July

July was a little busy.
First we went to the Capitol building for the Fourth of July. It was awesome! The only real downer was the heat and humidity. DC was having some record setting heat, and the humidity was just awful. I was glad we brought along several water bottles, the two boys drank most of them.

Patrick had his tear duct probe surgery this month as well. We looked forward to this appointment for a long time. His right tear duct was blocked, so it wasn't draining the tears and all that gunk that ends up in your eyes. The gunk was just sitting on top of his lid, gathering. We would have to wipe his eye clean every time he woke up, and plus a few other times throughout the day. He was a champ for the surgery, and it was only 15 minutes long. 

There's a spray ground not too far from where we live. It's free!

It took Patrick quite some time to warm up to it, but he will now sit down and touch the water.

Patrick has started waving hello to everyone now

Kiernan has been making some great strides with cueing

The boys being boys

We went to Virginia Beach for a few days in the middle of the month. It was a much needed break for us, and Kiernan was fearless with the water. Patrick was a little more brave this time than when we went to chiconteague. We got to see a pod of dolphins going by, all just from sitting on the beach! One thing we have learned is that the beach is now a lot more exhausting with kids as they are constantly wanting us to help them jump waves. :)

Our house was attacked with illnesses again this month. This time it was Hand Foot Mouth disease. The two boys had the fever, cough, and then some blisters show up. Bryan also got it, and had maybe 6 blisters himself, if that. I also got it, and I'm pretty sure I made up for their lack of blisters. My entire palm on both hands were covered in blisters, as well as the soles of my feet. My mouth just had a couple of blisters, but I did get some on my nostrils and my ears as well. It took a week before the blisters started going away. All I can say is I'm so grateful it happened when I wasn't working, because I would've had to take off two, maybe three weeks between all of us having this horrible virus. 

Bryan's Aunt San passed away this month from a single car accident. This was shocking, especially as she had just beaten cancer. I had a chance to meet her earlier this year, and she was a fun and wonderful person to talk with. Unfortunately we were not able to go to the funeral as it was in California, and we just couldn't make it out in time. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the King family. 

My grandfather passed away on the 30th of July. He was expected to die a long time ago, and it has mostly just been a waiting game for him to be ready to leave this existence. It wasn't a surprise, but it sure still wasn't easy. Up until his death, all of my grandparents were alive, and it's the first relative that I've had pass away where I was close to him. The only other ones I know of that happened in my life time are my great grandparents. Unfortunately, I was not able to fly home to attend the funeral. This was difficult to accept, but it was just the way it was. The funeral was held in August, and my siblings were kind enough to take some pictures and send them to me. My father also made a DVD of pictures of Grandpa, and sent me an actual copy of the program. I'll miss my grandpa, but I'm happy to know he's in a better place. My heart hurts more for my grandmother than anything else, as she has dedicated her life to him these past few years as he continued to get worse health wise. Our prayers also continue to be with her.

June

Kiernan had try outs to be a peer model for the Cued Speech preschool at the school that I work. It went well, and he'll be able to go there next year. I'm really excited, as we all need to work on our cued Speech a bit.

My summer vacation started this month, and I can't explain how excited I've been. I've been waiting for a break and have a chance to hang out with our two boys all the time. It will be different, but I look forward to it. We don't have much planned for the summer as Bryan still has to work full time. We are just  waiting for Patrick's tentative Cochlear Implant which is scheduled in August. We did have an appointment with a psychologist for Patrick, which was the last required appointment we had for him before officially approving him as a candidate for cochlear implants. The appointment itself went well, it was basically just to make sure he was developing normally over all, physically, socially and emotionally. There is obvious delays in listening skills and speech skills. He has yet to babble with consonants, but he does love talking. He does have some language skills, he uses a specific sound to call for someone where he says "aaah" and then makes a noise as he breathes in. He will look at the cat when we cue kitty, and lok at Bryan when we cue papai. He is beginning to know the difference between some animal sounds as they are cued and said to him. I'm excited to see him continue to develop.

Kiernan got a hold of my phone and was having fun with it.

He decided to get every single stuffed animal and sleep with them all.

This little is guy is now crawling everywhere.

We went to the Chiconteague Beach, which was beautiful!

This was at the DC temple grounds on father's day

He now pull himself to stand and lets go all the time. 

Just a really cute picture. 

Kiernan is always trying to "help" Patrick.

Playing So Big

May

This month was pretty uneventful. I should mention that over the past few months we've had several appointments at Johns Hopkins Hospital to continue with the cochlear implant candidacy. We decided to go this route as we could see Patrick was not benefiting from his hearing aids enough to be able to develop the speech and listening skills that we would like him to have. We do expect him to use Cued Speech, as we have been cueing to him (in English AND Brazilian Portuguese). I would also love from him to learn ASL once he has a solid foundation of English, especially since we're already doing Brazilian Portuguese with him as well, adding a third language will be a bit much.

So far, he is a candidate for cochlear implants. His aided hearing test showed responses in the moderately severe to profound range. that's with hearing aids on, which supports what we've been seeing in the home. He does not respond to /s/ or /e/ sounds. He does respond to Ah (as in hot), and Sh quite well. Not as consistent with /m/ and /oo/ (as in moo). Patrick also had to have appointments with an auditory verbal therapist and a speech therapist. They found the same thing, but also agree that he developing normally otherwise. Everyone always comments on how happy he is, which is true. We've been very blessed.

Bryan finished his second semester at Georgetown this month. This means we get to have him home in the evenings again until the end of August. I'm so excited! This also means he only has ONE more year left. I can't believe how quickly time has flown by for us.

We had a chance to check out a convention where they had some free (and AWESOME) face painting.

KB kept telling us that he was a GOOD monster.

He LOVES balloons.

Riding a car together.

KB had control of my phone at this point and recorded himself being a good monster :)

There's a place called Rita's that Kiernan loves. I always have to give him a bath afterwards though. I'm sure you can see why from this photo :)

The boys playing with the bath toys

Patrick was excited to get in the toy box to play

Best smile in the world. 

Having fun with my sunglasses, I love the brief cross eyed moment. 

We have a picture of KB in this exact same outfit, same position sleeping on our bed (blue sheets though), at the same age (to the day). It's been fun to compare the two to see just how different they really are. 

April

The beginning of April was spring break. I was able to get some much needed spring cleaning done. We also had friends that were in town. They stayed with Jenny and Chance for the most part as Bryan was still having to do work and some classes. Unfortunately, the president of Brazil decided to visit that Easter weekend, so Bryan ended up doing a lot of overtime work, even working on Saturday and Sunday. We still enjoyed seeing our friends and their cute boys!

I was trying to let everyone sleep in, or go back to sleep to get some much needed rest. I put on Toy Story, and the boys watched the movie on KB's bed. 

I love this picture, they were having a blast dressing up as Buzz and Woody

Bubble time

On Easter, we had a little egg hunt in the morning. I made Eggs Goldenrod, which is a tradition from my side of the family. Then we went to church. Afterwards we went to the National Mall to do some sightseeing, and let the boys run around for a bit. It was a fun day. We were sad to see our friends go, especially Kiernan as he enjoyed having someone his age around again.

Kiernan had a chance to practice Easter Egg hunting before our friends came.

Kiernan had a dentist appointment this month, and had no cavities! That was a relief. 

This month was also a fun month with illnesses again, this time with roseola. I really hope we get these viruses out of the way soon, because I just cannot take that much more time off of work. 

And just some more pics of the boys

Kiernan was trying to convince me that Bryan's socks were his :)

A makeshift drink holder, we forgot his cupholder for his car seat at home. so he decided to take his shoe off and use that instead....

I forget how flexible babies can be. 

A great picture of PK smiling. He has that hat on to keep him from grabbing his hearing aids and losing them. 

Also a great picture of KB smiling.

Patrick can now sit up all by himself!

I cannot tell you how many days I had this month where I felt like this.

Our nanny sent this to us. Apparently during nap time, KB got into her make up drawer and decided to have fun. Silly kid. She thought it was hilarious :)

A hilarious game of peek a boo :)

March

March was busy with illnesses going back and forth, all viral infections of some sort. I can tell we've moved to a different area, as we keep getting sick and passing it to each other. We no longer have an immunity built up to the local strains of viruses like we did in Utah.
Kiernan got a chance to go to Chuck E. cheese again. he LOVES that place, and asks to go all the time. I have told him that we only go there for birthdays. Big mistake. He now asks all the time if it's November yet :) We did go for his third birthday, then he went in January for a birthday party. This month was just because my school's PTA was having a fundraiser there.
Patrick continues to make improvements with his listening. He is getting faster with responding to sounds, and better at localizing them.

He loves the wii and has actually gotten better. However....I'm not sure how this is comfortable. 

Patrick has one of the best smiles I've ever seen. 

Patrick loves being able to hold spoons himself. 

Remember the illnesses? Yeah, this was a common sight in our home. 

Patrick's first church outfit. 

First time in the duck bath, he loves being able to sit up while bathing. 

Patrick loves doing raspberries all the time now. 

Seriously, one of the best smiles. He makes others smile all the time. 

Patrick takes special interest in whatever KB is doing, in here they're both checking out the iPad. 

A ride at Chuck E. Cheese

February

I forgot to mention that in January, Kiernan and Patrick moved from Kindercare to a nanny who watched them in her own home. It was a perfect set up! The nanny was in our ward, so we knew she was the same religion, she was born in Brazil and lived there until she was six. This meant she knew fluent Brazilian Portuguese. She has a 1 year old, which means the kids still get some interaction with someone NOT in the family. Her apartment was on the ground floor, led out to a grassy area, and they had a playground and pool. The best part? She lives five minutes from my office. The boys adjusted quickly to her, and KB would ask from time to time when we were going to go to her house. This showed me that he did enjoy his time there. While he did miss all his same age peers at kindercare, I still think the best choice was to go with the nanny so that Patrick could be given more attention.

I brought this up because she would send pictures of the kids from time to time on my cell, which I loved. She made Pizza with KB

And was able to catch Patrick rolling on her cell phone for me. 

She was a great person to work with. She was also very understanding of KB's mishaps:

Why yes, that is a mac power cord that KB managed to destroy. don't worry, we replaced it ourselves.

Patrick got his hearing aids at the beginning of this month:

 Of course I immediately start my early intervention work with him :)

The video is of him responding to my voice on one side and KB's voice on the other side.

Of course, KB had to check out the hearing himself and see what it sounded like. I kept reminding him to be quiet or it might hurt his ears because the hearing aids are turned up all the way. He was quiet....then became his three year old self and just couldn't help but get louder towards the end, he'll say ow at the end of the video :)

We did get a chance to visit my Brother and his family in TN.

I unfortunately only have one picture from the visit, and it's of the three older cousins watching Veggie tales....

Patrick learned to do raspberries:

and KB continues to work on cueing with us (he's cueing bigger in here to tell me to make the balloon get bigger):

January

Kiernan having fun with the iPad

January was a busy month. We both went back to work, Bryan went back to classes, and Kiernan and Patrick went from a daycare to a nanny at her home. Our nanny is in our ward, and offered to watch the boys for a steal. We decided it would be better overall to have the boys with her than int he daycare. While Kiernan needs the socialization with other kids, Patrick also needs the one on one time as we now knew what his hearing loss was. Our nanny has a kid of her own who had just turned one, so we felt it was a good place for the two boys to be. She lives in an apartment complex, which means Kiernan will have opportunities to socialize with other kids in the area. A huge bonus: she's from Brazil and speaks Brazilian Portuguese. She agreed to have some Brazilian Portuguese time with Kiernan, which Bryan was very excited for.

Bryan got a car this month. Someone in our ward was selling their car, and Bryan really had had it with the metro here in DC. He'd be able to spend more time at home/doing homework if he was able to drive. So we got a car for him! We are back to a two car family again. It's a sporty car, so Bryan enjoys driving it. Has a nice stereo system, a big muffler, tinted windows, etc. Definitely not a car for us to do any family activities in :)

Patrick had his third scheduled ABR on the fourth. At this visit, he no longer had fluid in his ears. Hooray! Bryan was able to go with me this time, and he had a better understanding of just how hard it was to keep Patrick awake and hungry before the appointment.
At this appointment, Patrick was found to have a profound hearing loss. he had no responses to anything, except for one questionable response on his right ear. We got ear mold impressions made on the 19th, and got his hearing aids two weeks later in Februarty.

My 29th birthday was this month. I can't believe that I'm now in the last year of my 20s. Bryan got me an iPhone for my birthday, so hopefully I'll be able to take more pictures of our two boys. :)

Holding a bottle for the first time, with the Nanny. Growing up!

Finally got a picture that shows his BLUE eyes. He's also wearing his hearing aids :)

Kiernan attempting to cue I Love You

Patrick laughing :)