Aubrey's First Day of Preschool

Aubrey had her first day of 3 year old preschool today and she was so excited!

She attends a little preschool in our neighborhood so she got to ride her tricycle and she was pretty thrilled about that.

Here's her cute little class waiting to be picked up by their parents.  She had a great time!  She told me they sang songs, read books, and played outside.  And they made cute little headbands that said, "You did it!  First day of preschool!"   

Meanwhile, Ella and I got to enjoy spending some quality time with cousin Lizzie.

Dancing and singing along to the radio in the toy house

What a fun day!

Mommy, can I marry you?

The past week was not a terribly exciting one for us, but I do have two funny stories to share.  Last week I was driving home with Aubrey and Ella and Piano Guys' version of "A Thousand Years" came on.  I turned it up, explaining to the girls that it was one of my favorite songs and that Daddy and I had danced to it when we got married.  Aubrey was very interested.  She started asking all sorts of questions, so I explained to her all about marriage.  I thought I had done a pretty good job of explaining, but when I was finished, she asked, "Mommy, when we get home can Mommy and Aubrey dance to this song and get married?"  Hmmm ... so I explained some more about marriage and told her it's something she could do when she was much, much bigger.  She said, "Okay Mommy.  Good thing me eats so I will be big someday.  Me eat lots so I can be very big and get married."

A few days later, Marc was helping Ella say a dinner prayer.  He prompted, "Please bless the food."  Ella looked over at the food and and said, "It's broccoli."  She was clearly displeased.  Marc tried to continue the prayer, but all she would say after that was, "It's broccoli."  Clearly, broccoli does not deserve to be blessed. 

Ah, I love these cute, funny girls!

Bug Party!

Last month a crazy thing happened: our sweet little baby turned 3!

I seriously don't know where the time went (especially since the last time I blogged she was only 3 months old - my bad).  In the weeks leading up to her birthday I started asking her what she wanted as a theme for her birthday.  No princesses for this one - she wanted bugs!  So bugs it was  :)

We had a lot of fun with the decorations and food.  I made her a Happy Birthday banner of leaves and bugs (side note:  I love my Cricut!).  The girls and I decorated balloons to look like bugs and put them up on the walls all over the house.

I decided to serve a full on meal because there were just too many fun bug foods that I came up with!  Here are some of the fun foods we had:

And, of course, we had to have cake!  I decided to make these cute (and easy) ladybug cupcakes.  The M&M ladybugs were definitely Ella's favorite part!  She begged at least 5 ladybugs off of everyone else's cupcakes.

We decided to go on a bug scavenger hunt.  Since we had a family party with lots of adults and a few kids, we split up into teams with one child and 2-3 adults per team.  I hid plastic bugs around the yard (with numbers on the bottom corresponding to prizes), and each of the kids got a little "bug box" with bug grabbers and a little net (thanks Dollar Tree!) to put all of the bugs they found.  In addition, each team got a paper with a list of real bugs to find and I had prizes for the team that found the most.  The kids had lots of fun hunting for bugs, although since it was evening there weren't as many bugs to be found as I had expected.  It was a good thing I'd hidden plastic ones so there was enough excitement!

Aubrey loved opening her presents!  She is definitely a very loved little girl!

We're so glad so many family members were able to celebrate Aubrey's special day with us!

Pumpkins and Cornstalks and Tiggers, oh my!

Happy Halloween!  This year was the first time Marc and I tried to grow a garden and while I can't say we were very dedicated (pretty much we spent a couple hours in one afternoon planting everything and then never touched it again except to harvest it), I'd say it was a definite success.  We grew tomatoes, zucchini, squash, beans, corn, pumpkins, and one very tasty watermelon.

We decided to do a photo shoot with our little cutie to celebrate her turning 3 months old.  I can proudly say that we grew everything in this picture  ;)

And here she is in her cute little Tigger costume.

She was really into this pumpkin.

Our little 3-month old loves cooing and grinning.  This week Aubrey learned how to blow raspberries and she can't get enough of it, she's just so proud of herself.  She also learned how to roll from her tummy onto her back - though this isn't recent news.  When she was only ten weeks old, I put her next to me on the bed for some tummy time and she surprised me by rolling herself right over ... and right off the edge of the bed!  Luckily Mommy has cat-like reflexes and caught her in time.  She rolled over repeatedly for the next three days straight ... and then she promptly apparently forgot how for several weeks and only just recently started it up again.  

How Aubrey felt by the time we were done with our photo shoot

Daddy's Little Girl

From the moment our little Aubrey was born, I knew she was going to be a Daddy's girl.  How did I know, you might ask?  Well, to begin with, she liked all of Daddy's physical features so much she decided to copy all of them.  Like most parents, when she was first placed in my arms at the hospital I was mesmerized, studying all her little features to see who she got what from.  Imagine my surprise as I began taking mental inventory and every single feature turned out to be Marc's.

Hair?  Daddy's.
Eyes?  Daddy's.
Nose?  Daddy's.
Ears?  Daddy's.
Fingernails?  Daddy's.
Build?  Daddy's.
And the list goes on and on - despite the fact that most of Marc's features are recessive so mine SHOULD have been more dominant.

During the first few weeks we had her home, the similarities between them became even more apparent.  For example, Daddy's little girl also inherited Daddy's not-so-little appetite.  In Marc's family, there literally is something called a "Marc size portion", which you would ask for anytime you really liked a dish.  I can already envision that among this generation of cousins there will soon be an "Aubrey size portion" in honor of our little chunker.  The one thing Aubrey did inherit from me, however, was the speed at which she eats - and this was not a good combination.  Those first few weeks she could (and did) literally eat for three hours straight at times, trying to satiate her ginormous appetite, while eating at the pace of a snail.  Eventually I had to start pumping bottles for her, just so she was forced to eat a little quicker and I could at least have a break between mealtimes.  


The similarities were all over the place - from faces she would make to little noises she would utter to little personality quirks.  I found myself using the phrase "just like daddy" about every other sentence.  I even took a picture of Marc holding Aubrey and they are both (unintentionally) making the same stink face.  I planned on posting it here as evidence, but Marc made me delete it ...




In the past few weeks, though, is when her loyalties have really started to come out.  Recently she has started smiling and cooing up a storm, it is really quite cute.  She'll smile and coo at me all through the day, but when Daddy comes home that's when she really pours on the charm.  She'll grin and grin at him and try so hard to talk to him.  Ten bucks says her first word will be "Daddy" ... and not just because Marc works so hard on it with her every chance he gets.  ;)

Further proof:  As I was getting ready to post this, I played this video to make sure it worked. Marc was at work and Aubrey was eating at the time, but the instant Aubrey heard Daddy's voice, she immediately stopped eating and got a huge grin on her face and started looking around for him.  I'd be offended at her obvious preference, but it is just so cute that I can't help but love them both all the more for it.

Baby Poop: the organic paint stripper

The other night we made quite a discovery. It was 3 AM and we had been peacefully sleeping when Aubrey woke up and decided she was hungry. Marc got up to give her a quick diaper change while I continued half dozing, waiting for him to bring her back so I could feed her. Suddenly, I heard a panicked yell from the nursery.

"Is everything okay?" I called out sleepily. There was a long pause. "... Yeah ... " he responded, very convincingly. That was good enough for me, and I returned to my half conscious state.

A full ten minutes passed before Marc reappeared in the doorway holding out a measuring tape. "Did you know Aubrey can poop five feet?" he asked. I blinked sleepily at him.

Apparently in the middle of the diaper change, just as Marc was about to remove the dirty diaper, our sweet baby decided to relieve herself again. Marc had a premonition and pulled the dirty diaper back up to cover her, but he underestimated Aubrey's awesome abilities. She pooped so forcefully that it arched over the top of the diaper, cleared the lip of the changing table, and landed a full five feet away on the floor. Hence, Marc's panicked yell.

It wasn't until the next morning that we discovered an interesting property of baby poop. Marc thought he'd cleaned up all the poop, but apparently some had oozed under the changing pad cover. In just a few short hours, it managed to completely strip the paint off my changing table. We no longer underestimate either Aubrey or the destructive power of baby poop.

Aubrey's pooping face

In other news, our sweet little baby girl turned one month old. Her favorite activities include eating, sleeping, and staring at ceiling fans. She's started smiling in response to Mommy and Daddy, and she weighs a whopping eleven pounds. She is certainly a cutie.

Ohh BABY!

Written by Marc, Edited by Robyn

The Keelings are proud to announce the birth of our newest family member. She arrived on July 24th, 2015 at 1:50 after 24 hours of labor, numerous attempts to administer an IV, and lots of pushing (and resisting on the baby's part).  We have a beautiful little girl we have decided to name Aubrey Anne Keeling.

Like every parent in the history of mankind... we will now start talking about how awesome and sweet our daughter is.  Little Aubrey has brought so much joy into our lives in the few short days that she has been here (even at 2:00 am, 3:15 am... etc). We love to watch her twitch in her sleep as she dreams about... well, we don't know what but it is fun to watch.

Marc never thought that he would enjoy changing diapers, or getting his shirts contaminated with spit-up, but for her... it is all bliss.  Robyn already knew that she would enjoy all of it, but what she could not imagine was how beautiful and cute Aubrey would be, nor to what degree she would love being a mom having now begun the journey.


Here is our sweet little Aubrey.  Hope you enjoy!

Length: 20 Inches
Eye Color: Blue
Hair Color: Auburn (depending on the light)
Weight: 9 lbs 1 oz