Our Little Fighter

Since Kanyon's birth and with all that he has been through people have talked about what a fighter he has been and still is. So, when we were trying to decide what he was going to be for Halloween, it only made sense to let him be a fighter...a boxer to be exact. So, I whipped up a little costume...terrible quality....like sing song costumes (look good from a distance, but pretty rough up close and not guaranteed to last very long). It made it long enough for pictures and then it got cool enough we had to put clothes on him. But we kept the black eye all night.

"Coming out of the red corner in the gold trunks weighing in at 12 pounds with an undefeated record, fighting for the heavyweight title............ THE GRAND KANYON!!!"



We went to our trunk or treat at church. By the time we got there, he was pretty sleepy. His "boxing gloves" are socks stuffed with Kleenex and his black eye is black eye shadow. Check out this tough guy...
Once the sun started going down we had to put clothes on him. Here he is snoozing with Addison (with Chris) and Blake the giraffe (with Mark). Dads were on baby duty while moms passed out candy.

Here we are with Mindi and Addison the sweet little lady bug. She got to put her costume ON when it got cooler...it was too warm when the sun was out. So..they weren't dressed up at the same time. Oh well. I think they'll get over it.
This is Becky and Charlie Brown (Caleb). Caleb was Kanyon's first slumber party buddy. When Caleb was born he had a blood sugar issue so he was in the NICU for a night.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Birthday Weekend

We started off our weekend with Kanyon's 7 month "birthday" on Friday Thanks Auntie Ali for the sweet hat. She gave us the whole set in red and black, but somehow that night all I managed to get on him was the hat and a too big diaper.

My brothers' girls turned 1 on the 24th. Since they had to share their birth days a year ago, they each got their own party days! Saturday was Avery's party outside at her house. Contrary to the look on her face in this picture, she really was having a blast!
She LOVED her cake!!!


Kanyon hanging out at my mom and dad's Saturday night. He was so talkative and active that night. I caught him sucking his thumb.

Our friends gave this cool new book to Kanyon, so we took a little time and read a few nursery rhymes.

This pictures looks like he is smiling, but he's really not. I think we just caught the picture at the perfect time. We'll pretend like he is and it will be so great.
Sunday we celebrated Roselyn's birthday. She started out the day in a precious little dress, but spent most of the day like this. For those of you who don't know, she's obsessed with those beads like she has on in this picture. Hilarious.

I took these next two pictures because the room was FULL of new toys and look what Roselyn has in her hand.....yep...the cardboard that came out of the box of one of the new toys.

Out of the room full of goodies, Avery chose this captivating plastic cup.
Unlike her cousin, Roselyn HATED her cake. She wouldn't even touch it!

Rachel tried to trick her into eating it by putting grapes and kiwi on top of it. It worked for about half a second.
Both of the girls got a rocking horse like this from my parents. It was a hit.
Avery is already a trick rider.
Just a few pics of Kanyon I snapped while he was laying in his daddy's lap at the party.

Rachel was trying to get him in the party spirit.
Rachel's mom makes the coolest puppets and she made this one for Roselyn. Why is he trying to eat my baby!?!!

Happy Birthday to the sweet girls!

NICU Reunion, Memory Lane, and Randomness at home

I had already started this blog and had all the pictures in order and then when we went on our walk tonight. When I got Kanyon ready, I took these pictures and couldn't resist putting them on here. So, to start you off, here is Kanyon bundled up for our walk this evening. It was fun to have to put him in warmer clothes...a shout out to Aunt Nancye for the great hat! Isn't this Fall weather great!! It is a unique time in our house when Kory and I are both happy with the temperature. It is finally cool enough that he's not too hot and it is not yet too cold for me. We're enjoying it while we can...it won't be long and I'll be complaining about how freezing cold it is! :)



NICU Reunion!
Tuesday night Good Shepherd had the annual reunion for all the NICU babies over the years. It was really fun. The weather was pretty, but a little windy, so lots of people left pretty quick. There were SO many people there and it was fun to see the "graduates" that were big and running around. We look forward to being one of those running around. Of course we were excited to see our old friends, nurses, and Kanyon was happy to see his old roommates again. It was weird being back there, but in a way, it brought back good memories. The memories of how blessed we were to be taken care of by such wonderful people. Now, don't get me wrong, I was glad to drive away with Kanyon in our car instead of leaving him up there in a bed.

This is Janiya. She was the most beautiful tiny little thing you've ever seen. She was very healthy, just too tiny. I think she was probably Kanyon's roommate the longest. They were always right next to each other. She got there several weeks after us but we went home on the same day. Kanyon was very happy to be beside her again...see, in this picture I just think he was overcome with emotion! :)

This is Carter Grace. She shares a birthday with our babies. Carter Grace's parents are special friends since we were together at the very beginning. Luckily their time in the NICU was much shorter than ours because Carter had more womb time. We hadn't seen this crew since April so we were excited to see them. Precious precious little girl. She is also a movie star. If you live near Longview and see the Good Shepherd commercial where they show the NICU, that little baby is HER!!!!!!!!! I didn't know that til the reunion. Kory and I obviously knew the nurse, and we thought surely we'd have to know the baby, but we didn't know who it was. YEAH for Carter! She is definitely Hollywood material! Carter, Kanyon and Hannah. Hannah was born around the same time too, but as soon as she got a little stronger she went back to Dallas to finish growing. Boy these were some tiny babies last time we were all in the same room!
Yeah for Nurses! Tracey, Hellen, and Peggy. Peggy is Carter's co-star in the commercial. What fun to see them and let them talk about how big Kanyon was. In public, people obviously don't know our story, so they see him and talk about how tiny he is. It is nice to hear someone brag about his HUGENESS!!
Since some of our nurses were working during the reunion, we went up to visit. It was funny to see them recognize me and Kory and then kind of flip out when they realized that was Kanyon!!!
Kanyon was so happy to get to cuddle with Shelbi! He spent many-a-night with her!

This is actually not a nurse, but became a good friend. She sits at the post-partum nurse station so she was around when they were born and we saw her everytime we came in and out to visit. She was so sweet and kept up with Kanyon the whole time. We were so happy she was working that night!

Nurse Anna!!! YIPEE!!! We saw her in Hobby Lobby the other day, but she didn't get to hold him because she hadn't washed her hands! She was so funny..she wouldn't even touch him because her hands weren't clean! Nurses know all about those germs. We were so glad she got to hold him!

I guess it was the whole reunion thing, but I just got to thinking today about how far we've come. Some of this is still a little unreal to me. Now that I'm on this side of it, I realize how much of a "zone" we were in. I didn't realize exactly what I was dealing with. Now it scares me almost more than it did when it was happening. I thought I'd let y'all reminisce with me and remind all of us how far "we've" (and when I say we I'm including all my blog land prayer warriors!) come. Thanks again for walking through this with us and getting us through it.

Sweet baby boy only days old. For those of you that have seen the tiny diaper, this is it on him. It is about half the size of a dollar bill and you can see that it is swallowing him.

Here is the big man today a"froggie". Not the same material obviously, but they're the same size. By the way, he doesn't sleep with it anymore, I just put it in there for the picture.
I often think about how tiny he was that day I held him. I literally cupped him in one hand. He was so tiny and yet at the time, I didn't really completely realize it. It is amazing!

Ok, on a lighter note, here is the randomness from the last few days....

Another funny pose in the swing.

So, we're still working on the cereal thing. He eats it well once he gets it in his mouth. As you can see, its the getting-it-in-the-mouth thing that isn't going so well. He hasn't quite figured out how to open it to let the spoon in. I am also showing off this great bib. Kanyon's friend Tyler gave it to him.
Tyler (actually his mom Tammy) got it because it has Montana and Texas on it! I took a close up of Montana, Texas was covered with cereal goo.


If you're still reading this you deserve a prize. Sorry for posting the longest blog in the world.

Long Time No Blog

Well, we've been all over the past week, so I haven't been able to blog. I of course have a few pictures of what we've been doing the last week.


I love this outfit because I love the monkey on his little hiney (is that how you spell hiney?)

Kory had his last bit of training for work so since he was out of town all week Me, Kanyon, and Ollie headed to Paris. We had a great time especially since we got to be with Avery and Roselyn so much! Roselyn is letting Kanyon borrow her Bumbo...can you tell how much he loved it?!

This is actually more therapy type use right now since he isn't really ready to enjoy it. He can't quite hold his head up and he has to use so much energy to hold his whole body up that he gets pretty tired, but he's getting better and better!
It was so much fun to be with Avery and Rosie and seeing their little personalities. They are so funny, doing all their "tricks" and talking and being ALL OVER THE PLACE! Here they are kissing. It was so sweet. I don't think they'd really ever done this and that night they were just so sweet!
Ok Ok Ok , Avery had enough.
This weekend was the world famous Yamboree in Gilmer. Of course the whole John Spencer Family was there to enjoy the festivities. The highlight for Kanyon was running into 2 of his NICU nurses...Traci and Debbie! We were so happy to see them!

Here we are with cousin Robin

Since we've been little, Nanny Lou has always given us "yamboree money" to spend on "food or foolishness" as she says. As you can see, Clint opted for food (see event dentist love cotton candy!)and Kory, Clay, and John David opted for foolishness. Can you believe that they couldn't win a prize?!!
They may not have won a prize playing the games, but one prize you always win at the Yamboree is amazing displays of fashion.....here is just ONE example Today during therapy Celia was getting ready to put Kanyon on the ball and she just started hitting his hand on the ball and he thought that was pretty funny....I LOVE this picture. You may have to click on it to blow it up and see that little smile.
In other Kanyon related news, he found his thumb. So far just his right one and he's still not super efficient getting it into his mouth and keeping it there, but it is pretty cute. He laughed out loud for the first time Saturday night. Not really loud and not a lot, but he was smiling and making noise, so I consider that laughing out loud. We didn't get a snap shot, but we got it on Clint's video camera. As I sit here and type Kanyon is sucking on his lips, thumb, hand, and the air, so I guess I should feed him. Have a great day!