visiting santa

LOVE this! the girls were so excited to see santa. the BEST part was kinley was able to actually TELL santa what she wanted for christmas! she CLEARLY told santa she wanted a baby bed and a horsey. it was a pretty awesome moment! this picture is a treasured one....

kya lost her 1st tooth!

this sweet girl is now missing something! we have waited a LONG time for this tooth to fall out! it has been wiggling for a couple months now and FINALLY it is OUT! kya was beyond excited to have the tooth fairy come! my baby is growing up too fast!

Thankful tree

this year we started doing a "thankful tree". each night we would sit and share something we were thankful for and then add it to the tree. it was such a special time to take as a family to share the blessing in our lives. i loved hearing what the girls came up with that they were thankful for..i can't wait to do this every year together.

some of my favorites that were shared

~new words from kinley's sweet mouth

~daddy not having the bugs in his lungs anymore

~how God is always there for use even when i make bad choices

~belly laughs when we get tickled

~family date nights

halloween!

the house mess...

while we were enjoying the zoo one day...i had noticed our wood floors were starting to warp a little. i had put a fan on it while we were gone for the day. when we got home is was much worse. i pulled the fridge out..and starting looking everywhere to figure out where this water was coming from. it ended up being a slow leak from our ice machine that has been SLOWLY leaking for probably a couple months. i started pulling baseboards off and seeing if anything was wet..and found MOLD growing behind our baseboards in the kitchen area! we had to call a home restoration company and we moved to a hotel for about 5-6 days while they started to dry up all the mess and control the mold. luckily it was during fall break to it was actually kind up fun. the girls had a blast swimming and relaxing in the hotel!

once it was all dried and cleaned up we moved home and started the process of working with the insurance to see what needed to be replaced. it was quite the process but after about another week of figuring it all out...we moved out again while we got the entire main wood floors done, painting ..drywall and we also knocked down the little half wall between the kitchen and family room since this was the perfect time for them to do that with doing all the floors.

we were so glad to be able to move back home and enjoy the new floors..paint and new layout! it was quite the process but we are so happy with how it all turned out!

it has been kind of fun getting some new stuff for the main floor to complete the look! i am excited for the new open space for the holidays!

snow day!

the week after our beautiful day at the zoo we had a snow day! it was so fun to be home baking and playing in the snow! belle LOVED the snow! the girls had a blast playing with her!

fall break zoo day!

we had a great fall break hanging out and spending time together! kya had made a list of things she wanted to do over break and we tried our best to cross them off! one was a zoo day! we had a great day ....the weather was wonderful and the animals were so active and fun to watch! but the best part was getting some quality time with my 2 girls!

what a month

it has been a while since i have blogged. we have had quite that last month or so! but i am excited to say that life is starting to feel in order again! here are some things that have been going on
~we quit therapy at children's hospital for kinley
~ we have a WONDERFUL new slp for kinley
~we had a water leak caused by our ice machine
~we had to move out 2 different times for about a week to clean up and fix the mess
~ i am going back part time at work starting in dec
~we had track off of school/fall break
~ halloween was so fun...we had 2 super girls in our family

so as you can see we have been busy but we are back home... our house looks great...kinley is LOVING speech therapy...and now we are getting ready for the thanksgiving /christmas season!

challenged

this last week has been hard....apraxia and sensory integration disorder have given us a run for our money. kinley is currently working on the sound "f". it is hard... it is VERY hard. with kinley's apraxia the motor planning it takes to move her teeth out..her lip in.... and then blow all while holding her lip in place. let me tell you is not easy! but we are trying...VERY hard to beat this sound. i know it will come..but some days it really just stinks. we also had a rough day at dance class...her teacher was less then kind when i tried to explain kinley's disability and why she was struggling. the response " yeah i figured something was wrong with her"....was hurtful. this week satan used this to FLOOD worry...fear...doubt into our world. the questions about education, kinley's future and much more took over my world and i felt sad, angry and alone..

my amazing husband came home with some verses for us to find TRUTH in this.

"For I know the plans I have for you , declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." jeremiah 29:11
"do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation,by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,present your requests to God" philippians 4:6

mark and i sat...prayed and talked...we decided that instead of being anxious and letting the fear of kinley's future weigh us down ...we would let it challenge us. we will turn to God first when we start to feel overwhelmed and make God a center part of this journey. we also will continue to research, invest, and participate in ANYTHING we can do to help kinley.

i spent alot of time online looking into new ideas on kids with apraxia and sensory integration disorder. we heard over and over how an i pad is amazing for kids with these disorders. my amazing husband who had been saving a stash of money for something else decided that he wanted to use it for kinley. he took kinley to the apple store last night and got her an i pad. i love how gracious and loving that guy is! today we started using it in our daily speech exercises...let me tell ya kinley LOVES IT!

i am hoping to be part of a pilot program for kids with apraxia to stay up on current applications on what would be best for her.

kinley has been using these flash cards and her "functional word book", but to be honest she is starting to get bored with it.

so i am going to start working on a "virtual " word book that i hope she will be more excited about!

please continue to pray for kinley. the older she gets the harder this disability gets. she is doing GREAT she has learned SOO MANY WORDS and is communicating a lot more! we are SO THANKFUL for this! pray for protection for her as this world is often not a nice place or very accommodating for kids with disabilities.

this sweet joyful girl is an amazing gift mark and i have been given and we feel so blessed that God chose us to be her parents!

evening in estes

what a PERFECT ending to a GREAT weekend! we saw some amazing views and saw a lot of elk! we were sooo thankful to have such a WONDERFUL weekend with grandpa and grandma guikema! we all LOVE when they come for a visit!

estes and elk encounter :)

we arrived in estes to beautiful blue sky and amazing colors. we did a quick trip to the slides then headed to the golf course as we often find large bull moose wandering around. well it ended up being WAY more then we had expected. we were walking down a bike bath and stumbled into a herd of elk with couple of pretty excited bull elk. it was pretty amazing to see these animals so up close...but it was a little too close. we ended up have to dive behind a fence for cover. the LARGE elk actually charged the fence we were behind hitting his antlers against the fence.....it was CRAZY! yet another memory we won't forget :)

trailridge pass and picnic

we headed over trailridge to estes and stopped at the top of trailridge road for a picnic. it was the MOST AMAZING picnic we have ever had! what breathtaking views!

campfire!

so much fun to snuggle up by a fire :)

lunch by the lake

we brought lunch down to a picnic table by the lake. the girls had a BLAST splashing in the water!

horse back riding

we had a surprise for the girls and took them over to go horse back riding and to visit the little baby farm animals at a near by campground. we were not sure if kinley would be okay with riding a horse alone...but she LOVED IT!and kya was in her glory as well! it was so fun to walk around taking in the mountains views while leading the horses. what a great memory!

second night in the elk meadows

we headed into the park again to hear the elk....what a beautiful night it was!

fishing

we then headed back to columbine lake for a little fishing and minnow catching :) we were successful at both! so fun!

adams falls hike

we went on one of our favorite little hikes to adams falls. it was just beautiful and we kept going down the trail and found a beautiful stretch of the trail we had never seen!.