Update

We have had a crazy busy last few days. Friday, Neil and I took off to go camping and boating at Bowman Haley with a few friends. We left Kynlie with her grandpa Lee for the weekend because she does not appreciate having to wear her life jacket on the boat. The weather was perfect for a boating weekend and the water was enjoyed by all of us. We got back on Sunday around 2pm, I went over and picked Kynlie up and brought her home to see her daddy before Kynlie and I had to get on the road again.
We took off for Bismarck around 2:30 because Kynlie had appointments on Monday. The drive there was not the greatest, Kynlie had taken a 3 hour nap earlier in the day because she was so pooped from her exciting weekend so she didn't want to be sitting in her car seat for 3 hours. She cried a lot and puked a couple of times but we made it in one piece! When we got to town, the two of us ate at Olive Garden, then did some shopping at WalMart. We went and checked into the hotel and I realized I had forgot to get a voucher from the hospital to get medical rates so we walked across the street and got one of those, then we both needed a shower so we took one, then it was time to try and get Kynlie to bed. She was not wanting anything to do with sleep so I let her cuddle in bed with me and we both fell asleep together, it was kind of nice.
Monday morning we did our shopping we had to get done then went to Kynlie's appointment with Dr. Ocejo. She was 31" long which is in the 75%, she weighed 22 lb 4 oz, which is in the 50% and I don't remember what her head measurement was but it was only in the 20%. Dr Ocejo was impressed with Kynlie's size but wants to get her weight and height percents a little closer. We will keep giving her pediasure at night to make sure she is still getting some extra calories. He suggested we try her on soy milk to see if she isn't having a reaction to the protien in the dairy products that is causing her to puke still. He said we would know in a week if we cut out all dairy and gave her only soy, I bought some soy milk and yogurt today to give it a try. He did say though, from what I told him about how I can hear her swallowing when she is going to sleep that it sounds like she is still having reflux.  He asked about her eyes and what we were doing to treat her crossed eye. He said that her eye being crossed may be the reason she doesn't have the confidence to walk without holding on to someone's finger. He said that it may be throwing her depth perception off because the left eye isn't focusing where it should be.
After her appointment with Dr. Ocejo, we went downstairs to Physical, Occupational and Speech therapies for her NICU followups. They were all impressed with how Kynlie was doing and said that she does quite a few things that are for her actual age. Physical therapy watched her walk and she did walk, unassisted to me a few times so they could watch her, she had her go up and down stairs, which Kynlie had mastered months ago and was impressed with how Kynlie likes to walk up and down them holding on to the banister rails. I expressed some concerns with OT and speech about Kynlie not eating meat. She will chew and chew and chew sometimes for 10 minutes, then spit it out. They watched her eat some teddy grahms and it looks like she sucks on them until they get mushy then chews them up. She does put food in the sides of her mouth but won't chew with her molars. We discussed a few different things we thought it could be: She has such a high gag reflex that she may be cautious about where food goes in her mouth, she may not have figured out that her molars are for chewing with or she might not think she gets it chewed up small enough to swallow. They suggested that I tear up fruit roll ups and ball it up and stick it on her molars so the only way she can chew it is on her molars, that I put food such as her teddy grahms, carrots and foods that are harder to chew in her mouth for her and set it on her molars to see if she'll chew it if it's already on those teeth. Speech suggested that we keep working with her on animal and environmental sounds and see if we can get her to put words together such as "car go" or "dog bark." They were impressed with how well she uses her sign language we have taught her, she signs for: please, more, milk and I love you. We only teach her signs for words she doesn't use and those are the only ones that we think she needs so far. She does say a ton of words, but a lot of them sound like dada, in some variation or another. They all agreed that they would like to see us in a month when Kynlie has her next eye appointment to monitor her walking and chewing. OT said that after the next appointment if we are still dealing with the same issues, she may want to see Kynlie for an OT appointment and evaluation to see if there is something she would like to see her on a more regular basis for. She said Kynlie is so borderline of if its a problem of stubbornness that she doesn't think it would be weekly appointments and doesn't know if it would be worth it for us to drive all the way to Bismarck for but we'll deal with that when the time comes.
We got home from Bismarck around 6, went and ate supper with Neil who was helping his sister with some stuff, came home and went to bed, we were both pooped from our long weekends and day of appointments. Tuesday, we both slept in until 10:30, Kynlie napped from 12:30-3:30 and I did laundry all day.
Today, we were off to Dickinson for another day of appointments, this time, for me. This morning I had an ultrasound. At the health fair the end of April, I had my blood drawn and had the CA-125 marker screen done for ovarian cancer. When I finally got my results back the end of May, I looked at them and the marker was high. I did not know at the time that I had my blood drawn that I was pregnant. At my OB appointment in June, I showed the results to Dr. Arnold and he said it was probably elevated because of the pregnancy but for peace of mind, he wanted to do a full abdominal ultrasound. Everything looked great in the ultrasound, including the baby! This afternoon I had an OB appointment and the doc said everything looks like it is growing and progressing normally.  I am 15 weeks pregnant as of tomorrow and so far, this has been the most uncomplicated pregnancy I have had. 
You may be wondering how this pregnancy happened, I still wonder the same thing! Neil and I had planned on doing intrauterine inseminations over the summer and fall and if they were unsuccessfull, we would do IVF again in the spring. I had been taking drugs to make my body ovulate, but the month I got pregnant, my prescription had run out and I had an appointment with Dr. Arnold the next month to discuss the inseminations so I didn't worry about getting the prescription renewed. I didn't believe it when my cycle was late and I took a pregnancy test and it was positive, so I took another one and another one and another one and everyone I took had the same result. I called the doctor's office the next week to get some appointments scheduled and they wanted me to do a blood pregnancy test so I went in on our way to one of Kynlie's appointments in Bismarck and it came back positive so I had to do another one in two days to make sure the levels were rising, they were. When I was 8 weeks along, we did an ultrasound to make sure the pregnancy was viable and there we saw one baby and a strong heartbeat. Neil and I are still in disbelief that it happened so easily this time but we thank the Lord every day for this amazing blessing he gave us.
Since I have to have a c-section due to my vertical incision I got with Kynlie, Dr. Arnold said I could pick a day on or after January 5, 2012 for baby #2 to be born on. My goal is to make it to January with this one as I am due 16 days earlier with this one than I was with Kynlie and Kirsten!

Fat Lip

I finally got my camera back so here is the picture of Neil with his derby car before the derby, it definetly doesn't look this pretty anymore!

Neil with his car before the Dickinson Derby

 Yesterday afternoon, Kynlie took off walking  running in our kitchen and took a faceplant on our hard floor. I was talking to his sister on the phone and when she picked her head up, there was a lot of blood.  She was screaming so I picked her up and cleaned her lip off and saw that she had cut her lip pretty bad when she fell. She cried for about a minute, then was fine and wanted to walk again.

Kynlie with her fat lip

 I have a feeling that I am going to have to get used to these boo-boo's as Kynlie is very daring and adventurous. She is also my daughter and my poor parents saw me get more cuts and bruises on my face than anyone could imagine. They used to joke that I would start to fall and my hands would go behind my back so my face could catch the brunt of my fall!

Silly girl!

4th of July weekend

We have had a busy, jam packed with fun weekend. Thursday, we had our friends the Mettlers over for supper, then Neil helped Matt on his siding project for a few hours. Neil's cousin and his 17 month old son have been living with us for the past few weeks and Josh wanted to go golfing so I told him Hunter could stay with us and him and Kynlie had a blast playing in the sandbox together.

Kynlie and Hunter playing in the sandbox

Friday afternoon, we loaded up the kids, rounded up grandma and poppy and headed to Dickinson, ND for their fair.  My dad pulled our camper over and we parked it at my cousin's house to stay in out there. Friday evening we went to the rodeo, which was fun except all Kynlie wanted to do was walk up and down the bleachers so I didn't get to enjoy it much. I ended up taking her down in front of the bleachers to play in the dirt for a while so she would just sit still! My brother Jordan showed up right at the end of the rodeo to spend the rest of the weekend with us.

He had just started his new teaching job in Sheridan, WY at a girl's school and when we asked him how his first day of school went, he laughed and said, "Good, I spent the day fly fishing and playing dodge ball!" I think he is going to enjoy his new job!

Saturday morning, my sister ran the 10K run in Dickinson, placing second in her age group and third overall in the women. Congrats Gina!!! She and mom came back after the run and we loaded up and went to the parade. Dickinson has an amazing parade, lasted around 2 hours! After the parade we went to the Arts Roundup on the DSU campus and ate, then walked around and looked at the vendors.

Lincoln, Kynlie and Matthew waiting for the parade

Kynlie has decided she is ready to walk now. She has been able to since the beginning of June, she just doesn't want to. She wants to walk everywhere, only if she has someone's finger to hold on to. She has even took Matthew's hand because she thought he would take her where she wanted to go. At my cousin's house, she would just take off from someone and walk to the toybox or whatever she wanted.

Kynlie walking to mommy

Jordan, Kynlie, poppy and Thadd watching the parade

After we ate, we went out to Thadd and Tracie's and got dad's pickup and the camper and took off to Bismarck. We parked the pickup at Walmart- our campground of choice- and went to the Dakota Zoo. The zoo had been closed all summer due to the flooding in Bismarck but they opened on July 1 so we added that to our plans for the weekend. We rented two wagons, which we didn't need to do but thought we'd rather have too much space instead of not enough. Matthew pushed a wagon most of the time, he didn't even care if anyone was in it!

Lincoln, Kynlie and Matthew at Dakota Zoo

After the zoo, we ate at Texas Roadhouse then went to mom & dad's hotel room to shower, then went back to Walmart to go to bed. Matthew thought it was great that we were sleeping at Walmart! The kids were so pooped from all our activities that they slept in until 10am Sunday morning! I went to pick mom, dad and Jordan up at their hotel because we had taken the vehicle back to Walmart and was surprised when I got there that Jordan's wife Ashley was there. She had decided after getting rained out of the hayfield that she was going to join us for the rest of the weekend. It was great to see her. We got everyone fed and ready to go to our next adventure.

Kynlie and Lincoln enjoying a snack at the waterpark

We went to Raging Rivers Waterpark in Mandan for the rest of our Sunday. The weather was perfect to be in the water and we all had a blast. They have a great kiddie area with a wading pool, some small slides and some things that spray lots of water everywhere. They have a river that you can float around the park on and some fun adult slides. We spent the whole day there, even having the two little kiddo's take a nap there.

Grandma and Poppy got both babies to sleep and got them
laid down, it was so cute!

After the little kids woke up from their naps, we were back on the road to Dickinson. Neil's cousin has an amazing band and they were playing at the street dance so Gina, Jordan, Ashley and I went down to watch them. Jordan and Ashely saw a lot of their old college friends there and Grandma and Poppy stayed back with the kids.

Matthew, Jordan, Ashley, Gina, Lincoln, Kynlie and I  at
Raging Rivers in Mandan, ND.
Grandma and Poppy were there too but declined to have their picture taken!

We hung out at Thadd's house Monday morning waiting for the final event of our weekend. Neil was in the demolition derby that afternoon. We got all packed up and headed to the derby. Matthew was super excited to watch Uncle Neil and got a little more excited when he asked Neil what color his car was and Neil told him it was red, just like Lightening McQueen! Neil won his heat and got third place in the Grand Finale! Congratulations Neil, we are so proud of you! It was a hot and dirty day but the kids had a blast playing in the dirt and they were all very well behaved for how long our weekend was. Matthew and Kynlie rode home with Neil and some of his pit crew so it was a quiet drive for Gina and I with only Lincoln and he was so tired that he was sleeping by time we got to the gas station to fill up!

Just as we were getting home, Neil's mom stopped by and said that they were lighting off fireworks at Neil's brother's house if we wanted to go. We both just wanted to crash at home, but Neil's dad has just got back from another two week hunting trip and Neil really wanted to see him so we showered and went out there to visit.

Today, we are just trying to get caught up, it is 11:30 and Kynlie is still sleeping, I haven't done anything but this blog post today, but have a lot I need to get going on!

We had a great 4th weekend, I hope all of you did too!