Miss Mak is 3 Months Old!

Yesterday, Makenna had her 3 month birthday. She's growing up so quickly, it's amazing. She smiles at us all the time now, as you can see from the picture. Her eyes light up when she sees Kimi or I and recognizes us. Some days when things get rough at work, all I have to do is think back to that morning when little Miss Mak smiled at me... and my problem doesn't really matter anymore. Lately we've been practicing with Makenna to hold her head up steady, though we aren't there yet. Believe it or not, she's even keeping her legs straight and putting weight on them when we hold her up. I bet Kimi the other day that she's going to be walking by the time she's 10 months old! But I may be getting a little ahead of the "schedule". :) We took this video last night of Makenna. She had been laying there quietly and I came over to see if I could get her to mimic me. Watch the video when you get a chance. It's about a minute and a half long so enjoy!

Now after you enjoyed that video so much (haha), I've got some good news. My cousin Brent and his wife Elizabeth had their son, CADEN WILLIAM FOX, this past week! He was born on Wednesday, September 27, 2006 at 5:43pm. He weighed in at a healthy 8.6 lbs, and 21.5 inches. Both mom and baby are doing great! Brent sent me some pictures and they look so happy and proud of their new son. His eyes are wide open already! That's one of the coolest things in the world, the first time your baby looks at you. Good times. :) Kimi and I are going to be down in Texas in a few weeks and that is just too long until we get to meet Caden. I'm so proud and so very happy for you guys. Congratulations on your handsome son!

Last Saturday, one week after the Oregan-OU debacle, I was given tickets to the Middle Tennessee State University vs OU game and decided to ask my dad to go with me. He's never been to a college or NFL game before so I thought this would be a good game to cut his teeth on. And it was SUCH a good game. Yeah, it was a complete blowout but sometimes those are so exciting and enough to restore your faith in your team after a sad loss. Poor MTSU, OU took out their anger on them. And my dad loved every minute of it! Before the game Kimi and I and Makenna got all dressed up in our Sooner shirts and Cargo pants and snapped a few quick pics. Makennas cargos are a little too big but she was a doll nonetheless.

Funny Story Of The Week: I was driving to work the other day at 6 am in the morning. Its dark outside, the sun was just starting to come up. There is construction near the entrance where I take so I had to drive the back roads to another entrance. I'm heading down the hill and all of the sudden this raccoon runs across the road. There was a car coming on the opposite lane so I had to just keep on driving. WHAM! I felt a twinge of guilt but there was nothing I could do. Odd occurance, but it happens. What doesn't happen all the time is what happened the next day. I was driving to work on the highway in the dark again, about to take the off ramp, when out of the corner of my eye, I sense something moving. I look left just in time to see ANOTHER RACCOON dodging traffic and sprinting for my suv. WHAM! Two suicidal raccoons in two days. Geez! If this keeps up, I'm going to start making notches on my bumper next to a little raccoon picture just so I can keep track! Some day I might share another CRAZY raccoon story that happened on a camping trip a few years ago. It's hilarious!

I'm sorry it took so long for me to write. Hopefully I can keep up with this. I'll make sure I add pictures often so you can at least keep up with Makenna. Speaking of Makenna, on the right side of the page I added a new popup link with the latest Makenna video slideshow. Just click on the link and push play. :) Hope you enjoy!

Until the cows come home,
Jason

Day of Reflection

Today marks the 5 year anniversary since the attacks on the US happened on that plain and normal morning of Sept 11th. I was at my dad's house sleeping in bed after staying up all night. I was between jobs, having just finished working at the Christian bookstore and as the Youth Minister at my old church. My best friend, BJ, called me and said "Jay, you've got to get up and turn on the tv! There's been something terrible that's happened!" With it being 5 years ago, I don't remember our exact conversation after that because of the sheer shock at seeing the first tower in flames. When the 2nd plane hit, I broke into tears of anger and sorrow. I didn't know what was happening, who was attacking us, where the next attack would happen at... then my heart sank when the first tower collapsed and I witnessed thousands of people lose their lives. The TV was saying there was up to 50,000 people in each of those towers, though we now know there weren't nearly that many. After the 2nd tower fell, it just broke my heart and I was furious and full of despair... all I could do was pray and keep watching. Kimi and I recently saw "Flight 93" on dvd. I would recommend it as a good movie to watch. Its long in some parts but the end leaves your heart in the pit of your stomach holding your breath. I guess I want to say that if I were in a situation like that, I would hope I would have the courage to do what they did to make sure the bad guys didn't succeed, even if it meant my own life was to be lost.

With it being such a somber day, it's hard to talk about anything else but we've got some news about Makenna! :) Our little daughter, at just over 10 weeks old, now weighs 11.2 lbs and is in the 60th percentile for her weight. She is also now 23 inches long which puts her at the 90th percentile for her height! Translation: She's tall and skinny! Haha! We went to the baby doc for Makenna's 2 month check up in hopes that we would find out that we can give her cereal now to help her sleep longer but alas, the advice given was that we wait until she's 4 months old so she doesn't develop allergies. :( So sad... Anyway, she had to get 5 shots in her legs and it was just terrible holding her down while she was screaming at the pain! She did good though right afterward until the evening time when her little legs got so sore and she couldn't fall asleep b/c they hurt. She eventually tuckered out from crying and slept for most of the night (a good side effect!). All in all, she's doing great and the doc confirmed that Kimi and I are still fit for parenthood!

Quick funny story: The night shifts for feeding times are terrible on getting a good nights sleep. By Friday, Kimi and I are basically zombies. A lot of times, we find we're holding Makenna in the rocking chair and we'll start to fall asleep and catch ourselves before we actually do. Last week, I was so tired I brought Makenna into our bed and put her on the "Magic Pillow" and was holding her bottle for her. Well, Makenna and I both fell asleep almost right away and I started to dream. I thought our dog, Sadie, was in my arms instead and was licking my arm pits! Sadie can't hold her licker in (ie: she's always licking something!) and I thought she was licking me now! It tickled and it made me mad that she would interrupt my sleep! I woke up with an angry start... and realized that it wasn't Sadie but instead it was Makenna's bottle in my hand dripping and running down my arm pit! I laughed out loud at myself because it was so funny. Oh the joys of being a parent. You sometimes feel like you are loosing your mind! ;)

Kimi's birthday was this past week on the 7th. You'd be proud of me if you were there that morning. The night before I volunteered to take the entire night shift by myself so she could get a good night of solid sleep. During the night, I hid 4 birthday cards throughout Kimi's morning routine so she would find them as she was getting ready for work. One card was from Makenna and was in the car seat. Another was by the coffee pot along with a brand new "spill proof" PINK coffee cup. :) Another was waiting for her in her car right as she was about to head off to work. And finally the last was hidden inside her new laptop for her to find when she got to work. Oh yeah, major brownie points! I even got a gold star for my efforts! Haha. That night we went out to eat a very nice dinner at Outback Steakhouse. Good stuff. Kimi's big presents were getting pretty pictures made with Makenna (as you can see above), lots of clothes shopping and a new special Tourmaline hair dryer (supposed to be as nice as the ones used by Hollywood hairstylists!). And LOTS OF CHOCOLATE, a must according to Kimi.

Kimi, I hope your birthday
was a special day for you!

To end this days post, I'd like to give a hand to OU for a great 2nd half on Saturday against Washington. They were clicking on all cylindars and more than made up for the previous 6 quarters of poor play spanning one and a half games. They made me proud! I got the picture above from Kimi's grandparents this past weekend. Their next door neighbor has hired a few OU players for his business and decided to have a celebration party after OU's first win. They called up Kimi's Grandma and Grandpa to come over to meet Rufus Alexander (WLB on defense for the Sooners). Kimi's grandparents are huge OU fans, having had season tickets longer than I have been alive, and this was a great experience for them. I just hope OU keeps getting better and better this year. :)

I hope this week is a great one for you all.

Jason