Go Kaela!!!

Update: better picture (I think) from Matt's phone. I just love those chubby short legs :)

I downloaded about 250 pictures today so that I could post some of them, and then Kaela goes and does something major! More blog worthy then anything I could have written an hour ago :) Kaela stood up on her own! Matt was giving Will a bath and of course Kaela has to be part of everything, so she went crawling back to the bathroom. My sister called me just then because I had just sent her about half of those pictures I downloaded, to tell me how cute they are when Matt yelled for me to come to the bathroom. At first I thought something was wrong, so I run to the bathroom to find Kaela pulling herself up to a standing position! We were sooo excited. Obviously being 11 months she is a little behind on this (who really cares!) which I think almost made it more exciting. I of course ran to get my camera to find that the batteries were dead! Go figure. So I ran to get my other camera and Matt took some with his phone. (we also did a little video until that died too). I wanted to get on and share Kaela's exciting news with all of you! I'll try and get better pics next time. Remeber, her legs are pretty bowed so although it may not appear that she's standing, she is...her feet can not go straight on the floor due to the curve in her legs, but she's doing it the way she knows how!! YEA! I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Not much news to share

My sister emailed me today and reminded me that we have this blog and we needed to update it. Thanks Rachel. I really don't have a lot to say.  Will is starting to talk a lot more and starting to make more sense to more people, so that's good.  I can't believe how big he is!  It seems like just the other day he was born, and now he's this tall, skinny, hilarious little man.  Everyone seems to think he's 3 because he's so tall. Kids grow way too fast, don't they!?  He's such a sweet little boy sometimes, and sometimes he's a crazy, wild animal that needs to be caged. :) Don't worry we don't actually cage him!

Kaela is growing too.  Length wise, I think she's started to slow down a bit, but she's 

really starting to look and act more like a little girl/toddler then a baby.  She will sit up now on her own if I sit her up. She does fall over after a little while, which usually causes tears, but she loves to sit up on her own.  She can't get to the sitting position from laying, but she's starting to turn herself when she gets up on her knees and then sits on her bottom. She looks so cute when she sits up. She plays peek a boo which is so cute, she loves to clap and say 'yea!,' wave bye bye or "HI" and loves to laugh at her silly brother. She's almost 1 and I can't believe it!! Her birthday is June 21st, which just happens to be the first day of he LPA conference in Detroit and the first day of summer.  I found out today that Rachel, my sister, or Aunt Rachie is coming home to visit June 25-29 and we are so excited that she will be here for some of the conference and Kaela's bday party!!!  We know it's close to the conference, but we would love to have our lp friends and families in the area join us for some food, cake and fun, if you are free the 28th of June. 

As I said, not much going on right now, so I will leave you 

with some cute pictures of the kids.

If it's not one thing it's another!

I have always wanted to be a mom. As a young child I knew this, I carried my dolls with me everywhere, I went to the neighbors house to help hold the baby, and play with the kids. I babysat forever, I would let the neighbor kids come over to play just because I loved kids so much, I lived with a family for a few years taking care of the kids, and couldn't wait for the day that I had my own. I have always wanted to adopt children, I had dreams of going to Africa to help the children and take them toys, so yeah, I was obviously obsessed with caring for kids. My point here, although it may sound strange, I thought I had a purpose...which was to take care of the needy kids in the world. Then we find out we are having Will, which was scary and exciting all at the same time. We have this beautiful baby boy who is just perfect. We love him so much I convince Matt we should have another soon after :) It didn't take much! So then we find out we are having another baby and we are thrilled. We finally found out we were having a girl a couple months after our 4 month check up because they couldn't tell then and we where so excited that we would have one of each! Matt was very excited he was going to have a little girl too. Daddy's little girl, and that she is :) So of course we then find out later in the pregnancy that something is 'wrong' with Kaela to then find out she has a form of dwarfism...so from here, we know what happens...we have a beautiful little girl. Most of you know this was very hard for the month or two before she was born and the few months after, but has gotten much easier as we've watched her grow. So up to the point that I'm trying to make in this post....we are getting used to all the doc. apts for Kaela, and dealing with the fact that we are going to have to deal with a lot of things that we never imagined dealing with and then last week we find out Will has a peanut allergy. Oh the joys of parenthood, right? It's really not about us, it's something the kids are going to have to deal with FOREVER, so of course it's much worse for them then us, but for now Matt and I are the ones who have to 'handle' the situation. We now have to read labels of all foods, get rid of the peanut butter, nuts, etc. It's a pretty serious allergy. We have to have an EpiPen with him in case he has a bad reaction. There's a lot that goes into it. I have a good friend who's son is very allergic and I know what she's had to go through. It seems to be worse when they start school because it's not a controlled area anymore. The classroom has to be peanut free, but the school isn't, which means they have to eat at a special table with only people who have a hot lunch. So it's just another THING to deal with. He loves M&M's- but no more of those. Have you ever read labels? It's surprising the things that say, may contain peanuts, or processed in a facility with peanuts. Although plain M&M's do not have peanuts, they re-melt the chocolate they use from the peanut M&M's to use on the plain ones; therefore, the chocolate may have touched peanuts, meaning Will can not eat them. Just having peanut butter touch his skin makes him break out all over. Anyway- that's what we are currently dealing with. We still have to get his blood work to find out what his level of allergy is. We are of course hoping it is mild and stays that way. So my point in talking about how much I loved kids and wanted to help kids around the world, I think I have come to learn that I may have that purpose still, but it's with my own kids :) I say this with a smile on my face and can truly laugh about it..because I think this was the plan all along :) Instead of going around the world to do it, I'm supposed to sit in my living room and do it :) I wouldn't trade it for anything.

So that's the exciting news :) We had a fun filled weekend at Greenfield Village for Day Out With Thomas. They dress the train up to look like Thomas, and Will just LOVED it. He was so cute on the train saying 'Choo Choo.' Grandma and Grandpa Laurin came with us which was lots of fun. They had lots of fun Thomas events around the village too, so I think we will have to make this an annual thing until Will outgrows it and maybe Kaela too!

I cleaned out Kaela's closet and dresser this weekend which filled 2 bins! Talk about way too many clothes for a 10 month old! Will's closet is the same way. Apparently I love to shop...a little too much :) But I get great deals at the outlets and the after season sales for the next year at name brand stores...Her growth is starting to slow down I think, so I don't think this will happen as often, but we will see. I will leave you with some cute pics of Kaela happy as can be even after having to get shots that day! She's such a trooper. (Plus I was the bad mom that neglected to take any good pics of her at Thomas Day...sorry Ka!)