Elder John Michael Keeffer

 

I forgot to post about my little brother John coming home from his mission.  He got home on the 9th at about 10:30 A.M. and I got to go to the airport to pick him up with my parents and my sister Megan and fam.  We were nervous we were going to be late, but we made it with time to spare!  It was so exciting and Megan and I only cried a little bit!  I didn't get too many pictures, so here ya go:

He's coming down the escalator!  The first missionary you can see here I think 

and there he is!

So excited to be home!

John and Mom

Seeing Kaela after 2 years, she was 4 months when he left

That is all of my pictures from the weekend!  I was able to stay the whole weekend and Louis came down on Saturday.  John's talk was really good, and he only teared up, but didn't let any come out (very unlike him) and bonus, he didn't get a bloody nose! (He did on his farewell talk {after he was done talking} haha)  He's doing really well and is not even as slightly awkward as I thought he would be.  He's even gone out on a date already!  Whaaaat??  But yeah, it's exciting to have him home and now I'm a little sad I live an hour away because I won't get to see him as often as the rest of my family in Utah.  It's okay though because the closest open temple is now in Logan so he'll have to come up here for that!  Now I will stop rambling!

Just For You

I just thought you could use some cuteness in your day, so here you go:

There you go, you're welcome

Some more Thanksgiving

Now for a more thankful Thanksgiving-y post.

I'd like to share 5 things that I am grateful for, in no particular order.  

I am thankful for my Louis.  He is so amazing.  He is my rock.  If I'm having a hard day all I need is Louis there by my side and it's all better.  He sacrifices so much for our family and I know he would do anything for me.  I am so thankful that I have my best friend to spend eternity with.  

I am thankful for motherhood.  I'm so thankful for my chance to be a mother on this earth.  It's an amazing blessing.  Being at home and being a mother is greater than anything else I could be doing with my life at this time.  I'm thankful for Avery making me a mother and how happy she always is, she's made this first year so easy!

I am thankful for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  I am thankful for my parents who raised me in the church.  I am thankful for all the joy it's brought into my life.  It's brought me knowledge, I know who I am, I know where I came from, I know why I'm here, and I know where I'm going.  along with this I want to say I'm thankful for temples.  I'm thankful that I was able to go through the temple for myself and that I am able to go for others who have passed on and were not able to go for themselves.  I am thankful for the spirit that resides in temples and that I can feel closer to our Savior.  

I love this picture.  I am thankful for my Savior.  I can't even express this in the right way.  No words are good enough.  I am so thankful for the example he is, and for the sacrifices he made for me.  I am so thankful for the love he has for our children.  It's a blessing knowing that they are being watched over and that they hold a very special place in His heart.

I am thankful for glasses and contacts.  If I were to live in a time before them it would be so sad!  So so so sad!  I wouldn't be able to do much.  I would only be able to see clearly about a foot ahead of me.  I'm serious, my eyes are horrible!  You know it's bad when your eye doctor is even making fun of you for it!  
That's all, I hope everyone took some time out of their busy weekend to think about what's most important in their lives and what they're most thankful for.  

Happy Thanksgiving Y'all

This long Thanksgiving weekend started out with a little Turkey Bowl fun.  Louis' family (most years) meets up at Ben Lomond High Thanksgiving morning.  This is my first year going, last year I had a 3 day old and the year before that, well I just wanted to sleep.  I didn't really play this year either, I just watched Louis which is all he wanted anyway, to show off for me.  

Louis tackling the 7'2" guy                   Joel trying to catch Louis

Kamila before she got taken down                               Kaileb taking a break

A normal picture                                                  and a silly one!

We went to both families this year, the Brandley's first and then the Keeffer's.  The Brandley's have their dinner at Grandpa Brandley's there was some delicious food, holy cow good food!  Our favorites were; Diana's rolls (I think that's who made them) and Joel's Turkey.  We got to my parent's at 4 to put Avery down for a nap and to help set up.  I tried to pace myself at the Brandley's, but didn't do a very good job so didn't eat too much at the Keeffer's.  My favorite things were the delicious pull apart rolls.  They are always my favorite.  

Brandley house 

A self timer picture.  It didn't turn out so well with the lights

I did go shopping on Friday, but my mom and I didn't leave until 6 in the morning and we still got everything we wanted.  

Every year on the weekend after Thanksgiving they go to a cabin and there's good food, dancing, a talent show, an auction, and late nights, very very late nights.  The proceeds from the auction are donated to the missionaries in the family, Phillip and almost Austin.  

Don't you wish you were part of our family?

This year they also had a few other things to raise money for the missionaries, face painting, and painting fingernails and toenails.  Megan and I did each other's nails and then some little girls asked us to do theirs as well.  Also Jon agreed to get his fingernails painted for $5.  All for the sake of the missionaries of course.  I'm pretty sure he'd prefer me to say he did it for $20 and not just $5 :) but his nails turned out super cute.

Proof

This was the first year I slept over, I'm so glad we were in this new cabin, the old cabin was one room with a kitchen.  There's no way Avery would have slept in that.  This cabin though (Camp Fife, it's a Boy Scout camp) we were able to have our own room, and she slept like a champ!  

It was a good weekend and was great to have Louis for almost 5 days straight.  That was probably the best thing about my weekend.   I hope you enjoyed this super long post!  Also do you notice in all of my pictures from this weekend that's a weird fuzzy part in the middle?  Yeah apparently there's a scratch on the lens.  It's great.

1 Year Ago

1 year ago today we welcomed Avery into this world. It all began at 3:30 in the morning when I was woken up by a contraction. Even before I had the next one 7 minutes later I knew this was the real thing. Of course Louis was at work at the time so I spent the next 3 1/2 half hours laboring by myself. I walked around our apartment, put make-up on, (yeah I did, I wanted to look cute for pictures after. A lot of good that did!) I ate some toast and pudding because I knew once I went to the hospital they wouldn't let me eat and I didn't know how long this would go. At about 6:30 the contractions got bad enough that I decided to head to the hospital. I had arranged with my sister-in-law Celestial to pick me up if Louis wasn't there. I called her up and waited for her to show up. While I waited I called Louis' work to have him meet me at the hospital. Josh was actually the one who answered so he knew before Louis that baby girl was on her way! Celestial came and we headed to the hospital.

My last picture pregnant with Avery

We drove through the snow to the hospital and Louis showed up there just a few minutes after we did.  Celestial was disappointed that she wasn't able to stay longer and help.  We got into our room and I got changed into my very flattering gown.  They came in to check me and I was dilated to a 3, I was pretty disappointed to hear that because at my appointment three days before I was already dilated to a 3.  I was 100% effaced though so at least my 4 hours of active labor had done something!  They left for an hour and then my doctor came in to check me.  At that point I was dilated to a 5 woohoo!  While we were there Jake came to bring Louis food and Josh and Megan came to bring some movies.  We put in Elf, which actually was playing while Avery was born haha!  It took me two more hours to get to an 8, and about 20 minutes later with each contraction I was having this horrible pressure come along with it.  Little did I know this was Avery crowning, I thought I just had to go to the bathroom! (too much information?  Oh well)  A nurse named Leslie came in to help me (she wasn't even the nurse assigned to me, but was so sweet to stay with me the rest of the time) she checked me and indeed I was crowning so she called my doctor to come up and about 5 other nurses came in too.  Leslie was awesome, she helped me to stay focused on what I needed to, "just look into your husbands eyes."  Helped a lot!  5 minutes later she was here, even though it felt like 20.  My doctor laid Avery on my stomach and I got to see her for the first time.

My first look at her  11:31 A.M.

After she'd been cleaned off

Daddy and daughter

A pretty crazy 8 hours, with the most amazing outcome ever.  This last year has been. . .I've been sitting here for 5 minutes and can't think of the right word.  It's been incredible to say the least.  Having Avery in our lives has been the most perfect thing.  She's brought so much happiness into our lives.  It's been so easy, she's the happiest baby.  

Today was fun, we had lunch and opened presents.  We gave her a few of her presents on Saturday at her party, but saved the others for her actual birthday.  She got some clothes, a VeggieTales DVD, a baby doll, and a new book.  She ate one of the leftover ice cream cupcake things I made for her party too, she ate about half then threw on the ground.  I guess that meant she was done.

Eating her cupcake 

Does it fit?

I got it started for her, but then she took it
from there!

My baby is like Marshall, her eyes are closed
in most pictures!  But cute!

Daddy and Avery

This year went by so fast, I can hardly believe she's a year old.  I've loved every minute of it, even the nearly 3 months of waking up in the middle of the night.  Okay maybe not the spitting up, I think that's the one thing I can say I didn't love AT ALL.  Here's a collage I put together of each month of her life.  

I love this girl so much!  Happy birthday sweetheart!