The Columbia Valley’s first baby of 2013 is Hali Maria Brown of Invermere, who was born at Cranbrook Regional Hospital at 2:07 a.m. on Thursday, January 10 weighing eight pounds, one ounce.

“She is a really big deal,” laughed Hali’s proud mom, Jeanelle Reynolds, a hair stylist at Scizzor Sisters in Invermere.

Hali is the first grandchild on Jeanelle’s side of the family and on her husband Randy Brown’s side too. She is welcomed into the world by her great-grandparents Ed Reynolds and Dorothy Brown, both of whom reside in Invermere, by her grandparents Kathy Emery in Trail, Eric Brown in Invermere, and Linda and Don Reynolds, also both in Invermere, and of course by her ecstatic parents, Jeanelle and Randy.

Jeanelle was scheduled to be induced on the morning of Wednesday, January 9, one week after her ultrasound due date, which was New Year’s Day, but by the time they made it to the hospital, she had been having minor contractions for two days and  was already starting to dilate.

“They said, ‘We’re not inducing you, you can stay here or go home’,” Randy explained. “We managed to stay away for two hours.”

After a full day of  major contractions, Hali “came out sunny side up,” he said, with the same birthday as his aunt in Cranbrook.

“We’re just glad it wasn’t between Christmas and New Year’s; now she gets a real birthday,” he said.

“We were so lucky because everything went so well through the whole pregnancy, then with the labour and delivery,” said Jeanelle.

They discovered the name Hali online, and chose the spelling because it means “sea”, as in the ocean.

“It was original and simple,” said Jeannelle. The name Maria has family significance, as it’s Jeanelle’s sister’s middle name, and also the name of Randy’s brother-in-law’s mother who passed away from cancer.

Both sides of the family are already debating over which side of the family Hali takes after the most, which Jeanelle finds extremely amusing.

“If it’s his side, they see something on their side, if it’s my side, they see something on our side,” she said.

Her aunt has decided Hali has the family nose, while Randy’s mother has identified what she calls “the Brown chin”.

“Otherwise, all in all, to me she just looks like herself,” Jeanelle said. “And of course, she’s awesome; she’s very good, we’re pretty lucky.

“It’s such a funny thing,” she added. “We don’t ever ever understand it until we have them; now I understand why people would hold them all the time.”