She didn’t have a name on New Year’s Day, but she has the distinction of being Sweet Home’s first baby of 2009.
She’ll either be McKenzie Janee or Hannah Jane Nicholson. Although narrowed down to two names, her parents hadn’t decided on spellings Friday at Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital.
Linn County’s first baby of the new year was born at 8:05 a.m. on Jan. 1 at SLCH to Dean and Heidiann Nicholson of Sweet Home. She has a full head of dark brown hair with blue eyes. She weighed 8 pounds 1 ounce and was 20 3/4 inches long.
She joins two sisters, Katie, 16, who attends Sweet Home High School, and Chelsea, 10, who attends Oak Heights.
Maternal grandparents are Bill and Gail Cumming of West Lynn. Paternal grandparents are Scott and Chu Sun Nicholson of Sweet Home.
“It’s kind of cool,” Dean said chuckling at the thought that his child was the first of the year at SLCH. “But it’d be nice to have the first one in the United States.”
Heidiann Nicholson went to the hospital at about 1 p.m. on New Year’s Eve and spent the night.
“It was a good New Year’s Eve party,” Dean said, noting that the night’s activities ended with a little bit of a surprise.
Based “on the first couple of ultrasounds, they said male,” Dean said. “We thought it was a boy.”
The parents are perfectly happy with a daughter, Heidiann said, although they had purchased “a lot of boy’s stuff.”
They’ll keep some of it, she said.
Dean is a manager at Safeway in Corvallis. Heidiann is an assistant manager at Safeway in Hood River.
Dean, 42, has lived in Sweet Home off and on for some 30 years. He graduated from Sweet Home High School. He also has lived in Bend and Silverton.
Originally from Southern California, Heidiann moved to Sweet Home 2 1/2 years ago.