Amelea Walking

Well, we've had lots of requests to see how Amelea is doing on her cast. She was slowed down for a few days but then got right back up and hasn't slowed down one bit. We all have to watch out for her tantrums, now, though. She kicks and it is dangerous! She gets the cast off on Friday, they'll x-ray it then if it's healed, she gets to go home without it! Yeah! The club is coming off!

thoughts

"does the sun gotta go down cuz it get really dark?" uh-huh "OH! I forgot!" Ava's profound thought for the day

Merry Christmas

So, it seems that there are a lot of family members with ailments this Christmas season. In our family, though, it's only little Amelea. She broke her leg the week after Isaac was born. She had a splint on for one week, then got a bright pink cast on last Friday. She's learning how to cruise quite well on it already, they say nothing can keep a kid down, and I totally understand that now!

Today we went to get family pictures taken and boy, the more people we add to this family, the harder it is to get a good picture. Ava pretty much refused to cooperate, smirking, sneering and sticking her tongue out through it all. Amelea followed suit and insisted on having her pink blankie and sippy cup in nearly all of the pictures. Isaac, well, he's only three weeks old, so he just slept through it all. Atleast one of the kids did what they were supposed to.

Isaac James

Introducing our newest McKamey edition: Isaac James. Born 11/27 at 1:40 pm;
weighing 7 lb 7 oz and 20 1/2 " long. He's a sweet boy and his sisters just adore him!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was fun. We had it out our house with Jordan and Jeremy, Aimee and Jacob Egbert and their three, and Holly and Jasper Mesarch and their two. It made for a busy household, but it was a lot of fun to eat and play games and talk... We ended up eating a little later than we planned on 'cuz the oven was busier than we "planned" on; if you can even say we really planned what was going to happen. Most of it was flown by the seat of our pants, the only way I "plan" anything these days! The kids ended up sitting at the main table and the adults all sat at the long folding table in our living room. It was a really fun weekend to have close friends and family here.

PREGO

So, everyone keeps asking for a pic of my prego belly, so here it is. Might be having this kid on Tuesday. They are doing an amniocentesis and ultrasound tomorrow (Mon.) and if all is mature, will be inducing Tuesday. (He's starting to get too big, considering my shoulder dystocia issues from the past two deliveries...) Anyway, we'll keep you posted!

Latest baby pic

Here's the latest ultrasound, taken 11/14/2007. He's weighing in at 6lbs. 7oz. His foot is sitting on his forehead, and it was difficult to get a good pic, as he is getting so much bigger.... hard to zoom out enough to get the whole face in one picture, but you can still see how chubby he's getting. Can't wait to meet him in a couple of weeks!

My Cute, Sweet Sister and Her Baby

Ok, so Adalynn and Jordan were just too cute in these pics, I had to post them on my website.

Happy Halloween!!!!

The little "ghouls": Friday night at the Ward Trunk-or-Treat, Ava was Snow White, Amelea a Wyoming Cowboys Cheerleader. Monday at Playgroup, Ava was a different Princess and insisted that Amelea be her lady of the court... thus the pink dress. Wednesday morning at Preschool, Ava was a pink ballerina and tonight for Trick-or-Treating, she was again a princess, and Amelea was a cheerleader. They had fun, as usual, Amelea was much more outgoing and would reach in and grab handfuls of candy to fill her bucket. Ava would hang back, then politely take one piece and say "thankyou". After about 45 minutes Ava was saying, "lets go to Ava's house" and "I am done, I wanna go home." We just went up and down our street and it was nice to meet a few of the neighbors. Amelea was hard to catch in a good picture, but I finally captured a few.

Just Because

Amelea is getting interested in sitting on the potty, especially after she's seen Ava doing it. She's also such a character, with lots of vim and vinegar. There have been numerous comments in Church about how much energy she has and how much she must tire me out...... YUP!

Preschool-Days

I, and three other moms, have started a once-weekly "preschool". I really wanted Ava to go this year, she is ready to have something a little challenging and outside of the house. However, the public preschool here is a bit out of our budget, atleast for this year... so the once weekly thing! Her first time was this Wednesday. She had a blast and felt like such a big girl getting dressed up to go to school. Next week is at our house, with me teaching... I am so out of my element... teaching PRESCHOOLERS! Yikes. The other's a pic Amelea and Ava watching a movie together... Love those moments when they're not fighting.

Just stuff

Just a few pics of the girls.
Amelea is a fervent lover of her new rocking horse, and is growing into her red hair... she may be a pixie, but she's got lots of personality to go make up for her little size. She loves to harass Ava, poking and pinching and chasing her... anything that will push a button. And she always does it with a little smirk on her face. Makes me laugh and cringe at the same time!

Ava is getting a few more friends and is really blossoming into a sweet, very smart little girl. She is working on her letters and numbers and asks me to write them down often, then she brings me a "card for you birthday" with scribbles that are really beginning to look like letters. (I guess that all cards are birthday cards... she's very sweet that way.) Maybe the reason she wants to write is so she can write down her Christmas Wish list, which is getting quite long! Every day she adds two or three things to it!She's also learning to play better by herself.

Here we are also at Grant's Farm petting one of their Budweiser Clydesdales. The girls absolutely loved it.

Baby is Growing

I had another ultrasound today, as the docs can't decide when I am due. I am measuring too small for them to agree that I am due November 19th, the first ultrasound put me at being due on December 11th and this ultrasound has him measuring for a due date around the 4th.... so I guess it's all a guessing game anyway and he'll come whenever he wants to. Here are two 3-d pics of him, one facing us and one profile. He looks a lot like his sisters and the ultrasound tech said she could scan him all day long he's so cute. I think so too. They guesstimated that he is now 3.5 lbs. Too bad that I've gained more than that, huh?

Lincoln

Brooke and Billy had a little boy on July 12 at 3:53am.... yes, the first boy to enter the Neal household in quite a while. They named him Lincoln Cole, he was 9lbs 3 oz and 20.5" long.

He is now 12lbs 8 oz and is 8 weeks old! Congratulations!

St Louis is ugly. Hey, I know, let's move back and I can see Sierra and then we can move back to St Louis. Huh, Mom?
Ava, I guess she wants to play with her best friend in KC that we left behind.

"Mom, why are you crying?"
"Because that lady was mean."
"Let's go back in and I will SPIT on her."
Ava, 3yrs

It's a BOY!

On Aug 7th, we found out that the newest McKamey edition debuting in November is a BOY! Ava is super excited to be getting a "brudther" and asks me every morning if she can give her little brother a hug, then gives my belly a big bear hug. Amelea, of course, is happily clueless that her throne is about to be usurped. She just comes and crawls into my slowly diminishing lap and leans back, like it's the best seat in the house. We're all excited to meet him! I'll spare you the "boy" ultrasound picture, which is quite obvious, but here's a neat 3-D one of him.

SISTERS

Summer and Jordan came down to visit us for the week. We had lots of fun trying to decorate the house, visiting malls, swimming, going to the park and the zoo and eating lots.

These are some pics of us and all the girls on the carousel at the zoo. It was a nice morning to go to the zoo, we'd had a huge storm the night before, which helped cool things off a bit, then it remained overcast, which also helped. We wore the girls all out that day and had a few afternoon nappers! Too bad they didn't last longer, though.

New home, new address

Well, we are all moved in. Boxes are everywhere, the girls are screaming all the time and Mitch started his first IM rotation this morning at 6:30am. He won't be home until tomorrow at around 2pm. So, we will be getting settled slowly. Ava picked out light pink paint for her room and we bought a really cute comforter and rug to go in her new room. She is really excited about it. I don't know about decorating anything else, though, we'll see if there's enough time. So many things that I want to do and so little energy, money and time! It's nice to have the temple close by, though. Aimee Egbert and I attended a session on Saturday before she left town. It will be good to be able to go often.

Medical School Graduation

It's official! It's now Dr. Mitchell Seth McKamey. Way to go, Mitch! It was a tear jerker hearing them call his name and watching him walk across the stage to receive his diploma. And boy, is it a huge diploma! Holy Smokes. It was a blast to have Les and Wendy and Mark and Cindy and her kids here to celebrate. We wish all of our families could have been here, but know you were in your hearts.... I'll upload some pics later, after I get them... if anyone has any that they want to send me, knock yourself out!

Oh, and now that we're all grad-e-ated, we're moving to St. Louis, we've found a really cute house, are closing on it on June 28th. Mitch is heading out there on the 17th; he has to start Orientation and it lasts two weeks. So, we're moving everything out the week of the 11th and he's leaving, I'm staying to clean and paint, etc. then we're meeting in St. Louis at the close... Very nerve-wracking, though, this house buying business. Hope and pray that it all goes well. We'll update later.

Hawaii Trip

Cindy and me hanging out in our convertible in Oahu.

Us out front of the Laie temple.
At the PCC by the canoe show.
More of us.
Saturday morning at the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor.
The guys in the front of the convertible... they always sat up front, coincidence? I think not!

Here's the view from the back door of the Mahina Surf condo we stayed at on Maui. Cindy and me stretched out (as much as possible) in our mango Mustang convertible!
Mitch on the left, Matt on the right, getting up close and personal with a wave.
Me and Mitch cooling off and watching Matt out in the surf.
Me at the airport in Oahu after landing for our last two days there.

The last week in April, Mitch and I, and Matt and Cindy took a vacation over to the beautiful state of Hawaii. It was a graduation gift for us from his parents and Matt-n-Cindy won the trip through Wells Fargo (his job) at the same time that we were going over, so serendipitously we got to go together and had a blast.

We stayed in a beautiful condo called the Mahina Surf in Ka'anapali, Maui for five nights. During those days we spent quite a few days in the mango Mustang convertible that we rented. We drove north, then south, then went to see the Haleakala crater, started down the road to Hana, turned back, watched surfers and body boarders and had picnics. We also spent some time on the beach playing in the surf, snorkeling and reading our books.

We hopped over to Oahu for the last two nights of the trip and stayed at the Hilton Resort on Waikiki. Very expensive and quite a bit ridiculous (if you ask me) also way too busy for our liking. On Oahu, we drove up the road to see Laie, BYU, the temple and PCC. We didn't do the PCC Luau as Matt and Cindy had to get back for their evening meetings, but we enjoyed seeing the sites and scenery. Wish we could have snorkeled there, but didn't have enough time. We also shopped and I finally got my pearl set at Hilo Hattie's on the last day (pink ones: one went in a necklace and two for stud earrings.)

The girls stayed with their grandparent's and were so good. We missed them, but still thoroughly enjoyed our time there. Mitch was pleasantly surprised that he enjoyed it so much. He thought it just wasn't gonna be up his alley, but lucky for me, he wants to go back someday! Maybe after residency is all done we can go again. Next time we decided that we would like to see Moloka'i and Kawa'i, they seem to be even less touristy and more laid-back, which is what we so loved about Maui (don't ever have to see Oahu again!)