Moved to Florida

We have now been at our new home for 3 days now. We are living with Josh's parents so that we can pay off our college debt. It has been an interesting week of adventure this past week. We finished up loading the truck and headed out Sunday night at 10 pm. We drove through the night and stopped and slept for about 2 hours. Now I, Misty, of course slept through a decent amount of the night driving. I rode with Josh in the 26 foot moving truck with his car in tow and his parents drove our suv with Kaylee. We stopped in Daytona, Fl to see the largest Harley Davison Store. The last three days here have been busy unloading the truck and starting to unpack boxes. It has been a blessing to have his parents and sister's around to help us out with Kaylee so that we can unpack.

Little miss Kaylee has been busy this week too. She started clapping her hands together this week. She does it when we say things like: "good girl", "big girl", "yea Kaylee" and so forth. She loves playing patty cake and will sometimes take the outside of your hands and slap them together. Randomly sometimes she claps them over and over....i guess she is giving herself praise when she does something well and exciting! The first full day in Florida I, mommy, was feeding her cereal and I ran into the other room to get her high chair. It is one that fits inside of a chair. By the time I had gotten back she had taken the spoon, got some otmeal on it and put it in her mouth correctly...with a lot of mess of her face in the process. Lately she has started shaking her head no. she does it randomly but it is quite funny. Kaylee's doctor said at her 6 month appointment that her top gums were swollen and her teeth could come any time-which means from now to many months later. Josh found two more teeth last night in the top of her gums. They have already broken the skin and pushed a good bit through. So soon you will be able to see her four teeth in the front. It was a long night bc nothing made her happy unless mommy was carrying her around and held her close. This is the only time mommy spoils her-when she's sick and not feeling good and teething. Kaylee has been running a fever with teething just as she did when her bottom two teeth came in. Our little girl is growing up and fast. We are cheerishing every moment with her and are blessed to have a healthy happy baby girl. Praise you Lord!!

8 Months Already!!

Kaylee just turned 8 months old while we are finishing up packing up our home to move to Florida.Kaylee is a little over 14 1/2 pds. I am having a blast being a mommy. Every day bring more excitment, fun and adventure! It is so amazing to "try" and see through the eyes of Kaylee. She is such a content, happy baby. She is full of energy. We can put her in her crib at 6 am after her feeding and get about 2 more much needed hours of sleep. She plays great all by herself but she loves when you get in the floor and she can climb all over you. She loves to dance and beatbox with daddy. She bouces on everything-it makes her smile and giggle. Kaylee is an extremely ticklish girl!!!! We have tickle sessions often just to hear her giggle out of control! It is the cutist thing ever. She is to a point now where she will take a few very slow steps on her own when she holds onto your fingers. It will be a long while before she walks on her own but she wants to walk so bad that there are many times where that is what she wants to "try" instead of crawling.

Kaylee loves playing peak a boo and lets copy mommy. I will put my head down and then she will mimick me and then I will lift it up and so forth. She knows it melts our little hearts so one morning we were all lying in bed and she started laying her head down the "cute" way. Kaylee loves to babble. She says a lot of babababa and mamamamama and close to dadada but there are no distint words in the sense she realizes what she's saying, just repeating. But I know this girl is going to Love to talk..but what girl doesn't? Kaylee loves books and puzzles. She has a puzzle that makes sounds of the animals that she plays with a lot.

Kaylee also has a strong willed sided. She lets you know when your doing something that she does not like you doing-aka- putting her down for a nap or bed, telling her no,no, and so forth. She has thrown quite a few temper tantrums. It just reminds Josh and I that we are born sinful and that only by God's grace can we strive to be more like Him.

One thing that I have fallen in love with is watching her on the monitor when she is sleeping. It is just so precious. I love it when she wakes up and starts to whimper-it is so sweet. I think that is the only time I "enjoy" her cry :) I just love being a mommy and getting to see all of these stages that she is going through. I have been blessed to be at home to experience this with her. Daddy is already wrapped our her little fingers. He is smitten!!

Kaylee's 1st Thanksgiving

Josh and I have decieded that for the holidays we can only travel to one set of parents. It was just getting out of hand how much traveling we were doing for the holidays. I remember one year we had "Santa" 5 times!! So this year we planned to go to Misty's parents and then for Christmas we were going to Josh's parents. It worked out even better due to the fact we are moving to Florida in two days and will get there 10 days before Christmas. Just enough time to settle into our new home and get ready for the day of Jesus's birth!!

Josh took off work early on Tuesday before Thanksgiving and we drove through the night to a small town outside of Nashville. Kaylee did great a first. She cried at the typical times when she needed something-aka:feeding but after a while she just got sick and tired of the car seat!!! We drove 9 hours that night. It was such a blessing that we drove through the night because it hit a large part of her bed time...Praise the Lord!!! When spent the night with Giles-one of Josh's best friends and then headed to Jackson, TN to see the Rolands-the Associate pastor and wife of the church Josh was a Youth Pastor at while at Union and had lunch with them. Then we headed toward West Memphis, Ar to see the Kings. We had a blast. About 10 miles outside of Memphis we deceided to drop Kaylee off at my mom's house bc Kaylee had enough of being in a car. It was another day of driving even though we were only a couple hours from Memphis bc we stopped to see people. We headed to see the Kings and their new home and enjoyed their company and friendship! Then late that night we headed back home to my mom's.

The next morning was Thanksgiving. We went to my aunts first and then to my grandmothers-dad side of the family. We all spent the night out there and then headed to my dad's house for Christmas. Kaylee had a blast! Then we headed to my mom's that night and had Christmas and hung out the next day with my family and then the Peasley's came into town and got to meet Kaylee and catch up! It was so good to see them too! We had to load the car up that night. It was packed to the brim. There was not an ounce of space left with things that have been saved for us when we had a baby. We had a rocking horse, 4-wheeler, clothes galore-praise the Lord, and much much more! God is so good!!! He always provides!! Josh left Sunday morning bc he had to get back to finsh up his last week at State Farm and his last week in school for this semester. He has a quite house to come home too-which he did not like- but it was good for him to study for his final. Kaylee and I spent the rest of the time hanging out with my family and got to see my best friends Patty and Hillary along the way! We flew home on Thursday the day of Josh's final. I don't have any pictures from the time spent with my mom and everyone on that side due to my camera was broken and I got a new camera but it did not fit my memory card so I am getting a new one! But here are some pictures with my dad and Kaylee.

Kaylee's Baby Dedication

Kaylee was dedicated to the Lord on November 16th 2008 at Wake Crossroads Baptist Chruch. Our entire sunday school class who has new babies got dedicated. There were a total of 9 families. Josh and I started off the year by having Kaylee in April and then 9 families followed from May to October and then one family was out of town who just has a baby and then another family delievered two days before the dedication. There was still two families to go that are expected to deliever in Janurary! Children are such a blessing from the Lord! It was an awesome time. Then afterwards we went out to lunch bc our friends from Africa were headed back. They had come back to the states for their sister's wedding and then she was to far along in the pregnancy to return so we were blessing by getting a couple of months to hang out and get to know their adorable family before they head back tomorrow!

7 MONTHS OLD!

Kaylee is 7 months old today. Right now I hear her crying from her room. This is something she picked up after a couple of months and has continued to this day. Every time I lay her down for a nap-which is twice a day and to put her to bed for the night-she crys and screams. Sometimes she even throws temper tantrums-yes where she kicks her legs and tears up her bumper in her crib. I am encouraged that this too shall pass. Many mom's have told me that their child did this and now they are great sleepers. All I can do is shut the door, turn on the monitor and go on about my daily tasks. I have to let her cry it out or she will have won the battle and learn that mommy while come and get her if she cries. Usually she does this for 15-20 minutes but if she is exhausted she will do it for about 30 minutes. At this moment she has just cried herself to sleep. She is getting better and better and the time it takes is getting shorter.

This month has been a big month for her. She just got over her first cold. Last monday night she started getting a runny nose and by the next night she had a fever over a 102. She wasn't very fussy this past week but very clingy. She just kept reaching out for me to hold her and of course I cheerished every moment of it! She actually rested her head upon my shoulder-I never get to enjoy this feeling bc she is so busy and occupied with the things around her. It was a tough week for her but she is back to playing with her toys, smiling and giggling. Also this past week was when I vaccumed up my wedding rings. Josh sifted through the vaccum and found 3 out of the 4 diamonds that came out of my engagment ring. The next day I was able to find the final missing diamond..praise be to the Lord! I actually just dropped off both rings to get fixed. Praise the Lord we got insurance on them back in the summer of this year!

Kaylee is into everything now. Especially the things she is not suppose to be into. I have had to tap her hand quite a few times and her little precious bottom twice. After telling Kaylee no, no - six different times and moving her away from the things she was not suppose to be touching or messing with I had to go to the bottom-just a little tap. She knew good and well what she was doing and that mommy did not want her to do it. After I would move her away from the thing and back to her toys she would watch me and when she thought I wasn't looking anymore she would start crawling back to whatever it was. One day it was the handheld vaccum, another day it was the computer cord behind the baby carrier, another day it was the monitor and so forth. One day I went into the kitchen to do something really quick while Kaylee was in the floor playing with her toys. All of a sudden I hear a crash, it was our 6 1/2 to 7 foot decorative tree that she had crawled over too and tried to pull herself up on and instead it came crashing down. It didn't hurt her but really scared her. Thank goodness the tree branch was high enough that on it's side it was higher than her head. Silly girl.

Her newest adventure is pulling herself up. She learned how to do that and crawling all in the same week but now she is getting it down much better. There have been many tears in this household this past month due to her having socks on her feet bc it is cold here and having wood floors. Socks, wood floors and pulling oneself up do not go together. After a couple of times I took her socks off around the house. She is now pulling herself up in the crib and will stand their holding on and cry until you get her when she wakes up- not every time just depending on the day and time. She can pull herself up the couch and the stairs. I have to keep a good eye out for her and what she is doing. Daddy is about to lower the crib down because I am afraid that if we don't do it now, we might not do it soon enough before she can get hurt. She got a huge blast of energy this past Saturday and crawled all over mommy and daddy like we have never seen her do it before. She will pull herself up and stand up while holding on-for some reason she deceided to let go with one hand and wobbled all over and fell onto the bed- she didn't like that feeling very much so she hasn't tried that agian :)

We are 5 weeks away from moving to Florida with going to Thanksgiving right smack dab in the middle of it. Honestly that is how I like it though bc once the Lord is doing something I am ready right then and there and this waiting thing gets me wanting to pack a lot sooner than necessary so I will pack some before thanksgiving and then Kaylee and I will stay a couple of extra days after daddy leaves TN and then when we get back daddy will be done with his Hebrew class that he has done awesome in this semester and have 10 days to go before we move. And during those 10 days we have to finish packing, I have a MOPS Christmas social at night to be a part of, sunday school party and choir presentation on Sunday night before we head out Monday morning. So much to do and so much fun!! It's going to be a fun-filled next 5 weeks.

** I no longer have a camera bc it is broken so it could be awhile before I post picutes depending if I can borrow someone's camera for right now and someone is borrowing our video camera so as soon as I get it back and figure out how to post video I will. Love you all!

Kaylee's 1st Halloween!!

Kaylee's first costume took a ton of man hours to make. Josh was the majority of the thinking process and creative process. He also cute out the bodysuit we made and helped out with cutting the feathers. Misty helped with the creativity..even though mostly Josh, and she did all the tedious hours of sewing! Misty is so greatful to have a sewing machine...this costume would not have been done without it! After it was finally done, Josh and Misty said that we probably would not make another costume again. But as soon as Kaylee had the full costume on, it was all well worth the time and effort. We both came back and said we would consider making one again when she is old enough to enjoy the costume...aka...have fun with it!
Kaylee was a bird this year. We came upon the decision to make her a bird because when she was born she would make a little bird's face with her mouth when she was ready to eat and she would make these squaking noises that she still sometimes makes to this day. We thought that nothing would be better than to make her a bird this year! We made every piece of the costume except for the velcro that was at the bottom for easy undoing to change a diaper if necessary. Everything was FREE. We did not spend one penny making this costume. The bodysuit was made out of one of Josh's t-shirts-grey, the feather's were an array of colors that came from some of Josh's t-shirt's also. The beak and eyes were also made from t-shirts of Josh's......yes he has a ton of t-shirts and if you looking in his drawer and closet you would still think he has way too many t-shirts! There were at least 6 different t-shirts involved in making this costume. The question that now is in the air...what will she be next year? Well that depends on what happens in the next year. We like to have things that relate to that past year. Events that have happened and so forth to not only have pictures of her dressed up but to also remember something funny or cute that took place.

Kaylee is sitting, crawling and pulling up

I forgot to update my records of when Kaylee sat up the first time. Today is Oct. 28, 2008 and Kaylee sat up for the first time on Oct. 23, 2008 at Lara and Garret's house while playing with Jack. Jack has been sitting up for a couple of weeks and I was joking around and said "ok, Kaylee ready..your going to sit up and counted one two three and i let her go and she actually did it. I was expecting her to fall over. Kaylee has been trying to crawl for about a month and a half. At 5 months she started learning how to move her legs to crawl but couldn't push her arms up. Then at about 5 1/2 months she figured how to get up on her arms. Then all of a sudden she couldn't figure out how to move her legs so she would scoot around and rock back and forth on her arms and knees. At her 6 mth appointment her doctor said she might would skip sitting up bc she wanted to crawl so badly. Kaylee would not sit still long enough to even try to sit up. As soon as you would sit her up she would flip onto her stomach to push up. The doctor said she would eventually sit up but she might crawl first bc she wants to move.
On Oct. 28, 2008 Josh was home for lunch and was about to leave. Josh called for me to come downstairs. Kaylee was crawling...slowing but surely. She had her focus on the computer that was laying in the floor and wanted to get to it. I jumped up and down on the stairs. Once Kaylee got to the computer, Josh pulled her back for her to crawl some more. She is not speedy yet but sooner or later she will be. I already know I am in trouble bc last week she got acoss the room into some of my bags a couple of different days.
Earlier this morning, Oct. 28th, I put Kaylee in her laundry basket. Kaylee had hit her head on the floor while she was playing while I was folding laundry. I picked her up and soothed her. She reached out for the laundry basket so I thought it would be fun to put her inside it. It is the perfect size for her to sit up and could reach all sides of it..it's a round one. All of a sudden I see her looking at the other stuff around her..outside the basket and she starts to pull her self up. She got onto her feet and then fell down in the basket. So she didn't stay up very long.
A couple of days ago I was coming home and was on the phone with Josh and asked him what Kaylee was doing. He said she was playing. He all of a sudden said Kaylee is trying to pull up on the stool...she got to the first step and Josh got her..thank goodness!
She is a busy body and keeps me on my toes. We are so blessed to have a healthy baby girl! Thank You Lord!
Family - We let someone borrow our video camera so I will get video of her crawling and pulling up as soon as possible so all of you can see it so you don't have to wait til the holidays!