I Don't Have a Kid

Mom babysits a four month old three times a week. Naturally, I hold him and play with him a lot, because I love babies and little kids. On numerous occasions when we are out, people have asked if he was mine, and have even just assumed.

Back in December, I went with mom to her work Christmas Party at the hospital. Everyone she works with was there, and I was holding the baby. On our way out, one of the doctors asked me if the baby was mine. Um, no. Definitely not. If he was, I would be dead.

Then I went to my Jefferson Scholarship Interview in Charlottesville, and he came along. We went to Subway, and the manager/worker kept talking about how cute "my" baby was and how he loved his mommy (he was weird, very creepy). Not my baby.

Then Friday I went to Bryce's first grade award ceremony. I was holding the baby and playing with him. Some random lady came up to my mom and asked her if he was my kid. No, no it is not.

I will not be having kids for a while. Thanks, though.

Snow Day

Last night we got some snow, somewhere around three inches. In Virginia, a centimeter will cancel school, so we all knew we would not be going to school today. I am glad, because I will be working on scholarship applications the rest of the day. Hopefully I will be slightly productive. This little guy right here has decided to help me :)

He sure is one cute little Partner-in-Crime.

Mutual Theme 2011

We Believe.

We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent,

virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say

that we follow the admonition of Paul--We believe all things,

we hope all things, we have endured many things,

and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything

virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy,

we seek after these things.

Oh (Another) Brother!

God thinks we need one more boy in this house, so come June 4th, we will welcome another little boy into this house :) Brother number 6 (did you read that...SIX).

Everyone except for Gray and Rachel went to Richmond for mom's doctors appointment. Everyone was really excited. What mom and dad really wanted was to know the baby was healthy, and it was. But, we all were hoping for a little girl if we had the choice. It just would have been fun to have pink, bows, tights, little dresses, dolls, nail polish, etc... back in the house rather than soccer balls, Hot Wheels cars, and video games :)

As the ultrasound tech was looking at everything, she was stopping and pointing out the kidneys, the feet, the legs, the arms, the spine, the stomach... everything but the gender. Suzanne and I were waiting and it was really, really quiet. We were SO wanting it to be a girl. The tech asked mom and dad if they wanted to know the gender. They said yes, and the tech said it's going to be a little boy. Quiet. Then the boys quietly shared their excitement, and us girls held back our tears.

In reality, another little boy will be fun, and we are all still very VERY excited for another little baby in the house! Our little friend we watch will have a little playmate! Little boy clothes are very, very cute and babies are fun no matter what! The brain and heart are perfectly fine, and the health of the baby was really the main concern. There is a little excess fluid in his right kidney, but no big deal. Ryan's ultrasound showed the same thing!

For anyone who knows my parents, name picking is extremely difficult. It took three weeks to name my sister Rachel and a week and a half just to name our DOG. With a boy, however, we know the middle name will definitely be GRAY and the last name, of course, KEMMEY. Now to choose a first name...

Still very VERY excited! I cannot wait until June 4th to hold this little brother! It will be hard to go off to college when he is only three months old!

Bendaroos

My aunt Sheri bought the little boys some Bendaroos over Christmas break. They are strings covered with wax, so they stick together, bend, mold into things, etc... Ryan still has his and he loves them. You can definitely tell they are used, however, because they have dog hair and dust stuck to them. Time for some new bendaroos.

We made some creations after dinner, just for your entertainment!

A wonderful flower, made by me

Ryan's Self Portrait/Sculpture :)

In The Past Week

This week has been weird.

It was exam week. Monday through Thursday, two exams a day, followed by early release at 11:15. No school on Friday. I did pretty well on exams, and I am happy with all of my semester grades.

Tuesday I had my Jefferson Scholarship Interview, which went ok. You can never really tell what interviewers are thinking. Especially when there are seven of them drilling questions at you with only a head nod in between. Eh, we'll see how that went.

I had college applications to finish. I finally submitted my last two to Mary Washington and Virginia Tech! :) Now it is just scholarship applications.

I was asked to give a talk tomorrow morning at church. Topic: service for others. Can I tell you how not motivated I am to write it?

I got really mad at my dad, halfway unjustly, but because I am so stubborn I still think I am halfway right. And he was still willing to help with my college essays, while he was sick, after I waited until THE last minute, and after getting mad at him. Man do I have a nice dad.

My camera lens broke AND my mom's camera is broken too. No cameras = no pictures = not very good in this house. I need a new lens, but they are expensive and I am about to be a poor college student in a few short months and I need to save my babysitting money. Lens will have to wait.

I realized how excited I am that my senior year is halfway over and I cannot wait to go to college (or stay for college). Whatever works out best. I am excited nonetheless :)

Mom finds out whether baby 09 is a boy or a girl. I'm voting girl. Mom's voting boy, but only because she doesn't want to be too bummed if it actually is a boy :). Almost everyone is thinking girl. Gray and dad vote for a girl. Ryan, of course he wants a boy.

Ryan took his own picture with our webcam and uploaded it to facebook by himself (he's four. please tell me what other four year olds you know do that).

My aunt got accepted into a year long master's program in Texas, so once again my dad's family are far away from us starting June.

Suzanne dyed her hair again. It is more red now. RED.

I have a new goal: scriptures every day. I was thinking... Over Christmas, I finished four seasons of the show Psych. Since going back to school, I have finished 2 seasons of Bones. I can certainly read scriptures for twenty minutes or so each day.

I have me a talk to write.

West Point vs. Naval Academy

Gray's best friend Andrew went to West Point this past year for school. I'm still amazed one of them hasn't died from a broken heart from being away from each other so often. Andrew came home for Christmas break, and Gray stayed at his house all but I think three nights. In December, Gray went to Philadelphia for the Army vs. Navy game. Andrew's dad was in the navy. My dad and my grandpa (pictured) went to the Naval Academy. My uncle is in the navy. Lots of family in the navy, and yet Gray went up to support Army. Gray got a t-shirt from the game. When Andrew got back to Fredericksburg, he brought Suzanne and I a shirt.

On Christmas Day, we drove down to Virginia Beach. Coincidentally, Grandpa was wearing his Naval Academy shirt. Gray and I had both brought our shirts, and decided to go switch them out in the car for this opportune photo! Suzanne would have joined us, but she was barfing her guts out at the time.

Andrew just got back into school not even two full weeks ago. He is already using one of his passes to come home this three day weekend. Goodbye, Gray. We'll see you again on Tuesday.

19 Weeks

Mom is 19 weeks tomorrow, and we are so close to finding out the gender! Mom goes to Richmond for her level 2 ultrasound on Monday the 17th. Everyone is hoping for a GIRL. Just one more week until we find out for sure!

Mom's felt the baby move a little bit here and there, but it is a pretty lazy little guy. She's wearing only maternity clothes right now, and last week she went to church in pants because she didn't have any maternity skirts. She gave away all of her maternity and baby clothes two summers ago, because at the time she wasn't planning on anymore :) So here she is, 19 weeks along sporting this cute pink maternity top and stretchy pants.

Mom, 19 weeks

These next two pictures are just to compare. The first she is 19 weeks, the last one was from before Christmas at 15 weeks.

Mom 19 Weeks

Mom 15 weeks

Christmas Eve Happenings

Every year we spend Christmas Eve with some of our really great family friends, but this year with everyone sick we couldn't go (we gone for probably close to 10 years). We had to find some ways to occupy ourselves on Christmas Eve this year!

When mom was a little girl growing up, she always did puzzles with my grandma, so mom bought a 500 piece puzzle of Rockefeller Plaza. She also bought a little 50 piece puzzle for Ryan. Naturally, the boys weren't too thrilled about building puzzles; rather, they wanted to run off and play electronics and video games. Once we really got the puzzles going they were more interested. Everyone left me and I ended up doing the majority of the 500 piecer by myself. I stayed up until 2:45 am, but it was finished!

All of the us working on the puzzle. Dad even got into it for a few minutes (until Gray turned on Little Shop of Horrors...dad's favorite)

The boys and their little 50 piece puzzle of Santa's sleigh

Since Gray is working at Subway now, he had to work on Christmas Eve from 12 until close (at 10). Mom was going to cook a nice Christmas Eve ham and all the works, but we all decided it would be a lot of fun to go see Gray and eat Subway instead. Andrew even came over to comfort his best friend through his suffering.

Mom got the boys matching Christmas pajamas :)

Us on the outside, Gray trapped in the inside until closing

Our family, like many others, has the Christmas Eve pajamas tradition. Every Christmas Eve we look forward to getting our new pair of Christmas pajamas!

Christmas Eve 2010

Random

My blog is under construction. I am trying to change everything around, but it is not working 100% the way I wanted it to, especially with my dumb pictures. Once I get all of my pictures figured out, I will update about Christmas (maybe).

So far I have gotten accepted into George Mason University and BYU-Idaho. I have an interview on Tuesday with the Jefferson Scholarship Program at UVA (eek!). The Jefferson Scholarship awards a full ride to UVA! I had to first be nominated out of all of the students at my high school who submitted their resumes, then complete an application for the scholarship, so I am pretty excited that I now have an interview! That is slightly exciting :). I have to finish applying to University of Mary Washington and Virginia Tech, and I am waiting to hear from BYU-Provo, VCU, and UVA.

Mom started watching the CUTEST little boy for one of her friends. He is three months old and the cutest baby boy in the world. He is definitely tiding me over until June 4th when mom has her baby! I waste a lot of potentially productive time holding that little guy and playing with him. Irresistible.

Exam week starts tomorrow. My Micro Economics FINAL is on Friday--I can't wait to be done! End of the nine weeks is Friday as well, so I better get this homework done! :)

Papa Snowman

Before we got off for winter break, Bryce and his first grade class had a winter play. Bryce played "Papa Snowman". Mom wanted to dress him up, and he was the cutest snowman there!

Odd Ball

Every Kemmey Kid has a version of dirty blond hair. Some are darker than others, and Rachel has a hint of strawberry blond to her hair. The weekend before Christmas, Suzanne decided to dye her hair reddish blond. She is now the odd one of the family.

Gray took her to CVS to pick out some hair dye. She came home and I dyed her hair. The chemicals stink, but it was fun. She wanted it redder, so she is going to dye it again in a few weeks.

Before

Look at how Crazy Orange/Red her head was. She was freaked her hair would look like that too!

Ta-Da. It looks a lot more red in person!

Crack Up

This kid is too funny. He cracks me up. Daily.

I Really Hate School Computers

I have been trying to download a simple thirty minute video for my Biology class for 45 minutes. At home, it downloaded in about a minute and a half. This is the only thing I have to do for online classes today, and it won't let me. I could have already been done if I were at home. School is a waste.

Sicko

Almost two weeks ago on Tuesday night, my mom's mom went into the ER in Virginia Beach. She could barely walk, she couldn't lift her arms up, and she was overall having trouble doing anything. She was immediately admitted, and went to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit). I got the chance to go down on Thursday morning to see her.

The hospital entrance. I was actually born at this hospital!

When I got there, she looked horrible and she was so delirious. She was saying so many crazy things, and she was imagining things. She was insisting that Gray had been arrested three times, that I was not in the room, that sausages were hanging from the ceiling, that her ice in her cup were bubbles floating in the room, and so many other things. We hung around for a couple of hours just listening to her and cracking up, because she was not making any sense at all. She was hooked up to IVs, blood pressure monitor that checked her every 20 minutes, oxygen, a PulseOx, a heart rate monitor, a catheter, and tons of other things. She couldn't move without a nurse, so she basically laid in bed for a week and a half.

**In the ICU you are not supposed to be taking pictures, so I had to secretly take this with no flash and then make it lighter on the computer.

We didn't want to leave Grandma alone in the ICU at night, so I stayed with her both Thursday night and Friday night because mom and Gray had to go back to Fredericksburg for their college classes, my Grandpa had to give college exams the next morning, and my aunt is a teacher who had to work the next morning. That left me. It's a good thing I stayed, because both nights were rough for her.

Grandma on Thursday

Thursday night I just had the laptop and some schoolwork out, and Grandma woke up at about 12:30 am. She woke up, looked around, and started saying stuff like, "Oh, this looks amazing. Who did all of this work. This is so nicely decorated. Oh! Look at those cats and that clown! Wow, this looks like a nightclub in here! Who's party is this?" It was crazy. She thought we were really having a party in there all night and kept saying she felt so bad she was ruining the party every time the nurse came in to give her medicine or when she had to use the bathroom or anything. Friday morning around 6am, she starting acting more like herself again. Most of the confusion was gone, and she was talking like herself again, which was good.

Grandma started telling me how she thought she was going to die. It was definitely the worst and sickest I had ever seen her, but I knew she wasn't dying, so I just listened to her tell me about her life, and all of her kids and grandkids, and about when she was little, etc. The doctors figured out that some steroids she was on were shutting down her entire system, and she most likely took to much or forgot to take one of her medicines. All the confusion and random things she was saying were caused by being rapidly taken off of her medicines while the doctors were trying to get her back to normal. She had so many great doctors and nurses!

Her screen with all of her vitals and monitors

Friday day was good. Her legs were in a lot of pain--a lot. I rubbed them for hours. I switched out with my aunt and grandpa so that I could go back to their house and take a shower and go to Target and get some clothes. I wasn't planning on staying in Virginia Beach, so I had nothing with me except for the clothes I was wearing and a pair of sweatpants. My aunt took me, I got some clothes, and then I went to some work holiday party with my Grandpa. I was running on like 2 hours of sleep, and I fell asleep at my Grandpa's work party :) After that, I went back to the hospital to stay another night with Grandma. By Friday night, she was out of the ICU and was on the 3rd floor, which meant a lot less monitoring. They were still monitoring her heart, her oxygen, and her blood pressure but less frequently. She fell asleep pretty quickly, and I was sitting on one of those little hospital pull out chairs falling asleep.


The nurses were in and out of her room throughout the night, checking her blood sugars and checking all of her vitals, so I was awake off and on when they would come in. About four in the morning, Grandma woke up and couldn't breathe, so she pushed the nurse alarm button. Of course, I shot right out of bed and was up for the day. They started doing breathing treatments, chest x-rays, EKGs, etc... trying to figure out why she couldn't breathe. It was a crazy morning. Eventually she ate some of her breakfast, but just a few bites. The nurses and doctors were taking care of her, and she was doing better later in the morning, so my aunt came and took me to get some breakfast and to go take a shower. My mom came back down Saturday to pick me up and take me back to Fredericksburg.

They have these boards in all of the rooms. This was on Saturday. They expected her out of the hospital in 1-3 days, but she ended up staying five more days.

Here is Grandma on Saturday night about 5:30, right before we left. She was looking and feeling so much better.

Grandma came out of the hospital just this past Thursday, the ninth. We went back down to Virginia Beach this weekend, and she went back into the hospital this morning. This is crazy. The doctors expect to see her more often than not from here on out.