Guess Who's Walking!

Thank you so much for your prayers on behalf of Will's uncles. This past Wednesday morning we lost Jackie. Will flew into Ft. Worth, TX on Friday night so he could be at Jackie's funeral on Saturday. Please continue to pray for the family as they're dealing with the loss. Howie is not doing well at all, he's been in the hospital for at least the last week and sadly it is only a matter of time before we lose him also.

At Will's request Lilyanah & I spent the weekend at my parents house, so I'm including some pictures we took this weekend. Our sweet friends in Iowa, the Killians gave this little rain coat outfit to Lilyanah when she was born & every chance I get I love to dress her in it. I just thought it would be criminal not to include some pictures of her strolling around in it. The other picture is Lilyanah discovering daisies for the first time. (I'm not including when I made us daisy chain's to wear on our bald heads last April.)Lilyanah gets such a kick out of dad pushing her on her little 'car'. I wish you could hear her gleeful giggling! I was just reminded that I have not yet told you all that she is walking! All out, walking! A week & a half ago she just started letting go of whatever she was holding onto & walking to something else. It's just progressed from there. Maybe I'll figure out how to post videos & get one of her walking on here. (Don't hold your breath!) I was recently reminded that I still have not posted pictures of our house. . .I had to include a picture of some visiting friends from Nebraska, Jeff & Margaret Garrison. For a brief time they lived a couple of houses away from us & I got to play with their daughters (Mary & Leann) all the time. Mary was just 2 weeks older than me so it was mostly us that played. Oh, the many wonderful childhood memories!Sorry, but I just had to include one more picture of Lilyanah in her raincoat! Such a serious face! Aren't the little boots & hat adorable! I'm so glad I'll get to dress baby #2 in them too! I hope you all have had a blessed Monday! So, question. . . . What is something you've always wanted to do but never been disciplined enough to do it? Love you all!
Wendy.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Yesterday afternoon Laura, Troy & the girls walked over to Mom & Dad's house for a visit. The sun was out & it was such a beautiful day!!!! Let's rewind though, we went to early service & were back home by 10:30am so Will went out back & mowed the yard. If only Lilyanah's hair would grow as quickly as our grass! He finished just in time for us to head to Abby's Pizza where we met up with our family as well as Dwayne,Mindy, & (6 month old)Peyton Seeber who were in town for the weekend. Unfortunately our camera battery was dead so I got absolutely zero pictures! They, as well as Corey, Kelsey & Dwayne's older sister (& my dear friend) Randie, came over to our house for a short visit. It brought back memories of living in Oklahoma City. For about 6 months Dwayne & Mindy, Will, & Corey & I all lived in the same apartment complex. Dwayne & Mindy were there first, followed by Corey & me & last to join was Will. Typically the guys I dated lived at least a half hour away & more typically at least 100 miles away. But when Will & I were dating he lived about 100 feet away. It made dating pretty convenient. He would leave sweet notes on my car for me to find before work & we would meet in the evening to go visit in one of the many wooden swings placed around the property. I got a little off subject. . .
Dad has their TV hooked up to download video from the video camera. Something we desperately need to do since we started videoing before Lilyanah was born & now she's a day away from being 15 months old! So, we headed over to Mom & Dad's to work on getting some video downloaded. Technical complications did not allow for us to get any of that done, but such is life. It was a bonus that the Kronewitter family decided to come over & we had a nice day!
I have neglected to write very much about what is going on with Will's side of our family. He has two uncles both of which are suffering from serious health problems. His uncle Howie (52), who lives in Ft. Worth has been battling with oral cancer for over a year. (The picture above is of Will's uncle Jackie (far left), Melanie (Howie's wife), Michelle (Will's sister) & our little Lilyanah.) The picture to the left is Lilyanah playing with Howie's hat on Thanksgiving.) It's been a really tough road, but Howie is a tough guy with a lot to live for. Doctors are currently using an experimental drug on him as he's done all of the radiation treatments that he can do & chemotherapy has been only somewhat effective. Please keep him in your prayers! Will's other uncle, Jackie, (58), has recently been hospitalized with heart problems. He's in desperate need of a heart transplant. I think they've released him from the hospital, but I'm not sure.
All of this is really hard on both Lynn (Will's mommy) & Grandad (their daddy). We just lost Meme not all that long ago and I cannot begin to imagine how hard it is, no matter how old your kids or your brothers are, to watch your family physically hurting so much. So, please keep the whole family in your prayers. Thank you so much! I hope you all have had a blessed day, we love you all! ~ Wendy.

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures!

This is our sweet little Lilyanah on her second Easter. She had a pretty good time though she wasn't feeling well towards the end of the day. We 'churched' as my cousin Katie always says in her blog. . . and then went to enjoy an amazing lunch at Gigi & Papa's. Our Gigi always takes such good care of us & feeds us SO well. (Thank you Gigi from all of us for always loving on us so well!)

Mom & Dad took advantage of Gigi & Papa's beautiful backyard patio. . . I love that they never have to worry about anyone building up a whole bunch of houses in their backyard because it's a steep canyon! After lunch & naps the kiddos played around the living room. It was so much fun watching them play around together. It was a rainy day so the egg hunt happened indoors. George, Violet & Nolan all got the gist of it but Hazel of course isn't crawling yet & Lilyanah found a couple of eggs that she put in her basket but had more fun taking them in & out of her basket than hunting for more.

Our cousin Jack was a kid magnet. Hazel & Violet snuggled up in his lap & Nolan kept trying to crawl up but never could quite seem to make it! As you can see there wasn't a bunch of room either! Jack definitely takes after his dad (Gano). Gano was like the pied piper for kids all growing up. So is my brother Corey. There's something about those guys that little kids just think they hung the moon & are so excited whenever they come around.

Lilyanah is holding one of the eggs. . . Papa was surrounded by great-grandkids & I think really enjoyed it. We just celebrated Papa's 76th birthday on the 3rd of this month. We look forward to many more birthday celebrations!

Here's a picture of the 'Isenberg girls'just laughing over brownie ice-cream sundaes. I think George was trying to beg some ice cream from his grandma. And if you look closely you can see little Nolan in the bottom right hand corner. So cute!
We ended our day with a family devotional. Little George even led a few songs (playing church is one of his favorite things). I hope you all had a great weekend and also got to spend some quality time with your family. We love you all! ~

5 years!

March 25th was a very special day for Will & me. We met on Sunday the 25th of March 2002. After meeting at church we went to Dwayne & Mindy Seeber's house to watch the Oregon Ducks play against KU in the Elite 8. So, this Sunday March 25th the Ducks were playing again in the Elite 8. Sadly they lost this year just like 5 years ago, but what a coicidence! So I decided to share some pictures from Violet's birthday party. She's opening presents on a sweet little table Papa & Gigi got her & in the background you can see Papa, my aunt Mona (Violet's grandma) & Rick (Violet's grandpa).

The picture of Lilyanah is from the beginning of the month. Still no more new teeth & very very very little new hair! Yesterday she crawled up on the bed, saw my water bottle, knocked it to the ground, looked up at me & very loudly said "uh-oh". She says that consistently. She still isn't saying Mommy or Daddy. You can say "fishy" & she'll smack her lips together, or say cow & "moo" & she'll make a hard to distinguish moo sound back. But I'll say Mommy after she's been repeating me & she just laughs. She's taken as many as 3 consecutive steps but as soon as she gets close to whoever she's walking to she just throws herself forward. I'm glad she's not in any hurry to grow up. . . I'm sure that won't last as long as we want it to.

There's a picture of Hazel (Violet's little sister) sitting on her aunt Becky's lap. Isn't she a little doll!? Hazel is a little over 5 months younger than Lilyanah. I love the picture in the background on the right of Violet loving on Hazel!

The last picture is of me, yikes! I was nearly 5 1/2 months pregnant when that was taken. I thought I should be fair & show my growing belly. I know you can't really tell but I had straightened my hair in case any of you were curious. It's still naturally curly. . . it takes a little bit of work to get the straight effect. And now you'll have to excuse me, I have a very tired little girl laying her sweet little head on my lap, rubbing her eyes. Love you all! ~ Wendy.

AMAZING technology!

Everybody meet little baby Mathias #2. The image is a little bumpy, she isn't but it's hard for them to get just the outer layer of skin. .. So one of the benefits to being in the hospital so early with Lilyanah was the incredible picture that we got of her with their 3D ultrasound. With this little girl we are having ultrasounds VERY often, every 3 to 4 weeks. I have to say while it's no fun being a high-risk pregnancy I love that we get to see our little one so often! And, at this last appointment they did the above 3D ultrasound of her (just because I asked), isn't that so nice of them! The doctor said everything is going great & that she weighs about 1 lbs 3 oz. I asked about what she was thinking delivery-wise, because the last time we met she made it sound like I was going to go close to full-term. She said that had I not been able to do the MRI's that they were probably only going to let me go until 32-34 weeks. (Different from the 34 to 36 weeks she'd previously told me. But since they are able to do the MRI's they probably won't induce until I'm 36 to 37 weeks along. So still an early baby but hopefully not so early that she'll have to spend time in the NICU (Neonatal intensive care unit) like her big sister.

Last weekend we bought our first lawn mower! Isn't that so exciting! We actually have a very substantial yard in comparison to most properties these days. I think it took a couple of hours to clean up fallen twigs & such along with mowing the whole thing. I can't wait until we can build a fence all around our property so we can let the boys (our 2 pugs) run around while we're working outside. After losing our first pug, our sweet little Amos, so tragically Will has been very protective of these boys & tries very hard to avoid dangerous situations. Like, having them outside while he's mowing the lawn. When he was a boy his dad was mowing their lawn, and even though Will wasn't even close to the mower it went over a rock and slung it across the yard and hit Will. So he made sure we weren't very close when he mowed.

We're having a . . . . .

I just realized I haven't told you whether we're having a little boy or a little girl. . . .

Oops! So, let the suspense be over. . . In less than 5 months we'll have another little girl. We've chosen a name. It's actually an ancient Celtic name but chances are you haven't heard it unless you've seen Four Feathers with Heath Ledger & Kate Hudson. . . . We're actually going between:

Juliet Evalina

(Evalina is a family name)
or
Ethne Louise

(Louise is a family name)

Ethne is pronounced like 'Beth' without the 'b' & then 'knee, so 'eth-knee'. I was looking the name up on the Internet & it actually said that Ethne has never ever been on any countries top 1000 names lists. How hilarious is that!

Onto a different subject, I spoke with my oncologist today & he said that the MRI I had last Friday came back clear! YIPPEE! He didn't know if I would have to do another one before the baby is born, hopefully not. I have to say I much prefer the MRI over the CT scan. They do a painful shot into the muscle in your arm but there's no IV shooting radioactive material into your body so that's good. I don't know how long they're going to let me carry this little lady. At first I'm sure you remember my doctor said they wouldn't let me go beyond 36 weeks (I'm 22 weeks as of last Tuesday.) but I think they may let me go to 38 weeks since they've been able to do an MRI & didn't find any cancer. But, who knows!? (Only God!)

Our next appointment is next Wednesday (the 21st). I don't like that I'm a high-risk pregnancy but I do love getting to see our little girl every 3 weeks! She's moving a lot more too so I get to feel her little kicks & shifts, I love that.
I included some pictures of Lilyanah while we were down in Indio visiting Papa & Gigi. We all got SO sick (that is mom, me & Lilyanah). . . but our little girl never let's not feeling well get her down. We all laughed at how much her little outfit from cousin Carrie looks like an old-fashioned swimming suit! In this picture she was almost 13 months old & the outfit is for 3-6 months. Granted the first time she wore it, it went down to her sweet little ankles! Alright, enough for now, love you all! And if you will please, pray for an 'unknown' for us. I'll write an entry about it later, but it's so important to us that it's all covered in prayer.
Thank you, thank you! ~ Wendy.

Birthday Pictures (From Jan. 17th)

Here's our little princess on her first birthday! We were blessed to have my Aunt Mona & Uncle Rick as well as Laura, Troy & their girls, my parents & my brothers (Corey with his wife) over for dinner & some birthday cake. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of the group, just the main event. So, I thought I should show how the night progressed. In the first picture she's actually clean! It was so cute because about 10 minutes before this picture was taken Laura's little girl, Violet (almost 2 years old) was trying to feed Lilyanah the rest of her dinner. We fed her in the living room & her food was still on the coffee table so Violet just picked up the spoon, Lilyanah pulled herself up so she was standing against the table & Violet was feeding her. It was the CUTEST thing! We got it on video but unfortunately did not get a picture so I can't show it to you on this blog. This next picture is obviously after we let her let loose into her cupcake! We did angel food cupcakes with whip cream frosting & banana on top. We tried to do low sugar ingredients but Lilyanah didn't go to sleep until 11pm she was on such a sugar high. It was actually really funny cause' she was SO silly! Plus it was my sweet husband who stayed up with her for the last hour!
Speak of Will, here's a picture of him giving Lilyanah a bath in the kitchen sink after dessert was over. It was much needed! I think Will got almost as wet as Lilyanah! Last, but not least. . . the Sunday after her birthday we had more family over for Sunday lunch to celebrate again! She's sitting in the high chair her Papa, Gigi, Gano, Dawn, Jack, Rick & Mona all got her as a birthday gift! It's a great high chair (thanks again all!)
She has a fluffy hat on my dear friend Lecia made for her so her little princess tiara would stay on her sweet head without hurting it! It's not the greatest picture I have of her from the day but she wasn't a big fan of wearing her hat so I had to take what I could get! Anyway, I have now fulfilled my promise of posting some birthday pics. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend! Love, Wendy.

Close up

I was looking at the pictures I've recently posted on this blog & realized none of them are really great close ones of Lilyanah. So, what's a mother to do but post a picture!? Mom took this one last month right before Lilyanah turned around to climb up their stairs. She LOVES climbing up & down the stairs. You can actually see the gleam of excitement in in her eyes!
This picture was taken just moments later so you can see what she was anticipating.
What does a little loo-whoo love more than climbing up stairs. . .
being CHASED up the stairs!
I love how you can see her trying to look back at Dad
while trying to hurry away from him.
I guess you'd need to see a video to get the whole adorable
picture but this is the best I can do.
Thank you thank you to all of you who comment on the blog. If I never hear from you I have no idea you're checking in ~ and I love hearing from you all probably more than you enjoy hearing from me in these posts.
Have a GREAT day!
~Wendy.

This Time Last Year

Last weekend I went with my dear friend Lecia New to the EXPO center for a day of scrapbooking. SO. . . the entire day before I went through photos, cropping them, changing them to black & white, all that fun stuff. So I wanted to post some that I love. This first one was February 5th, 2006. Just 3 days away from being a year ago! That boggles my mind. Lilyanah weighed a little over 5 lbs. Now, a year later she is 19lbs 5oz & no longer 17 3/4" long but 28 1/2". . . Can you imagine growing over 10" in the course of a year! I guess teens don't really have to imagine. . . Anyway, that was our sweet little family not long before we loaded Lilyanah up & took her home for the first time since she was born! Now that was a good day! Too bad the Seahawks lost. But this year, GO COLTS!

In the next picture she was simply sleeping, (something she did quite often), but I thought it was so cute how her lips were pursed.
The next picture was taken nearly 10 months ago. That was a common scene us resting together! We were two tired girls! Gone are the days when Lilyanah had more hair than me! I'm just excited for her to get more hair than herself when she was a newborn!

The last picture was taken on October 31st, 2006. My very last night of being a 29 year old woman. Oh, how I miss those days! (I'm teasing) But that was a great night & I love this picture because it has all of us in it. Titus trying not to fall asleep at the bottom left. Gideon as close to me as he can get, like always. (As I'm typing he's laying at my feet with his little chin resting on my toes! ) Will, just being the amazing husband he always is & Lilyanah trying to fight getting sleepy by playing with my face. Of course I'm just enjoying being surrounded by 2 of my absolute favorite people & 2 of my absolute favorite dogs. God is good. I hope you all have a great weekend surrounded by those you love! I love you all! ~ Wendy.

Christmas pictures

I finally got some pictures on our computer to post! The first picture I know Gigi will LOVE! She was reading the back of the picture we wrapped for her to open on Christmas Eve. It's of us a couple of minutes after we found out about baby Mathias #2. Her face is priceless & pretty close to mine when I first found out so I couldn't resist posting it. I love you Gigi! Papa & Gigi are vacationing down in Indio, California for the winter. They love their home away from home, we just miss them BIG while they're gone. Just in case any of you in Indio read this, thank you so much for all of your encouragement & support through prayer.

The next picture is Papa with Lilyanah. Boy does our little girl LOVE her Papa! (I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual.) He can always make her smile! Of course that's kinda a funny face she's making in the picture. . . .

Here's our spoiled rotten little girl; or should I say our very LOVED little girl. She's wearing a dress from her Memaw & Pepaw. Her cousin Kaylyn in Lewisville, TX has the exact same dress! Lilyanah never did get into opening her presents this will probably be the only year I can say that! It was neat though to have her stop at every gift & play with the toy for as long as we let her before moving onto the next gift. I wish she'd do that every year but we're not holding our breath! Chances are next year she'll be opening all of our presents!

Christmas Eve we were at Papa & Gigi's for dinner & to open presents & play. All the girls got the same little pajama set & as fate would have it we stayed long enough for their bedtime to come & go so they all got to wear them. I believe my cousin Katie in Oklahoma may describe the scene that followed 'strawberry ruckus'. If you don't know what that means just imagine trying to coordinate an 11 month old, 21 month old & 6 month old!? That's cousin George on the left, Mona, Lilyanah, Hazel & Violet!

I really do have pictures from Lilyanah's birthday & other days. More to look forward to! That's enough for now! I hope you all are having a great day! ~Wendy.