playing at the lake

We are so excited to be back at Lake Michigan again (or Michigan Lake as Melia calls it). This is our third year coming here to St. Joseph, and we hope to come back each year for a couple of days. This year we’re happy that Aunt Mel is joining us. We seem to bring more stuff to the beach every time we come, and now we have another child, so an extra pair of hands is great!

This afternoon we spent a couple of hours splashing in the surf. The waves were the biggest I’ve seen here before. Melia gradually got comfortable in the waves, and Kailyn sat on the beach and was occasionally splashed by the waves. She LOVES the sand. She inspected it thoroughly, and in the end she tasted it. Didn’t even phase her. She just kept on digging in the sand.

Hmmmm . . . What is this stuff?

I’ve inspected it, now let’s see how it tastes.

Delicious! Melia, you’ve got to try this stuff!

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pictures from today

Kailyn is really trying to get her knees under her. It won’t be long before she’s on the move!

Mom, stop taking my picture!

I can tell that Daddy let her go down the slide like this.

Chillin’ out after a good meal (squash and pears)

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hot pants

Kailyn had two appointments today. The first one was with her physical therapist. During the summer we are making our way to her office in a local school instead of having her visit us in our home. Today was the second time we have done this, and Kailyn made it VERY clear both times that she is wholeheartedly against this idea. She cried the entire time (during both visits) and would not even reach for an interesting toy to show the PT the new things she can do now. She starts tearing up as soon as I put her down on the therapy mat. Well, since Miss Pam hasn’t really seen an accurate example of what Kaily can do for two months, she was kind enough to schedule an extra visit–in our home–in a couple of weeks. Hopefully Kailyn won’t freak out the next time. One thing that came out of our visit is that Kaily is now the proud owner of a pair of hot pants (actually shorts, but it’s funnier to call them hot pants). They are made of spandex and are supposed to help her get her hips together so she can get her knees under her more when she tries to get in the crawling position. Apparently, many preemies have frog legs, and Kailyn definitely falls into that category.

Later this afternoon we went to the pediatrician. Some of you may remember that we switched Kailyn’s formula to Nutramagin because we think she may also have some dairy allergies. This switch is a costly one, and I haven’t seen any improvement in her eczema or other rashes. I was hoping we would be able to switch her back to regular formula. Wrong. Now we are trying Alimentum, the Similac version of formula for kids with dairy allergies. Hopefully we will be able to switch her to this formula more quickly than the last change. It looks like she will likely be tested for allergies in the fall sometime. It will good just to know, especially since table food isn’t too much farther down the road for her.


The first picture is Kailyn’s frog legs. The second picture is her new hot pants. And, yes, she is chewing on a box of hydrocortizone cream. Hey, at least it’s empty! She is definitely the second child. I would never have let Melia chew on something like that.

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now we’re cooking with . . . charcoal?

After a decade of high quality service to our family and a few friends, we decided to retire our tired gas grill. We got it as a wedding gift and kind of hated to see it go, but Graig has been thinking about grilling with charcoal for quite awhile now. We decided to save some of our Mexico spending money to replace our grill. We purchased it and got it up and running with some friends on Saturday. Graig also grilled dinner on Sunday. Delicious!!! It might just be me, but I think I CAN tell a difference. So, come on over for a BBQ while the weather is still good!

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junior police officers

Melia participated in Safety Town during the past two weeks. This is a program for kids who will be entering Kindergarten in the fall (for the record, I can’t believe our family falls in that group. My Melia isn’t really that old already?). Each day of Safety Town focuses on a specific kind of safety . . . crossing the street, riding a bike, water safety, fire safety, poison safety, bus safety, etc. The highlight of the morning is when they get to go to Safety Town City to practice what they’ve been learning. They ride trikes around a little city set up in the gym and practice stopping at crosswalks, stop signs, and stop lights. On Friday we went to the graduation ceremony, and we got to see Melia in action in the city. She, along with all the other children, were sworn in as junior police officers. With all these newly installed junior police officers, now, more than ever, the streets of Saline are safe!

Kailyn is all smiles . . . until you break the law.

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better with bunkbeds

This evening after being asleep for about two hours, Kailyn woke up screaming. Graig went up to check on her, and she acted as if she were scared of something. Graig showed her that she wasn’t alone (recently she’s been crying if we walk away from her), and Melia piped in with, “Don’t worry, K, it’ll be better when we get bunk beds. I’ll just climb down the ladder to your bed and comfort you so you’ll know you’re not alone.” This seemed to work. Kailyn calmed right down and is now sleeping peacefully again. Good thing Melia always has a plan.

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refreshed

Well, it’s back to reality. We got back late Monday evening, and we spent most of Tuesday traveling up north to get our girls. We really missed them, and they did great while we were gone. We really enjoyed the resort that we chose. The beach was beautiful, and the pool was amazing. The food was great. Almost everyday we would get breakfast (early, of course, because we couldn’t sleep past 7:30 or 8:00) then spend the day at the beach or pool. There was a lot of shade from strategically placed palm trees, so we stayed outside for hours at a time. We’d go inside around 5:00, shower, and get dressed up for dinner. Many days we would walk into town after dinner and just enjoy the sights or shop around a little. We took a couple of moonlit walks on the beach, spent one day snorkeling with a tour guide at three different places, and we walked to some Mayan ruins not too far from our hotel. We were able to email Melia every day, so that helped me know that everyone was doing fine. We are so thankful that we were able to go to Mexico to celebrate 10 years together, but we hope we don’t have to wait another 10 years to go away on a vacation together.

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(insert music here) we’ve got two tickets to paradise . .

(more guitar here) . . We’ve packed our bags and ourplaneleavesat6:30amtomorrowmorning, but we’ve got two tickets to paradise . . . Woo, hoo!! We are off to Mexico in the EARLY morning. Thank you to Graig’s dad for driving us to the airport at 4am, and a huge thank you to Graig’s mom and sister, too, for caring for our girls while we relax on a beach for a week. I am looking forward to being pampered. I get to sleep past 6:45am for seven straight days, and I don’t have to clean, cook, or feed other little people for seven days! I will really miss our girls, but they are in good hands and they have fun things planned while we are gone. Well, I’m off to eat as much chips and salsa and Mexican food as I can!

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pictures from our travels

Here are a few pictures from our recent trip.

Meeting the great-grandparents in West Virginia

Campfire Cookout and playing at the park

Kailyn’s first taste of Gerber Graduates Strawberry Apple Puffs

Melia’s first time on a Slip and Slide and meeting cousin McKenna

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happy birthday, america! (and jomo and sara b)

What did we do to celebrate the 4th? Made cupcakes and ran in a 5K, of course! A couple of months ago, one of the guys in one of Graig’s small groups challenged him to run in a 5K. He told him about a plan to train “from the couch to a 5K in six weeks”. Graig told me about it, and I decided I’d like to try it, too. Well, the excitement also spread to our friends and neighbors, Ben and Sara. We all decided to train for this together, and none of us had ever run before. The training started out really easy. The first time we ran one minute and walked one minute and repeated that for 20 minutes. I thought that was tough. But today, six weeks later, I ran for 16 minutes before needing to walk for a minute! Graig and Ben ran the 5K (which is 3.1 miles for any of you non-runners) in under 28 minutes. Sara and I finished in under 38 minutes. Now, we were passed by some children and a very quick speedwalker, but we actually finished it! That was Sara’s and my only goal, and we are really quite proud of ourselves. We all really enjoyed it, and we all plan to continue running about three times a week. I feel like I’m in the best shape of my life (which is actually quite pathetic), and I’ve dropped a few pounds along the way. There is another 5K coming up in September that benefits Mott Children’s Hospital (where Kaily lived for her first 101 days). We hope to participate in that run/walk, too. Maybe I’ll try to shave a few minutes off of my finish time for the next race, or I may just do the family walk with Kaily. We’ll see. I really do want to run in another 5K before long. It was actually fun!

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