Ketchup - Construction Just Before Baby

We were feeling "the crunch time" right before baby. Here are a few things that we worked on up to the arrival of our new girly bundle of joyness.

1. Living Room Steps...putting the wood flooring on them.

They aren't entirely done, but I can live with them for now.

Keedan and Ryan adhering the wood.

Keedan very excited to be working. If he holds to that throughout his life, he will be quite the achiever.

2. Cutting Baseboards.....this job seems to be never ending.

This is so not a flattering picture. I had to post it b/c Ryan picked up the camera and snapped a photo of me. Thats pretty amazing in itself ;)

3. Raising the kitchen ceiling.

My parents were down over a week and a half before baby was due and they helped us with the demo of the ugly kitchen drop down ceiling.

Check out that lovely mess. Thankfully, the plastic stayed well intact.

Keedan helping Ryan with measurements.

The rasied ceiling. Oh how sweet it is! It makes the kitchen seem so much bigger with the added height.

Once the ceiling is finished, the fabulous pictures will be posted.

Finally...we have a baby to hold!

MaKenna Eve Malnar

Born: Wednesday @ 1:07 a.m.

Wt.: 7lbs, 7oz

Length: 20.5 in.

Me ready to have a baby.

We arrived at the hospital at around 6:30 in the morning on Tuesday.

They broke my water at 8:00 a.m. and we waited patiently, then impatiently, then Halloween impatiently for baby to arrive (my monster voice manifested during the pushing stage, just ask Ryan).

Thankfully, I didn't have to push long at all...but WOW, it makes a difference when you've still got a sprinkler system. Sadly, my sprinkler system had run out of water after 17 plus hours.

An exhausted Ryan chatting with friends and family.

Keedan holding his baby siser for the first time. He has been sooooo sweet to MaKenna. It's mom that he's not so happy with....hopefully that will pass soon.

Cousins and Aliens

This past week, Keedan's cousins stopped by for a quick visit on their way back home to Utah.

Keedan had soooo much fun with them.

None of the kiddo's tired of the play pistol's you see in the pic. They chased each other around the house clikety clicking until we (the adults) took them away.

(Alien Footprints)

On Thursday, Keedan and I made a trip to Roswell and while there took some time to check out the alien habitation.

(Alien Street Lamp along Main St.)

(Music Store with the added Alien Advertisment)

It's comical that this town advertises on almost every business with some sort of Alien picture or statue.

Our last Alien destination was to a souvenir shop that had an alien black light art display.

Poor Keedan was not a fan, at all. I did pay $2 bucks to walk through so I made him suffer through it.

I broke down and bought these silly alien sunglasses....I do have to say that we had a good laugh over them.

On a side note, I also bought a silly blow up baby alien that Keedan has been playing with (quite frequently might I add) and he calls it his baby.

Oh Sweetness!

Keedan is now 2 1/2 years old.....Wow crazy how time flies. He looks so sweet and peaceful at the moment. HOw O how can this sweet little fella cause so much commotion? The answer is...when mom's not around every second, he is a magnet for the no' no's :)

Incident 1 - Mom vs. Brownie Batter BanditI made some brownie batter last week, covered it, walked away from the kitchen for a bit and somebody was able to infultrate the batter.

When I tried to depose Keedan (b/c he was the only suspect) he was uncooperative.

He rolled over and began to laugh....but the proof was on his face and a small bit on his belly....Bahahahhaha.

Trying to prove his side of the situation with a lovely brownie batter mustache.

Incident 2 - Mom vs. Bubble Happy Boy

So, Keedan got ahold of the dish soap and filled the dishwasher with it. I've gotta give him credit b/c he put it in the right place and then some. Well, I was able to clean most of it out (so I thought) and proceeded to turn it on and I left for the store.

I came home to find bubbles covering most of the floor in my kitchen. I was shocked and Keedan was elated.

(I grabbed my camera too late but here is a little remnant of the mess before it was "keaned up")

I got out the sponge mop and began mopping up the floor when Keedan took interest and wanted to help. I handed him the mop and he started saying: "Kean up, Kean up!"

It was so sweet and heart warming to watch him be so vigilant at cleaning up the mess. He even lifted the mop up to the sink for me to rinse off the bubbles and strain it and then he got back to work :)

He wouldn't pose for the camera b/c he was too busy keaning to smile.

Afterwards he pointed to the floor and said with a big smile..."Kean!"

New Title

So, I've finally won and I'm soooo duper super excited about it!

What have you won, you ask?

Around the first of the year, my friend had a baby girl and named her Makenna. I instantly fell in love with the name and told Ryan that if we ever have a girl, I wanted to name her Makenna.

It might have taken several months, but he has finally stated that he likes the name Makenna for our baby girl (that will be here in a month and a half or so'ish).

Now, we need to change our blog title.

Why you ask?

Well for those of you not in the know, RAKA stands for: Ryan, Amanda, Keedan & Astro.

We will need to incorporate an M and sadly lose the last A (b/c Astro is now in heaven).

Or we can just come up with a clever title that will not need to be changed everytime there is a new addition to our family.

Any suggestions?

Sidetrack from Improvements

Yes, I've been slacking on my house duties lately....but really who can blame me? I've gotten sidetracked into sewing and I'm not even feeling bad about it.

I was afraid that Keedan would be a tornado during my various projects but he has been very good and seems intrigued when he watches.

Here's a sidetrack from the point of my post.....here are some super cute pics of Keedan trying on some of Ryan's gear last night.

And other cute pictures of last week when some of his cousins were here.

Heading out to to the pool.

Attacking D'mar with bubbles.

OKay, back to the reason I"m blogging.

I've been working on decor for the baby's room. So much fun!

I think making all this stuff has gotten me even more excited about having a girl.

So here's what I've got so far.

Here are just 3 of the 7 mini dresses I sewed together yesterday. I added little belts to them so far but they still need some embellishing. I'm going to string these little dresses on the outside of the crib like a clothesline (with clothespins too). I haven't decided if I want to paint the clothespin's or leave them natural. We'll see.

Here is the fabric for the curtains I'm making. I'm not quite done, ran out of thread, but next week they'll be done & hung (b/c new window's will be installed then...YAY!)

So now I've gotta decide on how I'm making the bedskirt and bumper pads. I was thinking about using the stripes for the bedskirt and making the bumper pads with the flowery fabric, but I just can't make up my mind.

That's it for now. Hopefully, I will make my decision sooner than later.

Our New Outlook

This past Wednesday our house received an enormous face-lift by the addition of new windows in the living room. I'm so happy with them b/c the old ones had broken latches and were NOT air tight, so our electricity bill was pretty pricey this past winter.

We had sub-contractors from Lowe's install them, so it seemed to go by pretty quickly.

This past Saturday, however, Ryan and our wonderful missionaries here in Clovis did some Do-It-Yourself work in our Kitchen (not so quickly).

10:30/11:00 am
They were removing the bay windows and outside brick wall to make room for french doors.

This was particularly Not a fun part of my day b/c the dog kept getting loose outside the gate and I'd have to chase her down. It wasn't too terrible at first, but it just kept happening, so we finally tied her to a tree. I know animal cruelty but at least there was no more pregnant lady cruelty, right?

1:00 P.M
Missionaries left and Ryan was determined to get those french doors in.

5:00 P.M.
Break time and ooooohhh how refreshing it was.

11:00 P.M.
Thanks to the help of a friend at 9:30 P.M. that came over to help Ryan move the door, we now have a Sweet Back Door with no door knobs yet, but they're coming...hopefully very soon :)