Big Week

Bryan and I were up early on Monday so we said goodbye to Jonathan and started making breakfast. About 15 minutes later, Jonathan came back in the door. It turns out that John Deere had some sort of electrical problems and was going to be closed for the day. So we headed out to the mall to do some last minute shopping. Kylee and Bryan played in the new play area and had a blast. I didn't think Bryan would like it, but he really enjoyed it. In fact we ended up there yesterday again after we ate lunch. Here are some pictures. Sorry they are from my phone.

It has been a big week for Kylee. Last week she took her first steps and now she is walking everywhere. She said her first word and yesterday, I actually felt a tooth coming through. It is her first one at 11 1/2 months, but I'm not complaining. She hasn't even been fussy and not biting yet (knock on wood).

We went to see the lights at Blora last night. Unfortunately a lot of other people had the same idea and we were there for a little over 2 hours. Kylee did very well though. I think that she really enjoyed it. We are spending Christmas Eve and morning here and then we are heading down to Austin for lunch with Jonathan's family and dinner with mine. I probably won't have time to blog on Christmas so I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!!

Bubba is home

We went up to my sister's house on Friday night. She lives in Allen (north of Dallas). Then Saturday morning we got up and headed over to Ft. Worth to get Bryan (he was at a Christmas party there). It was so good to see him again. He was very excited to see Kylee and couldn't wait to see her walk.

We went back to Karen's house for the rest of the weekend. We had a great time relaxing the rest of the morning and then Jonathan's sister came to join us on her way down to Austin from St. Louis. Karen and Scott have a dog, Wallace, and Shara has a dog, Riley. So Kylee was in heaven. She absolutely loves dogs. We think that she said her first word, dog, pronounced in a high squeal, "da-da." She gets so excited when she sees a dog, even if it is just stuffed.

She continued to amaze her Aunts with her walking abilities. Here is a video that Aunt Shara shot.



Here is one of her playing with the dogs.



Here is one of her sleeping with Uncle Scott, go ahead and say, "Ahhhh."

8 Years

Today is our 8th Anniversary!! I am so thankful for my sweet Jonathan. He is a great husband, father and friend. It seems like I have always known him and I look forward to sharing many more years with him. I love you sweetie!!

I don't have any pictures from our wedding in my computer b/c it was before the digital age. But here is one in my dress and a couple of us over the years.

Big Girl!!

So my big girl took her first real steps yesterday. We tried to get it on video when Daddy came home, but of course she only wanted to crawl then. We will keep trying. Just wanted to share the big news :)

Good news!

My check engine light came on about 2 months ago. I figured I needed an oil change or something. But it kept coming on and then going off for quite some time. So I took it up to Jonathan's work where one of his mechanic friends has a computer to check and see what is wrong. He said that it was the catalytic converter. Immediately I thought, great how expensive is that. Then he told us that the government mandates an 80,000 mile warranty to cover those. When I checked my odometer it was at 78,300. Yeah. So I took it up to Waco at the Isuzu dealership. They told me it would take a couple of hours to check it and then a couple of months to get the part in. I thought great. But it turns out it only took about 3 minutes to check it and it will take a week to get it in since I have a V6 instead of a V4. Plus there is no deductible. I am thankful for the government guidelines. How often can you say that these days?

Then I got a call from my old school where I used to teach. They need tutors for math and reading. It is part time and they are going to let me teach Mondays/Wednesdays, 8-3. I will still be able to teach at the preschool on Tuesdays/Thursdays and I will have Fridays to spend all day with Kylee. I found someone to keep her already and she has a 9 month old for Kylee to play with. I will make enough money so that Jonathan won't have to get a second job! God is blessing us.

Here is the long awaited picture with Santa.
UPDATE: I HAVE MISPLACED THE PICTURE WITH SANTA. DON'T WORRY I WILL FIND IT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

Dancing Queen

As you might expect, we are a very musical household and we encourage that in Kylee. We leave the keyboard on all the time so she can crawl in there and jam. After we took her to get her picture taken with Santa yesterday she wanted to show off some of her dancing moves. Sorry about the quality, this was on my digital camera.

The Mom Song

This is what a Mom would say in a twenty-four hour period. As she says, "Strap on your seat belt, 'cause here we go!" Take a second to listen and have a laugh!

Random

This is my favorite time of year!! Every night I play Christmas music while we eat dinner. Kylee loves to dance to it. I found some new stockings for all of us at the Cracker Barrell. They always have such a great selection and I got all of them for 40% off! We all had stockings, but these are much cuter. I have done most of my shopping already. I decided to wrap the gifts as soon as I get home and that way I don't have to find a place to hide them. It has worked out very well so far.

We were very worried about Kylee getting into the tree, but so far so good. We ordered a fireplace screen/gate and we placed it around the tree. So far when we do make a fire we just have to tell her, "No," with our stern voice and she leaves it alone. Hopefully she keeps this up as she gets bigger :)

Kylee got her second round of the flu vaccine today. She recognized the nurse and held on to me tightly when she came in the door. Then as soon as I put her on the table she started fussing. Poor baby she actually remembered. There were only a few tears and then she was back to her happy self.

I have some very exciting news...I found 3 more of Kylee's favorite purple blankets! I know that is probably not exciting to you. We started out with one blanket, then my sister found 3 more for me, so that made 4. Now we have lost one and we are down to three. But with the additional ones that I found at Ross, we have 6!! Its pretty sad when that is the most exciting thing that you have to blog about huh?

So Kylee is definitely "healthy." I have had the hardest time finding jeans to fit her. We have one pair that someone gave to me and it says that it is Rider brand. I have looked everywhere for that and I can't find it. I have tried jeans from Target, JCPenney and Walmart. All are too small. I was about to drive to Killeen to check out Old Navy when I decided to head over to a local consignment shop. I found two pairs and got them both for $12.99!! I refuse to pay more for Kylee's jeans than I do for mine so I was very pleased. Has anyone else had this problem? What did you do?

I hope all of you are enjoying the holiday season. Sorry i haven't taken any pictures lately. I need to get back to my daily picture taking!

Family!!

We had a great Turkey day and we hope all of you did too. Here is a recap from last week:

Tuesday:
I dropped Kylee off with Grandma and headed out to pick up Bryan from Stephenville. We got home around dinner time and enjoyed some pizza with Jonathan. Then we set to work decorating the garage for dinner and Bryan's party the following day.

Wednesday:
We did a lot of housecleaning in preparation for the people coming up. We cleaned out our garage and made a huge table out there. It was really fun to all sit together for once! After we ate our huge meal, we had Bryan's belated birthday party, complete with a pinata!






Thursday night Karen and Scott spent the night and we watched "The Hulk" with them. We really like it :)

Friday morning Karen took our family pictures at UMHB. Here are a few, didn't she do such a great job?







Thursday afternoon we left for East Texas and spent two nights with Jonathan's side of the family. There were lots of cousins there and both of the kids had a great time. We also celebrated Mimi and Papo's 60th Wedding Anniversary! Congratulations to them. Here are some pictures.

Bryan with Sam and Ginger. Kylee adored these dogs and would try to get outside any chance that she could to see them!

Kylee and all of her little cousins.

The three babies with Uncle Herschel.

Pictures

So its been a while since I have posted any pictures so I will try to catch up.
Here are some very overdue pictures from our Halloween Party at church.

Kylee and her peeps


Here is Kylee at her preschool program. She was a puppy.

Here is Bryan's pig, Becca.

I had a weird urge tonight to actually clean out the fridge. Kylee was my helper. Her favorite were the carrots. I have taught her well.


This was from the other day. She has a fascination with crawling under the table. She was draped inside of a chair, but she got out before I could get the shot.


This was a day when Mommy and Kylee both wore their overalls :)

Overdue

I'm sorry I haven't posted in so long. We have already had a very busy November. The first weekend we went over to Stephenville to see Bryan. They had a toy run sponsored by the area bikers. It was really fun to see all of them drive in on their motorcycles. We got to see Bryan's pig who he endearingly named Becca. All of the kids were very excited to show us their animals. It is a great program for the boys to learn how to be responsible for something else besides themselves.

Last weekend we had two of our nieces up from Austin. Marj and Kim are 12 and 14 and I had a lot of fun with them. They entertained Kylee and I got to help Jonathan organize the garage a little. He did most of the work and I just hung out with the girls most of the time. The garage is very close to housing an actual car and just in time since there has been ice on my car recently. Thanks to Jonathan who worked so hard.

Kylee turned 10 months on the 12th. I was happy, but sad. My baby is one month closer to a year. I can't believe she is so big. So I decided to list 10 things that she loves to do:

1. Play by herself until Mommy is busy washing dishes and cannot hold her.
2. Close herself in the laundry room.
3. Pull everything off of the coffee table and then crawl away.
4. Kick her legs when Daddy gets home. If he doesn't hold her right away, she cries.
5. Nurse while standing up!
6. Pull the curtain back and look out the front window.
7. Go outside for any reason.
8. Try to pull Mommy's beauty marks off of her :)
9. Carry two stuffed animals around while she does everything: crawl, cruise, and climb.
10. Eat big girl food.

Kylee

Yesterday Kylee choked on something that she found in the toy box at preschool. I had gone to run some errands when it happened, but this is how I was told it happened.Her teacher turned around and saw Kylee standing by the toy box and it looked like she was yawning. She realized that she wasn't breathing and did the sweep in her mouth. She felt something hard at the back of her throat, but was unable to get it out. It went down further, but Kylee started breathing again.

A few minutes later Kylee stopped breathing and her teacher ran her down to the directors office. The director hit her on the back and a tiny little piece of plastic wrapping came out. She started breathing again and was back to her old self. When I picked her up I took her over to the doctor to make sure everything was okay. He said she was breathing well and seemed okay, but wanted to take an x-ray to be sure (we weren't sure if that tiny little piece of plastic was it since it had felt hard). The x-ray showed that there was nothing in there and she is doing well.

But while we were there he checked on her ear infection and said that she probably needed another antibiotic. He gave her a z-pack which she will start tomorrow. Poor baby. She seems to be feeling alright, but we are going to keep her home tonight so she can get a good night's sleep. We were supposed to go down to the homecoming game of my high school with some old friends. But I think it would do her some good to stay here.

Sorry no pictures this time, I will post some later

Tagged

I was tagged by my friend Amanda to do this.

TYPE ONLY ONE WORD FOR EACH ANSWER. IT'S HARDER THAN YOU THINK!!!
1. Where is your cell phone? couch
2. Your significant other? working
3. Your hair? brown
4. Your mother? Austin
5. Your father? Retired
6. Your favorite thing? family
7. Your dream last night? none
8. Your favorite drink? Dr. Pepper
9. Your dream/goal? Mom
10. The room you're in? laundry
11. Your fear? alone
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? family
13. Where were you last night? couch
14. What you're not? spontaneous
15. Muffins/donuts? DONUTS
16. One of your wish list items? flooring
17. Where you grew up? Austin
18. The last thing you did? laundry
19. What are you wearing? jeans
20. Your TV? paused
21. Your pet? none
22. Your computer? apple
23. Your life? wonderful
24. Your mood? relaxed
25. Missing someone? Karen
26. Favorite pastime? movies
27. Something you're not wearing? necklace
28. Favorite Store? Target
29. Your summer? busy
30. Your favorite color? purple
31. When is the last time you laughed? morning
32. Last time you cried? Sunday
33. Who will/would re-post this? Melissa
34. Four places I go over and over? Church, Wal-Mart, Bell, Target
35. Four people who e-mail me? Karen, Mom, Pam, Ruth Ann
36. Four of my favorite foods? reeses, pancakes, fries, chicken
37. Four places I would like to be right now? vacation, shopping, sleeping, date
38. Four people I tag? Beth, Chris, Melissa, Ruth Ann

Feeling better!

Kylee slept a lot this morning (she even took one nap on me...that never happens!). And she seems to be feeling a lot better. She has had three doses of antibiotic and is getting back to her old self. Today she successfully signed "more" while I was feeding her dinner. I know that she understood b/c I would ask, "More?" and she would sign "more." I was so excited!!

I also had my first conversation with her today. We were talking about why she couldn't hold the spoonful of food. She smiled and laughed like she was saying, "Silly Mommy." She also got her first two ant bites, poor baby. This was a vicious ant. It bit her on her hand and then I found it while she was eating and it bit me...you know where. Not pleasant. Then while I was giving her a bath I noticed that she had a bite on her back.

She also showed her observation skills today. She found an empty root beer can under the recliner (I guess I need to clean under there :) ) and she tilted it up like she was going to have her first sip of coke. Not yet baby girl!

Here are some pictures from last night's funival at church. As you can see she wasn't feeling very well. We didn't stay long. Just long enough for us to see our friend's cute kiddos and for her to show off her own cuteness.

This was the only time she wore her visor. But at least we got a picture!

"Maybe I should have been a butterfly?"

"Has everyone seen me looking cute? I'm ready to go!"

Here is a video of Kylee doing her boodie dance and other things. This is for AUNT SHARA!

9 months

We had our 9 month appointment yesterday. She only weighed 20.9! I thought she was closer to 22 :) She is 26 1/2 ", 75th for weight and 20th for height. The doctor said that she is right on target for all of her skills. He gave her a book with pictures of babies and he is now her favorite person :) He did say that she has an ear infection and fluid in the other ear. Poor baby. She has had a cough for a couple of days, but hasn't been really fussy. She is on an antibiotic and I am enjoying the fact that she wants me to hold her and snuggle. I just wish I could do make her feel better!

Pumpkin Patch

Saturday Jonathan and I were planning to take Kylee to the pumpkin patch. Both of the Grandmas decided to come up and join us. We got some cute pictures, but Kylee seemed to always know to turn away when we got the camera out.

How do I get out of here?

Now this is the life!

The Grandmas hooked Kylee up with a new fall wardrobe (thank you Nonny and Grandma!!) We had to get 18 month clothes! Maybe she can go back and wear 12 months after she slims down?

Haircut

Jonathan absolutely hates getting his hair cut. He usually waits until I bug him so much that he finally gives in. I cut his hair once when we were first married and I really messed up. Jonathan wears a hat everyday except Sundays. I managed to make a "hole" in his hair right below the hat line. I haven't cut his hair since. He finally trusted me again last Tuesday. It went well and there were no holes this time!

Kylee enjoyed the hair and grabbed some before we could get to her. Here are some pictures.




Click on the picture to see the details.

Friends

Thursday afternoon we had some friends over. Makenna and Kelsey came over and Kylee had a great time with them. Makenna decided to use some of my instruments to form a band. She was the leader and she assigned us our instruments. Makenna played the maracas and keyboard, Kelsey and Kylee played the tambourines and I was asssigned the "violin" (otherwise known as a guitar). Makenna was rocking out and looked over only to notice that Kylee had crawled away on the job. She immediatly said, "Hey I need her to play her instrument!!" She quickly handed Kylee the tambourine and Kylee stared at it :)



What do we next?

See this is how you play the tambourine!

Tags, Blocks and Poop Oh My!

We got a video camera before Kylee was born. We have tried to be diligent about taking videos, but I couldn't get them to work on my mac. This weekend my brother-in-law (thanks Scott) downloaded a converting program. So now for the first time Ouronlinetome includes video. This is really for Shara and other family that lives far away. Sorry its kind of long.

Update: That video didn't work so here is one where Kylee is helping Mommy fold laundry!

State Fair

My sister and brother-in-law invited us to come to the State Fair with them this past weekend. Jonathan had to work Saturday morning so Kylee and I headed up there with my mom Friday evening. We got to celebrate Scott's (my brother-in-law) b-day after we got there with some ice cream cake from Baskin Robin's, yummy!

Saturday morning we went over to the outlet mall in Allen and I got Kylee some clothes. I haven't really bought her very many clothes b/c we had a lot that was given to us. So it was kind of fun to pick out new stuff. Then we had lunch and put Kylee down for a nap. Jonathan was supposed to come and meet us after he got off work, but he ended up having a migraine and had to stay home.

When we got to the fair the OU/Texas game was just getting out so it was very crowded. But after the crowds cleared out it was very nice. The weather was perfect and there was even a breeze. Kylee did awesome! She only cried once when she wanted to nurse. The rest of the time she was totally fascinated by all of the people and lights. She ended up staying up the whole time! Needless to say she slept very well the next day.






Karen and Scott



The famous "Big Tex!"



She is ready for a good time!



Believe it or not this is at 10 PM!

Mommy

Kylee is officially in a "Mommy" stage. She always needs to be near me if not being held by me. When Daddy gets home I am so excited to have a break and she fusses when he takes her. He usually has to go outside with her and then she gives in to the fact that he is going to hold her for a while. It kind of hurts his feelings, but I keep reassuring him that this is a phase and soon she will be in a Daddy stage (I hope). It is kind of sweet that she always wants to be with me, it just makes it really hard to get anything done around here. Any advice on this would be very helpful :)

Bryan came home this past weekend and we had a good time. He was very sweet with Kylee, but didn't really want to hold her much (typical boy). Saturday we had some friends come over for the day (Lexie, Joe and Ray) and we turned our living room into a theater. We put blankets up on all the windows and turend up the surround sound. We enjoyed watching Ironman. Our movie was complete with popcorn and lots of candy. Needless to say we had a good time. Here are some pictures from the park.



Kylee loves the baby swings!




The next time you need to rent a movie, make sure to go to Redbox. They only cost a dollar plus tax, you can turn them into any other redbox while you're out, if you want to keep it an additional night it is a dollar and you can check and see which location has the movie you want. It is a vending machine for movies. What a great idea!

Jonathan and I got to go on a date last weekend. We saw the Nicholas Sparks story, "Nights in Rodanthe." It was very romantic and nice to have a night out. We have decided that we are too old for dinner and a movie. The late movie is too late and we are ready for bed after the early movie. So we have decided that the next time we go out, it will be for dinner.

Enjoy every moment

I read this in the September issue of Parents magazine. I thought it was a great reminder.

STOP FREAKING OUT ABOUT THE MESS! There's always time to clean--but how often do we get to make mud pies?

LOVE ME even when I'm naughty. I'l only be this age once.

BE PATIENT. I do everything for a reason, but I don't know enough words yet to give you an explanation.

DON'T EXPECT TOO MUCH OF ME. I want to do what you ask and make you happy, but I'm still little.

LET ME DO IT. I know you can do it faster and better, but sometimes experience is the best teacher.

KEEP YOUR PROMISES. It's all about trust. When I'm a teenager, you'll understand why it's so important.

DON'T KEEP ASKING ME IF I'VE BEEN GOOD. I'm not even sure what that means, but if I was bad I'd never admit it!

DON'T LET ME THINK THAT YOU'RE PERFECT. I feel better knowing I'm not the only one who makes mistakes sometimes.

SET LIMITS. I can't actually eat a whole box of cookies--I just want to see if I'd get away with it.

DON'T TRY TO REASON WITH ME WHEN I'M HAVING A TANTRUM. Trust me--I can't hear you over my own screaming.