Building the Mayflower

Tonight we did Khloe’s big project for this semester. Her project was to build the Mayflower or a Wetu (a house the pilgrims lived in). We decided the Mayflower would be more fun so thats what we did. We started with a Kool-aide Jammer pouch box. We pulled the sides out and hot glued them so the ends of the ship would point out. Next, we cut and hot glued brown felt strips on the sides to make it look like wood. At the top we added twine around (I did the twine because I was too afraid she would burn herself on the hot glue). We covered a small part of an egg crate with green felt and glued it inside and glued a stick on it then added white foam paper as the sails. we placed it on a piece of cardboard that we covered in blue fabric (for the ocean) and another small piece of cardboard to look like land. Khloe always likes doing crafts with me but I think she enjoyed this one more because she gets to describe how we made it to her class tomorrow and be entered into a contest at school. I love these little times with her.

Happy Birthday Kaylei!!

This past weekend was my 2nd cousin, Kaylei’s, Birthday!!! She turned 9! We haven’t gotten to see Kaylei in a while so it is always very exciting to see her. She does, however, come and stay a whole week with me every year around Christmas. We all love when she gets to come and she enjoys feeling like she has little sisters when she stays. We had so much fun watching her open her birthday presents and seeing her face light up when she got a full set of Shopkins dolls, each one came from different people who didn’t even know each other so in reality it is pretty awesome that it happened with out a doll being duplicated. Her dad came and got her a ton of LOL dolls and the girls and I got her the JoJo headset she has been wanting. She was so happy and I loved seeing the smile on her face. We miss her already but we are looking forward to December when we get to have her here with us for a full 7 days.

 

National Prematurity Awareness

Well November is National Prematurity Awareness month so I couldn’t think of anything better than to post about my two premies. I had Khloe at 37 and she weighed 5lbs 15oz and was 17 3/4″ long. She had breathing problems for the first week but then we got to go home and she was completely healthy from then on. She is so smart and has a amazing personality. Kylie, however, was born at 35 weeks weighing in at 4lbs 12oz and 16 3/4″ long. She got to go home the very next day but has had many complications from being born so early. She has suffered from asthma and dysphagia (swallowing disorder) since she was born and we have many more tests and surgeries that will be conducted over the next year and she is 3 and a half now. She is a silly, sweet and funny little girl. Anything and everything should be done to keep babies in utero until their due date. Their lungs do not develop completely if they don’t and it is a long road to correcting it and sometimes it can’t be corrected. We are very blessed that our sweet, wonderful Khloe had very minimal complications and she is very healthy, also, we are in an area with some of the best doctors available and we will with patience and prayer get Kylie well. I know God has amazing plans for both these beauties.

 

Khloe

Kylie

Halloween

We had so much fun on Halloween. Khloe dressed up as “Mal” from descendants (Maleficent’s daughter) and Kylie dressed up as Skye (from PawPatrol). We had a bonfire at our youth pastor’s home and roasted hotdogs and marshmallows. We made smores and his daughter made monster cookies which were adorable and very yummy. They also had ghost cookies. After we all ate we went trick or treating around the neighborhood and all of the kids got lots of candy. One lady was handing our full size candy bars. Needless to say bed time was not kept that night but I know the girls will remember how much fun they had. It is really nice to have a wonderful church family support system and friends to enjoy holidays with. These people have become more like our family than many of our extended family members and I honestly can’t imagine my life without them.

     

She pulled her tooth!!

On our way back from Fort Smith this weekend. Khloe yelled,”Mom!!” I jumped because it scared me and said “What!?!” ( thinking She saw something in the road that I missed). She said “I’m about to pull my tooth.” I said “No, wait till we get home, we are only 15 minutes away.” It was quiet for about 30 seconds and she says…..”I got it!!” …. Then started crying. I asked why she was crying and she said “because I am just SO excited.” I laughed and told her how proud I was of her for being so brave and pulling it on her own and the we called her dad who was was very proud of her too. After we got off the phone with her dad we called all of her grandparents and they were all proud of her too. The tooth fairy left her $3 and Nonnie and Papa drove all the way from Van Buren the next day to bring her and Kylie a card each with $10 in them. We went to the dollar store and got lots of goodies. She is growing so fast and she is so brave.

 

 

 

Pumpkin Carving

This weekend we went to my mom and dad’s or Nonnie and Papa’s (as the girls call them) house. We went to the farmers market, a downtown fall festival and carved a pumpkin. The girls begged for an entire day to carve a pumpkin so my mom and I went to the store to pick up a pumpkin while they rested. After dinner we cleaned up and stated to carve. I was extremely surprised that Kylie was 100% all about it. She loved feeling the “pumpkin guts” in her hand. She pulled more out than anyone including me. Khloe, however, not to my surprise did not want to touch it and said it smelled awful. There daddy hates it too. They were so happy with the final result and we baked the pumpkin seeds after for the first time ever. Maybe we did it wrong but we all thought they tasted like burnt popcorn.

 

We are Murphy’s law

So the last two weeks have been a couple of rough ones. We started off with asthma attack after asthma attack with Kylie which means several ER visits. Wednesday we went for her yearly swallow study and as I expected there was no improvement from last year. What I didn’t expect was to be sent to another doctor to be told she was now going to need 1-3 surgeries and 2 more tests for which she would need to be sedated. One of the possible surgeries is a brain surgery. We went to “Cloudy with a Chance of Learning” family night for Khloe’s school but had to leave. Kylie fell asleep half way through. My husband came home for the weekend, we went to church and got to take the girls for ice cream after dinner one night and that was a really good break. He is really good at keeping me calm and helping me focus on the good things which is why I hate that he isn’t home all the time. Today Khloe woke up running a 102 degree fever and we went to the doctor to find out she has RSV. We came home to find our dog unable to walk in a straight line. Still waiting on the results of our efforts to make him feel better. We are a prime example of Murphy’s law this week.

Growing too fast

Today Facebook showed me a memory from 3 years ago. It was the picture above. My babies were 5 months old and 3 and a 1/2. It seems like just yesterday I brought Khloe (my oldest home). They are growing so fast and it seems like every time I blink they are so much bigger and smarter than before I blinked. I am here with them every single day but some how it seems like I’m missing it, I drop them off to school, go school myself, work, pick them up from school, come home, cook, clean, do homework with Khloe and work on colors and numbers with Kylie then its time for bath and bedtime bible reading. There seems to be no time to slow down and just see how amazing these two precious girls are. Sometimes it feels like they and time are slipping right through my fingers.

Look how much they have grown in just 3 short years. In 3 more years I will be done with my degree and they will be 6 and 9. I hope they see how all this hard work is actually for them and they know how much I love them.

 

The Fair

This last weekend we took the girls to the fair. We met one of Khloe’s friends, Abby, and her family and we ran into a friend of hers from preschool that she was very excited to see, Shy Angel. The big girls got to ride all kinds of rides and Kylie got to ride the cars, bikes and we tried the Mary-go-round but she was not interested at all. We got a some footlong corndogs and a couple of cokes before we sat down to watch the pig race and it was probably the cutest thing we had ever seen, well at least the little ones were. Both girls officially want a pig (not happening). After the pig races we went home and both girls were so exhausted I had to make them stay up to take a bath. Needless to say there was no fighting to get them to go to sleep.

 

Labor Day

We had a wonderful Labor Day. The girls and I met my mom, dad, sister, her boyfriend (soon to be fiancé, yay) Jonathan, and her roommate, Shannon at Petit Jean Mountain. We enjoyed my dad’s burgers, which are wonderful and went on a hike to the waterfall. I was so proud of Khloe, she was the leader and I was amazed at how much she liked it (we will definitely be going back). Kylie wanted to climb on every rock she saw and Jonathan and her Papa (my dad) took turns putting her on their shoulders when her tiny legs got tired. After we got back from the hike my dad and I took the girls out on a Canoe which didn’t last long because neither of them were interested in sitting still, they wanted to touch the water. I nor their Papa was interested in swimming or losing our smartphones in the lake so we went back to enjoy strawberries with the rest of the family before heading back home.