Adventures in Becoming Parents

I've had a hard time knowing where to start with this post because there is SO much that has happened in the last two weeks. I guess the best thing is to start from the beginning, so here we go! On the evening of Sunday, January 23rd, I was visiting with my family downstairs and it was getting late so I decided to go up to bed. I found Josh watching a movie in our room and as I went to say something I felt, well, like I had peed my pants. As you can probably assume, my water broke. We were admitted around midnight and from there, we knew the baby was on his way! I was already 5 cm dilated and the contractions definitely started kicking in full swing. After 7 hours they started me on Pitocin to speed up the contractions and then gave me the epidural (which made all the difference for me). From then on my contractions got to be on top of each other and it was only a matter of time. Luckily I had a GREAT team!

Josh, Mom, Manna and Jason (who took all of these amazing pictures) were all camping out with me in the room...i guess the room was a little cooler than I thought.

After almost no sleeping but lots of Jello, the doctors told me it was time to push.

And two hours later at 4:03pm on January 24th...

Kade Andrew Keene was born!!

He was 10 pounds 0.7 ounces and 21 inches. The first thing the doctor said was, "Congratulations, you gave birth to a two year old!" I can't even describe what it was like when they put him in my arms. I cried more than Kade in that moment because I was so happy, excited, tired, and felt so blessed to finally have him here safe. I've always heard that good things come in small packages. Kade has helped me understand that you can't exclude the bigger ones as well; they're just as perfect. :)

He has since grown to 22 inches and weighs 10.5 pounds. Healthy boy! Here are some of our favorite pictures and videos of our little one.

So here we go on our journey of being parents. I'm so excited to watch him grow. We are so thankful for our family and friends. Hope you enjoyed meeting our little boy. :)

Nat & Josh

New Year Resolutions

Yes, it is true. Josh & I are still alive! I have been so terrible at being a consistant blogger but as comes with any new year, I hope to be a LOT better about updating. So we'll see if I can walk the walk!

So much has gone on this past year, and there is so much to look forward to. Since living in Virginia and working for the YMCA, we have been all over the place. We found out we are going to have a baby boy in January which was very exciting news! A couple weeks after that, we moved to San Antonio, Texas in June to help Josh's dad Jim set up his home complete with 5 acres of beautiful land. Since living there we have come to several conclusions: that parts of Texas are actually green, wallpaper is the devil's invention, bugs and humidity can literally make me cry...no joke, ask Josh. haha! Because Josh and I have insurance through Kaiser and the nearest Kaiser is in Colorado, we made the decision for me to go to California to live with my family for baby care and Josh would continue to work selling furniture in Texas.

The time apart has been hard, but after many long months, we are settling down in Sacramento and looking forward to the arrival of baby Kade. Just over 3 more weeks of being pregnant and I couldn't be more ready to meet the little guy that loves to nestle his feet in my ribs. We've decided on Kade Andrew Keene. :) Here are a few pictures of our little man at 27 weeks.

This is his hand up by his face. Mom thinks that he is a thumb sucker.

If you tilt your head to the right, you'll see him looking right at you with his hand up by his cheek.

Now this is the one that gets me. I don't know if it's just me, but that looks like a big foot! I'm thinking he got his height from Josh.

So now you've had 6 months of updates in one post. The next time i'm on will be to put up pics of our new addition. We love you all and hope your holidays were wonderful. Happy New Year!

Nat & Josh

Good People

I am grateful for good people. I came into Borders to check my email and look some things up online and ended up moving tables to get closer to a power outlet. In the process I forgot to put my phone in my bag. Ten minutes later I found myself frantically looking for my phone but with no success. I dragged myself over to the previous table and the man sitting there gave me a smile and kindly told me he just turned it in. I am thankful for people like that. Even though this is a really random thought, I had to get it out there. haha.

Getting to Know...

Tarzan!

I thought it would be kind of fun to introduce you to Tarzan because he is such a fun member of our family and is way more photogenic than Josh or myself. Tarzan was born in May of 2009 and this first picture is one of him on his first day with Josh along with some cute puppy pictures.

Josh got a little carried away in the kitchen baking pies for Thanksgiving.

We came home to find Tarzan passed out in this chair and I thought it was way too cute not to take a picture of. And this last video is of him in the snow. We were surprised to find that he LOVES the snow! :)

On the Road

LIFE ON THE ROAD WITH NAT, JOSH & TARZAN

Natalie: So if pictures are worth a thousand words and the picture of me doesn't help, I don't know how much my commentary will help. :) So basically everything has been SO crazy as it always is. Let me try to explain. Josh got laid off from being dock coordinator at Lake Powell a week before we got married and after getting back from our honeymoon we planned on just going back there and hanging out basically until the new season started and they could hire him back on. Well we weighed the options of just hanging out or getting out and trying to find jobs even if it meant moving in with parents. Josh's family was so generous and extended a welcome invitation for us to stay with them so we rented a moving van(which we did NOT fill all the way...don't worry), loaded up all of my stuff and we were off! Off to a 49 hour drive to Stafford, Virginia. Now because we had planned to go back to Lake Powell, we drove to Utah and had to pick up all of Josh's belongings on the way. We ended up traveling through California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, and finally Virginia. 11 states! Though it was a long journey, we made it fun by making up games, singing to 90's music and throwing out options for how we wanted things to go for us and what we thought life had in store for us together. Tarzan had his seat in the middle of us and was surprisingly good...well with a couple close calls. Because he slept most of the way on the ground between our seats, sometimes he would like to get up on our laps to look at the window or feel the sunshine. On day three of our expedition I was enjoying a moment with our cute dog as he slept on my lap when his eyes started to twitch. If that wasn't enough, his stomach started to do this body roll type of motion! ...At that point I knew I was in trouble. Something Tarzan ate obviously did not agree with him. From then on it was slow motion...he started to cough and just as he was about to blow, our merciful dog swallowed hard and saved me from what would have made the rest of the trip just a little more difficult. This is just one example of the kind of fun we had on our trek. Life continues to be as crazy and unpredictable as ever. It has been so wonderful to meet nice new people here in VA and with the help of Jillyne and some ladies in the ward, I already have some cleaning and babysitting jobs lined up. I'll be sure to post some pictures of Virginia in the Fall because it is so beautiful!

Joshua: I hate traveling but I love being married.

First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage

Joshua:

It's hard being amazing or having it all. On October 10th 2009 at 1:00pm Western Time - it happened. I FINALLY married the love of my life. She is everything to me. The day was perfect. Our families and friends were there to wish us good luck to our new beginnings. She has changed my life and the eternities with a simple yes and a kiss.

We went on our honeymoon to Palm Desert, CA. It lives up to it's name. It was wonderful. I am addicted to my wife. I have a WIFE! :)

Natalie:

Since neither of us have a Facebook, we thought this might be fun to keep in some kind of contact. Thank you to Katie for setting up a blog for me months ago because I still struggle with figuring all of this out. I have spent the last 8 days as a married woman and holy cow it's surreal. We came home from a honeymoon full of movies, swimming, laughing and just having a good time. I'm so grateful for my family and amazing friends. I'm so blessed. We're off to Lake Powell in a day or two with our family of three (Josh, Me, and dog Tarzan). It's a safe bet that we will have some fun stories from that car ride. :)

Until next time,

Josh & Nat