3 steps!

Kylah is up to taking three steps all by herself! She'll stand up by herself and look around to make sure someone is watching her and applauds her efforts. :)

Pausing to take a look at Dora.

I still have to concentrate pretty hard to do this walking stuff.

Oops...good thing I have a soft tush!

I'm going to take a little breather and suck my fingers. (Notice the other hand on her belly button which is a must. She gets mad at me if I put a onsie on her!)

Forget the walking...scooting is way faster!

Go Chiefs!

What do you do when the Chiefs' game is on at the same time as we should be eating lunch??? Everyone eats downstairs! The kids thought it was great. I think Joey's eaten in front of the TV a total of two times before, and Kylah's never gotten to do it. (And Joe and I never eat in front of the TV...if you don't count almost every night after the kids are in bed!) :)

Here they are eating and intently watching the game.

Gotta love the blanket under them. It reminds me of Friday night pizza nights when I was growing up!

Reading time with daddy.

Kylah is starting to get old enough that Joey and her can actually play together sometimes. We love it! Jumping on Joey's bed is one of the things they love to do together.

I love how precious they look together.

Kylah is doing much better today. No more fevers and she seems to be getting her energy back. We are so thankful! We have to get her better because we have a trip to Arkansas coming up this weekend. I think Mere and I have finagled a way to have some girl time without any kids!

Mover and a shaker...finally

In the midst of all this sickness, Kylah decided today was the day to take her very first step. She has been standing solo for about two weeks now; standing alone looking as if she could totally walk if she wanted to, but just refused...stubborn little thing! :)

Anyway, today while at the doctor, I saw her push herself to stand not holding on to anything. When we got home we tried to get her to do it a few more times, and lo and behold, she took a step! My prediction has always been that she would be 16 months when she started walking, so it looks like I'm pretty close! (She'll be 16 months on Tuesday.)

Here's a few action shots:

Getting to the standing position without holding on to anything...

Taking a step after holding daddy's hands...


She did it!


Big brother helping her learn to walk.


We'll see how long it will be before she's actually taking more than a few steps. Welcome to the world of moving around on two feet Kylah!


And just because...I love this action shot of Joey playing with Joe.

We have just been relaxing at home this weekend, trying to get Kylah totally better. She started having high fevers in the middle of the night along with a terrible sounding cough, so I took her to the doctor today to make sure she wasn't getting pneumonia on top of the croup she had. Her chest x-ray showed no pneumonia (just the croup), but she did have an ear infection. So, most likely that's the source of the fever. One of these days she will be totally healthy again! I'm sure we'll be skipping church in the morning as well (I'm pretty sure the parents of the other children thank us for that!).

Kylah's doing better

Kylah seems to be doing a lot better. She is acting fairly normal (still wants to cuddle with mommy a little more than usual...) She is still wheezing some, but definitely not struggling to breathe! We even went to the park in the wagon last evening, and she had a great time. She is at her babysitter's today, so hopefully she does OK.

Here is a picture of her at the ER the other day. This was post-epinephrine, so she was breathing much better at this point (and eating a banana!)

And this was in the bath last night. This girl loves her baths!

We don't have any plans for the weekend, so we can just relax at home and take it easy. Hopefully we all can feel 100%

Update on Kylah

Well, after another not-so-great morning with Kylah, I think she is finally doing a little better.

She actually slept really well last night (I got up about 4 times to check on her, though!) :) So, when she got up this morning, I figured she would be doing a lot better. She was still wheezing and having stridor, though. So, I loaded up the kids to take them to the pediatrician to make sure there was nothing else I should be doing for her. The pediatrician took one listen to her and sent us back over to Children's ER for some more epinephrine (through a breathing treatment). He said she was in respiratory distress (causing the stridor).
So, over to the ER we went. My friend Amy met us over there to pick up Joey for me so he didn't have to wait in the ER with us while she was treated. Thanks again Amy! Kylah perked up again after her epi breathing treatment, and they gave her some more prednisone (by mouth this time). We stayed there for a few hours so they could make sure she was stable. They sent us home again with hopes that she would continue to do well. She was still tight and wheezy, but seemed to act OK. That's the thing with croup...you just have to wait it out and keep them stable until they are through it. I wish there was something that could just suddenly make her all better! So, after never having to take either of our kids to the ER, we've been twice in two days!!
She took a good nap this afternoon, and when she woke up she seemed to be doing a little better. She has started coughing some now, which I think is helping her.
Joe doesn't have to go in to work until 3 tomorrow, and then I rearranged my patients so I could be home by then, so she'll get to stay home all day again tomorrow. We'll see how she does by Friday.
I'm hoping she sleeps well again tonight. Thanks again for all your prayers.

Sick Kylah

Little Kylah is pretty sick. She started wheezing and being hoarse yesterday afternoon. Joey had this same croupy cold last week (and is still coughing!), and he was quite wheezy with it too. Kylah's wheezing (stridor is actually the technical term of the way Kylah is breathing if you really want to know!) of course got worse throughout the night. Kylah and I were up a lot last night, and we spent a lot of time sitting in the bathroom getting all steamed up! I gave her a few nebulizer treatments, but nothing seemed to help her too much. She woke up about 6 am this morning struggling a little too much for our comfort, so we headed to Children's ER, where they gave her a shot of Decadron (steroid) and a strong breathing treatment. It definitely helped, but we will watch her closely throughout the day. Luckily we were able to rearrange our patients, so Joe is home with her now, and then I will get off early, and we'll switch. (And thankfully the patients I had scheduled this morning that had to reschedule were very understanding!)

She is still being her sweet little self, all the while wheezing like a long-time smoker! :) We'll keep you updated, but I'm sure she'll be fine as time goes on. Thanks for your prayers!

The one in Kansas

This past weekend was the Fourth Annual Golf and Poker Extravaganza for Joe and five of his college buddies (they missed having Josh with them this year!!)

Meredith and I always take this opportunity to meet in Kansas City for the weekend. Joe's parents are gracious enough to let us crash their house with our kids for the weekend. The house is huge, so we are able to spread out, let the kids loose and have fun. The kids just love playing together and do so well together. We played at a few parks, went miniature golfing, tried to shop for 15 minutes, played at McDonald's, ate at a dinosaur restaurant, played Candy Land and Connect Four, ran around the house, took big bubble baths, shared a lot of drinks, and had fun with our best friends!

Audrey seemed to be in love with Joey. She was Joey's little shadow and wanted to sit wherever Joey was. Joey didn't seem to mind at all! :)

Nana's tub is always a hit with the kids. All four of the kids enjoyed bathing together.

They had fun with the jets and the bubbles!

Kylah got to spend some quality time together with Nana. Jennifer kept Kylah with her while Mere and I took the three bigger kids out for some fun activities (miniature golfing was one of those activities. Mere has those pictures on her camera, so look for her post!) Thanks Jennifer! Speaking of Jennifer and Kylah...we watched some video of Jennifer when she was Kylah's age, and there is quite the resemblance between Kylah and Jennifer!

The three musketeers all snuggled up together.

The cute little girls and their dolls.

Connor loves to be fierce. Here are the poses the boys struck when Mere told them to look fierce. :)

These 'fierce' little boys are pretty cute together.

Enjoying popsicles outside. I think Kylah feels like a big girl sitting with all of the big kids!

Having a tea party out on the deck. Connor joined them a short time later.

Why does this little cutie look so old to me all of a sudden?!

Blowing bubbles together in the playhouse.

Tractor rides with Grandpa is always a must. Thankfully, Jody is so patient and takes the kids around and around.

A self portrait of Kylah and me!

As always, we had a blast with Mere and her kids. The kids did awesome together (minus the last morning when everyone seemed a little stir-crazy!) The big boys had a great time too. I have yet to see any pictures of the golf weekend, but maybe I'll be able to get ahold of some soon. Mere and I are thinking we need a girls weekend sans kids sometime soon! :)

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Today we watched my friend's baby for a little while. Eli is almost 4 months old, and quite the little cutie. Joey was quite the little helper. Good to know that if we do decide to have another one sometime, Joey will be much more helpful!

Kylah was quite the little mommy to Eli. Here she is covering him up.

Kylah sure knew where that paci went!

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Tonight was the first night of Awana for the year. Joey has graduated up to being a Cubbie! I remember being a Cubbie when I was little. He was so proud. However, when I picked him up tonight, he told me that he was scared of Cubbie bear and cried. (They have a life-sized costume of Cubbie bear that Joey is still afraid of.) I told him that maybe next time he wouldn't be so scared.

Kylah learned to say "cheese" when I take pictures.

Now we are looking forward to seeing my mom/Gramma tomorrow night!