And She Slept Through The Night

Thank goodness, the day has finally arrived. Both Kimi and I slept a full 7 hours last night with Makenna's belly being full of rice cereal. When I awoke this morning, I thought I heard angels singing but I'm not sure. We started Makenna on cereal on Friday after we went to the baby doc for Makenna's 4 month check up. She now weighs in at 14.3lbs and has grown to 25 1/2 inches! For her weight she's in the 55th percentile but in height she's at 90th percentile! Still tall and skinny. :) I just wish she didn't have to get all those shots every time. It's so sad b/c she's in a great mood and then *WHAM*, she gets stuck with 5 needles! She's a trooper though. But that just started off the long weekend for her. As you can see from the pic, she isn't quite getting the idea of taking the cereal off the spoon and keeping it in her mouth. The first meal pretty much ended up on her shirt which was quite funny.

On Saturday, Kimi, Makenna and I with my Dad and Brenda went down to Lawton to see the leaves changing and to capture some really cool photos. My dad's never been down there before (and neither has Miss Mak either, at least outside the womb!) and we thought it would be a great experience. It was SO beautiful. There was the bluest sky I've seen in a long time, the air was crisp but perfect, and the trees were all hues of red, yellow, and orange. We drove up Mount Scott, climbed the trail to the Castle, and made our way through the 40 foot Hole canyon. It was so peaceful. Makenna had a great time there as well but boy did she get heavy while we were climbing up and down those trails! We each took turns but I still feel it in my back today!

Funny Story Numero Uno: Last week, Kimi, Denise and I went to the mall to see the movie "Facing The Giants". It's a christian flick with a great story line. (I might have come close to shedding a tear but I won't admit that in person.) Anyway, on the way out of the mall, we walked by a LensCrafters store and there was caution tape across the whole window. Kimi turned to us and said "Do you think they put up that tape to keep people from walking into the window?" We were like huh? Then I looked down and realized the floor was under construction. I mentioned that to Kimi and she said, "Oh I thought since people were there to buy glasses that they might not have been able to see the window as they were walking out..." Denise and I died laughing. I just kept picturing all the nose smudge marks on the window from the semi-blind soon-to-be surprised patrons colliding with the plate glass full force. Haha, that brings a smile to my face.

Funny Story Numbero Dos: Also last week, while I was at lunch, I called my wife while I was heading over to Target to take back some Halloween Candy (I overspent by about $30 dollars... oops). Kimi was telling me about this clean and hygienic little girl that she's working with right now that has a case of lice. Apparently lice is more attracted to the well-kept rather than the dirty haired but who knows. Anyway, right after Kimi had helped this girl, the teachers came up to Kimi and told her she might want to wash her hands b/c that little girl has lice! Kimi was like "Oh great!" So we started our discussion about lice just in case Kimi did get it in her hair. (She didn't by the way but its funny to watch her scratch b/c its in her head - not literally though... haha). As I was walking into the store, me, not knowing a lot about lice, said a little too loudly to Kimi, "So, is the only way to get rid of it is to shave it?" I was referring to her head but apparently those people around me didn't know that. Literally 7 people stopped and turned around and stared at me with disgusted looks on their faces. I didn't realize why they were staring at me at first but then I thought about what I said last and I cracked up laughing out loud. I was so embarrased but really there was no way to explain it at that point. I just made my way into the store quickly and got out of there. I can only imagine what they were thinking. Too funny...

Back to the updates. This past Sunday, Kimi and I, along with our family, went before the church and dedicated Makenna to the Lord. It was such a neat experience. Of course, Makenna was a perfect angel, taking the time to smile at her daddy and the preacher. She wore a pretty (dry clean only) dress picked out by her Great Grandpa Miller and only slobbered a little. :) The church gave us a story bible and a certificate, which was cool. As we were walking out, the pastor said that the vase at the pulpit was for us to take home and keep. I went to the front and all I saw was this HUGE BOUQUET of red carnations and thought wow, that's a lot of flowers but okay, that sure is nice of them... As I was walking out of the church, he came up to me and said, "WAIT, I didn't mean that vase! That is for the Veterans! I meant the one on the other side." I looked down there and sure enough, there was a small vase with one tiny flower in there. I was so embarrased, I almost walked out of the church with all those flowers. But the pastor was laughing with me (or more likely at me) and so was Kimi. All in all, the day was a great day.

I would like to ask all of you to pray for Kimi and I that we can uphold our promise to raise Makenna to know the Lord. We made a promise before God and His people and we realllly desire to become more steady and frequent in church. We would also appreciate some prayers for Kimi's Grandpa Miller (the one that picked out the dress for Makenna). He is having a procedure done tomorrow on his heart and we want to ask you all to pray that God would take care of him during this time. He's had a rough time with his health lately and we hope and pray that this procedure will help aleviate his pains. Thank you all so much for the prayers. It is invaluable to us.

Thanks for putting up with the long update. There are many more pictures from this past week on our Flickr site so check it out when you get a chance. I hope your week is an awesome one.

Until the Cows come home,

Jason

PS. I want to welcome the newest addition into our family. AUTUMN DONELLE GANDY Born 11-8-06 at 4:40pm, she is 6 lbs 1 oz and is 19 inches long. Welcome Autumn! I can't wait to meet you at Thanksgiving!

Where ya been Fox?

First off, I want to apologize for not updating this blog in over a month... A MONTH! There has been SO much that has happened and I just haven't found the time to sit down and write on here. The biggest reason though has to do with me being occupied building a website for a friend of mine that is starting up his photography business. My friend, Andrew Coloney, asked me in the beginning of October to build him a website, named PatriotPhoto.us, to help him establish his online presence. I've been working pretty much non-stop in my free time trying to get all the details just right for how he wants it. Whew! There are several general pages for his business but the crowning achievement was creating an online viewing section for his customers to view their photos from their event. I also made these galleries password protected so their pictures can only be viewed by them. The site should be operational in a week or so after the final touches are added. Good stuff if you ask me. :) Anyway, that's where I've been. Hopefully you all have had a chance to keep up to date with our pictures on Flickr in the mean time. Now, on to the updates!

Little Makenna just turned 4 months old this past Sunday! It's absolutely amazing how much she has grown in just these 4 short months. She's wanting to stand all the time now. Her neck control is almost complete. We see her baby doc in a week or so and after that she gets her first taste of something other than formula! She's decided to become good at drooling... haha ... and she's starting to want to chew on things too. Mostly she's interested in chewing on hers and my (clean and washed) fingers. She's clasping her hands all the time and bringing them to her mouth on a regular basis. And her eyes are still soaking up everything. Just check out the pic above. Her eyes are just captivating...

And as you all know, Tuesday was Halloween! And look who was the cutest pumpkin ever! This picture was taken by Nonnie (aka Grandma Brenda). If you head to our Flickr site you can see a lot more pictures. Being that it was Makenna's first Halloween, Kimi couldn't help herself and went out and got her 2 outfits and a sleeper. I'm totally serious! Little Miss Mak had her choice of being a Pumpkin or Tigger. So we dressed her as Tigger for the morning at Grandma's house and as a Pumpkin for Trick or Treatin' that night. We made a few stops at different houses in the neighborhood and also at Kimi's Grandma and Grandpa's house and at Dad and Brenda's (I mean Poppy and Nonnie's). We would have done more but it was SOOOOOO cold and we didn't want Makenna to get sick or to freeze to death. Besides, next year she'll be running ahead of us yelling "twik o tweet" and we'll be trying to catch up. :) We can't wait. When we visited my Dad's house, he had a wig that was left over from his costume from last year. I don't know what got into me but I threw on the mullet wig, put on the sleeveless flanel shirt and grabbed my Dad's guitar and set myself up for some embarrasing pictures! I even answered the door for him and told the kids to "rock on ya'll". What was I thinking again? Brenda and Kimi thought I looked like Billy Ray Cyrus... :)

Speaking of Kimi, well guess what? My lovely wife and I recently celebrated 3, THREEEEE, years of marriage. Not to make it sound like that's a long time or anything but well, three years went by realllly quickly. I guess its true then what happens to time when you are having fun. :) Haha To celebrate our anniversary, I took Kimi to a cute little Bed and Breakfast in Purcell called JMarie's B&B. It was very reasonabley priced (compared to others we've been to) and was very well accomidated. It was in a three story building that was built at the turn of the century. When we walked in, there was a long hallway dimly lit by chandeliers that led to a staircase that rose up and up. We looked at each other and thought, "Oh No, what did we get ourselves into...". We made our way up the creaking staircase past the 2nd floor where the old ballroom with hardwood floors and 20 foot high ceilings was in complete darkness... Wait, is that another set of stairs over there... yes, and theres a room at the top... So we trekked another flight upward and saw... one of the most beautifully decorated rooms we've ever seen. The room was made to look like a New York City loft apartment complete with a faux brick wall, hard wood floors, a jacuzzi tub, and more. Quite the delightful surprise from our earlier impression. We would recommend this charming little place to anyone, and for the price, you can't beat it. Stop by her website and check it out yourself. They've been in business for less than a year so it's not perfect yet but the breakfast the next morning was to die for, just ask Kimi. :)


The other part of our anniversary gifts included going to Texas for a clothing shopping spree for Kimi to get some new outfits and Kimi to surprise me with purchasing a guitar for me. As you saw from the pictures above, I'm extremely good at playing guitar... yeah, right. But we got a great deal on a Fender Accoustic and I'm going to start learning how to play so I can lull Makenna to sleep at night while she's growing up. It's a good plan. If only I could figure out how to tune it... Anyway, while we were in Texas, we were blessed to be able to meet the newest addition to the Fox family in Caden William Fox. He was 3 weeks old at the time this picture was taken and he was very alert and well behaved. :) Look how huge Makenna is compared to him. Brent and Elizabeth (Cadens parents) were shocked at how fast she's grown and were saddened at the same time b/c little Caden would be growing up that fast too. We shared our vast wisdom of parenting with them (it took about 2 minutes) and scheduled a play date for the Fort Worth Zoo in the spring.. lots of fun!

The last thing I got Kimi for our anniversary was tickets to see the Audio Adrenaline and Mercy Me concert. It was Audio Adrenaline's Farewell Tour and they are Kimi's favorite band of all time. We also invited my Mom and Scotty b/c Mercy Me is my mom's favorite band of all time. (When I bought tickets, I was thinking two birds, one stone...)Audio Adrenaline has been around since the early 90's and one of their biggest songs (and kinda annoying after so many years of hearing it) was "Big House" that if you sang it, it was requisite that you do the hand motions too. So there was Kimi at the concert singing at the top of her lungs doing the motions to Big House with no remorse. It was great! And of course, my mom cried when Mercy Me was singing. It was a great concert and well worth the money of going. Adios Audio Adrenaline... We will miss you...

I hope you all enjoyed the update (finally!). Did anyone have any cool Halloween stories they wanted to share? :) I know there has to be some good ones so don't be shy!