Nicole Grace Duran

As some of you may or may not know Leanna had an emergency c-section yesterday (Thursday, June 12th) and gave birth to Nicole Grace Duran at 3:19pm. Nicole is 4lbs 4 oz and 8 weeks early. She is perfect for being 8 weeks early. She is almost independently breathing on her own, is stabilizing her temperature and is going to be getting a little bit of food today. She is very, very pretty and since Kyle and I peeked underneath her hat she has dark hair!!

Leanna began experiencing sever contractions around 1:00 yesterday. She had a friend drive her home from work but by the time she got home she was in severe pain. Kyle rushed her to the hospital where they discovered her placenta had pulled away and did an emergency c-section. Leanna is superwoman! She looks fabulous and is doing very, very, well.

They expect that Nicole will be in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for at least 4 weeks. Please keep everyone in prayer. That Nicole would continue to improve and develop despite her early arrival and that Leanna would heal very quickly. My brother was a champion through all of the stress and is holding up very well!!

Below are the best pictures I could get through the incubator. Enjoy!

Caleb

We left for Austin on Thursday as soon as the kids got out of school (I will post those pictures later on this week). Thus, I didn't go through their end of school year stuff until today. In Caleb's report card was a CD that his teacher made. Just click on the link to play it and turn up your volume because it does have audio with it. It is a timeless keepsake that I so appreciate his teacher taking the time to do for us! Enjoy!

School Awards

Since this is the last week of school we have attended 2 school award ceremony's! I wanted to share some pictures. On Monday we had Caleb's award ceremony. Caleb was so cute as he walked across the stage and got his folder that contained his certificates. Of course the one we are most proud of is his reading certificate for having completed the reading recovery program.

Then on Wednesday it was Christian's turn. Christian's was a Promotion/Award's ceremony. Because his Elementary school is K-5th grade it is a big deal for this school to lose kids that have been there for six years! Christian received the President's Education Award for outstanding academic excellence. It is based on their TAKS test scores plus their GPA from 4th and 5th grade. There were several students who received the award! After they handed out the awards the teacher's presented the kids with a DVD collection of pictures set to music from the whole year. The greatest part about that was each student gets their very own copy of the DVD!! They ended the ceremony with cake and punch and a very happy group of soon to be 6th graders. Enjoy the pictures!

Swim Time!

One of the many "perks" of living in a large master planned community is the option to choose from 4 pools within the community. The boys really wanted to try out a new pool today since the one that is clossest to our house the diving board is broken. I said fine so we went. I didn't bring my camera but captured these shots with my cell phone - for some reason today I had really great timing especially with Christian's first picture. Here are all three of them. The last picture is the first one I tried to take of Christian doing a flip - I missed it but check out those FEET!

New Bike

Caleb has been needing a bike now for several weeks. Craig had originally planned to surprise him last Saturday morning by taking him out to breakfast and then to pick out a bike - unfortunately that was the morning we discovered the chicken pox!!! So, we changed our plans to this Saturday. Caleb was so excited. After two stores they finally picked this one. It is burnt orange and as Caleb says has really cool tires! He will be arriving to school in style tomorrow!

It All Started with a Text!

On Thursday morning I was out running errands when that familiar beep goes off that I have a text message on my phone. It was from my brother (Kyle). He said take your kids out of school tomorrow (Friday) and come meet us at the lake. I immediately called him and said you know what my kids are out of school tomorrow for staff development day. (Background information - my mom and dad were already planning to be in Austin Thursday night and Friday (Kyle's day off)to go to the lake in Kyle's brand new boat and so Kyle could see my mom for Mother's Day.) As I thought about it I decided I would go ahead and surprise my mom and dad and drive up to Austin on Friday. Craig could not go because he was working his LAST NIGHT SHIFT on Thursday - he starts days this Sunday - YEAH. So I came home that afternoon, talked with Craig, made a mad dash to Wal-Mart for flip-flops, water, snacks, sunblock, gas, came home did all of the laundry and tried to get 3 boys to go to bed (they were so excited!!).

We left Friday morning at 7:40 am. Kyle had let it slip that morning to my dad that we were coming but my mom had no idea. She called that morning when I was about 30 minutes away. I didn't answer my phone because I knew she would be able to tell that we were all 4 in the car and I couldn't think of an excuse to tell her what we were doing! We rang the doorbell and walked in and she was VERY surprised and EXCITED to see us!!

We drove out to Lake Travis where Kyle keeps his boat. First let me give a shout out to my brother!! He had a total of 8 people he was trying to please - including 4 boys ages (11, 7, 5, & 1)!! He was so great for everything and I know he was EXHAUSTED - he had gotten up with Austin at 4:30 am that morning and he had also wake boarded all the day before and was blistered - but you would never know it because he never complained with everything he had to do!!

We did a quick tour of Lake Travis which is beautiful and then went to a cove where the water was like glass!! All of the boys (including Kyle and PawPaw) immediately jumped into the cold water and started swimming!! Leeana and I "eased" our way into the water but we did both eventually totally get in and swam with all of the kids. Grammy stayed in the boat with Austin (she never did get in the water!).

I decided that if I was going to ski or wake board I wanted to go first because I probably would NOT get back into that cold water!! So I decided to slalom first. Leanna (who is 6 months pregnant had to "assist" me to get the ski boot fastened!) I haven't water skied in over 10 years and you forget how much energy and strength it takes to get up on one ski. After several unsuccessful attempts I told Kyle I was done - he said you can't get in until you try to wake board. He carefully and skillfully explained the aspects of wakeboarding!! I did get up on the first try and for the next 3 times. The problem was staying up! I had one very successful ride until I decided to take one hand off the rope and adjust my swimsuit - big MISTAKE with a glorious FALL! Wake boarding is A LOT easier to get up on then a slalom ski but it is VERY DIFFERENT once you get up to control. (Pictures - I told Christian if I got up to hurry and take my picture - and he did!)

Next Christian wanted to try. Since the wake board was out and not the ski's we talked him into trying the wake board first. (Remember we had 8 people in the boat and getting the skis out and putting them up was an event in itself!) Christian got up the very first time but then fell. We had the wake board boot to tight and Christian hurt his foot when he fell so he was done. But he did say he would like to try again when we go back! (Here he is getting ready - the only picture I got!)

Caleb just wanted to tube! We had forgotten the tube at the dock and Kyle so graciously took us all the way back across the lake to get the tube. The first tube wouldn't inflate so he HIKED back up to the truck and got a SECOND tube came back down and inflated it for us!! (THANK YOU UNCLE KYLE). For those of you who know Joel you know that we put him on the tube and as soon as the motor cranked he FREAKED OUT and demanded to get back into the boat. He said I didn't know you were going to move the boat -ha. ha. So Christian and Caleb rode the tube for quite a while and then Caleb wanted to ride by his self. Caleb rode for several miles - he was so funny - he had his feet crossed and arms behind his head like he was on a recliner!

After 5 hours on the lake we were HUNGRY! So we docked at a GREAT restaurant on the water and ate dinners. It was such a GREAT DAY - and I am so glade he sent the text message! Enjoy the pictures - Austin rode the whole 5 hours. He was so good, here he is getting MORE sunblock and enjoying a "siesta". Caleb was chosen as Bullfrog of the week for next week (now he won't be there see side note below). Part of that privledge is you get to take home the class frog for the weekend, take him everywhere you go and write a story about what he did, and attach a picture!


Side Note - I noticed yesterday while we were at the lake that Caleb had these red spots on him. My mom thought he may have just gotten into some chiggers. We'll when he got up this morning those bumps were everywhere! Craig said I think he has chicken pox. So I immediately called the Dr. and got him in and of course he has a "perfect" case of the Chicken Pox including bumps on his head!! (Yes he had the vaccine but that doesn't guarantee you won't get them!) He is VERY upset - not about any discomfort and of course not about missing school but he is UPSET about not being able to play with his friends and most importantly our pool opened today in our subdivision and he wants to SWIM!! - Maybe a long 5 days!

Wilson Family Reunion

(Scroll down to the end for more pictures) We traveled this weekend to the big, thriving metropolis of Eastland, TX. (Don't worry if you haven't heard of it but it is a small town about 40 miles east of Abilene - and a very long way from Sugar Land!!!). Eastland is Craig's birthplace and home of one of his aunt & uncle - Joan & Larry Gerhardt who hosted this year's reunion. Craig's dad Billy is one of 13 siblings!!! This year all of the siblings attended the reunion (hasn't happened in several years) add to that their children, grandchildren and in some cases great grandchildren and there were close to 75 Wilson's at this year's event. Someone said that the remaining siblings span over 26 years between them! That is a BIG family. Of course with all of this children comes lots and lots of little children!! My boys had the best time playing in the sand, playing baseball, kickball and just generally "playing" from 8:00 am - 9:30 pm on Saturday.

We started the morning fishing. Now when we left Sugar Land on Friday it was 88 degrees with 87% humidity. When we got up in Eastland on Saturday morning it was 44 degrees and the wind was gusting upwards off 20 miles an hour!! Joan graciously handout sweatshirts, jackets and anything else she could find out of her own closet to help warm us all up while Michael (another uncle) traveled to the local Wal-Mart and bought out their school sweatshirt supplies. Did I mention it was cold and the wind was GUSTING not perfect conditions to be fishing. Craig, Joel and I quickly went back and sat in Grandpa Billy's truck. (Caleb just ran around and played) But Christian and Grandpa Billy stuck it out and Christian caught 2 fish. This is a picture of this largest one!!!

We then traveled back to Joan's for the remainder of the day just to visit and enjoy each other. Craig has quite a few cousins that are all around the same age. Not only did they have a great time growing up together but that also provides our kids with plenty of cousins to play with around their age at the reunion!

We had a fabulous fajitas lunch and for dinner Grandpa Billy fried up catfish and striper. Our resident food critic - Joel says no one can cook fish like Grandpa Billy!! (He also says that no one can make mashed potatoes like Me Maw and don't get me started on his critique of the continental breakfast that morning at the hotel - not favorable at all).

The kids were so tired this morning that I woke them up at 9:00 am (never happened before)!! Here is a picture of all 3 of them in the bed at the hotel. Grandpa Billy & Jo offered for one of them to come sleep in their extra bed so that they didn't all 3 have to sleep in the 1 double bed but for some strange reason they declined!

We had a very LONG but uneventful ride home - very glad that we got to go and equally glad to be home!

Here are some pictures of the day! Kids playing in the sand. A picture of the surviving siblings (Billy is the last one on the right), picture of the grandkids (Craig has his UT shirt on), and just some fun shots!!