Dakota is 9 months........

Well Dakota turned nine months on Monday and life just seems like it stays super busy with two little ones, both now mobile. Dakota has been crawling now for about 3-4 weeks I think. He is also pulling up on everything and getting into everything. So if you see my baby around with bruises its because he is trying to be a big boy.
Yesterday he did something that was really really scary. Jabez left the door open to our stairwell and I didn't know it. Dakota was crawling all over and I was working on laundry in my bedroom. The next thing I heard was a bang, bang, and then a loud scream and cry. I rushed to the kitchen to find my baby at the bottom of the stairs. I just have to say I know that God has his hand on my little guy cause all you can physically see on his little body is a little rug burn on his chin. We had him checked out and we have been told that he is totally ok. I can't thank God enough for watching out for my baby boy.
Today we returned to Ft. Wayne for an appointment with his plastic surgeon. It was a pretty open meeting. We talked about his past medical history and through any questions that we had. I feel pretty confident that this doctor will do an excellent job on our baby boy. We are looking at surgery for around the end of June, or that is what we know as of know. We will know more specifically in a few days I would hope.
On a different note, it is so fun to see Dakota trying all these new things he is doing but it is also hard. It seems like babies just grow up so fast that they are getting into everything before you can blink an eye. A friend of mine mentioned the other day that Dakota has been out as long as he was in. In a way that kind of makes me sad, not because I want another baby right now, but because of how fast time goes.
Then I think of the responsibility God has placed on our lives to nurture these little ones to become like him. So often I am in tears at this because so often I fail to show Christ and his love in the right way. I just keep praying that God would continue to help me grow in mothering my 2 wonderfully precious little souls to become more like him.

A Year Has Come Full Circle

A year ago I set out to do something that I never have done before. It was fun to try and figure out a cake for my son's 2nd birthday just because. So I set out at decorating my first cake by myself. My son was really enjoying turtles at this time last year so I got online and looked up a recipe for making a turtle cake.










So I was talking to a friend about how much I enjoyed making my first cake, since then we have joined forces in making cakes for different things. This was Dora we made for her daughter's 3rd birthday.




Cake # 3 was of a princess cake. We used a little Tinker Bell doll for this little princess cake. This cake was quite the trip. We had a lot of fun trying to figure out how to keep her standing up in the middle. We tried frosting, tin foil, tooth picks, and then I think we finally settled using a baby food jar lid with the doll wrapped in tin foil. The unfortunate part of this process was that every time we had to get her out of the cake it caused the cake to separate. This little lady is held together with a lot of tin foil believe it or not.

We had a creative food contest for a church at the park day last fall. So we decided to take a picture of the man behind the inspiration for the contest and put him on the cake. So my friend's husband took a picture that we printed off and then drew a larger picture on a piece of paper and then he took it and used a tooth pick and sketched it onto the cake. We then just filled it in with frosting. And there you have it, "the Keis" cake.







This cake you are looking at is what we call a
rainbow cake. We took 2 cake mixes and split
it into 6 different cakes for the different colors of the rainbow. In between each layer was frosting. So the picture to the left is what the cake looked like once it was cut open. It was a lot of fun.





So now we have finally come back to my son's birthday. He turned 3 on April 4th but we didn't actually celebrate it with a party until this past Sunday with friends and family. Saturday my friend and I spent the day making a Thomas the train cake for my son. He is completely and totally enthralled with Thomas. It was a lot of fun.













I don't know what it is about cake decorating, but I have really come to enjoy it. It is a place where I can be creative. It is a good thing cause being creative is something I don't feel I am really good at.

Karston Lukas

Last Saturday, (because I have been so busy and not been able to get to writing this) my husband and I took the opportunity to go see our precious new nephew who at that point was still in the hospital trying to recover from the meconium he had aspirated into his lungs before birth. It was a really great time with my husband's sister and husband and their baby, Karston Lukas. When we were there they had just moved from an incubator to a crib. That is huge progress meaning he was being given less oxygen then before. He was still under the oxygen tent and had a nasal cannula.
It was a good time of talking, loving, and sharing. />We also took the time to pray for him and them. I just can't imagine how stressful a time like that would be on your marriage and family life.
This morning I am happy to share that little man Karston is now resting safely at home with his family. They released him from the hospital on Friday afternoon with an oxygen tank at low dose at home for the next 3 weeks. He has come a long way but he still has a distance to go. Please join us as we continue to pray for complete healing in his little body. May God completely and totally restore health to his little body.