Forever in our Hearts

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Since we last wrote an update, we had the opportunity to celebrate Kennedy's second birthday.  Whitney and Puma were able to stay a couple of days after the party and they spoiled the heck out of Kennedy.  They got to go eat McDonalds, go to the splash park and even went to the movies.  They saw the movie Despicable Me 2.  Once again, she was completely still during the movie.  She was even quoted as saying "again" once the movie was over.  Since then, Kennedy has become completely obsessed with Despicable Me.  On her actual birthday, she didn't feel well, so we postponed the family celebration until that Friday.  We took her to see the movie again.  She just loved it.

When we were home in Amarillo, Kennedy took a toy away from Emma, Whitney and Nate's dog.  She kept calling it "Sulley," one of the characters from Monsters, Inc.  Although it it definitely not Sulley, it does look a little like the character.

We recently got the news that Jason's Grandpa wasn't doing too well.  His struggle with lung cancer was taking a turn for the worse.  We headed to Amarillo to visit him.  He seemed to rally a bit and we had a really nice visit with Meme and Grandpa.  We are so, so thankful that we were able to make it back home.  On the morning of Sunday, August 11th, Jason's Grandpa passed away.  He was a great man and will be missed dearly.  It is difficult to capture all of the emotions in words, but Jason did write a short poem to honor Grandpa.

Through this journey of life,

you marched to your own beat, 

and the melody of it sounds so sweet.

Now we take the baton in this, the medley of life.

You are a splendid model of a patriarch,

having made tremendous deposits 

of wealth in your bank of kin.

Although you are departed, 

your investment continues to grow,

as your blood pumps through our veins.

You will be missed, but there is comfort knowing 

that your essence is within us.

In this time, it is heavy letting go of your hand

the physical is now withdrawn, 

but with the reminiscing breath,

we can smile as your spirit resurrects.

In the pictures, you will see an angel.  It was hand painted by Grandpa towards the end of his life.  It is truly a treasure.

Kennedy's Second Birthday Party

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We had Kennedy's party to celebrate her second birthday this weekend.  Her actual birthday isn't until Wednesday, but we went ahead and celebrated early.  We were fortunate that we had much of our family in town for the celebration including Puma, Pops, Grandma, Papa, Whitney and Nate.  They made it in on Friday evening and the fun began right away.  We had a good chat that then some of us walked down to the lake where we watched the fireworks.  On Saturday morning, we kicked it in full gear to get ready for the party.  At eleven o'clock folks started to arrive and Kennedy was acting like she owned the place.  She is such a lucky girl.  She had lots of people over to shower her with love.  Rachel elected to have a carnival theme and it was a big hit.  On Saturday evening, we headed out to the Grapevine Botanical Garden to take some pictures.

On Sunday, it turns out that Kennedy didn't feel so well.  She vomited a couple of times this morning and afternoon.  Shortly after lunch, Grandma, Papa, Pops and Nate had to head back to Amarillo.  Puma and Whitney are staying for an extra day or two.

Another week in the books

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Kennedy has really been enjoying the iPad lately.  Since buying Monsters Inc. was such a hit, we decided to get her Despicable Me.  She has really enjoyed that movie too. With the sequel in theaters, we are thinking about taking her to see it sometime soon.

We got an accident report from school this week.  Kennedy had apparently tripped and when she fell, she got a carpet burn on her face.  We had planned on taking her 2-year pictures this weekend, but changed our minds.  That turned out to be a good decision with a carpet burn on her face.  We'll be sure to make up for it this weekend.

On Saturday, we went to a wedding southwest of Fort Worth.  The wedding was in Godley and the reception was in Granbury on the lake.  While we were there, we made a stop by Gordon House.  It is a historical home that was built in Grandbury in the late 1800s. This house is a historical home and just so happened to be the house to some of Meme's relatives. We made sure to snap a quick photo on the phone while we were there.

On Saturday evening, we met up with our old neighbors, Nathan and Amy.  We met in the old downtown area of Grapevine.  Kennedy and Conrad had a good time running around the old train station.

Terrible Twos, 2 year molars, or Ear Infections?

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Kennedy got sick this week.  She was sent home with a fever on Tuesday.  Other than being a bit cranky, she seemed just fine.  Then we discovered that she was breaking in all four of her two-year molars.  Rachel stayed at home with her on Wednesday and we took her back to school on Thursday.  Turns out that her fever came back, so she wasn't able to go to school on Friday.  We ended up taking her to the doctor and the doctor confirmed that she also had two ear infections.

On Saturday, Nina and Mark watched Addi and Kennedy while the parents got to go out to a movie. We saw "The Heat." It was nice to get out and enjoy a movie at the theater. After the movie, we checked in and the girls were doing fine so we went out for a drink. We enjoyed getting a little adult time with Matt and Courtney.

Sunday was a bit challenging with Kennedy. We don't think she is back to 100% as well as the "terrible twos" are starting to set in we believe.... She was pretty much unhappy from the time she woke up till she finally crashed. Hopefully this coming week will turn out better than the past one.

A weekend at home...finally!

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This weekend, we didn't have anything specific that we needed to do so we were able to explore some of the activities near the house.

On Friday evening, we met up with our old neighbors, Vanessa and Walter, for dinner.  We met at the Central Market in Southlake.  We were able to sit outside where they had some live music and a playground for the kiddos.  The kids had a great time playing, which allowed the adults to have a nice conversation.  Grapevine also has a small firework show that they put on every Friday night at the lake.  We hadn't been since moving and had some time, so we headed to one of the parks along the lake.  We arrived a few minutes early, so we tried to take a picture while we were waiting.  The flash made Jason blink, so he looks pretty goofy.  Once the fireworks started to pop, they sure captured Kennedy's attention.  As soon as the show was over, she started to say, "again."

On Saturday, we were invited over to our neighbor's house to go swimming.  Kennedy had a blast swimming and jumping in to the pool. We then had them over to our house for some pizza to round out the evening

On Sunday morning, Jason and Kennedy went out for a bike ride.  They headed out to the one of the trails near the house.  Along the way, they were able to see the lake, ducks, a crane, and several other people and their dogs.

Later that morning, we took Kennedy to her first movie, "Monsters University."  We met Matt, Courtney and Addison.  Kennedy had been watching the original quite a bit over the past couple of weeks.  We purchased it before we headed out to Nebraska.  She was pretty familiar with the characters and when they first came on the screen, she got very excited and pointed at the screen.  Kennedy absolutely loved it.  She didn't hardly move the entire time.  These are some of the greatest moments of being a parent.  Just seeing the magic and wonder in her eyes makes you feel so good.

Wedding Weekend

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We had a short week at the office this week because we headed up to Nebraska for a wedding.  Rachel's cousin, Jon, got married to another Rachel.  Yes, her name is now Rachel Kime.  Pretty funny to think about since that is also our Rachel's maiden name.

We headed out on Thursday morning.  We were a little apprehensive about the flight because Kennedy hadn't been on a plane since last March (when she was 8 months old).  She did great though, we weren't on the plane for long before she fell asleep.  That sure made the travel a little easier.

Once we got to Grand Island, we rented a car and drove another four hours to Valentine, NE.  That evening we met up with the rest of the family at Duane and Danita Kime's house, just outside of town.  Their property backs up to a small canyon, so they had prepped the back yard area for hosting the wedding service.

Friday we helped out with setting up the reception venue. Danita had hired a baby sitter to help entertain the kids while we busily turned a bare building into a decorated reception hall ready for 400+ guests. That evening we gathered at Duane and Danita's for the rehearsal then headed into town for the rehearsal dinner. I wish we could say that the kids were perfect angels, but they are Kimes, so that wish did not come true. That evening, Grandma and Grandpa Kime watched Brody and Kennedy so we could have a night out together. Tracy joined us too and we had quite a fun time letting loose!

On the day of the wedding, we wanted to make sure that Kennedy got a nap in.  We were thinking that it might put her in a better mood during the wedding service.  Since we were so close to the South Dakota border, we hopped in the car and drove her across the state line.  It was a success, we got her to sleep and now Kennedy can say that she's been to South Dakota. Now we just have to make it to North Dakota and Kennedy will have been to all the states from top to bottom (well in a row in the center of the country anyways). It was a beautiful wedding and we sure enjoyed our time we got to spend with family. We wish we all lived closer so that we could see each other more often, but we make do with what we can get!

Here are some pictures from the wedding rehearsal

Busy, busy, busy...

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The new daycare has been working with Kennedy on potty training.  Well, at least they have been working with her to get some time sitting on the toilet.  It didn't take her long to get the hang of sitting, but she has gone several weeks without actually using the toilet.  That all changed this week.  Sure enough, she has used the toilet on two different occasions!  Pretty exciting news.  We'll have to start working with her some more at home.

Kennedy has also learned how to apologize.  The little stinker has figured out that when she's in trouble, all she has to do is give you a hug and say "I sorry."  It hasn't taken her long to understand that this makes things better and she can be back on her merry way.

We've been working with her quite a bit on saying "please" and "thank you."  Her Mom and Dad are pretty proud of her because she's been getting pretty consistent about saying "please" and "thank you" without being prompted.

Like most toddlers, she has gotten to where she loves watching cartoons.  She especially loves the Disney Junior channel.  Her favorites are "Chuggington," a show about trains, "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse," and "Sofia the First," a princess show.

Kennedy had her first hair cut recently. She didn't really care for the cape much, but didn't actually mind the actual hair cutting. We were able to put some toons on the iPhone to keep her occupied while Rachel's stylist worked quickly on Kennedy.

Rachel was in Florida last week for a conference. Dad and Kennedy had a pretty good week, even if mom didn't approve of some of their dinner choices. The weather in Florida was not very sunny...in fact it was storming every day and Tropical Storm Andrea came in at the end of the week. Rachel still had a good time re-connecting with some of the regulars at the conference, but was ready to get home by the end of it!

This weekend, we headed over to East Texas.  Jason's company sponsored a charity event hosted by some local aviators.  We met at someone's personal hanger at a small county airport.  They also had a women give a presentation about her record breaking flight around the world.  She holds the world record for the fastest flight around the world.  It was pretty fascinating listening to some of the challenges she faced.

We also headed over to the neighborhood water park.  They have several splash areas for small kids.  Kennedy absolutely loved it.  We foresee heading back several times over the summer season.

This upcoming week will be quite busy for us. On Thursday we head up to Nebraska to celebrate Rachel's cousin, Jon, getting married. This will be Kennedy's second time flying, but we are definitely more nervous about this trip. We will have to report back how she does. It will be fun seeing all the cousin's kids together. Braydon, Kennedy, and Brody will hopefully get along well together!

Getting Settled

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Great news!  Kennedy has started to get settled into the new daycare.  No more tears when we go to drop her off.  In fact, one morning, when Jason dropped her off she started to walk away to play and then turned back and waved to tell him bye.  She's also been making comments about playing when he goes to drop her off.  And she must be having fun.  She comes home a complete mess every day.  Her teachers have even stated that she's come out of her shell because she's talking quite a bit more.

We didn't have anything special going on this weekend, so we made a big push to do some unpacking. We made quite a bit of progress.  Much like the packing process, the unpacking process  seems to never end.  Nevertheless, we're making some good headway and it is such a relief to be getting settled in.

Kennedy has been cracking us up lately.  She sure enjoys chasing Sammy around the house, tackling and smothering him.  We caught her in the act at one point.  He's such a good sport he just puts up with it and doesn't seem irritated at all.

On Sunday afternoon, we walked over to the lake.  There is a playground just a few steps away from our front door.  From there, you can take a short trail to the lake.  While walking around the lake, we stumbled across a bird watching area and ended up walking down to the shore.  We were able to see some turtles, a fish and some ducks out on the water.  Kennedy sure seems to enjoy it.

Whitney's Graduation

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On Monday, Kennedy started at her new daycare. She did about as well as could be expected. Drop-off is pretty rough, but the teachers said she calms down pretty quickly and has been interacting with the class throughout the day. They have even started working with her on going to the potty. They take all the kids and let them sit on the toilet, but I don't think Kennedy really knows that she is actually supposed to do anything when she is on the toilet. She is very excited to see Mom at the end of the day. 

We haven't gotten much unpacked. In the evenings it seems that we are just too warn out to really accomplish much.  We have taken a couple of walks throughout the neighborhood in the evenings.  It seems that each time we walk out the front door, we bump into a new neighbor and get to visit for a few minutes.  We're really happy with the neighborhood and look forward to seeing our family grow up here.  Still not many photos of the new house.  Once we get a little more settled, we'll be posting some updated photos.

We headed to Amarillo Thursday after work. Whitney, Jason's sister graduated with her Bachelor's degree on Saturday from West Texas A&M University. She actually completed her degree in 3 years. She has decided to stay on for another 2 years to get her Master's Degree. We are so proud of her and we're so happy we could help her celebrate. It was also a good time conversing with family as all of Jason's family on his mom's side were in town for the celebration. We don't all get together very often, so when we do, it is quite a special time!

It also turned out to be Mother's Day this weekend, so we were excited to actually spend that holiday with our Mothers! We did have to leave pretty early to get home in time for our Sunday chores, but it was still a good time.

Moved In!

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Wow!  What a wild ride.  Last week, we closed on our Lewisville house.  The weekend after that, we kicked our packing into high gear.  The more we packed, the more stuff seemed to just come out of the woodworks.  By the end of the weekend, we managed to get most of our belongings ready to go.

The following Tuesday, we closed on our new Grapevine house, but we didn't get the keys until Wednesday.  After work, we all headed over to the new house to take a look around.  It was pretty surreal walking through our new home.  On Thursday, the rubber really hit the road.  We both had the day off.  The movers arrived around 9:00 AM and they didn't waste much time before they started loading the truck.  We were so impressed with the movers.  They could each lift more with one hand than the two of us could get combined.  We are definitely glad that we bit the bullet and hired them.  By about 2:00 in the afternoon, they had us completely unloaded in the new house.  We were pretty impressed with how quick it went.  We spent our first night that evening.

On Friday, Rachel stayed home to spend some time unpacking.  Jason took Kennedy to her Montessori for her last day before switching to her new daycare.  We were certainly sad to be leaving them.  They have been a great school and this was one of the hardest parts of the move.  That said, it will make more sense to be at the new place.  They made her some special artwork for her last day.

On Saturday, we went to a picnic with Jason's co-workers.  They had barbeque catered and held the event at a local park in Grapevine.  Shortly thereafter, we headed back home to continue the unpacking.  That evening, we were invited to a neighbor's house for a shrimp boil.  We certainly enjoyed getting to meet some of the neighbors.

All in all, we are very excited to be in our new home.  The city is in a better location and has better city services.  The schools are better.  The neighborhood is well established and has some very mature trees, a private playground and pond.  We can really see our family growing up in this home!

More Traveling and Packing

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This week, Jason went to Lubbock to sit in on the final presentations for the environmental design class he has been advising.  He flew in on Tuesday and gave a brief presentation to one of the student organizations.  On Wednesday, he sat in on the presentations.  The students did well and he enjoyed being part of their experience.  The university has another professor lined up for next year, so they won't need us to assist them next year.

While Jason was away, Rachel met with the neighbors for dinner.  They met at the salad bar at the grocery store.  Kennedy insisted on eating dinner from one of those miniature grocery carts.  Hey, at this point, we were just happy that she was even eating.

We really ramped up the packing this weekend.  We even lined up a new refrigerator for the new house.  Our house has turned upside down, but it sure feels better seeing everything going into boxes.  We're feeling a little anxious about everything since there is still so much to do.  Too bad we can't just snap our fingers and wake up with the move behind us.

We did manage a capture a few minutes this weekend out on the back porch.  We took a couple pictures of Kennedy.  She continues to surprise us with her expanding vocabulary.  She has even started to pair up nouns with verbs and adjectives to form little phrases.  She sure makes us proud!

Jason's foot has continued to bother him, so he is heading to the orthopedic specialist on Monday.

Jason's Work trip and Packing

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This week, Jason went to Galveston for the Texas Water Conference.  On Tuesday, he served in an environmental service project where they placed oyster shells in the bay to help slow the shore erosion. The bags of old oyster shells also provide a habitat for wildlife in the bay.  On Wednesday, he competed in a 5K.  Although he hadn't been running much, his team got first place overall.  On Thursday, he judged a safety competition.  Ironically, he dropped a 150 pound dummy on his foot.  After driving home from Galveston, he discovered that his foot was pretty bruised an swollen.  He went to get it checked out and the good news is that it isn't broken.  He'll just need to lay low for a while.

On Friday, Jason's parents made it to town.  They came to town because Jason's company had their annual dinner on Saturday evening.  Saturday morning, we all drove by the new house over in Grapevine.  We also spent a few minutes checking out the HOA's private pond and playground.  It sure didn't take long for Kennedy to feel at home.

Jason's parents watched Kennedy on Saturday evening while we went to the annual dinner.  After dinner, we went out with a smaller group to have a good time.

Jason's parents also helped us to get some packing done.  We've got a lot of work to do in the next couple of weeks and they helped give us that head start.

We're Moving!

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We'll we haven't made a post in a couple of weeks.  We've been pretty busy.  More on that later.

A couple of weeks ago, we had dinner on the deck in the back.  We snapped some photos.  You can see how Kennedy is starting to act more like a big girl.  She was sitting in her own chair and using her knife and fork.  You can see her using her left hand to eat.  We think that she may be left-handed.

Jason was able to walk down into a pump station on one of his projects.  He started the design in 2008 and the construction started in January 2011.  It is finally getting close to being complete.  It was one of the most rewarding experiences in his career.  He remembers when he was just sketching ideas for this structure on a piece of paper and now it's very much tangible.

We've been thinking about getting a place that has a little more room for our family to grow.  We want to make sure that we have four bedrooms.  The idea being that we have enough space for a potential second child and we want to keep a spare bedroom for visitors.  We also want to make sure that long term, we are in a better school district.  We've been hearing that the market is good right now, so we decided to test out putting our house on the market.  A couple of weeks ago, we visited with a real estate agent.

She confirmed that the market is hot right now.  For us, she recommended getting on the market as soon as possible since there is active new construction in our community and those are expected to be available in May.  We naturally started scrambling that weekend to do some deep cleaning and de-cluttering.  Whitney was in town that weekend.  She and Rachel went to a Maroon 5 concert with Matt and Courtney.  It turned out to be great.  She kept Kennedy entertained while we were hard at work.  Our house officially went on the market on the Thursday before Easter.

We headed back to Amarillo for Easter weekend.  It's always nice getting to head back home an see all of our family.  On Friday night, we gathered with Whitney and Nate to meet Brice and Lindsay in downtown Amarillo.  We all got a chance to chat.  On Saturday, we went to an early Easter service in an attempt to capture Kennedy when she's less cranky.  Sure enough, she started wiggling and talking as soon as the minister started the sermon.  Jason ended up taking her for a little walk so that she wouldn't disrupt the others.  After the service, we headed over to Jason's parents house for a little Easter egg hunt.  Kennedy definitely enjoyed it.  After that, we went to the Kime house for some burgers and hot dogs.

While we were back in Amarillo, we had been getting several notifications that our house was being shown.  Our agent called us on Saturday to tell us that we could expect an offer.  Sure enough, we got an offer.  After a couple of rounds back and forth, we had a contract on Monday.  That was exciting, but they needed to close at the end of the Month!  Yikes.  It turns out that was a real sticking point for them, so we went house hunting on Tuesday.

We saw a total of 9 houses in Grapevine.  Grapevine is where we first lived when we moved to the metro area.  They have great schools and it is centrally located between Dallas and Fort Worth.  They also have good city services with relatively low taxes, so we had Grapevine in our crosshairs.  We were able to narrow it down two houses.  Houses in Grapevine have been going really fast and if we had any chance of not living in a hotel, we had to make an offer fast.  We ended up making an offer on a house up by the lake.  By some miracle, they countered with a very reasonable offer and agreed to our timing.  Whoa.  How lucky are we?  We went on Saturday for the inspection.  You can see the photos at the link below.  It's not a done deal yet, but it sure is looking promising.

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Rachel's Birthday Part 2

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On Tuesday, Rachel celebrated her 28th birthday.  We all went out to Outback for dinner.  Kennedy was a bit restless.  When we got back home, we all had a piece of cake.  But that wasn't it, Rachel was showered with gifts all throughout the week.

On Saturday evening, the Jalbert's headed over.  The girls got the play for a bit before we went for dinner.  Afterwards, we went by the nursery to pick up some flowers.

The weather has been getting better, so we've been able to get out for several walks.  On Sunday evening, we gathered with some of our neighbors and we all walked over to Jason's Deli.  We ate dinner on the patio, so that was great for all the kiddos.  The weather was great, so it made it that much better.

Rachel also cleaned up one of our flower beds in the back yard.  She planted some flowers and placed some new mulch.  She had plenty of "help" from Kennedy.  Although we're being halfway fosecious, she really did do a good job of picking up the trash and putting it in the bag.

We've been long overdue in posting a new video.  To help compensate, we posted two.  The first video simply documents some of our activity from the week.  The second video is from story time last Friday evening.

Rachel's Birthday Part 1

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One funny thing that has been happening is what we call the "leap of faith."  Kennedy has still been too unsure of herself to go up and down the stairs on her own, so she wants us to carry her.  When going down the stairs, she stands at the top and when we go down a couple of steps, she leaps into our arms.  She does it with the biggest grin on her face.

This weekend, Rachel's parents came to town to celebrate Rachel's birthday.  They watched Kennedy while we went to a movie on Friday evening.  We saw "Silver Linings Playbook."  We really enjoyed it and would recommend going to see it. It is always nice to get out once in a while. We were reminiscing about the last movie we saw before Kennedy was born. It was "Midnight in Paris" and we saw it the Friday night before Kennedy was born...My how things have changed, but we wouldn't trade it for anything!

On Saturday morning, Kennedy was playing in a cardboard box.  She was having so much fun that she got a little rambunctious and fell over.  Sure enough, she bumped her lip and she started crying.  She got it pretty good because it was bleeding there for a bit.  It wasn't long before she was back to herself; her lip was just a little puffier.  That afternoon, the girls went shopping while Kennedy took a nap.  That evening, we all headed to dinner to celebrate Rachel's upcoming birthday.

We also pulled out the video camera this weekend.  We played some "old" videos that were on the camera and she was absolutely fascinated with seeing herself on the TV. We have been pretty good about taking plenty of pictures of her but videos...we have been slacking in that area. Hopefully we can start taking some more.

Goin' to the Park

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On Saturday, we headed to a relatively new park in downtown Dallas.  It is called Klyde Warren Park. What makes it special is that it was built over a recessed highway.  It is not a real large park, but it is a pretty unique experience to enjoy a park surrounded by an otherwise urban setting.  They have an area for food trucks.  Just across a walkway, they have plenty of little cafe tables to enjoy your lunch.  Although it was a bit cold and windy, went ahead and picked up some lunch from one of the trucks.  Kennedy was distracted at lunch because there was a puppet show taking place nearby.  After we ate, we took a quick tour of the park.  They have a dog park, a small theater, an open lawn, an area to check out a book or board game, and a children's playground.  We naturally wound up at the playground and Kennedy sure enjoyed herself.  Her favorites were a xylophone type instrument and a spinning chair type of contraption.  We also snatched a couple of mini cupcakes before heading home.  On our way home, Kennedy ended up throwing up.  She had been coughing quite a bit and we think that the phlegm may have gotten to her.

On Sunday, we ended up having to take Kennedy to the doctor.  Her coughing has been persisting and we think that the time outside may have made things worse.  Sure enough, we ended up needing to put her on a steroid regimen to get her wheezing under control.

Jason's Birthday

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This week, Kennedy finally started to say Puma.  For some reason she hadn't caught on yet.  We weren't sure if she just couldn't say it or she was being stubborn, but she finally started to say it.

On Wednesday, Jason's co-workers surprised him with a little impromptu celebration in the break room.  One of his co-workers even brought some homemade cookies.  It was a great time.

Puma, Pops, Whitney and Nate came to town on Friday.  We all headed to an italian food restaurant in Southlake that serves their dishes family style.  It's the perfect place to take a family since they can handle large groups and are kid friendly.  We almost didn't make it in time.  We had a reservation for 7:00 PM, but ran into some traffic in Grapevine.  We were getting pretty nervous, but made it just in the nick of time.  The food was great, and the company was even better.  After dinner, we goofed around with taking some silly pictures.

Saturday was Jason's birthday so Rachel made a trip by Whataburger to pick up some breakfast; a real treat.  We got to lounge around the house for a bit and Jason even got to open up a few gifts.  Rachel had coordinated with Nate to get Jason a new pair of sunglasses.  While the girls were getting ready that morning, we headed out to snap a few photos.  We took advantage of the opportunity to get Jason in front of the camera since we don't have as many photos of him.  That evening, Puma and Pops got to spend some time with Kennedy while the rest of the crew headed out for dinner.  Yep, if you hadn't noticed, eating "good" food seemed to be the theme of the weekend.  We headed out to another italian food restaurant in Grapevine.  It is a little more authentic.  Rachel took advantage of the opportunity to wear her new dress and wow, did she look beautiful.  After dinner, we headed over to a wine bar on Main Street.  We had quite a good time.  Apparently, we had too much fun because Jason ended up losing his dinner after we got home.

Biting and Pictures

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Kennedy is still in her so-called sponge mode.  She is just soaking up all kinds of information.  Her vocabulary is growing faster than we can keep up with and she knows several colors now.  She knows, yellow, red and blue.  She still loves her story time before bed.  We love it because it calms her down and gets her in the right frame of mind for sleeping.  It sure makes getting her down easy.

On Tuesday, Jason had a presentation in Fort Worth so Rachel ended up taking Kennedy to school to give him more time to prepare.  It was great, because we both got to meet for lunch.  It's pretty rare that we get to have a weekday lunch on our own, so that was a real treat.  We went to a Mediterranean grill and Rachel recommended the vegetable kabob.  It has portobello mushrooms on it and boy was it good.  That afternoon, Jason went to pick up Kennedy from school.  On his way out, he was stopped by the head of school.  She reported that Kennedy had bitten another child that day.  Since it was just an isolated event, we'll simply have to monitor for this kind of behavior.

On Friday evening, we were goofing around with what is called light painting.  That is the art of using a flashlight to "paint" an image on a picture.  We're definitely beginners, but we had a couple of shots that turned out halfway decent.  We'll have to study up and give it another go one of these days.

On Saturday, the weather was pretty nice so we headed over to Grapevine for the afternoon.  We strolled through the botanical garden for a bit and then we headed to the old railroad station.  While we were out, we snapped some shots.

On Sunday, we went to a birthday party for Colton, the son of Rachel's former co-worker.  Addison was also there, so the girls had a great time.  That evening, we were horsing around a bit.  Kennedy started to act like she hurt her hand.  She had acted the same way once previous.  It was the time we speculated that she got the nursemaid's elbow.  We were debating whether to take her to the minor emergency clinic or to take her to her own doctor tomorrow.  In that time, Rachel watched a YouTube video on how to relief nursemaid's elbow.  We tried the stretch technique and sure enough, we heard a little pop and Kennedy felt better.

Mee Cow

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One funny note about Kennedy.  We recently changed the brand of diapers.  They have Mickey Mouse on them.  She tries to say Mickey Mouse, but she can't quite get it out.  She ends up smashing the two words together and it comes out as "Mee Cow."

On Wednesday evening, we were all scheduled to head to dinner with one of Jason's clients.  We were planning to meet at a place near downtown Dallas called Pepe's and Mito's.  Rachel had to haul all the way from Fort Worth to pick up Kennedy in Coppell and then to Dallas for dinner.  Rachel was about to make it to the restaurant and Kennedy surprised her by throwing up.  We had to scramble to get Kennedy cleaned up.  Needless to say, Rachel and Kennedy weren't able to make it for dinner.

On Thursday, Jason headed to the Texas Tech football recruiting review dinner.  Rachel wasn't able to make it this year.

On Saturday, Rachel was getting Kennedy some more pajamas.  When we were checking out, a pair of sunglasses caught Kennedy's eye.  Big surprise, we ended up buying them.  What's been pretty funny is that Kennedy has been wearing them when we get out of the house.  That evening, we went to the mall and Kennedy rode the merry-go-round.  We happened to snap a couple of photos.

We've been having dinner with our neighbors frequently on Sunday evenings.  This time, Rachel thought it would be fun to host a dinner at our house.  This Sunday evening, we had the neighbors over for dinner and Rachel served green chile chicken enchiladas. It turned out pretty good because all of the kiddos got the opportunity to burn some energy and we didn't have to worry about disrupting other patrons in a restaurant.

Sponge Mode and Loving Bedtime Routine

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We've been pretty amazed by Kennedy lately.  It seems that she is definitely in "sponge" mode where she is learning something new every day.

She is learning her baby sign language.  She definitely knows how to "please" as signaled by rubbing her hand across her chest.  She normally audibly says please along with the signal.  She also know "more" as signaled by bringing her fingers in each hand to a point and them touching them together.  Rachel is also working with her to say "thank you."

We've also been working with her one the names of all of the family members.  We point at the pictures on the wall and she'll say the names.  Some come a little easier for her than others, but she knows all of the core family members.

She also surprised us one day by pointing at a hair tie and saying "yellow."  They must be working with her colors as school, because we hadn't been working with her on colors.

Kennedy has really started to embrace her bedtime routine.  We normally give her a bath, brush her teeth, put her pajamas on and then read a couple of stories.  She really loves reading the books at bedtime.  Some of her favorites are "Jungle Animals" and "What do Zebras Do?"After we finish reading, we tell her it is time to go "night night" and she walks over to whoever is in the rocker and lies down.

Birthday Parties

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We had a funny thing happen this week.  We were out and about this weekend.  When we were in the car, Jason leaned over to give Rachel a kiss.  Just as our lips met, we heard a giggle ring out from the back seat.  For some reason, Kennedy got a real kick out of us kissing.  We did it several time again throughout the weekend and each time, we got the same result.  Funny kiddo.

As you may be aware, Kennedy loves her waffles.  And now she likes to help us pop them in the toaster.  We normally have to help her turn the waffle so that it will slide into the slot.  Her dainty little finger is just strong enough to push the toaster button far enough to turn it on.

Kennedy is getting better at saying her family member names.  We've been working with her, pointing everyone out as we look at our family pictures.  As you might expect, her enunciation needs plenty of work, but you can sure tell that she is making an effort to say the names.

Rachel finished her bookcase.  Dennis had built a bookcase, but left it unfinished.  Rachel decided to finish it in an antiqued style.  She got it completed and put into place.  So far, it is helping us to control the toy and book explosion in our living area.

We also had two birthday parties this weekend.  On Saturday, we celebrated Joshua's first birthday. Josh goes to the same school as Kennedy and we know them through mutual friends. Kennedy's friend Addi was at the party and they sure enjoyed playing together. On Sunday, we celebrated Sebastian's 3rd birthday. Sebas is our neighbor and had his party at a place in Coppell called Kiddin Around. It was a really neat place and Kennedy had a blast. It is a "drop in" daycare that has so much to keep the kids running for hours! It is even open late on weekdays and weekends so that parents can have a little free time! Hopefully we will get a chance to check that out soon!!

Darn Cough

Woops, we had goofed the picture link.  Here's the updated link that actually works.

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Night time was a bit irritating for the whole family this week.  Kennedy's cough has returned and boy was it persistent this time around.  On Monday night, it was so bad that she, nor the rest of us, got much sleep.  This made for some pretty grouchy people around the house.  We had tried giving her the breathing treatments, but she just fights it so hard that she just works herself up.  Rachel ended up taking Kennedy in to see the doctor on Tuesday morning.  The doctor gave us an oral steroid and directed us to use the inhaler instead of the breathing machine.  She got progressively better each night and by Friday, she slept through the entire night.

On Saturday morning, Kennedy was stirring on the monitor so Rachel decided to go rescue her.  When she opened the door, she was greeted to the sight of Kennedy, naked, standing in her crib and holding her pajamas in one hand and her diaper in the other.  Rachel immediately called for Jason to come check out the funny sight.  She had somehow found a way to get our her pajamas at some point.

Although her vocabulary is still pretty limited, she's started getting to a point to where she can communicate with us.  One example, earlier this week, she went to her drawer, opened it and blindly reaching over, she grabbed spoon.  Once she had it in hand, she proceeded over to the refrigerator and attempted to open it.  When we opened it for her, she pointed to the yogurt.  Sure enough, that's what she wanted.  It's pretty nice when she's able to show us what she wants.  It helps to make all of us a little less frustrated.

New Traits and Sickness

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Kennedy's personality continues to show little wrinkles.

• It's starting to become apparent that she doesn't like open cabinets or drawers.  She's been closing them.  She even has a variety of techniques.  She has the typical "push-to-close" technique, but she also has the "bump it with your butt" technique.  
• She's also started to get onto Sammy when he's misbehaving.  When she notices him misbehaving, she points her finger at him and says "no."  
• When we were back in Amarillo, Meme and Grandpa had let her play with an old laptop.  Now that we've been home, she found our old laptop and has insisted that she use it.  She loves to open the screen and poke at the keyboard.
• It case you didn't already know, she loves shoes.  Bet you only need one guess to figure out where she got that from.  Pretty funny how she has such an opinion about what shoes she wears. She loves to go over to our cabinet and pick out a pair of shoes from her bucket.  Sometimes she even opens the cabinet and keeps changing her shoes out.  She can even get them on, but about half the time, she gets them on the wrong foot.

Last Sunday, the week started off with a bit of an incident.  We were awoken by Kennedy crying around 1:00 AM.  We decided to let her cry it out a bit, but she never quite settled.  Rachel went to go check on her and she had thrown up in her bed.  Yuck!  Rachel took care of giving Kennedy a bath while Jason cleaned up the mess in the bedroom.  She was fine the next morning, but we were sure groggy as we were heading out for work the next morning.

On Friday, Jason got up early to head to Galveston for a meeting.  Rachel got Kennedy ready and headed over to Starbucks for the usual Friday routine.  For the second week in a row, the outing was cut short.  This time around, Kennedy threw up.  It turns out that she had a stomach bug so Rachel stayed at home with her.  Kennedy also picked up another trait from her parents.  As she was laying down, she started to pat her lap in an effort to call Sammy over.  She must have picked up on us doing it.  She's such a little sweetie.  By the end of the day on Saturday, she was back to normal.  We were sure glad to have her back!

New Year

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On Friday, we had a bit of an exciting episode.  We normally head to Starbucks for a treat before work on Friday mornings.  After we get our coffee, Rachel normally heads on in to the office while Jason and Kennedy stay behind to eat their yogurt.  It is kind of a father-daughter "date."  This Friday, was a little different.  Jason was loading Kennedy in the car and noticed what looked like red paint on Kennedy's boot.  He didn't think much of at at the time and buckled her in.  Once we arrived at Starbucks, Jason went to unload Kennedy and noticed that she had blood on her hands, her boots, and her jeans.  It turns out that she had cut her finger and it was bleeding.  It was strange that she didn't cry.  Rachel took her in to get her cleaned up.  The store was also nice enough to give us a band-aid.  Once we went to put it on she fought it pretty hard and that's when we realized just how deep it was.  We ended up heading home to get her taken care of before taking her on in to school.

Although she has started to wear bows in her hair now and then, she is starting to wear them for long periods of time without pulling them out.  She often even requests to put a bow in her hair.  We hope to start sharing more and more pictures of her with bows!

Thanks to all of the new toys from Christmas, she has started to play more independently.  She doesn't do it for more than about 15 minutes, but it's just long enough to give her Mom and Dad a little time knock out some chores.

In other news, we started to settle back in at the office with the new year behind us.  Since school wasn't back in yet, the office wasn't at full speed.  That was helpful, and gave us some time to play catch up.