i love summer nights!

we had a great night tonight just enjoying being together and soaking in the summer nights!

kinley's speech therapy update

life has been crazy. with the end of the year activities for both the girls i have not taken the time to sit and write how things are going with kinley. we have been SUPER blessed this summer to have been able to start kinley's "speech fund". we cannot express how amazing is has been to see so many people give so graciously to help toward kinley's costs of therapy! we have had many "angels" come into our life and bless our socks off! God is so good! it feel so amazing to have an account that is now just for kinley and her future with helping with this speech journey.!! thank you to everyone for all you have done! you are a TRUE answer to prayer!

kinley is doing SOO well! she is talking so much! a lot of it is babble, as she is in the phase most 12-18 month olds are in of experimenting with her voice. but the best part is she is really imitating A LOT! it is so fun to hear her TRY to repeat what we say! her list of words she uses has gone from about 10 words about 3 months ago to probably40- 50 words she uses on a regular basis. it is amazing! we have had A LOT of hurdles figuring out what works for kinley and i am not going to lie it takes A LOT OF HARD WORK! there are many days i want to quit but we keep pushing through and God is faithful! he gives us just what we need to keep going even when it is hard! it has been so fun to see kinley be able to communicate with others. she LOVES to try to be a part of a conversation ! we have a LONG road still ahead..but words cannot express how amazing it is to hear kinley say new words! when i think back to where we were only 3 months ago when she could not even say daddy....wow...it still brings tears to my eyes!

thank you all for your continued prayers and support! they mean so much! i am hoping to post a couple videos soon of kinley's progress!

kya's graduation!

I cannot believe she is done with kindergarten! this year went soo fast! we were so blessed to have the world's greatest teacher. Mrs Crum was such a blessing for kya...we could have not have asked for a better teacher! kya and mrs crum had a special bond and there were tears from them both saying goodbye to each other. kya had a GREAT year and learned SOO much! kya blew us away with what she learned in kindie. she got pulled for the gifted math and reading and is now reading chapter books. it has been sooo fun to see her grow is other ways too. i love her heart and how she loves others DEEPLY. she will be the first to help or encourage her classmates. i am so proud her academics, but more importantly i am proud of her heart!! we love you kya payton

kya's dance recital

kya had her dance recital. it was sooooo cute to see the girls all dressed up! they did such a good job! kya LOVES to dance and is quite a little performer! she knew all the steps perfectly and had a HUGE smile on her face during all her numbers! when i look back at these pictures i cannot believe how grown up she is!

josie's bday party!

kya's dear friend josie had the most ADORABLE birthday party a little while back. her mom did an AMAZING job decorating and she got each of the girls these cute bonnets and the boys cowboy hats. the bday party was a "old time farm". the kids absolutely LOVED it and had a great time. i had a great time taking pictures of all the cute kids!

field day

kya had her first field day a couple weeks ago. it was such a fun day watching her classmates have a great time together. they had organized some fun games for the kindie's.

blessings upon blessings

it has been an amazing couple months. even though it has been so hard finding out about kinley's severe apraxia..it has been AMAZING to see God first hand take care of her! each and every hurdle we have been faced with he has taken care of!! from therapists...to finances...to schedules...everything has been an answered prayer. God has brought so many amazing people into our lives who have GRACIOUSLY given to kinley from support, love, kind words and prayers... to giving of their money. we have been BLOWN away with people's gracious hearts. there have been moments that are hard...but it is in those times i force myself to stop and think of all the blessings!i honestly feel blessed.. i wish i could hug and thank every person who has given in some way to our family. From the bottom of my heart i want to say THANK YOU!!!

helping kinley find her voice

last Saturday a dear friend jaime savage organized a benefit for kinley. jaime truly has a heart of gold and her and kinley have always had a special bond. when kinley was diagnosed with apraxia jaime dreamed up doing a benefit for kinley to help with all the speech therapy costs kinley will have over the next 10+?? years. she recruited the help from some other AMAZING ladies at our women's bible study who were so wonderful to donate to the sale, to bake some yummy treats, get gift cards donated,tag items, make signs, and just help jaime make this sale happen. jaime made posters of kinley and her story and posted them all over aurora to advertise for her sale. i have never met a more amazing group of ladies! their love on kinley and our family was overwhelming!!!! Jaime, Maggie, Brenda J., Brenda V, Kristy, Tisha, Lorrie and many more amazing ladies who baked and helped...THANK YOU!!!!! you ladies are a TRUE GIFT FROM GOD!!!

when kinley was first diagnosed with severe apraxia we knew that we could not get through this alone. we knew God would provide the strength, patience and financial needs to help kinley find her voice. And then when we found out that kinley's therapy was going to be around $325 an hour we HAD to trust God would provide. within days we got a $1000 donation from some of my parents friends we had never met, we applied for and got an AMAZING grant for kinley for the next 2 years from the shriner rite foundation....and we were blessed with dear friends who wanted to do this benefit! it has been the most amazing experience to see FIRST HAND the power of prayer!!! GOD HAS PROVIDED !!! the benefit sale raised $3000.00!!!!!! we opened an account yesterday for all of kinley's "finding her voice" fund.... i started crying when the banker asked how we raised this money the poor banker even got some tears in his eyes when i told him about all the amazing people in our lives!!!

i wish i had the perfect words to explain how much you all have blessed our hearts! you all have angels to us! THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts! i can not wait for the day to come to kinley to be able to come to you all and SAY thank you for all you have done to help her find her voice !

one of the most amazing parts of my day was when a mom showed up to the sale and asked if i was there that she could talk to me. she has seen kinley's poster at southlands mall and said she had to come talk to me. she too has a daughter with SEVERE apraxia who is now 10 years old. her daughter was diagnosed too around 2-3 years old. she came to encourage me and to give me the name of a home therapist she has been using for 7 years! her daughter is still in therapy but is now talking in sentences!! i could not stop the tears from flowing...this dear women drove just to see me and to help. she gave me a big hug and gave me her personal home phone number to call anytime! what an angel! yet another HUGE ANSWER to prayer!

here are some pictures from the day! kinley thought it was awesome to just sit and play with all the stuff that was for sale :)

my mom made a big poster board sign and stood in the middle of smoky hill road to get people attention to come to the sale! love you mom!! Rob J took the afternoon shift and waved the sign ...thanks Rob you rock!

kinley saying THANK YOU!!!

memorial day 2011

we had some friends and family over on monday for a little memorial day bbq. you know me if given the chance to have some people over and get to decorate a little...i am always on board! we were a little worried about the weather but were so excited to wake up to blue skies and sun! we got everything set up and then the wind started kicking in...well about 30 min into the bbq...i guess i will call it a micro burst wind gust came and blew down 4 sections of our fence. it snapped the posts right off! it was so scary seeing these huge sections of fence fly. thank goodness we have a little decorative fence inside the other fence that kept it from flying down at hurting the kids! the decorations and lawn stuff kind of took a beating, but we had an awesome group who helped clean up and we went right back to the fun! the rest of the day was wonderful and such a great time! the best part is the management company from the hoa came and said the back fence is their responsibility since it backs up to a road....YEA!! wish they would have said that last time we lost the fence in the tornado a couple years back! but i guess one of the home owners took them to court and now how they are covering it! nice!

here are some fun pictures from our day !

it was all fun...until the wind hit.!!

adding a little dish soap to make it more fun!

dylan all lathered up to get some speed!