Lots of Random Pictures

Caden and Kanyon have great fun together. This was from a while back....they were loving this little machine. The dads would push them and they were having a blast!

Speaking of loving it....we got a new stroller and the box is, of course, a big hit!

This bench thing is something we've had for a long long time. Our therapists have used it for all sorts of different things with Kanyon. They still use it in therapy, and lately, klp has been putting toys on it and playing with it. I think he looks so funny sitting there like he's at a desk.

One day it came a full blown GULLY WASHER here! Our backyard looked like roaring rapids and our front yard was standing in water. Once it stopped, there was a nice flow of water down the side of the street by our neighbor's house. After being cooped up all day, it was worth it to me to deal with wet clothes as long as we could go outside!

in this picture, he's spitting in the water....nice.....

No, he wasn't throwing gang signs, he was just talking to me...I caught him mid-"sentence"
One of my all time fav pics. Check out his "footprints" or "scoot prints"

stopping to enjoy the beauty of piece of grass

A little time in Daddy's lap before bed time.
Gram got q this cute onesie and I loved the back especially!!
I think it accentuates his rolls
When I got the new stroller put together, Kanyon of course wanted to ride in it. He was very serious about "bubu" being in his seat. Well, he was asleep, so I had to figure something else out to fill bubu's seat. First it was sock monkey
Then it was the giant croc! klp is giving him a kiss.
We went to the splash park the other day with the gals from church. It was fun once he got used to the splashing and spraying.

How's that for random pictures?

Camp Deer Run Fun

If you know me, you know I know Camp Deer Run. We've already had lots of fun out at CDR this summer. Here are pics of our first couple of adventures:

One Sunday afternoon in early May, our small group went out to camp to work. It was really really fun. We painted a few things, cleaned a few cabins, and all of this with lots of little ones. I was pleased with the amount of work we got done considering I expected all the moms to pretty much be wrangling kids, but we actually worked!! Rebekah threatened to not be my friend anymore because I was making her sweep a cabin with a dirt floor. I finally had to break the news to her that things at CDR can only get so clean, then you just stop sweeping! :)

Quinn worked hard and fell asleep on Jean. But not on her shoulder or in her arms like most babies...this is how he fell out:
ahhhh sweet, sticky, sweaty, camp sleep.
When the work was done, we headed to the new pool. It was SOOO nice. I didn't come prepared so klp went speedo style in just a diaper. (and a pink Dora one at that. yikes!)
Some of the kids in the youth group came with us. This is Kenzie, she is one of klp's fav people in the world!
q slept in the stroller while we went swimming.

A few weeks later we went out to camp for Pass the Torch and the Pool dedication. It was so fun and it was of course SOOOO hot!!!

qsp's clothes lasted about 5 min. and he spent the rest of the day like this:

This is Christie. She was one of my counselors, her husband was my brothers' counselor and now our families are very close friends. This is her and Brody, their 4th child. He was born about 2 weeks before Quinn. Its so crazy and fun that we will have little ones in the same cabin!
Brodie and Quinn. Friends whether they want to be or not.
Uncle Clint sacrificed some hair to give q a ride
In true CDR fashion, we opted for swimming instead of showering at the end of the day.
Uncle Clay cracking Kanyon up!
The dads were actually IN the pool with the kids. What a FUN DAY!!

(avery, roselyn, clint, nolan, clay, landry, kanyon, kory, adam, caden)
I love being out at camp even though my days are over.

Hail dear ol' Deer Run!

Half a Year for Quinn!!!

Our Quinn Spencer is 6 months old! WOW! Again, I took the picture on the right day, but am quite late with the blog. Here is the 6 month old boy:

p.s. the "Quinn" onesie now FITS. Yikes! We have 6 more months to go!

We finally decided to let qsp have a little taste of something besides mommy's milk and his thumb
yams!!

He was fine with them. Not really crazy about it, but he's still figuring it out. I'm just thrilled he opens his mouth. This is uncharted territory for us!!! YEAH!!
He now sleeps here
instead of here. sniff sniff. But seriously he was way too big for the bassinet and when he would get over to one side it would tilt to that side. Heavyweight.
He found his toes and likes to eat them.
He's outgrowing his qsp onesie so I had to take some pics in it.

I could EAT HIM UP!!!!

He did THIS at church Sunday.
He continues to be a dream of a boy. I really feel like he's a breeze and I don't know why. But I'm not complaining!! He still doesn't move much but thunder thighs are hard to move. He STILL hasn't mastered rolling from tummy to back. Seriously. That's why we had to bust out the sleep positioner again when we put him in his bed. He is a maniac sleeper (always has been) and he would get rolled over and freak out (translated: wake me up and make me have to go fix it...not cool since I've been spoiled by his great sleeping!)so this keeps him from rolling over. I feel like when he starts to move things will get more tricky for me. Until then, he's zero trouble!

He makes the LOUDEST noise when he "talks". Its more like a really loud grunt, clearing of the throat, growl. It sounds like he's going to ruin his throat and it sounds like it HURTS, but its all he does. Its super duper loud in the mornings. I sometimes have to keep him back in my room so he doesn't wake up klp! Its gonna be tricky when we're staying in a hotel or in someone else's house because he'll keep the whole place awake. oh well.

He is an early riser...I AM NOT! Ugh!! Neither is klp! AT ALL! This morning q slept til 7:20 and I was thrilled beyond measure. Usually he starts stirring around 6-6:30. yuck. yuck. yuck. I try to keep him up later, but he still wakes up early, so I guess I'm just at his mercy to sleep later. BUT he takes great naps. He takes 3 a day and at least 2 of them are for at least 2 hours. He falls asleep on his own. All we have to do is swaddle him and hand him his bandana. He inserts thumb and goes to sleep. I do rock him sometimes because I love it and I HAVE to. He's probably annoyed and just wants me to lay him down, but he'll have to get over it! :)

He smiles and laughs and lights up so easily and loves to watch his brother. It is so fun to watch him learn new things and discover his world. He warms our hearts and brings so much PURE JOY. Yeah for Quinn!!!

Kanyon's BIG change!

I've been crazy blogger lately...so I've posted a million times since I told you to stay tuned for Kanyon's big change. Well.....today is the day!

Here is Kanyon on Sunday afternoon. His hair was LONG and CRAZY! He looked a little too much like Justin Bieber to me.

So I called my friend that usually cuts his hair and got a few pointers, verified that she was available to rescue us in case of disaster, plugged in the clippers and buzzed away!! The hardest part was keeping him still. We ended up with him sitting in Kory's lap on the front porch playing with the water hose. I DID NOT do great, but it's good enough for me. I'll keep practicing! Here he is AFTER:

Ok Ok Ok that is a change, but that is not the big change. Here is the BIG change BEFORE:

And AFTER:
pardon the Cheeto mouth.
We get a lot of this: (reaching up to take them off)

He's really not as thrilled with them as he looks here!

Yes, klp has glasses now. We've known pretty much since he was born that he would eventually end up in glasses and in a way I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet. His vision has been a challenge from a lot of different angles for his whole life. He had ROP (a common condition for preemies) and it was corrected with laser surgery before he came home from the NICU (the surgery saves them from becoming blind....like Stevie Wonder, he had ROP because he was a preemie....but it guarantees partial vision loss). Then he had strabismus (eyes crossed too much) and had it repaired right before his first birthday. Before the strabismus correction he showed very little sign of seeing ANYTHING. We knew his eyes worked, but he didn't act like they did. After the surgery, he got way better as far as looking around at things. He is seen by a teacher for the visually impaired on a regular basis. We know that he can see, but there is some difficulty in the processing of what he sees. Basically you use your eyes and your brain to see and there is some (not a lot) break down in his brain with what he sees. Add in the fact that he has weaker eye muscles and that the CP makes it hard for him to use all of the muscles correctly and we've got for a pretty complex deal. He is also unable to converge. Which is when you bring his eyes together as things get closer (watch your finger all the way to your nose). SOOOO he turns his head to the side to only use one eye or he has to bring things right up to his face. If he doesn't compensate for the inability to converge, he sees double. That is super annoying I'm sure. He has some nystagmus which is when his eyes shake (another side effect from the neurological "insult" or trauma). This has gotten better with time, but is still present and another reason he usually turns his head to the side. They shake less that way. Up until about 6 months ago his actual prescription looked pretty good and there was no need for glasses. But now there is!! He's legally blind without them. I think the actual number is something like 20/200. He is nearsighted meaning he can't see things far away. But the good news is glasses can help with that. A lot of the other issues we are dealing with will never completely go away. Thankfully, there are lots of really educated people out there who tell us what to do to help his brain, eyes muscles, etc. learn to work together better. And of course glasses can FOR SURE help his vision.

I can't help but think that this has to feel better to him. I think he will be seeing things that he's never been able to see before. We are hoping this will help him in lots of areas and give him a better view of his world. As for keeping them on?? When I asked the Dr. his answer was, "Good Luck!" Haha. He says eventually he'll figure out that he can see better when they're on and he will be Ok wearing them. We aren't really pushing it, we're just letting him wear them and then when he tries to take them off we give him a break and put them on again later. So far he'll wear them for maybe 5-10 minutes at a time. We'll get there.

The search for the perfect pair of glasses was short. We didn't have a lot to choose from and I wanted to get them from this certain place. So, it is what it is. And yes, they have a warranty if they break! They are really bendable and they hook around his ears to stay on.

I have a lot of feelings about this, but the main thing is that he really needs them and I'm so thankful we have them.