Lord grant her with strong bodied yet level headed brothers

I always think of her as pretty but sometimes when I look at her

she is just absolutely breath-taking.

We went for a walk this week. I am trying to loose weight and people are always saying kids these days never get enough exercise so I thought I would take them with me. And when I say I am trying to lose weight, I mean that in the truest sense, if the truest sense is looking at myself in the mirror and saying, "I need to lose weight" and then not really doing anything about it. And it doesn't help that my darling friend just gave me some new coffee that I have just fallen in love with. And when I say coffee, I mean a little bit of the ground bean with half a canister of sugar and 1/3 of a container of creamer.

I drink my coffee like a grown up.

So anyway, back to my walk. I tried to think of a way to keep them from whining while drank my 103 points, um I mean coffee and walked.This is what I came up with. Since I would be pushing Timbo in a stroller I knew Kati would love to push one of her babies too. And since Brendon recently told Jeffrey he thought his swimming trunks were "cute" I thought he needed something a little manlier. A shopping cart was all I could come up with.

Maybe next time I should let him carry a gun in the back of his pants, cause the shopping cart isn't cutting it.
The had a great time and didn't complain once.
This is our neighborhood donkey Airbud. We can hear him from our backyard. We love him. Not as much as him neighbors love him, I'm sure, but we love him all the same. Bear needed to let his monkey see him.

Isn't he a cutie.

Look at this girl. She is just becoming all kinds of brave. Talking to zoo keepers petting donkeys. In fact we saw the Doctor yesterday and she didn't run screaming under a chair. I won't even go into that story.

She was so proud of herself. Ya know what I love the most about this picture. She is gonna touch him, but only with one finger.

Her first grade

Yesterday Kati received her first graded paper and I am proud to say she got an A+, not that it means anything to her. I am having a hard time explaining grades to her. All she cares about is my smiles and occasional stickers. The girl thrives on praise. So although the A wasn't exciting for her Jeff and I were very proud.

Every parent, to stay sane, needs to do things for themselves once and a while. Tonight we did something for us, instead of rushing home after church we went out with some friends. I guess staying up an hour and a half after their bedtime was a little too much for them.

On a side note, I think I am going to save this up the nose drool streaming down the chin shot for her prom date.

I still just see my beautiful little girl.

Some little girl was surprised with flowers for her birthday.



From us she received a new big girl bible and a bible cover. She loves them.

Better than a dog

This is what it is like when Jeffrey gets home from work. The poor man hasn't even had a chance to get all the way in the door before he is attacked. Who am I kidding, he isn't "poor".

He couldn't be richer.

Even one is too many

So I bet when you looked at this picture you just noticed the cute little boy playing with the balloon, but check out his ankle. Notice those? Yep, they are hospital bracelets.

That's right. In the last six months we have made four, count 'em four, trips to the emergency room.
See this lovely, non-kid friendly fork, well I gave it to the kids years ago to play with because I am all about the make believe. I have to admit here that Jeff has told the kids countless times not to put it in their mouths and I always say, "Ah, babe, they are fine."

Well, I have been proved wrong. Timbo feel forward and jabbed a big hole in his sweet little mouth.


Boys, they are full of fun and surprises.

We see something new everytime

We just love the zoo. Seriously, we see something new every time and yesterday was no exception.
How about this guy. Is that too funny or what. I guess what the zoo was serving up for lunch wasn't very yummy. I just knew he was going to fall in.
This little mommy has three new babies. We were surprised to see them out already. We thought we wouldn't get to see them until the fall. Kati was just so happy to see them sooner.

Actually there are quite a few new mommies at the zoo but we didn't know that Precious was one of them. Wanna know how I know her name is Precious? Kati asked the zoo keeper.

That's right, Kati was brave and asked. In fact she talked to several zoo keepers yesterday and asked lots of questions. I was just blown away.

This is one of Precious' new babies. They are just seven weeks old. Isn't this one adorable.
Kati must have had a growth spurt in brave yesterday because she wanted to brush the goats too. She and Bear followed them all around with brushes but they were never lucky enough to get more than one brush stroke in at a time.

Spelling Genius

This afternoon when Jeffrey came home Kati and I were finishing up school. When we were all wrapped up I brought the dry erase board and supplies to the living room to show off some of Kati's new skills.

Today she learned the sight word "the", so she was reading things like "the man", "the mud", "the tub", "the mill", you get the idea. So lots of praise was being shared with Kati and she went on to announce, "Daddy, b-a-t bat!".

More praise.

Brendon pipes up, "Daddy I can spell."

"Okay buddy. Spell dorkbucket."

"K-A-T-I".

5 years old already?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATI!!!

DADDY LOVES YOU.

Happy 5th birthday my Bug!

It's Sunday June 22 and I am 27 weeks and 3 days pregnant. Except there is a problem.

I woke up for church that morning knowing right away something wasn't right. While Jeffrey made some phone calls I got in the shower refusing to believe anything was wrong with me but having enough sense to know that we needed to check and be sure. I couldn't be having problems because we hadn't taken any child birthing classes yet and we still had 13 weeks before she was suppose to get here. Everything just had to be fine. When I got out of the shower I sat down on the bed while Jeffrey was talking to the on call Doctor from the hospital. When he hung up he was immediately in action and said we had to go to the hospital.

The drive there seemed so long even though Jeffrey was speeding. Calls were made for prayer. I needed people to be praying for her by name I said. It was important to me. I knew God knew her and her name but I needed everyone else to think of her as Kati and not just a baby I was pregnant with.

We went up to labor and delivery and the nurse preformed a new test on me, it came back negative and she tried to explain away what was happening to me saying it had to do with heat. Her phone rang and she told me to go ahead and get dressed, all was well.

I could tell by watching her that the call was about me. She did the test again but in a new way and it came back positive. I was leaking fluid. At twenty-seven weeks when a baby can not yet breathe on its own, I was leaking fluid. The hooked me up to monitors only to find that the nervous stomach I thought I was having was really contractions.

I was admitted and given meds to temporally stop the contractions. I was told they would work for a few day but sometime within that week I would have a little girl. Although I was scared the idea of holding the little girl we had dreamed of for years seemed wonderful. I told the nurse that as soon as she was born I wanted her placed right on my chest. That's how I had always pictured it, she would be born and they would place her slimy wet body right on my chest and I would be the first thing she would see. I would finally be able to put a face to all the squirming I had felt, finally see the face of a little girl who had already had her name for years.

Right there on my chest is where she needed to be and I was told no. That when the scary reality began to set in. I was told that she would immediately be taken away to the NICU and it would be a while before I would get to see her. It was sinking in. Although she would be borne and statistics said she would have a great chance of living there would most likely be problems. When the nurse brought in the steroid shots it made the day even heavier. She explained that at this point in the pregnancy Kati's lungs were like Saran Wrap. When she breathed out, expelling all of her air her very thin lungs would stink together, making her unable to fill her lungs up with her next breathe.

My baby wasn't going to be able to breathe. This can't be happening. We have dreamt and longed and loved for this little girl. This isn't how it is suppose to be. I was suppose to here at forty weeks, big and fat. I am suppose to roll over in the middle of the night to waken Jeffrey and say "It's time". We were suppose to be calling friends and family to say, "She's here!" not "Please pray that everything will be alright."

They brought me papers about the NICU policies and things that might be wrong with her. I had to sign this and that but really from that moment on things were a blur for me.

There were a blur for me until later on that night. The room was dark, Jeffrey was just a few feet away finally sleeping, on a very small and uncomfortable couch. The only sounds were Kati's heart beat on the monitor and the swishing any time she turned. They were precious sounds to me. I quietly opened a children's book and began to read to her every so quietly so I wouldn't wake up my stoic husband. And from the next room a horrible sound came. A woman in birth. I could her her struggling threw the pain. Minutes later the room was filled with the muffled sound of a babies first cry and I began to do crying of my own. I wouldn't be able to hear my Katibug cry. She would be unable too and they would take her away. I could her the rejoicing from family and friends for the new life next door but all I could think about was what if Kati had some server problems and would be in pain for the rest of her life? What if she could never have the normal life? And I realized right then that all my prayers for her had been selfish. All the things I had wanted were for me. I hadn't once prayed for God's will. And at that moment I prayed the hardest prayer I have ever prayed in my life. I gave her back to God and told him if I wasn't' meant to have her now then I wanted him to take her because I knew I would have her again in heaven. I didn't want to be selfish, I wanted what was best for my little angel bug.

I cried myself to sleep that night. The next morning we were taken to a different room way down in the hospital and they did a better sonogram that any we had every had before. The were checking on my fluid but I was looking at the most beautiful face I had ever seen. I got to see her fat cheeks and could tell she had Jeffrey's long eye lashes. I wanted to the sonogram to go on for hours. There, right there on that screen, was the face of my Kati, my long dreamed about Kati. It was so clear it was like looking at a baby. Although I cared about my number count for my fluid what I really cared about was that adorable nose that I was really seeing for the first time. And I cried again.

And spent many of the next days crying but something wonderful and amazing happened. The end of the week came and Kati was still inside of me. By this point, according to the doctors and nurses, my meds should have become ineffective to my body and I would have already gone into labor. And then that week past too and still no birth. After two and a half weeks they checked me again and I wasn't leaking fluid anymore. My doctor told me in the 22 years he had practiced medicine he had never once had a patients sac heal it's self back up. He couldn't' explain it but I could. I knew that God had preformed that miracle and saved my Bug. I didn't know why and I still don't need to know why, this is all I know,

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

He has a plan for my girl. Even if I will never know what it is this side of heaven, I know he has a plan.

And I will eternally be glad.

Happy Birthday

Kati, what can I say? I love you Bug.

September 11th

I haven't forgotten.........

I woke up bright and early again on Saturday but this time I went out in the dark by myself to take photo's of the sunrise. For me that is really brave. At one point I was lost and almost had to call Jeffrey to come find me.
It was still rewarding. At one point I walked right up on some deer. I guess because of the darkness neither one of us knew the other was close. I unfortunately didn't get a picture. When I started moving to get the camera they took off.


Saturday we took a much more leisurely day. Jeff slept in and I just hung around for a while. We went into town to get some food from Wing Stop, neither of us have been there before, brought it back and watched a movie while we ate. Then we had to rush to get ready for our night date.We saw this little guy on the way out. He was so cute I had Jeff stop so I could take his picture.

For our date we were able to go to a UT game thanks to Charlotte, a very generous lady from Jeff's job. We left over and hour before the game started and that still wasn't early enough. Traffic was a nightmare. I was glad Jeff was driving, if it had been me we would have just left. People walking everywhere in the street, other people transporting people on bikes zooming in and out of moving cars. It was nuts!

After we finally found our parking garage and made it down to the street a man offered us a ride on his golf cart. It was six dollars but we were on vacation and the game was about to start so why not, we hopped on. I'm glad we did. This guy was a trip. Hollering and talking to people as we drove. We zoomed all around taking back streets nearly running over pedestrians while he talked to an officer(No one be concerned, they wouldn't have been really hurt had he actually hit them). He was funny and got us there right on time. I only wish we could have find him after the game.

It was a big stadium.

They kept shooting off this stupid cannon and scaring me half to death.

All I can really tell you about the game is they said it was the most people to ever attend a football game in Texas. And that I forgot my book in the car. That's a long game when you've got nothing to read.

After our reminiscing we rented a boat for a few hours and had a blast. If you have been reading my blog recently then you already know how much I hate the water so I was surprised when Jeff suggested we go out on the water and even more surprised when I agreed.

I'm glad that I did.

I only wore the life jacket about five minutes. It smelled horrible. I suppose I'd have rather drown then have Jeff thinking I was the one smelling bad.

Here is just part of the condo.

I don't know if you will be able to see it or not but our balcony is right in the middle with the brown fan.

More of the condo.

Jeff is laughing at me. He kept warning me he was about to take off and that I should sit down but everything was so beautiful.

I almost fell.

Some of the houses were unbelievable, so unbelievable I had to take pictures to share them with all of you.
Jeff asked me if I wanted to drive. I was so scared but I tried any way. It lasted for all of about three minutes. Which is a lot longer than me swimming in the lake lasted. Jeff jumped in first, I followed behind and immediately began my scramble back into the boat. It wasn't a pretty sight. And then I cried. But being the great husband that Jeff is he just kept telling me how proud he was of me.

More homes.

After two hours on a boat I guess we just weren't burnt enough so we went swimming in the pool. At least there I can see my feet. They lied though, it was deeper than five feet.

Isn't that the most beautiful pool you have ever seen?

Later that night we got all gussied up and went into town. We ate at Macaroni Grill. I love going out to eat without the kids. We always snuggle up on the same side and people watch.