Look Who's Two Months Old

Our dear Makenna turned 2 months old on Tuesday! There has been so much that has happened over the last two months, it's just amazing how fast time has gone by. For example, over the last week she's was able to have a little more control over her smile. Just this morning, when we were getting her up to get ready to go, she was slow to wake up. No biggie, we had plenty of time. I held her in my arms for a bit and softly said her name a few times. She stretttcchhed and ever so slowly opened her beautiful blue eyes and looked at me... and gave me a great big open mouthed smile, as if to say, "Goodmorning to you too daddy!" And of course my heart melted. :) It seems she's amazing us daily with something new. Kimi and I wonder how such a precious and pure person could come from us... and our answer is that she's a miracle.

We love her so much. We are trying to catch all of her special moments and cherish every minute of them. Like last night, she was SO sweet. While Kimi had to do some work from home, Makenna and I had some time to ourselves. Earlier in the evening she had been pretty fussy from being so tired (lately she has been fighting her sleep so bad b/c she doesn't want to miss anything!). So I picked her up, laid on the couch and let her fall asleep on her daddy's chest. She was out like a light! She slept that way for two whole hours before getting hungry again! It was so precious. I could feel her warm little milk-breath on my face as she drooled all over my chest. Ha! It was great! Those are the moments that I treasure. There's a country song by Brad Paisley that is called "Little Moments"... it describes pretty much what I feel about my family sometimes. It's the little moments in life that steal my heart over and over again. That was one of them.

Another big thing happened this week. Since Kimi's mom and dad weren't able to make it up this week to watch Makenna, we were scrambling to find someone to watch her or else we had to start taking her to daycare a week earlier than we thought. Just when we thought we had run out of options, my mom suggested we call up my Grandma Gandy and see if she would be able to watch Makenna this week, to try it out, and if she were able to handle it, to possibly take it on permanently. My Grandma used to watch all of us cousins when we were growing up and is currently watching my cousin Hadley so she's pretty qualified for the job. My Grandma said she would give it a try this week and see how she can handle having two girls under 1 vying for her attention. It's not a done deal yet b/c the week isn't up but Makenna seems to be loving it over there and from what we can tell, My Grandma is doing just fine with the two girls. Cross your fingers and pray everything works out because we would much rather Makenna be watched by a family member who would love her and give her personal attention than send her to a daycare where her needs would have to wait in line.

WISH-WE-COULD'VE-BEEN-THERE-NOTE-OF-THE-WEEK: Our great friends, BJ & Wendy, were able to go to Oahu, Hawaii this past week! Wendy and BJ have been through SOOOOO much this year, it'd take days to list all the crazy changes that have happened to them. I am so glad they were able to get away and go to the beautiful island of Oahu. When you get a chance, make your way over to their site and read their latest blog about their trip. One cool side note: BJ and I are involved in a long running fantasy football league that drafted the Saturday night BJ was on vacation. BJ is so dedicated, he somehow found a computer over there and made the draft from Hawaii... and then went back out to Waikiki Beach afterward! Love the dedication bro!

To end this post, I'd like to show you an assortment of videos Kimi and I took last year when we went to Oahu as well. The videos should loop so I hope you enjoy! God bless!

Jason

Kimi's New Job

I'll let you guys know up front I'm going to jump around topics today so bear with me. :)

This past Monday, Kimi started her new job as a Speech & Language Pathologist at a school 35 minutes away from our home. It's SUCH a long drive out there but luckily she gets paid for mileage, which helps. It's been an interesting week so far for her, some of it pretty rough. She met her new boss on Monday and thus began the whirlwind of action that hasn't stopped for her. On Monday the air conditioner didn't come on until the end of the day. That left the building in scorching heat that Kimi had to work in for 6 hours, rearranging furniture, sorting through notes on each student, doing inventory on the entire supplies of the SLP dept. She got to leave a little early that day b/c of the heat but we turned around and drove back that night to work for a couple more hours after the building had cooled off. Very long day for her (and me too). But the rest of her week has been steadily getting better and well, today is Friday and she should be leaving at noon which is nice. Just keep her in your prayers as she keeps her stamina up. She starts hearing screenings next week on a hundred kids so it could be another stressful week.

How about a lighter note? And yes, I know this technically is in the past and we should move on because Kimi had our baby already but I've got to share how funny my wife was while she was pregnant. She had major pregnancy brain, which means she had a hard time getting the right words out and sometimes forgetting obvious things. Two scenarios: 1st, one time we were at Walmart getting groceries when Kimi yelled to me across the store not to forget the "hotdog patties". One of the walmart employees looked at me inquizically and I said, "She meant hamburger patties. She's got pregnant brain." The walmart employee just laughed and walked away. 2nd, one night we were watching TV when she heard the answer to a Wheel of Fortune question and said, "Where is Publa City at?" I look up at the TV and said, "No sweetheart, that's not a place, its a word...publicity." I couldn't stop laughing for the longest time. We really had such a fun time with Kimi during her pregnancy but she was a good sport about all of it too. :)

My beautiful daughter is showing her Sooner Pride by sporting her newest OU outfit! I just had to slip this in here. :)

Yesterday was nice for us, we got to see my Aunt Kay and her husband Ricky with his two girls, my Grandma Fox and my Aunt Debbie and Uncle Paul, along with my brother, dad and Brenda for some good grilled food. Kimi and I weren't expecting so many of our family members to be there but it was truly nice. We haven't seen my Aunt Kay and Ricky for at least a couple of years because they live in VEGAS (CSI TOWN). There has been so much that has been going on with them, it's so sad that we can't be around them more. Aunt Kay called up my cousins Sam and Brittany and handed over the phone to me. After talking to them for a while, they both sure seem so grown up now... which reflects on how much older I am now but that's another story. SAM AND BRITTANY, if you are reading this, send me an email sometime WITH PICTURES!

My last subject for today has to do with something amazing yet disgusting. You've got to hear the story first. Kimi got into a cleaning frenzy last weekend and when she got to the vacuuming portion, the vacuum cleaner flat out broke. Wouldn't suck anything up anymore. We had only had this for 3 years and now it had broken. It never really worked great anyway. But to continue, we needed a new vacuum cleaner. We had heard a lot of good things about a Dyson. You know, that british guy on TV who always does the Dyson vacuum cleaner commercials claiming it's the best and never looses suction and he thinks things should work properly and blah blah blah? Yeah, that guy. Anyway, we did a lot of searching on the net for info on Dyson's and there was a lot of people who reviewed and said it was great, best they'd ever had. So we were about to go out and spend almost $600 on "the world's best vacuum cleaner" when we ran into Kimi's mom and she suggested we check out the consumer reports website. We were like Okay. So I signed up for their online report and clicked my way to their "unbiased opinion but we'll accept advertising in our magazine from the product companies" reviews of about 25 different vacuum cleaners. They had the Dyson's listed about 2/3rds the way down the list, which was very surprising. At the top, they had the Kenmore (Sears) vacuum cleaners, both the bagged and bagless versions as #1 and #2 respectively. Very interesting indeed.

So Kimi and I went for a visit to the nearest Sears to check out these Kenmore's and to put them to the test. When we got there, they looked just like any of the others but had a few more gadgets than the rest. They also had the Dyson's we were looking at so I decided to have a small competition. Go figure. The sales guy didn't know a thing about vacuum cleaners and was from a different dept so it was up to me to run the show. They had a dust bin full of dirt and fibers and pieces of shredded carpet to "test" out the units. I dumped the whole bin on the floor of the store and ground it in with my foot! The guys eyes went wide-eyed and he rushed over to grab the Dyson and started running it across the carpet over and over and over again. He got the big pieces up but there was still a lot of the little stuff left that it couldn't pick up and he was beginning to panic. I said, well let's try the Kenmore one. So we grabbed the Kenmore and literally it grabbed all of it up in one swipe. I was amazed, sold, put it in the car honey and let's go. Just incredible. My little show even sold the sales guy on getting the Kenmore too! Haha. Anyway, when I got home, I put it together and started it up as a test down our hallway. Now let me tell you, our last vacuum cleaner prior to frying would only get about an inch worth of dirt/doghair up after cleaning the whole house. We thought things were clean. Boy were we wrong! After just a few rows down the hallway, well, just look at the picture above. LOOOOK! Look how much dirt and doghair it got up! FROM JUST THE HALLWAY! WOW! I'm going to wait until this weekend to do the rest of the house but I'm afraid I'll have to empty the canister 10 times! So gross. We just thought our floors were clean... Anyway, we made the right choice by buying this vacuum cleaner and it was only $300, half the price of the Dyson! :)

Now that I've literally written a ton about not much at all, I'll go ahead and end this post. I did want to leave you guys with a cool thing I just put up on the site. On the right side of the page, you'll see a link that says "View Our Photo Slideshow?". If you click on that, it will pop open a window and start playing a slideshow of the most recent pictures from our Flickr photo page! Try it out, it's awesome!

Until the Cows come home!

Jason

Add Another Candle

It's that time of year again, where I gain another number onto the years of my life, where my cake becomes a bigger fire hazard by adding on another candle and the fire dept makes their annual visit to keep the whole neighborhood from burning down! You know, I've always had a hard time eating my birthday cake. Just last year I went to the doctor's office with a birthday cake problem. "Doctor, I get heartburn every time I eat birthday cake." He simply said, "Next time, take off the candles." Makes sense I guess... Anyway, I was talking to my wife yesterday about my upcoming birthday and she said "I'm giving a 'surprised' birthday party for you." I was like, "A 'surprised' birthday party? What's that?" She replied, "That's where I invite a bunch of your friends, and if any of them come, I'll be surprised!" Oh man, isn't that just mean? Haha I knew she was totally kidding because I don't have any friends. Okay, sorry, I'm kidding about that too. But at least I'll remember to take off the candles this year!

All kidding aside, this birthday got here before I even realized it was coming. Kimi kept asking me what I wanted to do and I really had no ideas. So Saturday night we went to visit my Mom and Scotty for a while. We decided to go out for a little "Birthday Dinner" at Outback Steakhouse for a big ol' steak dinner. They let me get a 9oz center-cut filet which was soooo good. We decided we'd let Makenna spend the night at my mom's house (first night away from us since she was born!) so Kimi and I could go back home and head straight to bed to get some rest. Sleep was needed so bad that we slept for 10 hours; almost half the day! When we woke up, both of our backs were hurting and it took me a minute to realize why. We were both SO tired that we didn't even move during the night and our backs were stiff in the morning! Haha

We got up, went to eat breakfast/lunch at Abuelo's Mexican Restaraunt (YUM, Chicken Chimichanga with Queso sauce and mexican mashed potatoes!) and afterward went to see the movie "Cars". Very good movie, better than I expected. Right after the movie, I took Kimi to a dayspa so she could get her feet massaged and toenails painted nice and pretty. Easy on the wallet for such a joyful experience for her. We rushed off to Ann Taylor LOFT before they closed and was able to get Kimi two shirts and a pair of lined pants for about $50 (saved almost $100 with the sale!) right at closing time. She looks so good in her new clothes and I know she loves Ann Taylor because they look classy. Good stuff. :) Afterward, we grabbed Makenna, thanked my mom for watching her, and headed home to wrap up the wonderful weekend.

And when I woke up this morning, I received a card from my dear sweet Makenna before I left for work telling me what a wonderful daddy I am and wishing me a happy birthday. She's such a good daughter, isn't she? :) And when I did get to work, my office was decorated in birthday signs and one big balloon. How nice. And tonight, to wrap it all up (as far as I know, that 'surprised' birthday party thing Kimi was talking about isn't going to happen...), we're having a steak dinner at my dad's house! Man, I love steak on the grill. It's turning out to be a great birthday, even if I didn't realize it was happening so quickly. :)

Quick past birthday memory: I've been lucky to have had some great birthday's in the past. I've visited the White House in Washington DC, DisnyWorld in Orlando, and tanned on the beaches of Cancun. And just last year I was able to go to Hawaii with Kimi's family and it was such a blast! But this year, Makenna takes the prize for the best birthday present I've ever gotten. I know she came a little early but I couldn't have imagined anything better.

The last thing I want to share with you guys today is that Kimi and I are now going to be putting up videos on our YouTube.com account. Look to the right and click on the link "View Our Videos" to see what we have available publicly. I'll add some more but the ones of Makenna I am going to reserve to just showing on our blog here. As an example, I am including a video of the first time we had "Tummy Time" with Makenna to see if she could lift her head yet. You'll just have to watch the video to see!

We're so proud of Makenna! Hope you enjoyed the video!

God bless!
Jason

P.S. If you all want to, share with me what your favorite birthday was. Any absolutely crazy or hilarious stories? Please share! :)

One Month Old

Just to show you an example of how quickly time sails on by in life, Makenna is already over one month old! Pretty amazing. She's growing heavier by the day too. She's up to minimum 4 ounces of food every meal, which sometimes goes only 2 hours between feedings! I honestly don't know where she's putting it at because her little stomach can't be hardly that big. But I know she is gaining weight because we've come up with a way to guestimate how much she weighs. She's too little to even register on our scale at home. What I've been doing is jumping on the scale and seeing my weight. Then I will pick her up and step back on the scale and subtract the difference. Last time I weighed her, she was 7.5 lbs which, though it isn't exact, lets us reasonably ascertain how much she is gaining each week. It'd be more accurate if we could get hold of a gram weight scale but this'll do just fine for our conscience... until we hear otherwise. :)

So in celebration of Makenna's 1 month birthday (and the fact that I had the weekend off work!), we made our way down to Texas for some well needed R&R. We hit the pool for some temporary relief to the scorching Texas sun and 100+ degree temps that have been pounding us for weeks now. We invited my cousin Brent and his wife Elizabeth over for dinner on Saturday night. My mother-in-law Sherry cooked up spaghetti and italian sausage with a huge bowl of caesar salad and buttered texas toast. She made a frozen strawberry pie for desert too. Mmmm, good stuff. We all sat around the table laughing and telling stories and catching up on what's been going on. My cousin's baby boy is due on October 1st and his name is going to be Caden William (I always want to call him Caedmon after my favorite band). The most recent pics had him weighing around 3 1/2lbs so he's growing quickly too! If you get a moment, please lift them up in prayer because they are about to go through an incredibly miraculous and yet unnervingly stressful time when Caden is born. I hope their delivery will be a smooth process with no complications. I'll keep you guys updated as I find out more info.

This past Tuesday was Makenna's original due date. She was 5 weeks early but she's doing better than I could have imagined. So in theory, Makenna would have been between 7 and 8lbs if she had been full term. We held her up to Kimi's belly and she's so long, we couldn't understand how she could have fit inside of her being any bigger than she was already! And to think, I was 9lbs 4ozs when I was born! My poor mom... Kimi was just over 3lbs when she was born but us Fox kids grow big inside (and outside apparently) the womb. Our next kid will probably be a C-section if he or she is any bigger than Makenna was. My poor wife...

Speaking of my poor wife, we have a prayer request for her. She is still having a lot of pain and complications from giving birth and it's been 5 weeks already. She saw the girl doc yesterday and they said she would probably take another few weeks to heal properly. She compared the pain to having a thousand papercuts opening up every time you move. Yeah, Ouch. On another front, her Grandpa Miller went to the hospital very early this morning with chest pains but started feeling better right after he got there. They are monitoring him for the rest of today to make sure everything goes alright. But please say a prayer for him as well for his health to resume. We know God works miracles and that He is always making plans to prosper us and not to harm us. If you get time today or this weekend, please pray in faith for all these requests. Thank you all so much and I hope your week is an awesome one!

God bless,
Jason