Update

Well thankfully Heather heard back from her doctor tonight and her kidney is not failing!!!!!! It was harmed because she's been so sick and dehydrated, but it's definitely not rejecting. So she was able to go home from the hospital tonight and is doing much better. We went to visit her this afternoon and she looked great, it was going to be very hard to believe if they said she was rejecting her kidney! So, thank you all for your prayers and emails and visits and phone calls. Of course, we all know that this is the work of God and we just thank Him so much for healing her.

And Timothy is also doing much better, those antibiotics work miracles! He's slept so well today! Hopefully he'll get back to normal again soon and we can all be happy and healthy again!

PRAY!!!

Please pray for my sister Heather, she is in the hospital and the doctors think her kidney that she received in her transplant surgery two years ago is failing. They ran some labs yesterday and we won't get the results back until tonight or tomorrow, but my mom said it didn't look good and they think her body is rejecting the organ. She's pretty scared, obviously, and in pain from the biopsy they had to run yesterday and she just really needs prayers. We all know that God can do amazing things and He can stop her body from rejecting this organ. Please also pray for Tyler, it's been really hard on him to see his mommy in the hospital and pray for my mom while she takes care of them. Thank you all and I'll try to give updates when I can.

And also, on a much lesser note, please pray for Timothy. We found out yesterday that he has strep throat and he's been pretty fussy lately. He's finally sleeping, going on about 12 or 13 hours, so hopefully that and the antibiotics will help.

Timothy Update

It's getting closer to the 18 month mark, so I thought I'd give an update on how our little boy is growing and developing. I don't know how much he actually weighs or how tall he really is, but at the end of June he was around 26 pounds and in April he was 31 inches tall, so I'm estimating that at his check up next month he'll be around 30 pounds and closer to 3 feet tall. He can still wear the same jeans that he wore earlier in the year, but I don't have to roll them up anymore and 18 month sized shirts are getting small on him now because of his giant belly. He doesn't eat a whole lot and he doesn't snack a whole lot, but he just has this GIANT belly!

So onto the development stuff...he has completely given up his bottles, he did it while we were on vacation. He was down to just one at night before bed and the first night we were there I think he took it ok, but then after that he just kept pushing it away or playing with it so I tried putting him down the next night without it and he slept fine...and he didn't cough in his sleep so that was nice. He is running a lot more and he's getting fast, he still doesn't jump right, but that will take some time. He can throw a ball pretty well though and he can swing his baseball bat and if daddy pitches the ball just right he can hit it!

He knows where his nose, eyes, mouth, and ears are and I think he knows his feet but he doesn't grab them when I ask him. He can sign "more", "please", and sometimes we get "all done" and "thank you". He can blow kisses and wave for "hi" and "bye" and give hugs and real kisses (he's even starting to close his mouth and pucker more now). He loves to talk, but it's mostly jibberish, he can say about 10 or 15 words but usually he just babbles to himself. He can climb up and down the stairs all by himself and he can climb up the slide, sit, and slide down all by himself. He can drink from an open cup, but he still spills sometimes. It just amazes me that this time last year he had just learned to roll from his back to his stomach. Crazy.

He loves to read books with anyone that will read to him, he loves to play any kind of sport, and he likes to color and paint. He loves to be outside which is nice up here since the weather is so wonderful this time of year. He doesn't like to be held much anymore, he would much rather be down on his own getting into everything. He has a smile that will make you melt, and he knows it. He knows when he's doing something wrong and he will grin so big about it. He will throw temper tantrums pretty easily if he doesn't get his way. He cries and falls down on the floor and rolls around sucking his thumb until he's bored and then he gets up and tries again. We repeat that cycle a lot in our house.

He loves to play in the kitchen, I got him some alphabet magnets so he like to play with those and knows where the drawer with the straws is at so he pulls those out and plays with them. He also knows where his Cheerios are so he usually bring those to me too. He usually is a good sleeper, he will sleep 10-14 hours at night and 2-4 hours for a nap. In the past month, he's had a few bad nights where I've had to drive him around until he fell asleep, last night was one of those nights so that's why I'm home today! He knows when it's bed time and he'll just lay his head down on my shoulder and suck his thumb while we say our prayers, it's my favorite time of the day.

Anyway, I know this is a lot of somewhat useless information about my boy, but I want to remember it so I'm writing it down. And here are some new pictures of him, such a cutie!!

He got these cute new red shoes and I just love them. They're 7 1/2's and they're a little big, but they fit and they look so cute on him!

Post-fit throwing

Watching the football game, I guess this is comfortable?

Check out the belly on this guy!

And we needed some good cheesy face pictures!

Where Did August Go?

So it's totally September and I can't believe the summer is over...kids are back in school, it's getting darker earlier, they're putting up Christmas decorations at Macys...where did the summer go?

Warning to those of you that don't really care too much about EVERYTHING that's going on in our family, this is probably going to be long, a lot has happened in the past two weeks!

To start it off, Timothy and I flew out Saturday the 25th all by ourselves back down to Gulf Shores, AL for a week of vacation with my family. Heather and Tyler spent the night at our house Friday night and we all got up really early Saturday morning to head to the airport. The flight was great, Timothy did just fine and we didn't have a long layover in Houston so that was nice. The bad part started when we got on the plane in Houston. The pilot came over the intercom and said that one of our air conditioners was out but he thought once we got up in the air that the other one would be enough and we would cool down then (it was like 90 in Houston). So we take off and we get up in the air and all of the sudden it got really really hot and then he came back on after like 20 minutes and said that both air conditioners were out and we had no way to de-pressurize the plane and we were going to have to make an emergency landing in Baton Rouge. So we landed there, dripping wet with sweat from our 100 degree plane right, and waited three hours for them to bring a new plane in so we could finish the flight to Pensacola. I was so bored, it was nice to let Timothy down and he ran around that entire airport (which was like the size of my bedroom) and when we finally got on the plane to leave he fell asleep and slept pretty much the whole way back to the beach house.

We stayed in the most beautiful house on the beach. It was huge, four stories high, it had an elevator, it had two living rooms, six bedrooms and seven full bathrooms and a pool on the deck over looking the beach. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect house. The weather was great the whole week, we had a couple big thunderstorms, but I loved them, I miss them so much. Pretty much every day we spent going to the beach and then cooling off in the pool. I stayed in one day because I was a little sunburned, but other than that, the week was perfect. We did go play putt putt at all our old favorite places and ate at our favorite restaurants. Surprisingly enough, it didn't storm the night we ate at Steamers.

For anyone that didn't know, our family has been going to Gulf Shores for vacation as long as I can remember so it was neat to go back now with our kids and go to all our old favorites. One night Heather, Stefan, Brittany and Kevin and I went to the Pink Pony Pub...it's this little bar on the beach that's been there for forever and it was more nostalgia than anything that made us go there, and it totally did not live up to expectations! It was the practically empty when we got there, the karaoke was horrible and it was just funny that we had all imagined it to be a really cool place and it was really wasn't...but we had fun anyway, we tried to get Heather to sing and Stefan to swim in the ocean, but they both wimped out.

Brandon got there on Wednesday and played golf with the boys and one morning everything except mom, Heather, me and the little boys went on a guided fishing trip in the bay. It sounded like they had a lot of fun and caught a lot of fish. Brittany caught a sting ray and Kevin caught a fish that no one could tell what it was, not even the guides! Timothy learned some new tricks that week, he learned that if mommy says no he can go ask Aunt Heather and she'll say yes...he learned that he it's more to play with someone his own age. I think he and Linden became best friends. Linden would follow him everywhere and then they would tackle and play together, it was cute. I'll have to see if I can post the video I got of them playing together, it was so funny. Timothy also learned that the ocean isn't all that scary and he actually walked out into the waves all on his own one day. He did learn that he hates the pool unless daddy's there to swim with him. He learned how to say his first sentence, "Where's Dada?"...it's so cute when he says it!

I'm sure there's a lot I'm forgetting about that week, but I'll remember it later and post about it then...we came back late the next Saturday and spent Sunday out at the church camp for Labor Day weekend church. It was fun, but by the end of lunch we were all falling apart and needed naps. Timothy slept most of the afternoon and then another 13 hours that night. I think the time change finally caught up with him. As is our Labor Day tradition, we spent that Monday at mom and dad's house. The guys played golf that morning and then we cooked out and hung out that afternoon. It was fun, there were some new people there so that was nice.

Tuesday it was back to work and back to month end...it was so hard to get back into a routine and I think Timothy really felt it too, he did not want to get up at 5:30 every morning this week, but we survived and he's napping now so he's catching up on lost sleep. Today is the golf tournament and dinner fundraiser for JDRF so we're all going to that. Brandon's been gone all morning at the golf tournament and I'm dropping Timothy off at a sitter later today so we can go to the dinner tonight. It should be fun, I got a new dress and new shoes, so that's always exciting. The rest of the month should be pretty boring for us, other than hopefully getting pregnant!! More to come on that later :) Here are some vacation pics, I'll post more later, these are my favorites.

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas....

Ok, so not really, but I'm the type that starts my shopping early and if anyone's interested, I updated Timothy's wish list on amazon.com and here's the link if you want to start your shopping early too! Please note that we don't ask for presents for our kids and don't expect them, but I know that grandparents and aunts and uncles don't always know what Timothy likes to play with, so this is just a way to help give ideas!


https://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/4B39KL718OXX/

Oh yeah, Brandon and I also have wish lists on there too...hint hint ;)

Garage Sale Time!

This Saturday we're having a garage sale. I've never had a garage sale and it's been a long time since my parents have had one. It's been at least five years since I've ever even been to a garage sale, but we're having one at our house on Saturday. I'm a little nervous. We spent the evening tonight (after Timothy went to sleep) cleaning out our garage and making a "sell" pile. Hopefully we'll get rid of a lot of junk.

This past Saturday Brittany, Heather and I spent the day at mom and dad's cleaning out their closets. We didn't find anything really interesting, just a LOT of Brittany's clothes :) There were some neat old pictures and a lot of memories shared, but mostly just a LOT of Brittany's clothes!

Not too much else to share, the next few weeks will be really busy for us, I'll be in Oregon on a business trip next week and then the week after that we're all down in Gulf Shores for vacation and then it's Labor Day and then month end again at work and then Brandon has to work over time all through September and then I go back to Oregon at the beginning of October and then Brandon's gone to Alabama for two weeks and then (hopefully) his parents are coming to visit for Halloween and then it's Thanksgiving and then Tyler's birthday and Christmas and New Year's and wow...can you see I'm getting a little stressed?!?

So here's are the most recent pictures I have of Timothy, he has developed a really weird but cute dance. He used to just bounce and stomp, but now he just bends his knees and slides around. It's really funny, I wish I had some video of it, but everytime I get the video camera out he just wants to grab the camera. So here's a picture of him dancing and playing in our room.

Paying Me Back

Well Timothy is a wonderful little boy and I love him with all of my heart, but sometimes that kid makes me so crazy I could scream! He has definitely been trying our patience lately...testing his boundaries. It's really hard to be consistent with our discipline, especially when it's the 10th time in a row he's gone over to touch the fireplace and I really just want to sit on the couch and read my book and I don't want to get up and pop his hand and have the "listen to mommy" talk and then attempt to direct him toward another toy only to let go of his hand and watch him walk right back over to the fireplace and we start all over again. I know this is normal, and apparently it's what I did when I was little (or so I hear) so I guess we'll just have to get used to it for now.

He's so incredibly independent now. He wants to hold his own fork and spoon and get the food on there and into his mouth by himself and he wants his plate and bowl and cup on the high chair tray so he can dip his utensils in there. He wants to put on his shoes (or whoever's shoes happen to be laying around). He wants to hold the song book in church. He wants a pen and paper so that he can color. He wants to figure out how his toys work and he does not want ANY help! It's nice that he's learning, but it can be pretty frustrating sometimes.

Tonight was hilarious in church. He threw a pen so I took him out to have a "talk" and when we were done I asked him to give me a kiss and he looked me straight in the face and shook his head. I couldn't help it, I had to laugh, I think it's necessary for survival with this one! After attempting to keep him in church and keep him somewhat quiet (and thanks to Grammy and Grumpy and Tyler for helping!) I decided to take him back to the nursery. It was just the two of us in there so that was nice. He wanted to play with a little pull toy so he would set it up right and then grab the string and start walking with it and I would tell him, "It's gonna get you!" so then he would look back and it and run away screaming, still holding the string so the toy followed him the whole way, it was really funny.

One more quick story and then I should go make my lunch for tomorrow...Friday was Brandon's day off so he was watching Timothy and he could tell Timothy had a dirty diaper so he asked him if he was stinky and Timothy looked back at him and said, "poo poo". I guess you can't get more descriptive than that! Anyway, it should be a busy week for us, it's month end closing for me and then this weekend we're going over to my parents to clean out our old closets to get ready for a garage sale! I'll have to see if we find anything interesting buried in 9 years of stuff thrown into the back of a closet...I'll keep you updated! Here's some more pics from vacation, have a good week!

Brandon and Trey hangin' out and lookin' pretty

Easton chillin' in the stroller

Emma playing on the beach

Elyssa posing for the camera

Aww...young love

I think I might have some sand on my face...and I don't really like it!