Kate

Kate's Birthday Cake

The cake looks so good...but don't touch!

These were for passports...but she is just so dang cute!

This post will be all about our dear little Kate.

Kate turned 1 on June 14th YAY!!! Some days I can't believe it's already been a year, then on the other hand I look at all we have been through with her and I feel like it has been a LONG year. Between her food allergies, her need to be permanently attached to me, and her inability to crawl/walk I seem to always be questioning what's going on with her. She is beautiful and when everything is good then she is content and smilies so much and really is a joy. The older she gets the more of those moments we have. She has kind of been a hard baby but when she sits and giggles and grins it makes every moment of it worth it.

Our latest devlopment with Kate is her need to go and get her pelvis x-rayed. We have been taking Kate to the Physical Therapist becuase she isn't crawling, standing, or walking. After going to the therapist for 1 1/2 months without much progress they wanted us to go and get x-rays to make sure everything is okay. We were able to go today and it went really well. Kate was so happy and cooperative which was a miracle. I really liked the doctor (we went to an Orthoepedic specialist) and we were in and our fairly quickly. We went in, talked with one nurse then had another nurse take x-rays then the doctor came in. We had a good chat about what she could and couldn't do. Bottom line is that she's fine. The x-ray came back clear, he said that it's not "normal" for her to not be crawling but it's not a problem yet. He said some babies will NEVER crawl and that's okay. He isn't worried about Kate because he said she has great head movement and torso balance, he said that her arm, hand and finger dexterity is good and other than her legs she is Very healthy and strong. He told me that if she isn't at least standing by the time she is 19 months (6 months from now) then to bring her back in and they will start to run test and send her to a neuroligist but until then to just work with her. The doctor also made me feel better because he said one of his daughters never crawled and didn't start walking until she was 17 months and now she's 12 and perfectly normal and even plays sports LOL. So that did make me feel better knowing that not only will she be okay but that he had the same thing happen.

Kate is gettting really good at rolling and spinning around. She loves to play with Austin and is a good sport when he is a little too rough with her. She sleeps SO good and is a dream to put down for naps and bed. Even when we went camping this last weekend she layed down for every nap and went to bed and slept all through the night without crying even once! I was so surprised and happy.

California

This past weekend Devon took Austin and went to California to help his parents with some landscaping. They took off Thursday about 5 and got back Sunday a little after midnight...so really Monday I guess. Devon said that Austin did great on the trip. He said that he was a great travel partner and didn't have an accident all weekend! Even on a 12 hour car ride! Devon had a lot of fun even though it was a quick trip and was glad that he was almost able to surprise his parents. So, here is something funny, Devon didn't get to surprise his parents because one of his sisters accidentally let it slip that he was coming. When Devon told me this we were talking about it and I just couldn't believe it, NO ONE was even suppose to know...and then as he was telling me about how it all come out one person had to tell another person who had to tell another person who accidentally let it slip.... I was just baffled. I told him ( and I don't mean it in a bad way, they are all just VERY open about everything) "Your family CAN NOT keep a secret". He just shrugged and said Nope, there's no reason for it....one the other hand, your family is like the Gadianton Robbers. LOL Yes, I do think that our family keeps a lot of secerets. Most things are on a need to know basis, if you don't need to know, then your not told. It's fine for the most part but sometimes it gets annoying. Anyway, I just thought it was a funny compairison.

While the boys were gone Kate and I had a great time. We hung out, relaxed, I got my hair done, we had a ward party, I had a couple vinyl orders come through and it was nice. I can't wait until next weekend when we all get to go on a little vacation.

Motorcycle

It's official. On Saturday, after two year of owning his motorcycle, Devon FINALLY took me out for a ride. It was cool. I am definitely a whole helmet type of girl because I am not a big fan of all the wind and the bugs but with the full helmet on I really did enjoy it. We ended up taking the kids over to a friends house and Devon and I went and ate a peaceful dinner after a long work week. Then we went home changed clothes and jumped on the bike. We took it to the movies, which is about 1/2 an hour from our house. It was a nice ride at sunset and the weather was perfect. We went and saw Ghost of Girlfriends Past. LOL, we'll just said Devon was even less thrilled when he left the theatre than he was when we went in. I thought the movie was alright, but it was a little...hmmm, Devon said vulgar...I don't know if I think it was vulgar, I don't remember bad language and there weren't any steamy sex scenes, the whole premise is that he's a player who doesn't believe in love and thinks it normal and natural to have sex with everyone just like casual conversation. Anyway, we'll just stick with it wasn't the best show ever LOL.

Anyway, everyone here is doing great. My vinyl is selling fairly well, Devon is still crazy busy and the kids are healthy and happy. Life is good.

crazy crazy

Things here are going crazy. We've been sick with more than our fair share of illness for the last 3 weeks. Today it the first day in a LONG time that everyone seems to be feeling healthy.

Tomorrow I am FINALLY taking Kate in to get a Physical Therapy evaluation. I am really interested to see what they have to say. She is officially 11 months old and still isn't crawling or scooting. She still won't bare any weight on her legs and freaks out when we put her on her hands and knees. I'll be sure to update tomorrow night with what they find out...if any thing.

For the good new, the weather is starting to get nicer. It was hot (95) on Monday but is back to the upper 60's today with a lot of wind. With all the good weather comes the nasty mosquitoes. We're going to have to call the city and have them come out and spray....It's really bad at our house, swarms so thick that you can sit on the couch in the living room and watch the swarm fly back and forth across the back yard. Yuck!

Devon is REALLY busy with work. It's unbelievable and a true blessing. He seriously has more to do then hours in the day. He has been able to land some big contracts and they have been giving him more work than his crew can handle...plus he still has other jobs coming in, so he has started to look for people to start a second crew. His business partner has jumped on board full time and has been a great help to Devon. He is catching on quickly and although there is a lot to learn he seems to be a natural at dealing with the plants and seeing the end product in his head. It has been great for Devon to have someone to bounce his ideas off of. But, even with Levi's help, he is still easily gone 12 hours a day then comes home and does office work for at LEAST another 2 hours. It helps a little that it's staying light outside longer, the evenings seem to zip by faster for some reason and going out with the kids makes the days also fly by.

That's about all the news for now...oh other than Austin...he's being good and for the most part just being the same funny, jabbering little boy but to my surprise he knows and can recognize - in any order about 20 of the 26 letters of the alphabet!! He also know what noises most of them make! He will be 2.5 at the end of the month and I haven't even been working on them with him. He watches PBS in the mornings when Kate naps, and sometime in the evening after baths he'll watch "The Letter Factory" so when he started pointing out letters to me and I sad down and started asking him what the different letters were that I was drawing and he knew almost all of them it blew me away!! So, three cheers for Austin Hip Hip Horray!

Up and running

After what to me seems like forever I have finally opened my new etsy store!!! I have posted some fun vinyl graphics and hope you stop by if you get a minute. Right now I am offering free shipping to the first 10 sales!! Come check us out, just click HERE

Austin

I've taken a lot of pictures lately but haven't been so good at posting. Here are some pictures of Austin having fun with friends. Hopefully more will come as the weather keeps getting warmer.

Easter

Easter this year was great! It was fun because Austin was so excited to find Easter eggs. I think this was the first holiday he kind of understood...or at least understood that there was something fun to get all excited about. He even go so excited and caught up in the fun that he had his first accident in his pants in public....oops! Good thing it was at the end of the activity and we were outside!
Saturday morning we had a fun ward activity at a ward members home. We had strawberry and whipped cream topped pancakes YUM! Then the kids had a fun Easter egg hunt with more Easter eggs than I have ever seen in person. The kids had a blast, the weather was nice and everyone seemed to have a great time. It was nice to be able to sit and chat with friends and let the kids go play.
Sunday we had Easter baskets for the kids and had a few treats hidden around the living room. Church was at 9:00 so we did a quick "Easter morning" then headed off to church where we had a truly wonderful Easter Sunday. The speakers were amazing and the spirit was very strong in all our meetings. It was perfect. After we got home everyone took a nap while dinner was cooking then at 4:00 we packed up dinner and took it over to a friends house. We currently don't have a real dinning room table so we couldn't do dinner at our house so we brought dinner to theirs, it worked out wonderful. It was full Easter meal with a spiral honey roasted ham, corn, green beans, a wonderful potato dish, Rhodes rolls, and of course Jello. For dessert we had raspberry pie and I think we were all so stuffed we couldn't move. We had so much fun with our friends and the kids were being so good playing with each other we even had time to learn and play a new game. We may have even had time to play it twice but Devon was getting ready to go to Portland, Oregon on Monday and he still had to get some things together so we had to go. It was a wonderful evening and I'm glad that we got a "real" Easter dinner and had friends to share it with. Oh yeah, and on Sunday afternoon it was such a beautiful day that I took Kate outside and we had a mini photo shoot. It was a lot of fun.
Here are pictures from our wonderful weekend....oh and some of the play date we had with our friends making Easter Eggs.

Photo shoot gone photo shop!

Kate's Easter Basket

Austin's Easter Basket

This is how Kate usually is if I am not holding her. I seriously have to hold her all the time....oh to be so loved.

Just Kate

Kate and her rediculous front teeth LOL Austin "hunting" for eggs

I think the strawberries must have been sour. LOL

Our Friends Rachelle, Katie and Maddox

Austin was such a good helper.