New Videos!

There are now 6 new videos posted at the very bottom of our homepage. I don't know if you will enjoy them as much as I do but I wanted to put them on here anyway! Thanks for checking us out every now and then. And feel free to leave a comment or two once in a while...it would make me feel like there was somebody other than myself reading this stuff!!

A nice walk

Today we enjoyed a nice walk outside. It never got scorching hot today so we were outside most of the day. We started off the morning with a walk to daddy's office. Kezzie wasn't awake when Brian left for work so I told him when she got up we would walk to the office to see him. She refused to look at the camera at first but then I tricked her and snapped a clueless kind of look. She is becoming quite the stinker when it comes to the camera! Austin always likes to ride his bike as opposed to walking so he was keeping Kezzie entertained with his tricks! Sometimes he would disappear and then zoom past her. She laughs so hard when he does that!

Recker Home Visit!

Aside from Keith needing to go back to work and me being worried about Jamie home alone with a 'sewn up' stomach and newborn, I just couldn't stay away. I just love that Jamie is home and I can see baby Rylan pretty much whenever I want!! So here we are again today, already. A couple of photos were from when we stopped there on Sunday after they had gotten home.

20 MONTHS!!!

I opted to do some jammie pictures since I haven't done that in a while. Those were done on the 23rd but the purple outfit was the next morning. I couldn't resist how cute she looked in her pig tails!

Now, where do I even begin with the changes that Kezzie is making...first of all she isn't sleeping as much. She goes to bed anywhere between 7:30 and 8:30 (usually on the later side) and wakes between 6:15 and 7am (usually on the earlier side). She still lays down for a nap around 12:30 and wakes between 2 and 3 (rarely later, but sometimes). I am trying to get her to learn that I am not going to rush in the second she makes a peep in the morning. She does pretty well with this and actually has fallen back to sleep a couple times. I really think sleeping without her paci is still something she is getting used to and that she will eventually go back to her regular schedule. The look you see in the middle picture is pretty much the one we always see anymore. I don't know what it is but she will usually stick the frowning eyebrows in there with the stuck out lips right before she cracks a big smile. It's her new expression. Kezzie is doing great without the paci and sometimes doesn't even require giving it a kiss good night anymore! She still asks for it several times a day but usually when I tell her she doesn't need it because she is a big girl she doesn't bring it up again for a while. I have noticed she is becoming very attached to her blankie though (we still mostly only let her have it in bed). And I noticed she has found a new way of getting comfort out of it. Besides sniffing the taggies around the edges she now likes to stick the triangular shaped one up her nose and leave it there to sniff continuously (this just may fit under my 'quarks about Kezzie' category!). Kezzie is still doing well with potty, although there have been more accidents as I gradually let her take over the telling me when she needs to go. It typically happens when we are doing something fun and she doesn't want to take time to go to the bathroom. She is still saturating her diaper at night most nights so I think this part of it all is a long way off. Night time is when she drinks most of her water too so that will be our next habit to break!

Kezzie is very much into gathering things that belong together/match. She likes to stack things and make piles. Recently she has taken a new interest in her baby and stroller. She seems to stroll her baby everywhere in the house and frequently takes it out to give it 'tisses' (kisses) and 'ugs' (hugs).

Also, almost this whole month we have been trying to get rid of some type of yeast on Kezzie's face. She struggled with this 'rash' type thing for several weeks before we decided it wasn't going to get better on its own. After taking her to the doc she prescribed a simple diaper rash cream and finally after 2.5 weeks it is almost all gone!

Kezzie is doing AWSOME with colors. I didn't realize how much she was catching on to this but we talk about colors a lot. Upon picking her one skittle she gets for going potty Brian asked her which one she wanted and she said 'lellow' and grabbed for the yellow one. Also while eating Applebee's she was coloring with crayons and handed me each color while saying them (red, blue and yellow). I am amazed at how that girl learns!

Her favorite character is Elmo, without a doubt! She LOVES Elmo's world.

Kezzie has taken a huge interest in the alphabet and even though she can say hardly any of the letters, you can tell she is trying to sing the song. It's adorable. Same with numbers. She is getting better at saying numbers but mostly you can just tell she is numbering things off by the tone in her voice. She tries to count anything that is in a group. She is going to like numbers like her daddy!

Quarks about Kezzie: she is obsessed with cleaning her feet. If given a rag/wet wipe to wipe her face or hands she will immediately go for the toes and wash them (she still LOVES sniffing wet wipes, btw!). Kezzie is also obsessed with closing doors and gates behind her. Every time we head upstairs she has to close the gate behind her and when we reach the top, again she has to close the gate behind her. Same with the bathroom door when she is done going potty.

I know this post is really long but I don't want to forget a thing. I am sure I will add things over the next couple days as I am reminded of them!!

The Recker Family

Here they are...the official Recker family! I can't believe this is my little sis!

Another Hospital Visit!

We should know it is impossible to stay away when we are a mere 40 minutes away from Waverly. So here we are again on our millionth trip to the hospital. This time we happened to be there when my oldest sister and her husband and son were there. Gavin just turned four. He's the one sitting next to Kezzie on the couch. And I just LOVE the picture of me and my kids with their newest cousin! And I gotta say...Brian looks pretty handy at his skills holding a newborn!

20 weeks and Ultrasound!

We have already hit the half way point. I can't believe how fast it's going. I think that is partly because I have been looking forward to the arrival of my new nephew and not focusing on my pregnancy! Either way I am really looking forward to getting through the second half of my pregnancy. In the last two weeks I have been really feeling the baby move a lot. If I could get Brian's hand in the right position and get him to sit patiently for long enough he would be able to feel it too. For the first time I felt the baby have hiccups just a few nights ago. It was so cute! I feel most of the movement when I am laying still before falling asleep. Although as the baby grows and kicks harder I am feeling it throughout the day as well. I continue to have very tender ligaments in my stomach but it is getting better. My biggest problem is a pinched nerve in my left lower tailbone/hip. It is excruciating and can be very immobilizing! Some days it is non-existent but other days I can't do much of anything. I remember having this problem with Kezzie but it was much later in the pregnancy...I guess I may have to invest in a chiropractor visit or two! ULTRASOUND INFO...
Still due December 8th.
Everything is perfect and growing great. Looks very good.
Kezzie is excited to announce she is going to have a baby SISTER!!
Austin is not so excited...he'll get over it!
My uterus measured right on and the doc said the baby's heart rate was 154.
We couldn't feel more blessed to have another healthy baby (not two or more-just one!) on the way to add to the mix of our families!
Picture one is showing it's a girl, next is her legs so cutely bunched up together.


This is just a side profile (head and upper body), last is a picture of her foot...pretty cute I must say!

Proud to announce...

Baby BOY....
Rylan Donald Recker
Born at 9:47 am 7.23.09
7lbs. 15.5oz.
20.5 inches

Jamie went in to be induced this morning after meeting with the doctor yesterday and the doctor expressing some concerns that the baby was getting too big. Jamie and Keith were there by 6am and after starting some meds they could tell the baby wasn't going to handle the contractions well. Its heart rate would drop and then take too long to recover, plus a look at the placenta showed it was deteriorating and not supplying enough oxygen to the baby. So with all that going on, a c-section was in order. Enjoy the pictures of our newest wonder!

I have to make note how Kezzie reacted since in a few short months we will be bringing home our own bundle of joy...We walked in and there were a couple nurses present monitoring Jamie. I think that kind of scared Kezzie but mostly I think her reaction came if the baby and Jamie were in view. She was a shaking mess. I was holding her the whole time and trying to get her up close to see the baby and her whole body would shake the minute Jamie and the baby were in sight. I don't know if she didn't like seeing Jamie in the hospital bed or if she was anxious about seeing the baby, but it took her a long time to warm up. If I was standing, she would immediately start saying "chair, chair" to get me to sit back down with her and when I would sit she would then bury her head on my shoulder and just lay there. Regardless of what the reasoning was behind it, I was shocked at her reaction! I think she is over it now since ALL she is talking about is "baby, mamie (Jamie) and Keith"!

Battle Won?!!

Last Friday I took the kids to the dentist. I normally wouldn't have had Kezzie checked so early but since I had a concern with some extra tissue between her two front teeth I decided to have her seen when Austin was. The dentist really stuck it to me and made me feel like a horrible mother. He said her pallet was very deep and the cause of this was her paci (even though for months now she has only been allowed to have it in her bed). He said also that the paci was keeping her two front teeth from coming together and that the tissue was growing in between as a result. He also went on to make it clear that he did not believe me that I brush her teeth twice a day religiously (probably because Austin was there getting a cavity filled). He must just think I don't care about my kids' teeth at all. With all that being said, we are now brushing three times a day and working on breaking her paci habit. Saturday (7/18) was our first attempt at doing so before remembering Sunday was going to be a busy day and she would be napping at my parents' house (and we didn't want to have her 'crying it out' with our whole family there to hear it). Before thinking that all through we laid her down in her crib after warning her that nap time was going to be without a paci, I just quietly removed the pacifier from her room. I think this caused a lot of problems for her because she just kept looking for it in her bed (I did tell her it wasn't there but I don't think she understood that). She cried for a half hour straight before we gave in and gave it to her. We decided Monday was going to be a much better day to start it anyway. 7/20 Monday at nap time I put Kezzie in her crib and showed her her paci. I told her to say good night to it and give it a kiss and then she watched me put it in her dresser drawer. She was asleep within 15 minutes. A miracle!! I think mentally she just had to know it wasn't in reach and that she just needed to go to sleep. She only slept an hour though compared to her normal 2.5/3 hours on a paci day :( Monday night she did fantastic also. Again, we had her give her paci a kiss (which ended up being more like six kisses) and then we 'put it to bed' in the dresser drawer. She didn't even cry or mention it. She talked herself to sleep like usual and slept until 3:45am. I went in her room, she told me she needed to go potty, she gave her paci a kiss, and went right back to sleep. She woke at her regular time in the morning (7ish). I was shocked she only woke once the entire night! I think we could call this battle won, don't you?!! I told the dentist that taking her paci away from her was going to be 10 times harder then potty training her. He didn't think that was very funny! And before talking to him, I honestly wasn't even considering taking her paci away from her because of how much she was addicted to it. It has turned out to be much easier then I thought though. Kezzie is handling it like such a big girl. You can see it in her face when she 'puts her paci to bed' that she wants to cry but she just sucks it up! And every time she goes to give it a kiss she opens wide and tries to maneuver her head to 'accidentally' get a couple sucks. It makes me kind of sad too because her paci was the last babyish thing about her. I can't believe how fast she is growing up!

Sibling Love

We sometimes get a wild hair and decide to set up the tent in the middle of the living room. It always makes for some cute brother/sister pictures. Kezzie loves hanging out with Austin in there especially when there are tons of blankets and pillows to bounce around on. This is one of their more mellow moments. We set up the portable DVD player and put in Elmo since Austin can be mildly entertained by Elmo and Kezzie won't sit for anything he would want to watch. I just think it's the best when they are hanging out together and getting along!

The Falls Swimming Pool

7/11 After I picked Austin up at the church we had plans to meet Emily, Ethan and Jamie at the Cedar Falls swimming pool for some fun. We haven't had a chance to get to a water park this summer and although this is the town swimming pool, it is definitely a step up from our town pool. There are a few cool water slides, a lazy river, a kiddie area and a larger big kid area where you can play basketball. We spent most of our time in the kiddie area which also consisted of a splash pad, a slide, and a play gym type thing. Keziah absolutely loved the kiddie slide and could have spent all day just on that. I might have let her if she didn't need my assistance going up the ladder and a hand going down the slide. Austin and Ethan had fun together and Kezzie and Ethan had their moments too! Jamie mostly just relaxed in the sun! You gotta admit she is one of the cutest almost 40 weeks pregnant women you have ever seen?!! We had a good couple of hours there and then went out to eat at Mulligans. To top off the evening we enjoyed some ice cream! It was a great time and a beautiful day spent with my sisters!

Austin is home!

7/11 Austin got a ride home with another camper from our church and I met them at the church to pick him up. That cut almost an hour off my drive so it was a huge blessing to have him ride along with them! Thank-you Ollendiecks! It is great to see Austin! He had so much fun and it sounds like he learned a lot about the Love of Christ. He had almost all the same cabin mates as last year and a lot of his friends were there again this year. I was pretty worried about that. He caught four fish, went swimming, got a spider bite on his foot (it's getting better), and played a lot of games. He is already looking forward to next year again! Here is a picture of Austin by his cabin. I never would have gotten him to let me take this nice of a picture but somehow the other mom managed to get him to! Thanks Lisa! Before Austin left he went outside and cut some flowers from around the house. He said he thought I would either be really happy or mad that he cut my flowers. I was really happy and thought they looked amazing in my house. I got to be reminded of his sweetness the whole time he was away. It was really sweet of him and the card said Love You on the front and inside it said from Austin to mom! He has such a kind heart!

Austin is at Camp!

Austin left for camp today. I am always reminded during these times how big he is getting! I can't believe he is brave enough to go and stay so far away (it's only a couple hours) with complete strangers and have a blast without me! Doesn't he still need his mom?!! Ok, so he does still need me, but just not very much! I am happy to say he is growing up like he should be and off enjoying 3 days of camp, learning about God and making new friends! What an awesome experience for him! Now I am ready for him to come back!

Backyard Fun!

7/6 After a weekend of camping we just couldn't stop all the outdoor fun! We drug out the sprinkler, filled the baby pool, brought out a couple drinks and snacks and spent the rest of the afternoon outside. Austin was with his dad since he missed his dad's weekend to be at the river with me. Even with Austin gone, Kezzie had a blast getting in and out of the pool and playing with the 'dog' (our sprinkler is Clifford the big red dog). She really wanted to go down the slide but it was too hot so I pulled the hose over and sprayed it. She thought that was pretty fun and soon was carrying buckets of water over and dumping them on the slide. The slide cooled off and she definitely needed my hand to guide her down since it was so slippery! And what better way to top off an afternoon of swimming then to play in the sand! I guess it's going to be a bath night!

Weekend of July 4th!

What a blast. We spent a lot of time with family. Brian, Austin, Keziah and I left for the river Friday morning. We arrived in time to eat some lunch and put Kezzie down for a nap. Every time Kezzie needed to take a nap or go to bed she did so well. We had a box fan that we set up in the camper and we would just put it on high to drownd out any noise around her. I brought all her comforts from home and we set up her pack-n-play in the back of mom and dad's camper. She slept so good. Even Saturday, when fireworks were going off all around us, she continued to sleep. I was so amazed at how well she did! Even in the morning with the sun shinning in, she stayed asleep. Both mornings she slept until 7 or 8 am. Sunday morning I rolled over and checked on her (her bed was in between Brian and my bed) and I was just getting comfortable and opened my eyes one last time before dozing off and all the sudden she was there, staring right at me! It was really cute! Austin played a lot with my cousins. My aunt Cindy and Uncle Perry along with their four kids were there also. The oldest, Joshua is 3 years older then Austin and the second oldest, Alicia is just 6 months older then Austin. The three of them along with Josh's younger siblings, get a long really well. They swim, canoe, and dig for shells and creatures. Austin also does a lot of fishing off the dock. I hardly see him when we are there. We do a lot of sitting by the campfire after dark and roasting marshmallows and talking about nonsense! Kezzie spent most of her time digging in the rocks and putting them in buckets or in someones hands. She also found an old squirt gun and got a kick out of squirting people with it. It was easier for her to squeeze the trigger with her thumb though so she often ended up just getting herself in the face! Brian did a lot of relaxing in the chair and reading a magazine. Him and Keith did take a break from 'roughing it' and went to a local bar for a couple drinks. Austin got to go out in the boat with one of my other Uncles (Gary) and they ended up catching a lot of fish. When they got back Gary taught Austin and Joshua how to clean them. I can't believe how much Austin is growing up. I grew up watching my dad clean fish on that same table (see picture) and now my son is doing the same (sniffle sniffle!). We pass the time by going on a lot of walks and just sitting around talking and relaxing. It's so incredible to be there with family and to be able to spend so much time with them. My grandma Smith was up there too but she keeps herself pretty busy doing her own things! On Saturday, it rained in the morning so we all hovered under the canopy of my parents' camper and listened to the rain fall around us. That is until the canopy got a leak in the middle and we had to come up with a solution of stacking some coolers on top of each other and standing a broom on top to make the water run away from the hole (see picture). That's what you do when there isn't a 2x4 anywhere to be found! Kezzie really enjoyed seeing all the boats and water and did a lot of pointing! I would have loved to take her out in the water to swim but it never got quite hot enough! Sunday we woke and ate a big breakfast and started packing things up to go home. Before we got in the car though we went for a quick boat ride. Kezzie hadn't been out in a boat since last year so I wanted to take her out. Dad, mom, Austin, Kez and myself went. Austin and Kezzie loved hanging over the side and sticking their hands in the water. Kezzie sat next to grandma most of the time and I caught a cute picture of her itching her nose because the wind was tickling it! She didn't know what to think of it all but I definitely think we have another camper on our hands! Maybe if I have enough kids we can form an alliance against Brian and go live on the river!! Just kidding! We love you honey...even if you aren't one of us!!