Sweet Annie’s Sweet Pictures

I finally made some time to take Annie’s 4-year-old pictures and get them posted!  Taking her picture is the easiest part of the process!  It’s like taking a picture of a flower… it just looks beautiful no matter how you take it!  For grandparents, you can also view them through shutterfly HERE.

 And a couple with her sister… her BFF!

Not Ready for Summer to be Over!

As July comes to an end, I'm starting to get sad that the girls will be heading back to school soon! We got to spend the summer together and, although it's been a little challenging for me physically with being pregnant, it has been so much fun!  I love the time we spend together. I don't want it to end!

We've done all we can to enjoy it. Lots of time at the pool, splash park and playing! Oh, I don't want winter to come!

  

We went to Jackson Lake on the 4th of July (just 1.5 hours away).  Jason and I had a hankering for how we spent the 4th in KC - on a boat.  So we took the girls out for a couple hours.   

Then we had some friends over to watch the fireworks in Denver from our back patio.  And of course we let off some illegal fireworks of our own.

Yellowstone

We traveled a lot this summer which has been nice!  And easy considering we don't have to pack food for Lily's diet!  A couple days after the 4th, we left for a trip to Yellowstone.  Jason had to work in Cody, WY for a day or so and the girls and I rode along.  We played in Cody while Jason worked and then drove to Yellowstone.  We stayed in a cabin (I wasn’t up for tent camping 5+ months pregnant).  But the girls loved it!

 Jason was pulled over on our way to Cody.  The girls asked why the police officer was pulling daddy over and we told them he was coming to check to see if they had their seat belts buckled.  After some good ‘ol fashioned a$$ kissing, the cop let him off.  Jason’s response: The police officer said your seat belts look good - let’s go!  

I think they bought it!

After paying for a pass to get into the park, the park ranger said “Have a nice day.”  Annie’s response was “Have a nice day? What????  Why would you say that??”

Where did we go wrong?

Way off in the distance there is a little black dot - it’s a mama bear and her cub.  Annie is deathly afraid of bears.  The entire time we were driving through the park we heard:  Are we in the park?  Watch out for bears!  I hope we don’t see a bear! Did you bring the bear spray, daddy?

I don’t mind when buffalo cross the road, but when the walk DOWN the road, it just seems selfish.  We had our map set to take us to our campsite at this point.  This buffalo cost us 4 minutes!

Making s’mores!  We had to stop at the grocery store to buy a fork for roasting marshmallows.  Jason asked the super market cashier if this fork was the best thing they had for roasting marshmallows or if there was something else she recommended.  Her response:  Are you camping?  Um… a stick.  

Duh.

The girls loved running free and playing at the cabin - or as Lily called it “the cabinet”.

You know you failed at explaining something when you’re driving through one of the most beautiful parks in the nation and the only response you get from Lily is “Hey, I can’t see my movies!”  Excuse us for opening the sunroof. 

Whenever the smell of sulphur took over the car the girls thought it was funny to say “Daddy tooted again!”  Followed by giggles!

The girls thought the sulphur springs looked like “giant" lemonade.  Lily said “yeah but it’s hot lemonade” in which Annie replied “like a thousand hot!”  Yes… it was hot, stinky, lemonade!

Annie seems to have an issue keeping her eyes open for pictures.  Jason asked her to make sure she holds her eyes open so he can take a picture.  Didn’t seem to do the trick.

Old Faithful was our last stop as we were leaving Yellowstone.  Lily told us she didn’t want to go home.  She loved everything about Yellowstone! Every once in awhile, Lily or Annie spits something out that just takes your breath away.  As we were leaving Old Faithful Lily told us "God can do so many things all at once.”  Yes, dear, He can!

It’s not vacation unless you're so beat the you sleep most of the drive home!

Such memories!!!

Just this last weekend we had a visit from Lily and Annie’s cousins!  They were on their way out to Colorado to go white water rafting and stayed for a couple days!  There’s nothing like watching cousins together!  

Update on Lily:  We reached a major milestone this weekend.  Lily is officially off ALL pharmaceuticals!  All.  Pharmas.  All of them.  Her only treatment now is .5mL’s of CBD in the morning and .5mL’s of CBD at night.  Over the past few weeks, as her Onfi blood levels have started to drop, we’ve seen some cognitive improvement, her appetite has increased to a normal level and she is sleeping about an hour longer each night.  Her blood levels are still pretty high and she has more detoxing to do, but I hope we continue to see improvements like this!  It would take me three days to explain how I feel about pharmaceuticals, so I’ll just say… good riddance!  

This is a picture of her meds at one point during her treatment.

 Doesn’t everyone have a kitchen drawer that looks like this?  We no longer need about half of these! Gosh.. I need to find something to put in this drawer!  Oh wait… soon bottles, nipples and bibs will be overtaking my kitchen!

Tomorrow Jason and I celebrate our nine year wedding anniversary.  Over the years we've been challenged with some of the harder things a marriage can withstand - loss of jobs, financial stress, chronic health issues and a child with special needs.  Nine years ago, I didn’t think it would be possible, but I love him even more now.  The stress we went through over the past few years was HARD - there were some deep, dark days.  But we’re so blessed that those days brought us closer together and even stronger than we were before.  I’m lucky to have him as a husband and these girls are lucky to have him as a daddy!