Daddy's Little Helper

This kid loves her Daddy's tools and likes to get dirty!!!  These aqua-socks have been a life saver this summer.  I can't tell you how many times Kyla has walked into puddles of water or stepped in the dog's water bowl with her sneakers on.  Aqua socks are the way to go!  :)

This Week

Finally getting around to my weekly update.  Had a lot of stuff on my mind lately; early this week was pretty difficult.  I was snooping around on Facebook and found photos of my Niece that her Step-Mom had taken of her that were of my Niece made up to look like evil or satanic or something.  Very disturbing.  I have only ever seen one Exorcist movie because someone I was dating wanted to go see it, but I was not into it.  Anyway, imaging the little girl from the Exorcist movie....that is what my Niece looked like in these photos.  So disturbing that I was boiling mad but crying all at the same time.  I feel so badly for this little girl to the point where I decided that I don't care what my family thinks, I decided that I wanted to fight to get custody.  I had my Husband talk to some lawyers he knows and apparently nothing can be done unless the parents are like cracked out and neglecting her, which they aren't.....  there is some neglect, like she doesn't get regular showers at her Dads and doesn't get fed good, but other than that I don't have much to prove that they are all 3 unfit parents.  Very hard for me.  I'm not sure really what I can do.  I wish I could do more but I feel helpless.  Anyhow...  I'm also really excited because my future Sister-in-Law asked me to do some "engagement" photos for her and my Brother-in-Law.  I am excited to have my first set of "models" for photos.  My Husband isn't into the posed photos and my Daughter is always on the run and she won't pose for me for nothing, so I'm pretty excited to have some willing participants.  This couple has already had their engagement photos professionally done, but with professional you don't get the rights and without those prints are extremely expensive and you don't get much freedom either, like the ability to post on Facebook, do neats prints for wedding centerpieces, etc.  The photos I do for them will be posted in the local newspaper on their engagement announcement and she also wants to use some on the tables at the wedding reception.  I hope I can do good...but we will see.  (Kyla will also be one of the flower girls in their wedding, so that will be fun too!)  I've been scouting out neat places to do photos for them and studying my manual for my camera when I can.  It is so hard to find time to do this!!!  Holy cow.  When people used to tell me "get school done now, before you have kids" I always kind of laughed and knew it would be hard but I didn't quite get it until now.  LOL.  My child is into so many things she shouldn't be every two seconds.  I have no time to concentrate on studying anything.  BUT....I did learn how to lighten up photos that are for instance taken in the shade on my camera today which is really cool!  So with this, it doesn't matter if I need to take a photo that is in the shade or dim lighting, I can lighten up the settings on my camera and then take the photo and it won't look dark at all.  Neat, neat!  There is so much that my camera can do that I don't even know how to do yet, so it'll be good for me to learn more.  I wanna see if maybe I have any kind of talent at this photography stuff because just thinking about Kyla starting preschool and that kind of thing makes me nervous!  I don't have anybody to pick her up at 11:15 three days a week or whatever and take her to daycare while I am at work.  I just don't.... so I feel like I need to figure out something I can do now, rather than wait until I have to quit work or something because I have to figure out how to get my kid to school and back and don't have anybody who can do it.  Schools make it really difficult now-a-days to have two full-time working parents.  Even with me working 24 hrs/week, I work full days so wouldn't be able to pick her up at all 3 days out of the week, which won't work.  We'll figure this out and I know I shouldn't be worried about it now, but I definitely think some planning now will help out when the times comes for her to start school.

On a side note, Kyla has been so lovey lately, I LOVE it!  I call her my little monkey because she gives me these full body hugs and wraps her legs and arms around my body, then lays her head down on my shoulder and sometimes pats me on the back.  LOL.  I love the little hand pats, so cute!  That's about it.  Greg is working on getting the fence up a lot now and I can't wait.  I've been sun tanning a lot now that it's warm out and it's not fun to not have privacy, it will also be nice for Kyla to have a safe area to play where I don't have to watch every little thing she does all the time.  Anyway that's about it.  Everyone have a great night.

Fathers Day 2011 Part 2

So at work this morning I was listening to my Sanctus Real Pandora Radio station and this song, "Lead Me" came across the playlist.  It is the song that was sung at church this past weekend immediately following the children's video on Father's.  I just love this song, love the lyrics and what it's saying.  I saw this group in person a few years ago and all of their songs have very good meaning behind them.

Lead Me
Songwriters: Matthew Hammitt;Jason Ingram;Christopher James Rohman

I look around and see my wonderful life
Almost perfect from the outside
In picture frames, I see my beautiful wife
Always smiling, but on the inside

Oh, I can hear her saying

Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can't
Don't leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, but what about us?

Show me you're willing to fight
That I'm still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone

I see their faces, look in their innocent eyes
They're just children from the outside
I'm working hard, I tell myself they'll be fine
They're independent, but on the inside

Oh, I can hear them saying

Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can't
Don't leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, what about us?

Show me you're willing to fight
That I'm still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone

So Father, give me the strength
To be everything I'm called to be
Oh Father, show me the way
To lead them


Won't You lead me?

To lead them with strong hands
To stand up when they can't
Don't want to leave them hungry for love
Chasing things that I could give up

I'll show them I'm willing to fight
And give them the best of my life
So we can call this our home
Lead me 'cause I can't do this alone

Father, lead me 'cause I can't do this alone

Fathers Day 2011

Today was Greg's second Fathers Day.  Went really good.  Busy, but good.  We went to church this morning and it was amazing...yet again.  They did an awesome short video on children and how they look to their Father's as their role model and watch every move they make, how they treat others, and the how they handle themselves from day-to-day.  This is so true, kids want to be like their Dads.  Even as young as Kyla is I can see her watching Greg a lot and she doesn't do this with me...Kinda cool, but this video just reinforces how careful you have to be as a Dad because you want your actions to be positive and a good experience for your children.  Anyhow.  Kyla got Greg a remote control helicopter for Fathers Day, which he had fun flying around the house today.  Kyla was afraid of the helicopter so hid behind her Dad when he was flying, hence the extremely concerned look on her face.  Here are a few photos:

Saturday

This is what the Vance fam does when we are waiting for our bed comforter to wash and dry at the dry cleaners, we take a little stroll through Zentil Canyon.  We found this cool tree swing and we all took turns swinging on it.  I love doing things that take me back to feelings from my childhood.  Doesn't happen very often.  Kyla did not actually swing, just sat on it and thought it was cool.  :)

Kyla Napping

Just snuck into Kyla's room while she was napping (I know, pretty risky) and got a couple shots of her puppy dog lying on her head while she was sleeping.  If I didn't see it on the video monitor I wouldn't have known!  I'll be the Mom that is still using my video monitor through the night and naps when my kid is 5 years old.  LOL.  Who knows maybe I'll even use it once she is a teenager and trying to sneak out of the house too. 

God's Perfect Work of Art

Someone posted this on the Amniotic Band Syndrome group on Facebook and I liked it so thought I would post here for Kyla to read at some point.  Kind of sweet.  :)

God looked down, another child complete a smile so perfect a temper so sweet but baby looked and some parts were gone. Did god mess up and make me wrong? He explained himself as he just smiled. " if i'd taken time to make that part, you wouldn't be such a work of art. I would not have had time to make that smile, to list your talents would last a mile. Your sense of humor that belly laugh where are these parts you have to ask? You are so lucky these gifts of gold those missing parts are mine to hold. Forever they'll be close to my heart, so as you live, we are never apart. Each time you move you'll be on my mind, you special child you are quite a find! So do not miss that part you see, it will always be safe and sound with me.

Go Watch This Video

My Mother-in-Law told me about this one.  It is a good tear jerker.  :)  Love these little kids and their amazing attitudes.  Sorry, no time to embed right now, will try later.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42590729/ns/today-good_news/t/amputee-champion-gives-others-legs-stand/from/toolbar

Happenings

Not too much has been going on, but I thought I would write a little something to current.

I just finished doing a BowFlex workout in our basement.  After my day today, I needed something to work out my stressors.  :)  Kyla had her second and third "time outs" yesterday and today.  She has done time out at daycare before, but really has never had to do it at home.  So it was hard, but I think the terrible twos might be hitting early.  She is sort of on the verge I think of getting kicked out of daycare.  I sure hope not, but our daycare provider has been talking to us recently about how difficult she is when it comes to feeding and this is something that I've very much aware of.  Our daycare gal has been running her business for several years now and has two children of her own and she has stated several times that she has never had a kid like her when it comes to eating; she has even suggested that she thinks she might have something wrong with her throat; possibly a problem with swallowing.  I don't believe she has anything wrong with swallowing, just that she doesn't like to eat.  This has been a little bit of a stressor for me, because if she gets kicked out of daycare, I don't know of any other licensed daycares that are willing to charge less for PT daycare, like we currently have with our daycare provider.  I also don't have family that would be willing to watch her, so if it were to happen, I would probably have to quit my job, which is not something I want to do at this point.  Every licensed daycare that I have ever talked to charges for FT care whether you need it or not, and we cannot afford to pay a FT rate with me only working PT....  so some things need to change.  Kyla needs to start eating and not just for her favorite cartoon show, Bubble Guppies.  Something I'm going to have to work harder on and she is as well.  And we already have, hence why yesterday and today were so difficult.

Greg and I went to a Naughty by Nature concert here in town on Wednesday night.  It was horrible.  At least the venue was horrible....I'm too old for those places now but wanted to go because Naughty by Nature has always been one of my favorite old school hip hop groups.  Once they finally showed up at 11:45 and started to perform, it was pretty decent, but we certainly didn't expect that it would take them that long to start when the venue advertised a start time of 7:30 PM.  Very disappointing.  The venue was The Rock Reactor in downtown Kennewick....  it sucked, was ghetto fabulous, and I will never go there again.  Another thing is that this outing made me realize that with a Husband who is in law enforcement and has been for several years now, he knows too many people and has had troubles with too many people and we cannot go to some of these places and enjoy ourselves at the same time.  There was a huge dude there who apparently has 3 homicides on his record but they have never actually been able to charge him with murder and he has had problems with my Husband while he was in jail years ago, and this guy told him that he was going to come after him once he got out, which never happened.  He just got out of prison after being in there for 4 years and so it was really uncomfortable, for me especially I think.  It is more of a big deal to me now that we are parents, I don't want something to happen and Kyla to be parent-less or something or without one parent....that would not be a good thing, so this experience kind of opened up my eyes to the fact that we just can't do these kinds of things anymore, unless we are with a large group of friends, and we weren't.

Things have still been weird with my family and they are getting even weirder.  I think now that my Sister's boyfriend has been in prison for several months now, she is getting closer to my relatives, and thus they are getting further away from me.  I have not spoken to my Sister or Mom since February, however I did write my Sister a letter this past week and explained once again why it is that I feel like I can no longer communicate with her or maintain a relationship with her.  I offered words of advice (once again) and told her that if and when she decides to take a different path for herself and for her Daughter that I would be here to support her.  Haven't heard anything back and don't expect to.  A month or so ago we went to Oregon to purchase cedar fencing for our yard, and my Sister and Niece passed us on the highway heading to the prison in Oregon where my Sister's boyfriend is current at.  Now I don't know about you, but wouldn't anyone who is thinking right see a problem with a six year old child being drive 5-6 hours out of town to visit their Mom's boyfriend in prison?  I sure do.  This isn't about my Sister really, this is about my Niece, an innocent child who has no say over the environment that she is exposed to.  I have had a friend even suggest to me that I need to do something about it, meaning like take her to court to get custody or something, but I really don't want to do this.  I don't get it at all and I don't see why no one in my family is not willing to do something about it.  Everyone in my family is only enabling my Sister's behaviors and it's disguisting.  You'd think they would care more about this little girl, but it's obvious they don't.  I get it because I've been there, I've been that child who had no control over the environment that they are exposed to and I certainly am not OK with my Sister doing the same thing to her own child...especially when she knows first hand what it is like.

I will stop venting, but this past week has been difficult.  With a combo of different stuff going on and with summer hitting, Kyla is in t-shirts more and thus the stares out in public are increasing.  It is very hard, I try to just look forward and not look at the faces, but it isn't always possible, but then I also have noticed Kyla notices other people more too and so I find myself sort of trying to block her from the stares in a way, at least a little bit.  Like during checkouts at the grocery store, that is when it's a little difficult because you aren't moving, you're at a stand still and people look at children, because they're cute, because it's a baby and everyone wants to get a look at their cuteness, but lately now that it's summer time, it's been weird stares from those passing by or big smiles until they realize she is missing part of her arm and then those smiles drop...not easy for a parent to see, because we love our babies unconditionally.

Not that I'm complaining or anything, just saying that this past week hasn't been the greatest, a little difficult, somewhat emotional from time to time.  It is time for bed, church in the morning and a get-together to attend.  Everyone have an awesome Memorial Day weekend.

Kyla Was a Bad Girl Today

Kind of....., so tonight I took this photo of her playing in the tub.  I bought these foam bath toys of ABCs and numbers for her earlier today at the store and created this: