Our Little Soccer Star!

We decided to sign Addison up for soccer this season. She has practices on Thursdays down the street from us. And she has the cutest coach (that would be her daddy, by the way)! At the YMCA meeting, no one volunteered to be the Head coach for the team and for some reason, people looked at Kevin like he would be a great guy for the job! I have to say, I am proud of him for taking on the commitment and I know Addison is proud that her daddy is out there with her!

We were both a little concerned how she would do with soccer since she has never played a team sport and is a pretty shy, non-aggressive girl. But to our surprise, she has done great! She is participating, keeping up with everyone, and getting right in there with her team!

At her game, she started out really strong and seemed to be loving it! After a while, she asked to go out of the game – I think was just getting so worn out because it felt like a million degrees out there! Obviously, that is to be expected and worked out fine considering all the girls have to take turns playing during the game. We are so proud of how well she did and her team even won their first game! GO SHARKS!

Cooper was there and wanted to get right in the game with the girls.  I kept reminding him that he can't play on the girls team and he has to be 4 years old.  After a while of being out there, he said, "Mommy, I want to go home!"  And I thought, "We have to get used to this, buddy.  This is the first of many games that we will be attending, either with Addison playing or Cooper playing!"

Takin' care of business

I have to say that I am very proud of my little buddy, Cooper. I am pleasantly surprised that I can say that he is potty trained now! He is still wearing diapers / pull ups at night and at naptime for now, but that may not be too much longer! We are still at the point where we ask him if he needs to go potty and his response usually is “I already went potty!” even if it was hours before. 

Notice his aim is a little off!

Otherwise, it is Super Coop that is letting us know when he needs to go! I always thought boys were suppose to be harder than girls to potty train, but that doesn’t seem to be the situation we have. I remember Addison was 2 months shy of her 3rd birthday before she was fully potty trained, including night time. All kids are different, so I guess only time will tell. But I can say, I am ready for NO MORE DIAPERS! :)  Yay for COOPER!!!

His teachers have been working on the potty training with him since he got into this classroom in May or June. It took him a bit to catch on, but now, the teachers say that he is teaching the other boys in the room how to take care of business! They have been a huge help in the process.

We are so lucky that he has great teachers, especially Ms. Marcella. She is just a wonderful teacher that I am so glad that both my kids have had! She and Ms. Vanessa work really hard to make the classroom a fun environment, but they are truly learning lots of things. They don’t just sit around and babysit…they take the opportunity to really teach the kids, even at the difficult age of 2!

Kevin's stroke

Most of you know that Kevin suffered a stroke on Tuesday, Aug 17th at 9:45pm.  He was having back problems leading up to this and that night, he got up and his back tightened up which caused tons on pain and he went to his knee and then rolled onto his back.  I was walking a few steps ahead of him and turned to find him on the ground.  I immediately went to him saying, "What's wrong?  What happened?  Why are you on the ground?"  I have to say, at first I thought he was kidding with me.  He was rolling around on the ground and making noises and trying to say something.  He looked toward me and that's when it hit me that his face was not moving on the left side.  He tried to smile and his left side stayed in one place while the right moved as normal.  He got off the ground and I got him into the bathroom and continued to ask him "What's wrong?  What are you doing to your face?  Are you playing around with me?"  He was still slurring and not saying much.  I saw him try to pick up his toothbrush and realized he had no control of his left hand.  I called my parents frantically, assuming that Kevin would stop me if he was really playing a horrible joke on me.  He obviously didn't stop me and I began telling my mom what was happening.  I got off the phone with her and called 911 and then our neighbor to ask them to come stay with the kids while they slept. 

The ambulance (and fire truck and police officers) arrived a few minutes later and Kevin was evaluated at the house and soon transferred by ambulance to West Houston Medical Center, which I had never even heard of before this.  They immediately took him for a CAT scan which showed he was not bleeding in his brain.  After they evaluated him, they also concluded that it was a stroke.  He was a good candidate for tPA, which is a medicine that has been shown to reverse the symptoms of a stroke if taken within 3-4 hours of episode, as long as you are not on blood thinners, young, and mostly good health.  Because the side effects did include the possibility of him "bleeding out", it was a scary time while the administered it. 

Kevin was then transferred to Ben Taub by helicopter where he was for a week while they performed lots of tests, exams, x-rays, etc.  Besides the stroke being confirmed by the MRI, the Echo and TEE tests revealed that Kevin has a PFO (small hole in the heart that is present in ~15% of people) and a slightly enlarged right lower ventricle. This is not the reason for the stroke, but could have allowed the blood clot that probably formed in his legs to shoot up to the right side of his heart, move through the PFO to the left side and not get filtered through the lungs like it typically would. Instead it went to the right side of his brain, where the stroke occurred, causing the temporary paralysis on his left side. But, when you see him or talk to him now, you would not know that he had suffered a stroke! We are so thankful!



Things could have been so much worse. I realized this week that I was supposed to be out of town on business from 8/16-18, but because the event that I was attending was cancelled due to the tragedy in the Gulf, I was at home that night right where I was suppose to be…to take care of my husband and get help. Because Kevin got to the hospital quickly and was treated with tPA within the 3-4 hour window, it looks like he has no lasting side effects from the stroke. We are waiting for some blood tests and over the next few weeks/months, we will be getting more opinions from different Stroke specialists in Houston - we will be talking to Neurologists and Cardiologists.

Kevin is already back at work, taking it a little easy. He is on baby Asprin and a cholesterol medicine (even though he has cholesterol to be “envious” of according to the doctors) to help lower the risk of another stroke. We are being sensitive at this point to anything he is feeling, whether it’s a headache or light-headed. But overall, we are so pleased with where he is today…God was definitely watching over him and had a hand in all of this.

Kevin and I wanted to express our thanks to all of you for your prayers, love, concern, and support that you have given our family over the last 10 days. We knew that we were blessed prior to Kevin’s stroke, but it’s even more evident today. It's been overwhelming - all the prayers, visits, calls, texts, voice mails, emails, offers to help, meals, cards, flowers, etc is so much appreciated. Thanks to you all, I could be at the hospital with Kevin while our sweet kids, house, dogs, etc were being taken care of. Really, we couldn’t have made it through this scary time without you.

Hot days of summer!

What's just about the best thing that could happen when the kids are helping us wash the cars, playing with toys in the sprinklers, and sweating on a really HOT, summer day?

The ice cream man makes a swing through our neighborhood!

It made their day!

Growing up before my eyes...

Lately, I have realized how FAST my babies are growing up…they have been doing some pretty great things lately to remind me too!


Addison can now be considered a SWIMMER! In the last month, she has improved drastically – it just blows me away. She can swim from the steps in my parents’ pool to the other side without help. She is even coming up for breaths along the way!

Cooper is now officially paci FREE! He has not had a paci anytime since July 25th! Before that, it was only at bedtime and naptime at home (not at naptime at school for months). But now, we told him that we had to give it away to baby Parker (even though he doesn’t take pacis either!) and big boys don’t take pacifiers. The first few nights were a little rough for all of us, but after 3-4 nights, there were no more tears. I have to say that I am a little concerned at what it has done to his teeth – we will find out more at his first dentist appointment at the end of August.

Addison is really getting into a game that we have started playing – the rhyming game. She loves for us to say a word and then she comes up with at least one rhyming word. She is very good at it and it’s something that we can play anywhere! She also surprised me the other night while we were watching “So you think you can dance” and said, “Mommy, doesn’t that say Fox?” as she pointed toward the T.V. Sure enough, we were watching the Fox network and on the bottom of the screen, it said FOX. I know that she knows all the letters and how to spell a couple words, but I thought this was great!

Cooper is getting closer to being potty trained! He is wearing “chumpies” all day at school, except naptime. He usually has a couple of accidents a week still, but in the last few days when I pick him up at school, he is wearing the same clothes that we sent him in! At home on the weekends, we need to start working on it more. During the week after school, we keep him in underwear and he goes potty (“tee tee potty” and “makes bubbles” as he says). But on the weekends, we are always on the go, so it’s a little harder. He also went #2 on the potty for the first time at home last night!!! I plan to get more serious about the potty training very soon! Before you know it, we will have a diaper free household – that will be a great day! :)

2nd Annual Addi Adventure & 1st Annual Cooper Camp

Kevin's parents, aka KK and G-Pa, have made it a point to spend some extra special time with both the kids. Since KK is a teacher and off in the summer, it makes since that they do it at that time. This year, Addison went for four days and those days were packed with fun stuff! Kevin and Addison met KK and G-Pa in Waco and she went onto Dallas with them. The first afternoon, they got pedicures/manicures, went fishing, built a huge tent in the living room, and had a movie night watching "Up". They had a special snack at movie night - popcorn, pretzels, and M&M's in a bowl...you can bet which one Addi was going after the most!

On Monday, they went to Six Flags! This year, Addi really wasn't interested in the "kiddie" rides and she was tall enough to do some of the other things. KK said there were a few times that she was glad that she was busy taking pictures so she didn't have to notice how high up they were - but Miss Addi was so brave and didn't seem to mind at all!

Addison also did some swimming while she was there. G-Pa must have taught her a thing or two about fishing too - I think she caught 2 small fish and 1 good size fish! Pretty impressive!
They also went to see Toy Story 3 at the movie theatre. I heard from a few people that it is kind of sad and even scary in some parts, but she really liked it. She actually HAD to have the Toy Story 3 cereal that she saw at the grocery store the other day!

Addison brought Samantha (her American Girl doll) to Dallas. She got to bring Samantha to the American Girl Doll salon to get her hair done. Apparently, they are very particular about how it is suppose to be and how you should take care of it at home (which I knew nothing about)!

From most of these pictures, you would have thought that she was there for one day considering she is wearing her Hello Kitty t-shirt in almost every picture! I promise I sent at least 4-5 outfits with her! Since she wanted to wear it EVERY DAY, KK and G-Pa took the time to wash it every night for her! Only something that a grandparent would do!!! :) I thought that was too cute!


Cooperman participated in his 1st Annual Cooper Camp from Thursday until Saturday in Dallas. He played a lot of baseball, which he is really into these days.

He even got to go to Six Flags with KK and G-Pa. This picture of him below makes me smile - he is strutting his stuff down the street like he owns the place!


They went to play at the park for a while - this boy loves to be outside! He took a dip in the pool a few times with KK. That's the best way to beat the heat after a long day in the sun!


Cooper also got to play at Chuck E. Cheese. Here he is trying to play Guitar Hero - this is another great picture that completely represents something else he is into now - guitars! Our little dude loves to jam!

We are blessed to have very fun, caring grandparents for our kids who love to be involved and make them feel special. Not only did the kids have a great time while they visited KK and G-Pa in Dallas, but we had some time to be with the other child at home for one-on-one time too. Thanks again KK and G-Pa for making the 2nd Annual Addi Adventure and 1st Annual Cooper Camp a big hit! We love you!

Take me out to the ballgame!

Even while the Astros haven't had their best season, it's always fun to go to a game. The kids could care less if they win or loose, so why not go for some summer fun?

My parents and some of their friends have season tickets to the games and since not everyone could go this time, they invited us along.

Nana and her two youngest grandbabies!

Cooper had a hard time sitting down and watching the game for long, but he did much better than I expected considering it started at 6pm. Surprisingly, we were able to stay for the entire game which ended at 8:30! He was occupied for a while when he got to have popcorn to snack on!

We played the St. Louis Cardinals (rivals for us since most of our extended family lives in St. Louis) and we won!

Addi and Grandad cheering on the Astros!

On this particular day, we also went to Katelynn's Astros birthday party at the stadium in the afternoon too! We were able to see some of the behind the scenes things at the stadium which was interesting for all of us. Too bad I didn't get any pictures from the party!