :) She's also been drooling a lot and has found her little hand to chew on which is cute to watch.

Tess is 2 months old & Trip to the mountains

Here are some pictures from our brief trip to the mountains to visit the Grandparents. Tracy's mom is in town helping with the kids for a bit and she enjoyed the time up there as well. It was chilly, but felt great! Tess slept wonderfully up there, must be mountain air, from 9 pm until 5 a.m. which was just lovely! Now, if only mommy could sleep as good! Enjoy the ones of her two month birthday!

Family Time

Some pictures of Miss Tess in her many relaxing positions. She is a sweetheart and continues to be an amazing baby! A couple cute pictures of the cats and some family reading time.