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!)

Best husband/dad and Kaela's new skill

I have been really bad about posting lately. There have been several times I have wanted to write about something that's happened, but the days go by so fast I just don't get to it. So this post may have some random points, but I also want to highlight a few things.

I want to start by saying I have the BEST husband and my kids have the BEST dad. I know there are some great ones out there, but I have to give some love to Matt. I don't say how great he is as much as I should. He is home with the kids while I'm at work everyday, he takes them with him while he works, he cares for them, loves them, plays with them and is does everything in his power to be sure everyone is happy. He is so calm and has more patience then anyone I know (including myself). He is here for us everyday of every week and I want him to know how much I appreciate him and love him as do the kids.

A couple weeks ago Matt made a digger out of play dough, which won Will over in seconds. Will was so excited that he even wanted to sleep with the play dough digger. As you can imagine that doesn't work too well. Once the play dough drys it crumbles, which ends up in Will screaming that his digger broke. Ugh, how well can you really explain to your two year old that it's play dough and that's what happens. He doesn't really care, he wants it fixed. Well a friend of mine suggested getting some clay that you cook and it gets real hard, so off to the store I went for some clay. I don't know who was more excited ,Will or Matt. Matt spent some time putting a digger, bulldozer and crane together for Will. Matt is sooo artistic, I tried and well, it wasn't pretty. Here are some pictures of Matt's creations and Will's new found love :)

Pretty cool dad!

Now, as for Kaela, she is growing and getting into EVERYTHING. She is so cute and so busy. She can be found under the table, down the hall playing with the door stopper, all the way into Will's room, anywhere she can get. But as of the other day her newest thing is pulling herself up on things. Not onto her feet, but onto her knees. She started with the box of wipes. She was so excited to get herself up there and then over she goes. Once she found her way into her brothers room, she found a stool to get up on. I bought a stool at PB awhile ago for Will to get up into his big boy bed. I moved it into the living room for Kaela to play on and she is so happy. I think she just likes having a different view. I don't blame her. You will also notice that her hair is getting SOOO long. Don't you just love how it sticks straight up :)

I'm so happy we have some nice weather. We spent a lot of time outside and at parks this weekend! Will just loves being outdoors. I think he would sleep in in sandbox if we let him. Here are a couple pics from the parks and at home over the weekend.

I love taking pictures, can you tell? I think my little sis appreciates them all since she lives in Texas and doesn't get to see them very often. Love you Rachie.

One last thing. I haven't posted much about Kaela's brace (I was reminded of this over the weekend :0) ) since she got it awhile ago. We did go in for xrays a few weeks ago to see how she looked with the brace on and the brace off having worn it for a few weeks. We came out of that appointment with some good news. Dr. Hensinger said that her back actually looks better since it has been on. There wasn't a huge change in the degree of the curve, but it actually looked a little better and hasn't gotten worse. This is of course great news. I imagine Kaela's spine will continue to curve, but the longer we can prolong surgery or the more we can stop the curve the better! What I mean by that is obviously we will never know how much her spine would have curved had we not used the brace, but hopefully the brace in the end, even if Kaela has bad curvature, it will be a little milder then it would have been. We can only hope. So good news thus far, even though she would prefer not to wear it. We go back in July for more xrays and I imagine we will go back soon to check the sizing for the brace :) From now on, I think I will try and post more regularly so that I don't write these monster blog post :)