Good Things Come: June 2016

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

River Fun

We literally floated down memory lane during our fun trip to New Braunfels this week! Brian and I met 16 years ago while attending college in San Marcos, TX. We have more idea how many times we have floated the river during college, but we do know that it's been at least 10 years since our last float. We stayed in a condo overlooking the Comal River along with my sister & her family! It is so much fun watching our kids play and interact with each other! The best part was that we we located on a horseshoe portion of the river. We were able to get in at our condo (past the tube shoot for those familiar with the river) and it was a leisure 35min float to the exit. We only had to walk 1/4 mile back to our condo! A perfect family float!

Thankfully, my sweet mother (Mimi), came to our house and stayed with Drake to help with his care! We could not have traveled in any capacity as a family without help from Mimi! And our sweet Drake learned how to use a new environmental adaptive control switch on loan from TISD. It's been fun being able to connect multiple toys to his button for his control. As you can imagine, these controls are very expensive (anything for special needs is about 10 Xs the price it should be. Luckily for Drake, Uncle Matt took a look at it and is going to build one for us!!

A big Thank You to Aunt Gigi, cousin Hannah, and Yea-yea for throwing an amazing Finding Dory birthday party for our sweet girl!! I think we came back with a carload of gifts for both Drake & Kennedy! We still can't believe they are...4 years old!! Visiting some very dear friends in the NICU today brought back a flood of memories. 4 years can seem like a distant memory and yet right in the rear view mirror all at the same time.

Enjoying the view! Kennedy 4, Jacob 3.5, Elizabeth 2

Road trip!

Pit stop for a diaper change & bottle

I love this picture of Brian & Hayes!

Vacation!!!

The girls loved it!!

Family time!!

Birthday celebration! Yea-yea did an amazing job on the cake!!

Two little cutie pies!

Happy Boy!!

Yea-yea made her a Dory outfit & she got a Dory helmet from Aunt Gigi & Hannah

Cool new Crayola Suckers with Speech Therapy! This helps ensure he isn't aspirating anything. We are able to check through suctioning that nothing colored has gone into his lungs.

Love his guy! Yin & Yang

Wouldn't be complete without a visit to Gruene!

And Gruene Hall!

Fell asleep in his stander

We visited Canyon Lake Animal Shelter! "I totally want a kitten"

..."and a doggy"

Fireworks, too!!

Hannah was surrounded by love!!!

A big thank you to Brian & Aaron for making this Girls Lunch possible!!

Threw in a little "work" with my amazing team!!!!

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Birthday Week

This is officially their birthday week!! It's still hard to believe it's been 4 years since one of the scariest days of our lives (which began a whirlwind of scary days to follow). I have NICU memories that literally seem like they happened yesterday, but then I see how far our sweet babies have come since that day.

We took Kennedy to see her first movie on the big screen this week! She was very excited! Finding Dory was a family fun movie and a perfect choice for her first trip to the theater. She's a huge fan of Finding Nemo and now Finding Dory is going to be a favorite, too! When Brian asked her if it was something she wanted to do again, she quickly responded, "yes!" I love watching her experience new things! We are hesitant to take Drake because of the noise level. I think eventually we will try it, but I don't think he is ready yet. Obviously we want it to be an enjoyable experience.

Drake has been up to his usual amazing self! He seems to be getting so long! We'll be going in for their 4 year check-up soon. I'm eager to hear how much they have grown in the past year! We just found out that Drake's new stander (he's outgrown is old one) can be ordered with swivel wheels instead of straight ones! This is exciting b/c Drake loves to move! While we liked the stander we borrowed to test out it was difficult to move Drake the way he likes to move.

Speaking of liking to move...Hayes has gone from crawling to speed crawling!! It still catches me off guard how quickly he can get across a room. And on the move is exactly what he wants to be doing all of the time! It's no surprise that he wants to mess with everything that isn't for babies...dogs' water bowl, Drake's equipment, shoes, ect...

Father's Day was fun to celebrate! It's getting more and more fun to make Father 's Day gifts now that Kennedy is old enough to really participate! She loves helping and she loves her daddy so this is a win/win situation.

4 years ago June represented a terrifying time in our life filled with unknowns. While our future is still filled unknowns, we are excited about what lies ahead!

Happy Father's Day from our wild crew!

Bedtime giggles!!

Finding Dory!

She's growing up so fast!!

Our little gymnast!

Snuggles with my birthday babies!!

Nice head control!

Pool time!

Into everything!!

Headed out to fish with daddy!

Out like a light!

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Mixing it up!

This past week our nurses have swapped some days, and I have to admit it has thrown me off of knowing what day of the week it is each day. I get so used to having Lisa here on Monday-Thursday and Lindsey here Friday-Sunday. When that routine gets altered, it's easy to see how day of the week confusion is possible.

Drake is doing really well and he had vision therapy today. He always enjoys working with his therapists, but vision comes with a bag of toys making her a favorite for both Drake and Kennedy!

Kennedy is really enjoying the start to her summer; we are now doing gymnastics twice each week, which she loves so much. Today, she went fishing with her daddy and caught 16 fish! She is apparently quite the little fisherman! I'm looking forward to going with them soon to see for myself.

Hayes is growing up so fast...he's crawling and waving!! Where did my baby go?? He is definitely the missing piece to our family that we didn't know was missing.

His joy is contagious

She drew a picture of me & then wanted to hold my hand in the photo!

Here comes trouble

Supervising yard work

Vision therapy

Nice work, buddy!

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

New Adventures

Wow! The past week has been fun, busy, and full of excitement! Brian and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary on June 1st! We decided to "fly" into this new year with an indoor skydiving adventure! We had an amazing day and really enjoyed this experience! Since it was a Wednesday morning during the school year, they were having a slow day; therefore, we decided to do a 2nd round of indoor skydiving while we were there! The indoor skydiving facility is located in Frisco conveniently near Mimi & Poppy's house! We sure are lucky that they are always willing to babysit!

Our little Hayes turned 8 months old on the 5th of June! He is definitely on the move! He is beginning to actually crawl, but for the most part he chooses to army crawl! Even with an army crawl, he can move surprisingly fast!

Kennedy has been enjoying playing outside & running errands with daddy! Somehow I had a suspicion that a trip to Home Depot would detour to Andy's Custard!

Drake is trying out some new wheels! It's time to start the process of getting new stander for growth purposes. He knew it was different and he wasn't quite sure about it at first (a few tears were shed), but once he settled in, he decided it might be ok (huge smile). His tears break my heart, but his smile fills me with joy!

His monthly delivery of supplies arrived yesterday, but they didn't send any food. I immediately called to get to the bottom of things. His newly approved food is on back order from the manufacturer. While I completely understand the issue from a manufacturing stand point, I was surprised that it didn't occur to them to let me know ahead of time. We receive supplies on a month to month basis (meaning we do not have an excess or abundance of anything). I was informed to contact our doctor to obtain a new prescription for an alternative food in the mean time. Oh my goodness! Talk about panic mode of running out of food!! I'm pleased to announce that everything has been resolved and our new emergency food prescription is not even necessary. His new food has arrived in Dallas from the manufacturer in Kansas and has been shipped out to our house! Crisis averted!