Pic of the Day

FYI: The can is empty. Remember this is the kid that doesn't eat or drink, but he DOES like to try to be like Daddy. That's what was going on here. It cracked us up that he knew exactly what to do with it.

What Kanyon's been up to

Here are a few things Kanyon has been up to lately:

Gagging himself on his Slinky Dog tail
LOVING this little place in our living room. He goes over there and surrounds himself with toys and is SO happy!

Bundling up to play outside

Asking his mommy "Why the hood??"

Reading Sports Illustrated with Daddy (notice the diaper hanging out of his pants. It is IMPOSSIBLE to keep his pants up)

Making it really hard for mom to get a picture because he does THIS every time he hears the beep of my camera!

Watching a little TV while taking a ride on his Po-Knee

Ridin' double with cousin Caden on the Po-Knee

Getting in a rumble with the laundry basket

He's a busy boy having lots of fun and keeping his mommy busy. Have a great weekend!

Videos of NEW things!

Over the last couple of days, I've gotten some footage of some of Kanyon's new things. These are all things that we've been working on for MONTHS and a few of them are starting to come together. This little guy works SO hard to do EVERYTHING. We are beyond proud of each little accomplishment. Please ignore my annoying prompts to him.

We'd been waiting on a seat for his gait trainer so that we could let him stand in it without us holding him up. His PT brought the seat the other day and we were curious to see what he would do without us holding him up (to keep him from falling since there used to not be a seat). We put him in and HE TOOK OFF!! I'm not kidding! Celia (his PT) and I looked at each other and laughed! I grabbed my camera for the next few trips up and down the hallway, but of course he didn't quite perform. He was getting very distracted, but he still did good. We have lots to work on with his walking, but this is a great place to start.



Crawling has been on our brains for a LONG TIME. We have worked and worked and worked on crawling. Well, I think that we can finally say he CAN crawl. It may not be perfect and he of course DOES NOT prefer it over scooting, but he can do it if we make him. So, you will see a little bit of that. You will also see that when we tell him to crawl, he can get into position and go by himself. For the longest time, he'd just put his hands down and couldn't get his hips up. Just in the last couple of days, he's been able to do it himself. You will see that too. You will also see him not try very hard, roll over and play cute trying to get out of it. Then he finally does it and I'm backed in a corner at a bad angle so you can't see it well, but oh well!




Pretty much all the things you get on to your kids for doing, we TRY to get Kanyon to do. Like climb. When we take the cushion off of a chair in our room, he can get into it ALL BY HIMSELF! Of course we've practiced and practiced so its nice to see it happen! I did this in 2 clips because the first part is of him getting up from sitting (a whole accomplishment in itself) and then he spends quite a while trying to get the rest of the way up, so I didn't make you watch him struggle forever.



He is so pleased once he gets up there. And the first thing he does EVERY SINGLE time is shut the closet door (it won't stay closed...the hinge is messed up). Not sure why he gets all emotional after he closes it. I'm telling you...closed doors hurt his feelings. Any time a door is closed he cries. Even if he closes it himself apparently.



And here is the finale of the chair videos. Getting down from anything has also been something we've been working on. He, of course, prefers a nose dive, but we've had to get him to do the whole lay down, roll over, and slide down backwards thing. I think we've drilled it into his head. He does it on his own now. He also doesn't like to bend his right leg (thanks to all the scooting) so it takes him a while to decide to bend the leg and sit down to finish it out. YEAH!


This is NOTHING we've worked on, but its pretty funny. He loves to pull the top tray off of his high chair. It usually ends up on the ground. Since bending over isn't on my list of things I LOVE to do at this point, what goes on the floor usually stays on the floor. I heard a strange noise and looked in the living room and he was sliding on the top of the tray all over the house! He LOVED it. He would scoot all over the place on his "sled". Here he is spinning in the kitchen on it. It was loads of fun!

Baby Day!!

We have a date scheduled for baby to be born............................DECEMBER 8!!!!!
gulp. holy cow. That is less than a month away!!! I will be 38 weeks that day and my Dr. doesn't want me to carry it any longer because my risks are higher for complications because of the kind of C-section I had with Kanyon. SOOOOOOOO hopefully December 8 will be the day! I feel like I can't call it Birthday until it actually is born on that day, so until then, we await BABY DAY!!

Am I ready? Ummmmmmm define ready. Physically, I feel great. About a month ago I finally completely lost all nausea so I've actually felt better the last 4-6 weeks than I've felt the whole time. My belly is big, but I'm not uncomfortable. I'm still sleeping pretty good (excpet for when bit brother Kanyon decides to pull his wake up in the middle of the night stunts). If there ever was a "cute" phase of pregnancy for me, its FOR SURE over. Now I'm just big. But hey, that was my goal! I also just started to think about stretch marks. Never thought of that last time. Hope I don't get 'em.

To-Do list wise, I'm NOT ready. I have seriously done NOTHING to get ready for this baby. Some of that is that I've been busy, but some of that is me just not getting started on it yet. We don't have a ton to do since we aren't re-doing any rooms or anything. We will move klp into our guest room that is already cowboy themed. We won't do that until January probably because we'll have company til then and that is our only guest room. The baby will be in our room for a while so klp can still sleep in the nursery. We have 2 beds so one will go with klp and the other will stay for the baby. We will just put whatever bedding on the bed that we need when we see if its a boy or a girl! I basically just have to clean/de-junk/rearrange closets and that's it. Yeah, no biggie right?!!


Another thing I'm NOT ready for is the actual birth part. I'm very nervous about the C-section and the fact that (hopefully) I'll just walk in and then have a baby. The needles make me nervous, the surgery makes me nervous. I know I've done it before, but last time was more like a scene from a medical drama where everyone is going crazy so there was no time for nerves, I had to do what I had to do. That almost made it easier because I didn't think about anything.
I know people do it all the time, but STILL! I AM looking forward to only recovering from ONE type of delivery this time. That should be nice.

As my friend Stacey said are YOU ready? Meaning am I ready for this thing to be in my arms. YES! I don't know if its been the unique stress of this pregnancy, the busy-ness of the last couple of months, or the fact that we have a baby here with us and that keeps us so busy that we don't always stop to think about the new one, but in the last week I've started getting SOOO excited about it actually being here with us. My arms are just so ready to hold it. Our house is ready for a new addition and our ears are ready for new sounds (even if they're loud and screamy)! I'm very excited!

Is Kanyon ready? He has NO. CLUE.

Do we have names ready? NO! If its a girl, we think we could decide pretty quickly. We have 2 we both really like we just have to make the final call. If its a boy, there will be a stand off in the hospital. We CAN NOT agree. We both have names we really like they just aren't the same ones. So, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

I have taken my last FFN and had our last ultrasound. I'm 34 weeks today! I have 3 more shots left to take and then I will be a normal patient! We are so very thankful for every single day. I remember when I got pregnant saying, "If we can just make it to November!" And here we are 10 days into it and still going strong! As we shift our thoughts to BABY DAY we are praying for a (medically speaking) dull, routine, boring day. Of course for us the day will be anything but routine as we will be meeting our next little one to love.

DECEMBER 8 HERE WE COME!!!!!!!

catching up in PICTURES

After my last post, I will try to use as few words as possible in this one. I will say that we've had 2 great days of eating in a row and we're off to a pretty good start today too! YEAH!! So, I've felt great....I'm back to that place where my moods are TOTALLY dependant on how klp eats. Oh well that will balance out too and I'll figure out how to be in a good mood even when he eats bad!

Rach sent me her Yamboree pics and this one was too cute not to post. Avery and Roselyn like to try to feel my baby move. Sweet girls.


Ummmm so, maybe I let klp get a little sun burnt at the Yamboree. We were in a great spot for the parade, so I wasn't worried. BUT the corny dog line was another story. We waited forever and no matter how I tried to shade him, that one side was always in the sun. He was fine though, and he and Landry enjoyed a nice ride on Paw Paw's belly.

We are back in the swing of thing at Windridge (our hippo therapy place). Kanyon is riding a new horse named Candy and doing well. It is about a 25 min. drive out there and our time is 9:15 so those mornings are a little tough on the boy who doesn't do mornings, but once we get out there and he gets to ride, he's feelin' good!

Cool dude in his Halloween pj's

Speaking of Halloween, here we are. I tossed around a few ideas and the night before Halloween, landed on a mummy. I did a horrible job on his costume, but I had no motivation. He turned out to be a pretty cute little mummy.

Here he is at Trunk or Treat with Addison the Tooth Fairy.

He reached for Eric's glasses and wanted to put them on. He was one cool mummy.

Our small group's trunk was Camping theme. We set up tents and stuff and then the guys roasted marshmallows so we could hand out s'mores. Yummy! It was really fun!

It didn't take long for klp to decide he wanted in on the roasting action.

Doodle and I put our heads together for the mummy thing so klp and Caden were mummies. We went over to Ty and Janelle's after trunk or treat to meet up with our mummy cousin. They love each other!

serious mummies

mummies and daddies

Kanyon was all ready for church Sunday morning and melted my heart looking like a grown up. This was his first time to ever have his shirt tucked in! He was so very handsome.

Have a great weekend!

This is WAY TOO LONG and there isn't even a picture

Well well well I have pictures to post and feel the need to "update" so we'll see how this goes.
If you don't want to read about feeding, then click on over to the next blog.


The biggest thing is just our new routine here at home with feeding. It has been WAAAAAAAY harder than I expected getting back and implementing everything here at home. It is a LOT of work. It occured to me about half way through feeding camp when Kory said, "Do you feel like your life is about to get way harder?" I knew the answer was YES, but I had no idea. Part of the initial adjustment was simply getting the food made. He eats all pureed foods, but not baby food. So, real food, just blended in the Magic Bullet. Yes, its nasty. They sent me home with a packet of "recipes" but most are canned and kinda processed. I would like to be a little healthier and have more fresh food, so I'm finding the balance with that. The first 2 weeks home I felt like I literally LIVED in my kitchen I was either cooking, steaming, chopping, blending, or dividing portions to store. I was just waiting for my Magic Bullet to burn out on me, but she's still a churnin'! I feel like this part has gotten more manageable. I've figured out the portions better so I'm not wasting as much and I'm able to use some of our meals to blend as well as just getting faster at getting it ready and multi-tasking at the stove! It is sometimes hard to think of stuff to feed him (I find that to be the hardest part of cooking for anyone....THINKING OF WHAT TO DO!) but I'm getting better and this part is getting easier. I have some things in my freezer and I've found some store bought things that are easy to blend and don't require my cooking them.

All meals are supposed to have 2 foods offered and water in his sippy cup. I feed him breakfast which can be yogurt and fruit or stuff like biscuits, pancakes, waffles, or blended oatmeal usually I give him fruit with any breakfast. He hates breakfast no matter what I serve. Lunch is a food food and then some sort of veggie or fruit again. Snack is the only one food thing and it can be pudding, or anything else that is snacky. Supper is food food again like lunch. We still do 2 bottles a day on top of the food. One after lunch and one at bed time. It is amazing how easy the bottle seems now. There are so many times that I'd rather just forget the feeding food and give him a bottle because its so much easier. Who would've ever though that!!!?? Mornings are the WORST, he's just not interested at all. He never has been a morning eater. Those were always his worst bottles and really, in general, the kid is not a morning person.

By the time we left feeding camp, Kory and I had both been trained on the protocol and how to follow it for his feeding times. Its pretty specific and made to be the same thing every time...same words, same reinforcement/rewards, same expectations every time. We have to set a timer each time so each meal lasts 25 minutes. The basic idea of the philosophy is to reward good behavior with good things. Those good things can be toys that he likes to play with or anything that is fun to him (turning off lights, opening the window, etc.) but if he doesn't eat, he can't have those things. That is a very basic explanation and there is a lot more to it than that, but I already write too much, so I'd better not go into any more detail. If you wanna know more, I"ll tell ya more, just ask.

Along with the actual feeding comes the nutrition part. We are still followed by our nutritionist there so we have to weigh every gram that he eats and every milliliter that he drinks. I have to record this and send it to her every week for her to make sure his intake is good. We also have stuff that we measure out and add to his food to boost the calories...ya know, more bang for your buck! This is rather annoying as it only ADDS to the time it takes to prepare, heat, weigh, serve, re-weigh, and clean up, but I'm glad we do this so we can make sure he's getting what he needs. I don't think we'll have to do this long term, but for the time being we will have to keep it up. I'm glad to have them keeping up with this! I don't have to worry "Is he getting enough".

So, how's he doing with his eating???? That has been the big question I get. Ummmmmm I'd say he's doing OK. While we were there, he was a total ROCK STAR! He went the whole time with little to no resistance to anything they did. So, I was only really worried about coming home and MY part of getting the food made, the schedule, what we would do if I had to feed him somewhere besides home (we do have to carry on normal life at some point)....etc. I expected klp to continue on the same path he was on there at the clinic. I'd say he did that the first week and then we started a little downward slide. Its not like he's NOT eating ANYTHING, but he's refusing it way more and I'm finding it harder and harder to motivate him to want to take his bites. I've talked to his therapists and they said its pretty normal for kids to honeymoon and then decide to test the new place (home) or just take time to readjust to eating somewhere besides at the clinic. There, the setting is ideal. Tiny room, no distractions, all kinds of toys and reinforcements at your fingertips, etc. Home is good, but not THAT good! SOOOOOOO this has been quite a source of frustration to me. I feel like I'm feeding him every time I turn around and I'm back to getting a sick pit every time I think about feeding him. I dread every single meal every single day. It brings back feelings like when his bottle feeding was so bad. BUT this is not NEAR as bad, I just can't let myself get frustrated. Feeding is THE most frustrating thing, but I really do have to remind myself that we are in such a better place than we were a year ago. And the whole taking it one day at a time trick. It seems to fix everything, but its so HARD TO DO! I am hoping and praying that he will settle back into eating easier and it will be a less tense time in our house. The good thing is that he's done pretty well when we have to be on the go. If we're at a restaurant or someone else's house or whatever, he's managed to still eat. We don't follow the strict routine, but we are able to have a successful meal. I am really happy with that because I was worried about that when we came home. I mean its almost impossible to be AT home for EVERY single feeding every single day.

Though all things eating seem to consume my day, we're also trying to get back in the swing of things with his therapy and other things that are a part of our days and weeks. I'm feeling like I can't get it all done in a day as far as his scheduled therapy and the things I need to do with him at home. BUT we're getting back in the swing of things and each day and each week will get easier. It makes doing ANYTHING else, especially outside our house really difficult (not just fun stuff, but just ANYTHING like grocery store, post office....) but we're getting better. He's started back up at Windridge with his Hippo therapy and is loving it. We are getting a new OT all set up to come to the house, so that will start next week. I try not to think about WHEN and HOW I'll fit another 2 hours of therapy into our week. PT is still coming to the house in addition to hippo therapy and we are working more and more on standing, kneeling, taking steps, climbing, etc.

AND while I'm being Debbie Downer I'll add this. Another huge frustration coming home was his sleeping. He was waking up EVERY SINGLE night. Sometimes twice, sometimes for 2 hours at a time. Most of his naps were interrupted too! Most of it I think had to do with his tummy. We have a hard time keeping all of his G.I. issues balanced out. I didn't know what to do! His tummy hurt, so I felt like leaving him to cry was wrong. BUT we've had more and more full nights of sleep, so I think we're back on track there.

AND we're not only learning about life with a kid who eats food (even if it is blended) we are learning about life with a kid who has an opinion. We're seeing more and more "fits" when things aren't just right. He's finally figured out what he wants, but gets frustrated when he can't communicate it to us or physically do it himself. We are trying to find the happy medium with him and helping him communicate (which is tricky with his development, etc.) but also teaching him that things aren't gonna always go his way. So on the one hand, we're just like any other parent of a 2 year old. But on the other hand, we have a few more question marks when it comes to this sort of thing. We are confident that he can understand A LOT so we know he is capable of learning how to communicate and how to handle his anger/frustrations. Let the parenting begin. How can I complain, we've had the most laid back easy going kid for 2 1/2 years. He's still pretty darn good if I do say so myself. I figure its time he start giving me a run for my money. I just kinda think it was interesting timing with all the other stress going on!! :)

I've been home 2 1/2 weeks and I'm SOOOOO glad to be here. Each day is a day closer to finding our little groove. Kory has been SOOO helpful in keeping me from going totally crazy. Its been a long while since I've been pushed and stretched and STRESSED this much. I keep reminding myself that it will not last forever, it is just a season and it WILL get better. Not to mention, I've been in such worse places that some days I just tell myself to suck it up and get a better attitude! :)

Now that you've read this you will know why i have done NOTHING for the arrival of this baby I'm carrying. Nothing. We'll get to it eventually. Baby is great. 33 weeks today!

I will not post another word because this was crazy talk. and TOO MUCH OF IT!