Kyle

Many people have been asking so I thought it was time to give an update on Kyle. He is doing great. Other than the hospitalization with pneumonia the day after Kaleb was born he has had done well this past year. He is a sophomore this year. He is busy with auto mechanics, FFA and this fall, football kept him busy every night. Although he has the OK to play sports and he loves sports, Kyle opted to be the manager again this year for the high school football team. It is a job that is actually a lot of work. He stayed after for practices like the rest of the team, goes to all of the games and worked on the stats after the game and on his own time. He loves keeping up with how the other local teams are doing also. Bedford ended their season last Friday night after making it to the Quarter finals. Kyle still gets to enjoy the Bearcats games that he frequently attends and watches football most every weekend.

Kyle also got his student driver's permit this fall, so he can drive back and forth to school and school events. It has sure made it nice for the baby and I.

We are quickly approaching the 2 year mark since Kyle's heart transplant. It is hard to believe how quickly time has gone and how much he has changed since then. If you look closely in the close up above you can see Kyle is wearing his "Donate Life" bracelet. He doesn't talk about his transplant much but wears his bracelet everyday. I am so proud of him. My once little boy is now turning into a young man!

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He is 5 months old today.
He is taking 61/2 ounces in his bottle about every 4 hours.
He sleeps through the night most of the time.
He is taking cereal twice a day and we started him on some
baby food. Last night he had squash and apples and liked it.
He still fits into a few 6 months but most of his clothes are
9 months now.
He wears size 3 shoes.
He can scoot himself around on his stomach.
He can get up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth and is
occasionally able to move an arm forward.
He is a drooling machine.
He still spits up a lot.
He likes to watch Mickey Mouse Club House in the morning and recognizes the "Hot dog" song.
He likes the song "Wheels on the Bus".
He just started patting his right hand on his leg in repetition this past weekend.
He loves to sit at the table with his family and watch the big kids
interact and talk about what is going on at school.
He likes to watch the dog,"Toby" especially if he is chasing the cats.
He likes to rub his hands in Daddy's beard.
If he is awake he is constantly busy.
He is growing and changing daily and is a perfect fit in our busy family.

Happy Haloween From the Johnson's

Since yesterday was such a nice day we went outside and took some pictures of Kaleb in his Halloween costume. I told the kids and Kenton I thought it would be nice for us to dress up too. I don't want Kaleb to have to dress up and trick or treat alone on Halloween. I want it to be fun for him and think it would be more enjoyable for him if we all got into the spirit. Because of the impromptu of my decision we quickly rummaged through our closets and thanks to our "theater lover", Jessica, we came up with a few things. Hopefully next year we will have a better bunch of costumes. If you don't know what we are I will tell you: I was a football player, Kenton was a hunter (his idea), Kyle was Maverick from Top Gun, and Jess was Lloyd Dobler, from Say Anything. ( I have had to ask several times who that was!)

Kaleb's official First Halloween Photo. I do a little scrapbook for just Halloween. Each of the kids have one that has each Halloween's costume in it.

My sweet little cowboy and me!

Jessica in her Lloyd Dobler costume. Amazing how much fun we had in just a short 45 minutes!

We are off to trick or treat Gramma tonight. Happy Halloween!

My Joy

For the past two weeks Kaleb and I have enjoyed some beautiful fall weather. The older kids are usually busy after school so Kaleb and I have spent some time outside together when I get home from work. Today was cold and windy though so we had to stay in. Hopefully we will get a few more nice days to enjoy!

Senior Year

The days have finally come that I used to think were so far away. Jessica is now in her senior year of high school. It is a busy time and is already going really fast. In August, Jessica got her acceptance letter to Iowa State University. Last spring we decided to start visiting colleges. In April we went to Iowa State and she decided then and there it was the school for her. I offered to go with her to other colleges but she had made up her mind that Iowa State was the one. She is hoping to get into the honors program and for now thinks she will major in business. She is continuing a family tradition as Iowa State is the same school her cousin, Kelly, attended.

I have been way to busy with Kaleb to do much scrapbooking but did find a great idea for senior scrapbooking project from Stacy Julian. As soon as I seen her project I thought it was maybe something I could actually accomplish. Here is the start of my album for Jess.

As Stacy suggested I got a cheap photo album from Walmart. The album goes with the theory that there are 180 days in the school year. This is not completely accurate for seniors but still thought it was a great title. On the divider between pictures I will put questions I have asked Jess and her answers, her class schedule or just journal. I thought it might be neat to
have her write up a bucket list of things she would like to do in her life. I thought it might be fun to look back at that list years later to see how many things on her list she accomplished or still wanted to do. The album is still evolving and my time seems so limited but hopefully come Spring it will be filled up. Wish me luck!

Pumpkin Patch

A couple of weekends ago we went to Longabaugh's Pumpkin Patch. They have a beautiful place and Carla had it decorated with lots of antiques. Although I don't have many, I love antiques. I took along my camera hoping for some great fall shots.

It was a beautiful day.

In these last two we were trying out my new remote control for my camera. It works like a charm and I have a feeling once I get the hang of it it will come in really handy.

After several shots we figured out we were having trouble getting Kaleb to look at the camera, since no one was at the camera.

I won't bore you with all of the shots but I figured out by about the 4th or 5th one it was a lost cause as Kyle was laughing so hard he was barely in the picture anymore and Kaleb was more interested in watching Kyle than getting a fall family picture.
It ended up being a good time though by all of us. As Kaleb gets older I am sure we will make more visit to the pumpkin patch with lots of photo opportunities yet to come.

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I can't believe it has already been a month since my last post. Time is flying by. I have been so busy I don't know where the month of September went. I have a lot of post and pictures I would like to add but as it is already the 2nd I have to first post about Kaleb.
He is 4 months old today.
He weighed 15 lbs. and 8 oz. at his doctor visit on Monday.
He was 25 1/2 inches long.
He is taking 6 oz. in his bottles now, about every 4 hours.
He still gets up for a bottle at night between 2:00-3:00 a.m.
He gets a little cereal twice a day.
He wears size 6-9 months but is getting too long for many of them.
He wears size 2 shoes.
He can shake his head "no".
He can roll over from his stomach to his back and also from his back to his stomach.
He really doesn't have a favorite toy right now but is starting to enjoy Mommy reading to him.
Last weekend he went for his first trip to the pumpkin patch, where the photo above was taken.
I'll have more pictures to post of all of us from there after I finish getting them edited.