11/15/08- Update from the Spiess Household

Hello Everyone,

Tis the season to give Thanks and this household has lots of thanks to give. We are blessed with two boys whom are doing extremely well.

Next update is going to be a timeline of everything the boys have been doing, but for now we will start with today and .....then highlight some of the past events that went on.

11/15/08...TODAY...

What an awesome weekend so far! Today, we had two birthdays to go to. Originally we were going to send Daddy to the events while mom and J stayed home, but since both events were going to be outside and we wouldn't stay long so we all headed out (late of course)... Well, good ol' Texas weather decided to move the parties inside so we ended up not attending one party really, other than saying Hello and dropping off the gift (daddy running inside real quick). He also does this when we can't stay as mom loves to chat and forgets about time. Then we went to the other party and dropped Tyler and Daddy off while Jackson and mommy headed to the park. WOW what a day. First, Tyler and Daddy had an awesome day socializing and celebrating Addison's 1st birthday while Mom and Jackson found a good place for a picnic -okay an EXCELLENT place for a picnic and then lots of fun. Mom had so much fun she pretty much lost her voice. Mom and J- ran up and down the hill, rolled down the hill, were airplanes and yelling out numbers, ABC's, hide and seek in the trees.....it felt like watching the best football game and cheering so much that you just are on a rush for the rest of the day and of course have very little voice left. We have tons of fun at home and when we do go out but alot of the time mom has to constantly wash Jackson's hands and make sure he doesn't touch certain things so finding this spot was great as she could just let Jackson be a kid and have fun as it was pretty much an open area where Jackson didn't even notice the playground equipment so she didn't have to give an excuse on why we couldn't use it. Then J and mom go to pick up daddy and Tyler and we step in only to say Hello and get the boys. Well, of course mom started to socialize as much as she could with limited voice. It was awesome for mom to see everyone and then to hear about Tyler getting played with when Daddy was there and everyone getting to hold him, etc. It was neat to let Tyler play on the floor with other kids too and be able to let your little one hang out with other kiddos! Jackson loved playing out back with Daddy on a trampoline while Tyler and mom were inside. Jackson decided he needed to use the wakeboard to practice jumps???? Boy they grow up so fast don't they.... Needless to say we ended up staying a little longer than expected but that was okay. Now we are still going strong around 7:50 p.m. at night and having lots of fun. We decided we will go back to this park even though it is a good 45 minute drive, but well worth it.

Update on Mr. T...

Wow, Tyler is getting so big so fast...our little man is now up to 20lbs and army crawling...He will be 7 months in 2 days. He babbles and definitely lets you know what he wants.

Tyler's personality to sum it up is : JOLLY...yes this little guys smiles all the time and is so loving. Tyler currently is loving the fact that he sleeps WITH mom and dad....yes we start in the crib but some how we end up in their bed. Something we NEVER thought we would let happen. When will we break Tyler of this - probably by Christmas. It is hard to break him as he disturbs Jackson's sleep when we try to do this and Jackson adores his brother so much that when Tyler is crying and Jackson hears this...he has to make sure Ty Ty is okay by seeing him. Oh, he doesn't trust mom and dad that Tyler is okay, he himself has to make sure it is okay! Infact last night, everyone was in mom and dad's bed. We came to the conclusion it is going to be time for sleep training with Tyler and we tried to do it but once we found out how much it affected Jackson's sleep we decided when daddy gets some time off we will try it again. Tyler knows what he is doing too as he won't let daddy get him in the middle of the night if mom is the room. He screams until mom takes him and he knows mom is in there even if she hides under the covers...he knows. Kids they are so amazing. Keep in mind we had Jackson upright on us until I think around 9 months...yes we have a chair that we love as we used it for 9 months to sleep in due to all the reflux issues for Jackson so this is a walk in the park.

Update on Jackson:

Jackson is doing extremely well and also very Jolly. He is talking up a storm, graduated from his Early Childhood intervention and is a very happy little boy (still our baby too). His latest thing is now he won't sing songs along with us, he has to sing his songs alone. He knows his ABC's, "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Twinkle Twinkle little star" and "Trucks, Tractors, forklifts and Bulldozer's too" and can count on his own to around 20 and is able to do most of 1-10 in Spanish. He likes to mix up his 7 with green in spanish- verde...we are working on it. Now, mom and dad need to learn more spanish too! Jackson likes to play trains...trains, trains and more trains...which to be honest dad and mom love to play trains too so we hope he stays in this phase a while longer. Infact we make forts in the living room and run our train tracks under them. Sometimes mom get frustrated as the boys want to stop playing trains...yes Ty loves to play too although he takes the tracks apart for Jackson : ) Jackson celebrated his BIG number 2 Birthday (Thank you God) on September 23rd and had a little party on a TRAIN on September 14th!

Jackson has stayed pretty healthy and Ty has been healthy...mom wishes she could have kept Jackson 100% healthy but it didn't happen. He did get sick 2 days before his birthday with Croup...but thankfully he recovered from it. The doctor also said that Jackson handled it like all the other kids which was great news and Big Yeah for J!

We are so blessed and can't thank everyone enough for all their Prayers and support.

Love,

Kyle, Erica, Jackson and Tyler

**** November is Prematurity Awareness Month!*****