Happy 2nd Birthday sweet angel!

Dear Kaylee,

It’s unbelievable that my precious little girl is turning two-years-old today — on so many levels. It literally seems like yesterday that you came into this world and gently taught me what truly is wonderful and special and good and extraordinary; taught me what really matters in life. I could never come up with enough words to adequately describe my feelings towards you, but here are a few things that I want you to know I love:

I love watching you sleep and feeling you so close to me.

I love being the first to see those beautiful eyes greet each and every single cherished morning when you wake up. So happy. So innocent. So Kaylee.

I love your gentle determination and am so proud of your fighting spirit.

I love how unbelievably forgiving you are.

I love the deeply loving and distinctly admiring way that you look at your sister Allison — always smiling & giggling every time without fail.

I love that your trust for both daddy and me has absolutely no end.

I love your sweet, loving smile.

I love your hearty laugh...it's contagious.

I love blowing on your tummy and you anticipating it with a giggle.

I love your night night dance when you try to put yourself to bed.

I love that you know exactly what you want and will definitely let me know even if you can't sign or talk yet.

I love your independence and your persistence.

I love watching you eat and seeing your expressions when you try something new.

I love holding your hand, kissing and loving on you, and singing you the same repetitive out of tune songs.

I love that you want us to snuggle with you. I hope you never stop.

I love how you like to touch my face and try to grab my mouth.

I love your imperfect toes and your perfect tiny nose.

I love your thirst for life and adventure and the look of surprise and excitement on your face when you get so excited.

I love that you think mommy is so funny.

More than anything, anything, ANYTHING else in the entire world, I LOVE being your Mommy — the luckiest mommy in the world — and am so unbelievably proud of the little inspiring girl that you have become.

Happy 2nd birthday sweetheart. Mommy & daddy are so proud of you. You are our world…

Updates.....

Wow. I do believe that this marks my longest mini hiatus. Life has been crazy busy...but a good kind of busy. So much to catch everyone up on. So much so, that I hardly know where to begin. Instead of making this a marathon post, saturated with all the events of the past 6 months, I will hit a few high points for now.

So far, Kaylee has been seizure free from last Feb 09. We are truly blessed that she's been medically healthy...Praise God. Kaylee is a happy loving little girl. We are so proud of her and all of her accomplishments...some big and some small. She's able to sit longer periods at a time sometimes over 30-45 min. depending if she's motivated by one of her toys. Kaylee can feed herself finger foods such as cheetos, banana puffs, really anything she can grab. She's been very alert to her surroundings...very curious to see what's going on. We love how she's been making awesome eye contact with strangers and even tries to interact with them. She's always loved looking at immediate family but now she's been exploring out of her box. We've been trying the brush technique 2 days ago and we've seen some great results. She doesn't mind when we brush her extremities...still a little sensitive to her feet but much better since we first started. She's been weight bearing more on her feet without the need for her shoes which is a hugh accomplishment for us. She's been sustain grasping her toys for longer periods now and will tolerate certain sounds like crinkling of foil. I can't even imagine what she'll do in another week of brush therapy. It's been time consuming...brushing every 2-3 hrs but well worth it.

We added a couple more therapies per week to her already hectic schedule. She now receives music therapy and cranial sacral therapy. Music therapy is one of her favorites. She loves anything that lights up or makes sounds. She always heads for the drums and piano. She thinks it's funny when she bangs on things...she loves repetition. Of course, I have to sing to her when she starts getting cranky but if it motivates her then I'll do whatever it takes...even if I have to sing row, row your boat 50 million times. Kaylee still is not motivated to crawl at this time, but I know she's getting close. She has all the pieces down, but it's the matter of putting it all together. Her shoulder girdle & upper body is still a little weak but so much better now. Kaylee's been tolerating weight bearing on her legs okay. She experiences tight hips & knees, but responds very well to a technique called total motion release known as TMR. TMR has worked wonders on Kaylee's body. Every time she feels tight in certain areas to her body we can usually release the restrictions by balancing her body out using TMR techniques....awesome stuff. For more info on TMR, you can check out the website on http://www.totalmotionrelease.com/

We were blessed to take a trip to Disney World during spring break. We flew to Orlando and met up with Chad and his family (Beau's brother) from Fort Myers, FL. We had an awesome time together...wish we lived closer because it was so heartbreaking when we had to say goodbye. Allison still talks about that trip all the time. It was an expensive trip but I know she'll remember that trip forever...special bonding time with her cousins. Kaylee did awesome traveling...she's our experienced little traveler. We've been lucky to spend a lot of family time together during our camping expeditions. We spent some quality time in Brazos Bend south of Houston, Guadalupe state park, Goliad state park, and Goose Island state park. We bought a bike trailer for our girls during our trip to Brazos Bend ..that was a great investment. I think we rode around the trails for 2 hrs one day just enjoying the scenery. Kaylee enjoyed the ride so much that she cried every time we stopped. She must of loved the bouncing around motion because she fell asleep during our excursion. Camping has been an awesome time for us. We don't do much but just rest & relax. Beau claims he sleeps so much better in our camper then at home. It really is relaxing and peaceful!

Here are some pictures of our trips these last few months. We hope you enjoy them! Feeling exhausted to no end. Heading to bed. More to blog about later, including our dodgeball tournament on Saturday, birthday party at Chuck E Cheese, and our upcoming trip to the 1p36 deletion conference in Utah next weekend.