Our Lady J

Happy Wednesday! 

Just wanted to take some time to send an update about J. We have so many lovely new changes in our life since the summer, and we only have a few months left with just our little (well not so little) Jocelyn that I thought I'd take some time to write just about her. More to come on our amazing weekend with Benny, Colleen, Alex and the McKeown Gang :)

She has blossomed into a really funny, spirited and artistic girl. She is incredibly caring and intelligent and really knows how to just enjoy each moment. Sometimes I wish I could shrink her back to cuddle her, but she does still let me "rock" her to sleep if I sing the right song! 

Some tis bits on J:

1. Loves her art. It started off with crayons but she has always loved paint. She would paint her feet, heck her whole body and just create away. Markers are her fall back, and she LOVES tape and glue. She, for a brief time, would tape everything to our walls in our old apts. We called them her art installations.

Maybe she will be a famous face painter after getting this incredible unicorn painted on her for Halloween :)

2. Favorite j words are : German "pepper" (Shepard), pollywop (lollipop), tunder (thunder), bufferly (butterfly), & acapillar (catapillar).  

3. Speaking of catapillars and butterflies, when I ask her what she dreams of she normally says about those two. Usually in pink or purple :)

4. Recently, she is very drawn to unicorns, ponies and horses. She is a free spirit!! 

5. She loves to talk to our baby. She gives her kisses, sings her Twinkle  Twinkle in spanish, and tells me about how Santa is going to bring her a baby sister. 

Here we are at my 31 week doc appt.

 

I really think they are going to have an awesome friendship and sister adventures. 

6. Some of my random favorites about her: I love how her hair curls just like a doll, especially since she was born with straight black hair. She has quite the mischievous face when she is doing something out of the ordinary. She talks with her hands in this quite adult manner and cocks her head to the side and says "ok mommy!?". She gives nose run kisses that we call gnome kisses. She is a diehard pink and purple fan, and it's hilarious seeing her eyes almost pop out of her head when she sees sparkly things. She sleeps with Butters at the foot of her bed. She is so close with Ryan and loves to do everything with him and he does too. She loves mangoes/all citrus fruits and salt and vinegar chips-- girl after my own heart :) 

Well my J, you opened our lives to so much happiness and unity. I'm so glad you continue to be you, a bright light with a gentle yet fierce personality. Mommy and Daddy love you a lot. 

Do you like piña coladas?

Well baby is now at 31 weeks and weighs as much as a coconut! She just around 3.3 lbs, can turn her head side-to-side and is growing plumper underneath her skin. As a preview, we are cowgirl/boy themed this year since J is Sheriff Callie for this Halloween.

We had a great weekend. We did some Halloween activities at J's school and later went to a futuristic space party at Ryan's work. 

We even got some face painting! Unicorn of course. Ryan was part space cowboy and got to meet Chewbaca and some other space creatures. We didn't get a lot of photos, but managed to squeeze our cowboy hats together. 

We had a wonderful visit from Grammy and Gramps. They were a blast. We ate lots, hung out with our German "Pepper" Ariel :) and did house work too. Jocelyn's room is now a light lilac and next spring we will have some tulips. Very excited about the tulips. Grammy and Jocelyn had a great time with castles and playing in the leaves. Gramps and Ryan had some fun sawing our brush... We have more saw moments in the future to clear out the back yard. Little by little. With the two dogs and J we didn't get any pictures but hopefully next weekend. 

Alrighty well have a great week!

:)

Baby update: fully into 3rd trimester :) butternut squash!

Baby is doing great :) She is a bit bigger or at least I am this time around so it has been interesting maneuvering with puppies. So far no casualties!! But they like to snuggle around the belly during nap time. 

Baby is a butternut squash (by size) and is 29 weeks. Here is a recent pic:

The dogs are finally bonding!! 

Ariel really likes to play with butters and he is finally up for the idea. She also likes to poke her head through the stairs.

Jocelyn still likes her butters in her bed. Note all the other friends!! Her favs: my little ponies, Dr. Suess and zebras.

Have a good weekend everyone. 

Meet Ariel!

Hi!

Things have been really great lately in the McKeown household. First: congrats to Sean and Megan for running the Chicago marathon. Awesome!! They were amazing and even ran 21 miles the day they moved us in. Yowza! Thanks again to everyone who was there. The house is slowly shaping up.

We painted our bedroom (after many a day of staring at 1000 shades of sage), and are prepping to paint J's a light lilac. They have hilarious names. I think it came down to pixie dust or powder mist... Photos to come.

Over the weekend we welcomed our newest family member: Ariel! Jocelyn named her :) she pushed hard at first for Elsa, but the little mermaid persisted! She is a German Shepard and is the best thing ever. She really is just a sweet fun girl. It's good prep having a baby pup for J and us all. She is teaching Butters to share too ha! The old man isn't 100% a fan yet. 

Here are some pictures. 

Butters is still a shining star too. He loves to sleep at the end of J's bed. They are a great team. Ariel is going to love the pack.

Love for us!

Happy things happen on Sept 27th!

First: Happy Birthday Uncle Sean!!

Second: Baby turned 27 weeks old, and she is now the size of a cauliflower! She can open and close her eyes and can suck her fingers :) cute! She loves to kick a lot right as I lay down for bed. The strong cravings have stopped more or less, but I still love to eat.

Jocelyn and I had a little photo shoot with baby. She talks to baby all the time and tells everyone that Santa is bringing her a little sister. 

You can see baby a bit more here:

And here is baby and I at the leaky cauldron!! (More coming soon on that trip!) I'd say the cauldron wins :) 

Well we hope the end of September was great for everyone. We McKeowns had an eventful month. Looking forward to all the fun in October. 

Good night! 

Happy Thursday: It's fall!

Ciao!

Just a small hello for today. We are settling into our new home, but we still have a very scary amount of boxes to go through. 

Jocelyn is doing great and will be transitioning to a new school. She is still a muffin/cupcake fiend. And, we are excited for fall. Exhibit A:

Her is J playing with her buddy Gianna. They have a good time together.

J had a gymnastics class and had a fun time last weekend!

Baby is growing well and she is 26 weeks along!! She is the length of a green onion. More pics of her and I to come.

Hope everyone is doing great. We miss and love you guys and more to come soon.

Hugs!

 

Happy Birthday Dad/Abuelo :)

Hola fam, 

Just wanted to let everyone know today is an awesome day: my dad's birthday!! 

Happy birthday Dad! Love you lots, and thank you for all of the love, sacrifice and genuine fun you have brought to my life and my little girls'. 

Some of my favorite memories over the years: 

1. Making a giant tipi out of ferns in the backyard.

2. Eating BBQ chicken at the dinner table (yes I know weird but it was really good!!) and one of our fav family meals. 

3. Hiking Wallis Falls with you, Eric and the doggies.

4. Learning how to ride a bike.

5. You braiding my hair.

6. You coming to all my graduations, band concerts, and tournaments. 

7. Playing in the woods for hours doing any and everything. 

8. Trick-or-treating every year in full costume!! Leprechauns, vampires, gypsies... The only fail was my lion where everyone thought I was a yellow Raggedy Ann with chest hair haha :) 

9. No matter what choices I've made you've been there to listen.

10. Day you met Jocelyn :)

Some recent photos :)

Hope you have a wonderful day :)  We at the McKeown house are thinking of you!

🌸💕

Happy Engagement Anniversary!

Morning!

Just wanted to make a short blog celebrating a big day four years ago (wow a lot of time has passed!) when Ryan asked me to marry him at the Art Institute in Chicago. He found one of my favorite paintings, Water Lilies by Monet. I've always loved Monet because I grew up seeing a lot of his artwork in my Grandma Violet's home.

It was a fantastic day, and I was 100% surprised. I posted the video below, but I'm not sure it will load. Colleen and Alex were extra sneaky and helped make the surprise wonderful. Here are some of the photos they captured.

Before at the Bean (thanks Alex for snapping it)

The big moment

My handsome man

We sealed it with a kiss! Let's see if we can reenact this one with me being 6 months pregnant! 

Now, it might look something like this! Ha :)

Wishing everyone some love and good vibes today. Hug someone you love. Hug you!

<3 McKeowns

September has begun: nature trek with J

Hej (pronounced hey, which is Swedish for 'hi'),

The normal hello was getting overused, so I decided to switch it up!

So we have lofty goals to go camping at the start of Sept but the rain kept us away. As a Washingtonian, I probably shouldn't have let it intimidate me, but the rain here pours like nothing I've seen. Plus, Ryan thought a pregnant lady sleeping on the dirt may not be the best company in a tiny, enclosed tent :) 

We had a great Labor Day weekend though. We hiked, ate a lot of food, and enjoyed some good ole fashioned family time at home. Here are some highlights from our hike. 

The day started our bright, sunny and sticky. Just the way we like it in Maryland (ha!).... but a breeze came by later so that was a plus. 

We walked through forest trails and along side this lake. Next time we hope to rent a little row boat and hang out some more.

Along the trails were these old school 'exercise stations'. Jocelyn loved them. Here she is practicing her Kung Fu panda moves, balancing on one leg! I used to do this as a little girl. She was awesome. 

Then J got Daddy to help her hop from post to post. 

Ryan showing us how it's done. He's quite the fit man :)

These rings were really low to the ground, so only Jocelyn got to play. But she had fun. 

Celebrated the end of the day with Halloween Oreos, aka orange in the middle. They were delish. 

Hope you all had a good Labor Day! And we are excited for fall. Here come the scarves and everything pumpkin. Yum!

<3 The McKeown's

More roaring August fun: McKeown's go to the DC Zoo!

Howdy!

Well, in the last few weeks of summer we all visited our local zoo. We hadn't been yet, and it was so much fun. I think Jocelyn's favorite were the elephants. Our other favorites were the pandas, lion cubs, and flamingos. Ryan was very excited to see the big cats. The tigers were also exceptional. We hope to take more friends and family here when they come to visit.

But first, it was Bao Bao the panda's birthday so we got to wear panda hats and have cake. Two thumbs up!

Here is baby, growing every day!

Since it was a bit rainy, we brought our favorite umbrellas. Thanks Grandmom and Grandpop!

Flamingos + monkey-ing around :) J knows how to have fun!

She really likes the elephant trunk. Next time you see J, you should do the 'elephant trunk' with her, i.e. stick your arm over your nose and do fun things with your trunk :)

I actually was a bit tired and didn't get a photo of the lion cubs, but here is the tiger. There were 3 actually, and they were very beautiful. 

Well, we can't wait to go back. We probably only saw 20-ish% of the zoo. Hugs to all!

<3