Cranial Tech

Well Adalynn is still in her helmet as you can tell. 

We started this journey back in March and when we went for the evaluation then the OT said that on average, most kids wear helments 3 months, but older kids sometimes go more like 4 months. 

We are one of those older children! With that Ryan and I had prepared to go the whole time of 4 months just so we wouldn't get our hopes up.  Since the only way a child makes progress with a helmet is if their head circumfrence increases older kids grow less so the changes are slower.  The helmet does not push against the high points but rather guiding any growth into the low points or flat spots.  With Little Sis the first three visits (6 weeks) she didn't grow at all.  Her head shape did change a little, but not really anything significant.  Since then it has been a week of growth and then nothing. 

Last visit marked our 3 month mark since actually wearing the helmet and luckily she had grown again which was good news.  Now we are are the tail end and have only mild differences.  I asked the OT how much longer though so that we could book flights and such and she said 4-6 weeks at least so apparently we still have a while to go.  I will keep you all updated as we get closer.

 In the meantime, here are some pics from our last visit. 
Holly picked me us up at the airport and so we got to hang out with her daughter while we were at Cranial Tech.  Crazy how close in age these girls

We went to the mall playground to kill a few hours between flights.

Both Holly and I tried to get a picture of both girls together, but they were like magnets and completly repelled from each other no matter how hard we tired.

Thanks to all you wonderful ladies that have helped me and Little Sis out these last few months with driving us around.  We greatly appreciate it!

Having fun at home.

Getting Plugged IN!!!

We are finally starting to get plugged in and connected! We have been so blessed to find a great Gospel Community through are church.  This is a group picture of almost the entire group.  There are three couples missing and 6 kids missing too. 

We meet once a week to share a meal and discuss the sermon as it relates to daily living.  The only sad thing about this group though is that almost half the group will be moving this summer! It just happens to be a transitional group.  Most of the families are either teachers or just finished college of some sort so they are looking for jobs in their field.  I guess that might happen alot in a college town.  Anyways we feel so blessed to be connected with each and everyone of these family even if it was just for a short time!

Not only do we have GC once a week as a whole, most Friday we have playgroup for whoever can make it.  This week since it was 105 degrees, we had a splash day. 

We played in the pool and sprinklers.  

The girls blew bubbles and boys shot them down with their water guns!

Then there is nothing like a movie to settle down to while the mom's made lunch.

William's Birthday

We had a great party for William's 4th birthday this year. Out of all the option we gave him, he chose to have a party at Clay Cafe which is a paint your own pottery studio. It actually was GREAT!

William got to pick out the paint colors but each child got to pick out their own object to paint

Here is Milo

Alex

and Spencer

And the birthday boy with his Lion

I can NOT believe this sweet thing is 4 years old!! He is the most awesome kid in the universe.

Here is the last picture of his cake.

House updates

Well it is June 30th and we still own our house in Carrollton.  After all the negotiating about repairs a few weeks ago, Ryan and Gary went to Carrollton and got all the repairs corrected.   It didn’t take very long and it actually went remarkably smooth compared to last time Ryan went down there.  When he came back we sent our Realtor (named Steve for the remainder of this post) an email to let him know. 
Well we predicted that we would probably not meet our closing deadline by 6/28, so on 6/26 Steve called the lender to get a projected closing date so that the contract could be amended.  We were thinking 1-2 weeks, but that got thrown out the window when the lender told us that the buyer had never even been in the office or sent in any paperwork. 
Now let’s be clear, we had a pre-approval letter from the bank saying that the buyer was able to get financing, but they just hadn’t gone to the bank to actually start the paperwork. Needless to say Steve, Ryan and I were livid.  Steve had a very stern phone call with the buyer’s agent and told him that if they were not at the bank within 48 hours we had every right to walk away and take their money.  We still had to decide though what we wanted to do, but in the meantime the buyer personally called Steve and pleaded for mercy and just said that he had no idea he was supposed to go to the bank since his realtor never told him. The buyer was actually just as upset as we were to find out that we were not closing in two days and not even in two weeks. He got off the phone and went to the bank immediately. 
Well thankfully the bank has agreed to try and expedite the process and has given a projected closing of 7/30.  We will have to wait and see as long as the buyer gets all the necessary documents quickly, the appraisal goes without a hitch, and the lender can move quickly then we should be close. 
I will keep you updated as much as I possibly can, but it’s hard to get on the computer at night now as Ryan  has thankfully gotten some work recently!

House update

Just a little house update to help keep you up on the happenings around here.

The middle of last week the buyers scheduled to have an inspection on Friday they sent it to us and said "please fix all 40 issues".  Well that was just absolutely unreasonable.  I mean some things were simple like changing the door threshold and leaky faucet. Others were totally reasonable like re-attaching the flue to the water heater, cracked skylight cover,  and the shower surround needs to be sealed again. Some of the things were completely unreasonable like planting sod, GFCI outlets (not required in a house of our age), etc.  But the majority of the issues were just related to seasonal maintenance like gutters, sprinklers, dirty chimney etc.  Well after lots of discussion Ryan and I decided that we would fix anything that was cheap and/or easy so that we could negotiate to not correct some of the bigger costly things.  Before we could get back to the buyers though with our decision to correct 23 of the 40 issues, they sent an amendment to us and asked for only 16 repairs.  Unfortunately the repairs were not the ones we were willing to correct so we came back and said we would do 12 of the 16 items including lots of the yearly maintenance items and the items that impaired the structure and/or function of the house. We would not complete the cosmetic issues that they were asking for though.  Again they came back and said that if we didn't fix one of cosmetic issue that they asked they would walk away.  With that request we came back one more time and said we would repair the brick mortar like they asked but that due to the price of this repair we would not be doing any of the maintenance items.  So literally we be doing 6 of of the 16 issues they wanted.

They took a day to think about it and ultimately came back with a signed and agreed upon contract.

Again this miracle is absolutely nothing we could have done ourselves but rather the hand of God!

So with that, Ryan went to Carrollton again today to work on the house one last time and make all the corrections/repairs needed.  The buyers are finally able to go to the bank and finalize the financial paperwork so we are only steps away from closing.  Our realtor doesn't believe that closing will occur before the end of the month, but I'm still praying for it though!

Bunkbed

We finally felt that Pockets was old enough to utilize the top bunk of his bed.  He has been getting frustrated with his sister recently in that she keeps coming in to his room and taking his stuff, so we decided that the upper bunk could be a cool place for just him.  Also, since he hates giving in to a nap each day, we thought that this would be a good place for him to spend his nap time. At least up there he is calm and resting even if not sleeping.  We designed it so that he can have pillows, blankets, books, and quite toys. 

This is how we found him after his first day of "napping" up there! It really has been a great way for him to rest each day.  We are not letting him sleep up there yet.  One because we are afraid that he might need to get out of bed or he might fall out and two becuase there is really only a box spring up there and no a matress. 

She sure likes to eat

She happened to grab a whole apple and I didn't think to take it away from her when I put her down.  I came back a moment later and she was devouring it!

She love to eat just about anything though!!!

William's birthday cake

Well I  tried to make William's birthday cake and it was definently the worst job I have every done.  Luckily this year William "helped" me so maybe there will be some grace.  Our inspiration was lego's so I let William pick several lego's out of his box and arrange them like he wanted.

Then we made two 13x9 cakes and started cutting and stacking.  Here is what the final product looks like. 

Horrible I know, but absolutely nothing compared to the back of the cake.  Everywhere I had made a cut in the cake it just fell apart.  I remembered after it was all said and done that some people recommend freezing the cake before hand.  OOPS! Missed that step. 

Anyways.  I was a really fun time with Pockets and I.  We joked and joked about the terrible job and he was alot of fun too.  Next year though I think I am going back to cake pan designs where I can pipe on the icing rather than trying to free hand shape it or frost it.

Miracles

It has been a crazy few days and weeks but I wanted to share about our house in Carrolton and the miracle God is doing in our lives! The following is a cut and paste of several different emails I had sent out so forgive me if they are a little jumbled.

So as of Friday June 1st we became the proud owners of two homes.  Not really (we are renting our house in Lubbock) but we have two house payments, double the utilities, and now have to upkeep both of them.  Our house in Carrollton was supposed to be officially "on the market" starting Friday. If you remember we tried to sell the house for several months last year, and had over 100 showing to which 50 of them said we were in their top two, but when it came down to it, we were never given an offer.  It was a horrible market for selling, so out of desperation we decided to put it up for lease.  Within 24 hours we were under contract to lease the property. Our tenants have been AMAZING, but they are actually buying a house of their own so they are not renewing with us.  Anyways, It is absolutely our desire to finally sell this house, and plant our roots in Lubbock.  We don't have the financial ability to carry the house this next month either so we really need a quick sale :>

 As for getting the house ready for the market, that was a miserable experience!!!! I am not even kidding.  Ryan left Wed. night to work on the house all day thursday so it could be put on the market Friday.  However at 9am on Thursday the electricity went out.  I guess the tenants canceled their service May 31st and we didn't turn on service till June 1st. So Ryan got a few things done, but wasn't really productive.  We called and tried to get it turned on early and they said sure we will have it on my Thursday at midnight.  When Ryan showed up Friday morning there was still no electricity.  We called they said oh sorry we meant to tell you that it would be midnight tonight not yesterday.  So he worked a little and waited for Saturday. You guessed it though, no electricity Saturday either.  So Ryan just made the best of it and did the work.  Hope it looks alright when the lights come on. As he was cleaning out the garage though he found a 14x14 inch hole in the sheetrock where the tenants had obviously driven their vehicle through.  Not that we would be mad or anything, mistakes do happen, but they did a terrible repair job with plaster and no paint and then put the trashcans in front of it.  If we had known we would have had a contractor out at the house Thursday for an estimate, now no one is in town to meet with them. It took several more days of Aaron, Ryan brother, going to the house after Ryan left to check on the electricity which did finally come on Tuesday the next week!  With that we officially sent our paperwork to the realtor and it went on the market Wed. June 6^th.  Only a few days late right??

With this crazy time in our life I have begun to memorize a verse that I thought I would share.

2 Chronicles 32:7-8 Be Strong and Courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged by King Assyria and the vast army that is with him, for there is a great power with us than with him. With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.

This is honestly a battle that Ryan and I will never win alone and we need God's provision, grace, and mercy to make this miracle happen.

…

And that is just what happened! 

The house went on the market Wed June 6th and the first showing was that night. We had 6 showings Thursday and 5 Friday. Late Friday (June 8^th) night we got one official offer and two people that were considering submitting one. The offer we got was substantially low, so we thought about it overnight and gave the other two couples time to bring their offer. After much prayer and thought, Ryan and agreed that God didn't want us to go into debt to sell the house, so we would only come down at to our absolutely breakeven point. This was almost our list price and more than $15000 more than the offer we received. We just kept saying, if they took it then we would be content and if they walked away we would be fine with that too. So Saturday we sent our counter offer, and Sunday morning they agreed! God is Amazing! We had verbal agreement on a contract for the house within three days! We still have all the paperwork and inspection, but hopefully this will go smoothly too. The buyers are wanting to close by the end of the month (another miracle) so we are in a slight time crunch, but we are all motivated to get it done.

Right now, Ryan and I are just completely amazed by God’s grace, mercy, and provisions! He is an awesome and all powerful Lord of his creation and of our lives. He orchestrates all things for His glory.

So many times I know that Ryan and I are seen as the crazy ones! I mean two part time jobs and yet two children, two house payments, and all sorts of atypical decisions we are making, but the peace and comfort that comes from following our Lords direction and knowing that all things are in his control makes it hard to do anything but follow him!

She is a MESS!!!

She often sleeps with an limb sticking out of her crib and....

She loves to eat even more than Pockets did at this age (from what I can remember).

Also here a video from today to showing Litttle Sis signing and talking!!!!!!