Chan's Video

 

Steve, Grandma & Pat come to visit!

 

Great Photos from October!

Quick Matt Update

Just a quick update to let everyone know that Matt came through surgery OK. The tumor was the size of a ping-pong ball. The Dr figures it's been growing for 5-6 years. Matt will be in the hospital for a few days and as of right now is feeling pretty terrible.

I will update more when I have some more time. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers!

SHE COULD GO ALL THE WAY!

This just in!

Kayleigh's first quarter as a 6th grader ends on Monday, October 27th. Her school has an awesome parent network that allows us to see all her graded assignments and her current grade. She had a little bit of a rough start to the quarter, but as of today, October 15th, she has Straight A's in every subject!!! In reading she has a 98%!

Whooo Hoooo! GO KAYLEIGH! We are so proud of you!!!

Matt Update & Kayleigh Funny

FINALLY!!! Matt will be going in for surgery on October 23rd (Happy Birthday to me!). He felt bad about scheduling it the day after my Birthday, but I can think of no better gift then to have my husband healthy!

There is some interesting information on the web about his condition. If you go to this site: Parathyroid.com you can even watch a video of the same type of procedure Matt will be having. They have to make an incision right in the middle of his neck. Yikes!

Our biggest challenge now is keeping him healthy. We had some pretty big scares over the past few weeks with a bacterial infection that go into his glands, then a simple cold that turned into bronchitis or pneumonia. All from Kayleigh coming home with the sniffles! His immune system is so weak he does not have the ability to fight off anything.

As for Kayleigh, she is wonderful as usual. She's adjusting to middle school beautifully and is thinking about joining a few clubs now that she's more acclimated. Here is a picture of her on her first day:




Here's a funny Kayleigh story: About two weeks ago, Matt and I were in the living room and Kayleigh quietly came up to me and asked if she could speak to me in the bathroom. She looked like she was on the verge of tears, and she was scared out of her mind. When we got into the bathroom, she had a complete melt-down. She said, "I don't know why I'm crying! I know that this is no big deal, and I'm going to be OK..."

So here I am running through all the possible scenarios of what could possibly be wrong with her, and I think... She's 11. She put on 10 lbs over the summer. How old was I when I, well, you know...

She calms herself down. Sits on the edge of the tub. Pulls off her sock and says, "I have an in-grown toe-nail and it REALLY hurts!"

All I can say is "THANK GOD FOR IN-GROWN TOE-NAILS!!!" Whew!

Soooooo Behind on updates!

We're in September already!?!?

Here's a quick update on '08:

January

I ended '07 super sick with a sinus infection and infections in both ears. Kayle was in IL for Xmas this year, so that worked out OK. She came back a little earlier and we got to go to Disney for New Years. We had a BLAST!!!

Click here to see the pictures!

February

Matt broke out with severe psoriasis due to a newer biologic the dermatologist put him on called Raptiva. They finally decided to switch him to Enbrel, so we're hoping that one is better for him.

March

Kayleigh's school had a sock-hop. She looked SO cute! We met up with her cousins at the school. The following weekend was Baylea's birthday. She had a luau! When Kayle got dressed up for it, Matt decided it was time to start cleaning his gun! We also took the BEST blackmail picture of Matt's brother-in-law to date! The link below has the pictures.

Matt took me to the Dodge SRT8 Track Experience. WE HAD A BLAST!!! It came with the purchase of my car, and it's basically a full day of driving and racing in Dodges SRT model vehicles. There were 4 different events, one of which was drag-racing. You'd never guess who kicked every one's butt.... ME! I only lost 1 race out of 20. Matt got 4th in the autocross and he had so much fun, 3 days later he went back and took his Dad for his birthday! That day he got 2nd in the autocross event. Go baby!!!

Click here to see the pictures!


April

I pretty much don't remember April... Did we have April this year??? WAIT! I REMEMBER! I had lasik done! I no longer wear glasses or contacts. Yay me!

May

I started a project at my work for Locks-of-Love. I had always wanted to do something, but with a sometimes crazy travel schedule and a family, volunteering is not easy. I wanted to do something that my co-workers could get involved with too, so I set a goal for us to donate 2008 inches of hair to Locks-of-Love. I created a blog to track our progress. I then cut 12" of my own hair for the cause. To see the pictures and the video visit my blog at: http://hair2spare.blogspot.com/ . If you know anyone that would be willing to help our cause PLEASE send them my way!

Kayleigh also started riding lessons! In the link below you can see pictures of her with "Captain Underpants" aka, Chester.

Click here to see the pictures!

June

Kayleigh graduated 5th grade with straight A's, and had a Hawaiian Birthday party.

Matt still wasn't getting better, so more visits to the doctor were scheduled this month. Through several reviews of blood tests, the doctors found that Matt's blood-calcium levels were too high.

Click here to see the pictures!

July

What a BUSY month!!! It turned out that Matt didn't have psoriasis as much as he had dermatitis. It was also determined that he has a tumor in his left parathyroid gland that is throwing everything off. Though our cruise was scheduled, for a while there, we thought we might have to cancel the trip. The doctors gave us the "OK" to go just 1 day before our flight left.

Kayleigh came home, and Pam and Rach came to visit on the same day! I was so glad we were able to spend time with them. The whole family got together for a cookout. We also went to Red Rock and took some amazing pictures, and Rach and Kayle had a blast swimming.

Click here to see the pictures!

Our Cruise

We took our first cruise! It was a Western exotic Caribbean cruise to Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Belize & Honduras. It was a little on the cheesy side, but all-in-all we had a great time. What was best about it was that we forgot about everything. I had been working 70 hour weeks, and Matt was going to the doctor or having blood tests every other day. It was great to get away.

We took some incredible pictures! Click here to see them.

August

With summer winding down, August was more relaxing. Work slowed down a bit, and Matt's doctor's appointments did too. At this point, we are still waiting for the surgery to be scheduled, but we're hoping that will happen during the 2nd week in September after he sees the Endocrinologist.

Kayleigh's friend, Paige, came to visit and they had a great time.

Click here to see the pictures!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

We did not get around to sending out Christmas cards this year, but making our first music video was A LOT of fun!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1634538324

Happy Holidays!!!!

How Well do you know Christmas Carols?

I got this one from Chan - I got 5 wrong. She only got 2 wrong!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/carolquiz,0,7827105,post.triviaquiz

Stuck in the house....

This is what happens in TX when it rains a lot and you start getting creative...

Avah Lorraine Burkinshaw - November 5th

I have some happy news to share! On November 5th, Gareth and Irma gave birth to a beautiful baby girl! Below is the picture they sent me - but soon they will be getting their own Baby Blog, so watch out for that!

Veteran's Day at Mt Charleston

Kayle had two days off for Veteran's day this year and I took the same days off work. Matt had the best idea - and we went up to Mt. Charleston to have an early dinner and watch the sunset. I am amazed every time we go there. I just can not beleive that this beautiful place is only 45 minutes from our door. It was 80 degrees at our house, and 52 degrees up on the Mountain.

When we got up there, the first place we stopped at was the Hotel where we got married. They have completely redesigned the place, especially in the front! If you have not seen it in a while, check out their website! It's crazy! Here's the link: http://mtcharlestonhotel.com/index.bv

Here are a few cool pictures from our trip:

They moved the seating area to a new spot where they built a deck

Me and my honey standing on the same aisle we walked down together a few years ago

It was chilly up there!

What a stud! He's SO James Dean!

Matt and Kayle snuggling together to keep warm

Here is Kayle in front of Mummy Mountain

The sunset - taken from the over-look at the top lodge

Halloween 2007

Let me start by saying that Halloween on our street was TOTALLY LAME!!! Every year we go all out and decorate our garage. We have a great time doing this and normally get at least 100 trick-o-treaters. We discovered this year the down-fall to living on a cul-de-sac. No one comes down here! All that being said, we still had some great family time.

Here are some pictures from our pumpkin carving night the weekend before:

Such concentration!!!

Here is our finished product: Mine is the first one on the left, then Matt's, then Kayle's on the right.

Here are some pictures of us playing with dry ice - that stuff is CRAZY!!!

Here is our attempt at setting a cool scene in the backyard with dry ice and our pumpkins:

Here is Kayle making us dinner:

Hahahaha! Just kidding!

Here is a picture of our awesomely decorated garage:

Here are some pictures of us goofing around:

Do I look like my Brother in this picture below, or what???

The Harvest Festival at Kayle's School

Every year, Kayleigh's school has a wonderful harvest festival. There's games, and face painting, hair coloring, a haunted house, a DJ and lots of food. We had an awesome time! Here is a picture with Kayle and some of her friends from school:

The best part of the night was when Kayle and her friends were dancing and singing along with the DJ. I was able to sneak up and catch them in the act. This video is hysterical!

I gave Kayleigh and her friends such a hard time and told them I would be publishing their music video on the internet. They were all mortified! Hahahahaha!

My Birthday (October 22nd)

I had an awesome birthday this year! I took the day off of work - which was great all by itself! When I woke up, Matt and Kayle had made me a cake and we ate it for breakfast because we had plans for a big family dinner that night at the Melting Pot - YUM!

Here's my cake:

After we had cake, I got to open my presents!!! They spent 2 hours the night before wrapping them up - they did a great job!

Here's my Birthday haul: I got a fishing game for the wii - SO much fun! I got the new iPod Nano - SOOOO cool! Matt had it engraved for me too. I cried! I also got fuzzy Crocs! Holy Moly they are comfortable!

Here's me and Kayle being silly after our sugar rush and opening presents!


Finally, here's the whole group (minus Jim because he took the picture) at the Melting Pot. I have to say I think this was the best time we ever had at the Melting pot! We tried new things this time and it was awesome!!!



I also wanted to say that I really missed some important friends and family on my Birthday - Huge thank you's to Chan and Dave for the funny B-day card, to Mom and Dad Mildren for the Card and check (I bought new jeans!), and to Steve and Sara for covering my butt... I got an Old Navy gift card and bought new undees... Hahahahahaha!!!! TMI, right???

Poor Kitty! (October 15th)

It's OK! She's all better now, but we had quite a scare with her in October. Matt woke up one morning, and she hadn't moved all night and she was really feverish! I noticed she was flicking her paw and when I looked at it, it was HUGE! Matt took her to the vet and they said it was some kind of infection. They lanced it and drained it, then put this crazy orange bandage on her. She was miserable! We took it off that night before bed and she was like a whole different cat! She was running around and playing and the swelling had gone way down. She had to be on Antibiotics for 7 days.

Here she is with her bandage - such a cute picture!

She was fine for a couple of weeks, then she got sick AGAIN! We woke up on Halloween and she was really lethargic. This time her breath was really stinky and she was swollowing her food whole without chewing. We were certain she had Feline Luekemia, which is the #1 killer in cats. When he got to the vet, they took her in back to test her. While he was waiting, they put up a sign that said, "No cats today - Feline Leukemia." I was at home trying to work. I had conference calls and I had to keep muting my line because I was balling!

Oddly enough, all the tests came back negative! They gave us more antibiotics and some mouthwash because her gums were infected. Ever tried to give a cat mouthwash? It's a real blast, let me tell ya! The next day we were trying to give her medicine when something fell out of her mouth. It was a baby tooth! Later that night I stepped on another one that was on the floor. I did a little research and found that at her age, cats are loosing the last of their baby teeth and it can cause gum infections, bad breath, etc. I can't tell you how angry I was with the vet! Anyway, she seems to be doing much better now.

Mom & Dad's visit

Matt's parents came to visit a couple weeks ago. We had a great time with them and took some really good photos of the family together the night before they left:

I love this picture. It represents 4 generations.



Here's one with just the girls!


Here's the whole gang!


The picture is slightly crooked not because some drunk person is holding the camera, but because we set the timer and it was balancing on our sofa!

My Awesome Husband...

Matt's sister Martel has started her own business. Don't ask me exactly what she does becuase I do not entirely understand it, but what I do know, is that Matt pulled together a kick butt website for her this week in about 8 hours!

Check it out!

http://www.nvduo.com/

My Husband ROCKS! ;-)

Guitar Hero II

Matt's nephew Jon loaned us a game a couple weeks ago. We all got addicted to it really quickly! We even had a Guitar Hero party with our friends Dave, Sheri and Hailey - everyone got into it!







Hailey's face is classic! She got SO stressed out trying to keep up with the notes!






Kayle is doing so well she's already moving up levels! You would not believe how cute she is when she's rocking out and playing. In fact, she's so cute, I'm uploading my first video ever so you can see how adorable she is! The song she's playing was a tough one and this is the first time she made it through the whole thing - she was so proud of herself! Enjoy:

More Pictures of Roxy

If you've seen Kayleigh's Blog, you already know we rescued a Kitten on Saturday. She's been an absolute dream and hearing Kayleigh laugh when she's playing with her is priceless. She's 5 months old and so far is adapting very well to her new home.