My Baby is 7

This will probably be my last birthday picture where Kenzie doesn't care if her face is covered in ice cream.

Makenzie and her new Lava Lamp
Makenzie awaiting the second poke in her ear.

Ear Piercing
Birthday morning before school

MaKenzie turned 7 on Wednesday, she was so excited, she took cupcakes to school and also had ice cream since it was the 100 day of school celebration. We went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner which was one of the highlights of her day, she got to sit on the birthday saddle as they sang to her, she loved it. Her most favorite part of the day was when she and I went to the mall and got her ears pierced, she even got Cold Stone. She has asked me to get her ears pierced for the past 2 years, I always say no because I don't want her earrings to bother her CI or HA. Anyways, I finally gave in and she was ecstatic. She was so brave, she sat in the chair and told the lady that she was very nervous and that her heart was beating very fast, but that she was so excited to get earrings. Oh and she also said that the posters on the wall by the ear piercing chair had girls who were immodest on them, but they probably just didn't know better. After her ears were done she kept looking in the mirror and admiring them, then we got ice cream together and enjoyed the beautiful weather. She kept saying, "Mom, what if this is all a dream, what if I wake up and it is not my birthday and my ears are not pierced????" I kept assuring her that wouldn't happen, she is so silly. I tried really hard to make it a special day for her because we were all under so much stress with Jeremy's health, he has been having some pretty seriously seizures the past couple weeks and they are no longer "sleeping" seizures, they are when he is wide awake, he has had a few nasty falls because of this and we have had to go to the hospital, thank goodness he has not hurt himself seriously, just nasty concussions and goose eggs. So he was such a trooper to go out to dinner with us on her b-day night, I tried to talk him into us cancelling, but he did not want to do that, so he ate and had to rush to the bathroom to puke, it was so sad, he is just constantly so dizzy and his head hurts non-stop. I feel so bad for him. Hopefully when we go to the specialist in CA on Monday they can help him find a better medicine. SO last night kenzie had a little friend movie night, she had Kendalyn, Leah, and Brynn over for pizza and a movie last night, they had a blast. So, I hope this has somewhat captured our lives, I have been so busy the past few months that I have neglected our blog.

A visit to Nicky's and Misc. picts

Skyler at his Pinewood Derby
Kenzie fell asleep while reading in her bed, so cute!

Rigdon, Kenzie, Brielle,and Kinley
My beautiful sister Nicky
Mom's lovely hair style compliments of Makenzie

So at the end of Christmas break I had to head up for my Spring orientation at the University of Arizona. The plan was that mom was going to go with me and stay at the hotel and watch me on the parent panel I was asked to speak on. Well Kenzie had issues with her cochlear implant, everything was too loud and she didn't wan to wear it, she had recently been re-mapped and obviously needed some more adjusting. The only time available to see her was on the day I had to be in Tucson. Our audiologist is in Queen Creek which is also where my mom lives, so I ended up dropping Kenzie off with mom and heading up to Tucson by myself. The parent panel went good, but it is always very stressful to get up and tell my story to a lot of people who are very pro-ASL, I am too if a child does not have speaking ability, but we chose the oral method for Kenz and she is doing amazing because of it. So basically I was on the chopping block, but it went alright. Kenzie had her appointment and her internal volume was definitely too loud, so they reduced it, but now it is too quiet, urghh, I just want to be able to get it right. She will have another appointment next week, hopefully we can get her mapped right. While I was in dropping Kenzie off at Mom's I was able to stop by Nicky's house so Kenzie could see her cousins, they had a great time. Kenzie was a bit of a pill for Grandma, she had never been by herself with out Skyler or us at least. Grandma took good care of her, but Kenzie didn't want to play with her or do anything fun, she just colored by herself and cried at night, poor baby, that was really hard for me. My mom is a trooper.

Christmas 2009

Jeremy sporting his new hunting clothes, not that he ever gets the chance to go hunting or anything.
Jeremy's 32nd b-day
Only in AZ
Kenzie ready to go to a day after Christmas swim party at Trevor and Hillary's house.

Kenzie wore her new black tights with a black sweater, I had to tell her she couldn't only wear tights, she was a little upset about that, but wanted me to take a picture of her anyway.
Christmas morning before the kids attacked their presents
Skyler and one of his Christmas presents
Well, it was a rough holiday season for me. On my first day of vacation, I woke up early, I exercised, got ready for the day by like 8am; I was ready to have a blast with the kids. As we were getting ready to leave the house I reached down to pick up my dog and something in my back SNAPPED, it was so painful, I lay on the floor for a while before I could crawl to my room. I had sprained my back, the 3 herniated disks I have in my back were enflamed again, it was awful. I was basically confined to bed for 3 weeks of vacation, I did go to the chiro almost everyday. It was rotten. I made it to the couch to watch the kids open their presents, but it was not a whole lot of fun. One positive thing was that I studied my sign language everyday. When I went to Tucson for orientation for my Spring semester of school, I attempted to take a ASL profieciency exam, I passed which means I won't have to spend 5 weeks in Phoenix or Tucson this summer taking the 4th semester of ASL. I am so incredibly happy about this! So being in bed for 3 weeks earned me 5 extra weeks this summer with my family. Lets see, what else happened over break???? Oh Jeremy turned 32, he has been having a lot of issues with his health, it has been horrible. We just want him to feel better. He is our life. I will go into more detail about him in my more current posts. I have a lot of catch up.

A few Pre-Christmas Pictures

I tried to do the impossible today, take a picture of my two munchkins together where they are both smiling and cooperating. I don't know how those of you out there with several kids manage to get such nice pictures. These were the best two of the kids together that I could get, the many others were deleted because either Skyler was rolling his eyes or scooting away from Kenzie, or Kenzie was looking the wrong direction or doing a funny fake smiley face. We ended up having to stop in our attempts to get the perfect picture because we were going to be late for church.Skyler took the picture of me and Jeremy and it is a little scary looking, but I need to have picts of Jeremy and I in our blog books for our kiddos. I wish I could photoshop away the extra chins!!!!!Anyways, Merry Christmas everyone!

A Few Randoms...

I wanted to write down a couple funny things the kids have said lately. First off, Kenz and I were checking out at Wal-Mart today and she wanted a pack of gum. I told her no because I already had gum, she started whining and would not let it go. People of course are glancing at us to see what the commotion is about, and she wouldn't stop. All of a sudden she freezes and says, "Mom is that Santa?" I looked behind me and saw the big guy himself. She hid in-between me and the checkout counter and says, "OH NO mom, I might be on the naughty list!" It was so funny, she was an angel after that. Then I found out that they were doing free 5X7 pictures with Santa and she refused to go do it, she said she was embarrassed and she didn't want him to see her up close.

Another one...The kids were in the car and Skyler is drawing with crayons in his notebook. Kenzie decides to be bother him and take his crayons. Jeremy and I are telling them to stop and be nice, then we hear this: "Ha, ha I broke your crayons Skyler!" (to which he replies) "That's OK, Kenzie they were yours." She learned a lesson that day.

Jeremy goes into Kenzie's room this afternoon...
Jeremy-Hey sweetie, are you doing OK?
Kenzie- Yep I am Daddy!
Jeremy- I love you!
Kenzie-I love you to, now get out!

(From these posts I am sure you can see the fiesty side of my daughter, she really is a character, but we sure love her.)

Our Saturday Hike!

Dad, Skyler, Makenzie, and Annie dog~

Skyler, our little hiker, he got to the top of the mountain first~

Miss MaKenzie~

Mom, and her munchkins

Skyler and Kenzie in the little cave~
So we loaded up in the car today and drove out to Welton, we hiked "Ali mountain," actually it was Antelope mountain, it has a big A painted on it, but we like the name "Ali Mountain" better.It was so much fun, we couldn't believe the kids made it to the top, it was a lot of fun!