Happy Father's Day!!

We had a great Father's Day. We gave Jonathan breakfast in bed and all joined him for a breakfast picnic. Then we went to church and heard a great sermon about the importance of Fathers. We headed over to the Olive Garden and met Jonathan's Dad and sister for lunch. It was very yummy!! Kylee enjoyed the tomatoes, olives and onions from the salad. I think she would eat anything that had their yummy dressing on it.

Then we came back to our house and played Dad's new gift, Guitar Hero for the wii. We went over to friend's house last week and he had gotten it as an early Father's Day gift. Jonathan began dropping hints about how he wanted one, so I took the hint and we have really had fun.

Here is a picture of Jonathan with the kids!

Never to old for Daddy to read you a story!!

In other news, Kylee is really growing up. She now picks out what she wants to wear. Recently her favorite thing is swim diapers. Don't ask me why, but she finds them and brings them to me just about every day. I even try to hide them, but it doesn't work. She then cries until I give in and put one on her.

She is talking a lot more. These are the words that she says regularly: Dada, Daddy, Mama, Mommy, Bubba, snack ("sac"), berry ("bewwy"), cheese, , Bible, dog, kitty (very high pitched, "ki-ee") no, yes (but only shaking her head), please (but only in sign language), and I'm sure there are others that I have forgotten.


She also loves to sit in her baby doll's stroller. I think she looks like such a little lady here.

She loves Bibles. Here is a little video of her singing her new favorite song!

Here's to all the Fathers, we hope you had a great day!!

Medicaid

As most of you know I have been trying to sort out Bryan's medicaid since he got home. Somehow his coverage got dropped while he was living at the home and it takes three months to reapply so we were left paying out of pocket in the mean time. I called again the other day to check his dates of coverage so that we could add him to Jonathan's insurance and it turns out that he has had medicaid all this time! Somehow he had it under someone else (they wouldn't tell me who). So I was on the phone with them for about an hour and a half trying to sort it out. I was so thankful that I finally talked to someone who got to the bottom of the case.

I was very thankful for Bryan during this time. He kept Kylee entertained for me. I highly recommend the older sibling situation :) Today we were all eating lunch on the bed with Jonathan (he had a migraine) and Kylee was giggling and entertaining us. Bryan said, "I'm so glad that we have a little sister."

So anyway back to medicaid. They got it all sorted out and I went to the office to get a copy of the card yesterday. I got there about 7:45 and they opened at 8. I came prepared with a bottle, snacks and books for Kylee; anything to keep her from walking around. I strapped her in the stroller and she did great. I had to hold her while I was actually talking to the lady at the window, but I think Kylee was just being nosy and wanted to know what was going on :)

I got the card and we were out the door at 8:30! Plus I got a check in the mail from Scott and White today for $90. I looked at the memo and it was from like a year ago for Bryan. I guess they overcharged us or something. So that pays for his psychiatrist visit. Yea!!

I'm sorry I don't have any picures. My computer is down in Austin getting a new screne since Kylee stepped on it :( I will have more pictures up when i get it back. I hope everyone is having a great summer.

Splash Time!

We have been getting out and getting wet lately. We have made 3 trips to the splash park and created a splash park in our front yard! Here are a couple of pictures and a video.

Who knew that a diaper box could be such a great mode of transportation?

And one just because she is so sweet!

We hope that all of you are enjoying your summers!!

Bryan is Home!!!

Bryan has been home for a week now and I am just now getting to post about it. We went to Stephenville last weekend and picked him up. Jonathan and I both agree that we will NOT miss that drive.

Here is he is his house parents, Debbie and Joel.

Here he is with his family of Home 5

Snuggling with Grandma!

We had a welcome home party for Bryan last Saturday. Here he is with all of his cousins!

I liked this one. It's a great shot of Kylee.
This is supposed to be one of those cute shots of everyone's feet.

End of the school year

Well today is my last day tutoring in Killeen. I will miss the kids and the money, but not the drive :) They have offered me the position for next year, but I also just accepted another offer. I am going to be the new co-director of Belton Christian Preschool. I will only have to work 2 days a week, drive 5 minutes from my house and have Kylee with me at all times! How can I beat that?

The other director is a very sweet lady and I think that we are going to work very well together. I am excited and a little nervous since this is uncharted territory for me. But I'm sure that I will get the hang of it quickly.

Bryan comes home on the 30th of this month, that is less than two weeks away!! We went up and visited him in Stephenville. We got to go to church with him. It was interesting. It was a very small town and they were very conservative. All of the hymns were slower and clapping was not part of the assembly. I was going to clap to one of my favorite songs, but quickly saw that they did not do that. It was weird to see our preacher there though. He left Stephenville and came to work at our church. Then he went back to Stephenville a couple of months ago. I still love his preaching, but understand why he wanted to go back there.

We are getting everything in order for Bryan. We found a therapist in Round Rock that specializes in reactive attachment disorder and we have appointments scheduled. But then we found out that his medicaid was not renewed. I have started the process, but please pray that it will move quickly. We can't get him on our insurance yet either, so hopefully he won't get sick.

Kylee is 16 months old now. Can you believe it? She is doing everything including starting to throw fits. We are trying to get that under control. I think she just wants to do things that she can't do yet and gets very frustrated. She is officially weaned!! It only took 2 bouts of mastitis, but it is done. She still asks to nurse sometimes, but I can usually distract her with a snack.

My mom is doing well with her radiation. She only has about 2 weeks left, so she is looking forward to it being over. Please pray that these last two weeks go smoothly with minimal pain.

And we have to have some pictures to round out this very long post :)

Two weeks ago Kylee's best friend, Skylar came over to play. They loved rocking in the recliner.

My sister and her little ones came up on Saturday.
Emily and Kylee

Daddy reading to Kylee

Dancing with Daddy

We have a dancing diva on our hands so we decided to do an experiment. We put different kinds of music on to see if Kylee adjusted her dancing. The results are really cute. It is a five minute video so feel free to just watch a small bit, it won't hurt our feelings.

Shocking!

I know that all of you are shocked that I am actually updating my blog, but here goes. We have been doing a lot around here, but as I sit down to write, not a whole lot sticks out.

Last weekend we went to East Texas to visit Kylee's Great Grandparents and she had a great time. She was very entertaining to the family. When we got there she put on a show with her twirling and dancing.

We took her in a covered wagon:

Here she is with her Great Uncle Herschel

She really enjoyed the ramp outside of Herschel's house

We got her a kitchen at a garage sale. Here she is practicing her skills :)

And one to make you say, "Ahh."

Easter

I hope all of you had a wonderful Easter! We were afraid it would be another year where we had to have our egg hunt inside the house, but it turned out to be a beautiful day. Last year Kylee was only 3 months old so she did not participate in the whole egg hunt. We were excited to have a nice day for her first official Easter. Here are some pictures from the day. Sorry Grandmas I didn't get a really good picture of her in her dress. She wouldn't stand still so I had to hold her.

Kylee helping Bubba find his eggs

Bryan and his lute.

Kylee enjoying her chocolate. (Don't worry we only gave her one)See Kylee loves her Bubba!

After searching finding a couple of eggs, Kylee decided it was more interesting to go and play in her house. Luckily we also hid some eggs in there.

We had a great time with Bryan this weekend. He had Friday off so we had a longer visit. We surprised him when he got here with a new room! We painted the walls blue and painted his furniture black so that it would match. He didn't believe us that it was the same furniture. I will get a picture soon.

Kylee absolutely adores Bryan. She giggles at him all the time. When she got home to see him she immediately held up her arms for him to hold her. She follows him around and loves to play in the same room as him. I was very proud of him, he even let her play with his cars. He is such a great big brother. I was worried about their relationship since they have been separated, but I think they will get along well. What an answered prayer.

Please continue to remember my mom in your prayers. She has begun a lot of the preparations for radiation and is still in good spirits. A friend from school introduced her to her parents and she is staying with them in Houston. Another answered prayer.

Easter

Kylee had her first Easter egg hunt yesterday at preschool. We practiced the night before. She loved finding the eggs, and she even put them in her basket. Here is a little video.


I got to go and watch her at the preschool. Here are some pictures from the action!

Bluebonnets

Last weekend we went to visit our sisters. Kylee and I drove Jonathan to the DFW airport where he flew to St. Louis to help his sister pack. Shara has been living there for the last 6 months or so and working as a stenographer. Her company did some reorganizing and she got transferred to Ft. Worth. Yea she is back in Texas!!

We got lost going to the airport and leaving. If you have never been there, try to avoid it. I had only been to Lovefield. Plus to top it all off, we got hit while waiting in bumper to bumper traffic. We didn't have time to call the cops b/c Jonathan would have missed his plane. Luckily it wasn't a lot of damage, just a couple of small dents and scrapes. My poor car. Here are some pictures from our trip up there. Kylee had to get out of the car and we found these huge rocks at a truck stop.

Kylee and I got to Karen's house (my sister) before she got home from work. Here we are waiting on her porch with ALL of our stuff. Remember the days when you only needed a duffle bag for a weekend trip?

We got to relax on Saturday. Poor Karen had to take one of her certification tests for teaching so I helped her study a little. Then my brother-in-law, Scott, took me to the toll tag office and I now have my very own toll tag. It is very exciting that I no longer have to have cash on hand. While I was in Houston I got quite a few toll violations. I thought it was like Austin where you can not pay the toll and they will send you a bill. I found out that it is not that way. I am still waiting on my TICKET and bill. I'm kind of scared!!

We got Shara moved in on Sunday and got home around 6:30 that night. Shara's apt. is very cute and I am excited for her. Thanks for the visits sisters, we had a lot of fun!!

Here are some picture of Kylee in the bluebonnets that we found coming home.

"See Mommy this one is my favorite."

New additions

Jonathan's parents moved into a new house and we got their old stove and fridge. The stove is a flat top and the fridge is a side by side with the little water and ice thingy. Here are our new additions.


Kylee really likes her bathing suits. She has figured out which drawer they are in and helps herself daily. I guess she likes that they are silky like her blankie. Here is a picture of her carrying them around.

I finally put one of them on her. She was trying to put it on herself and she was so excited when I helped her. I think I am going to have return it though, it is a 2T and it left little marks on her. I am still waiting for her to "slim down."

Prayers

As most of you know, my mom had surgery about a month ago to remove a tumor in her salivary gland. The doctor seemed very confident that it was benign. The surgery went well and she was recovering nicely. She doesn't have much use of the right side of her face, but that was to be expected. The doctors said it would take a couple of months to get the feeling back.

She went for her post-op about 2 weeks ago and was told that the tumor was malignant. We were shocked. I drove down the next morning to be with her. I got to stay for two days and go to a doctor's appt. with her. I was glad I could hear from the doctor. He said that it is stage 3, but only considered so because it was so big. They are going to start radiation as soon as they can. She is "living" there in Houston for now so she can make it to all of her doctor's appts. She is staying with a very sweet friend and looking into getting into one of the hospitality houses at MD Anderson. She is in great spirits, but please keep her in your prayers.

My parents are also struggling to find a car that can make the trip back and forth to Houston. Their one working car's transmission went out. Please pray that they can find one that is reliable and reasonably priced.

Here is a picture of my mom with Kylee after the surgery. Doesn't she look great?