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.