Snow Baby!

This past Sunday it dropped a few inches of snow on us in surprising fashion.  No one knew it was coming.  We went to sleep Saturday night and Sunday, boom.  Snow.  So, we decided to take Elise out for her first play in the snow.  Here are some pictures and a couple of videos!

Picture with Santa 2013

It looks like she's just interested in Santa but it's kind of like I tell our youth group when talking about Bible passages..it's all about context.  This picture was snapped in the midst of the fit she was throwing to get down and run and play.  Luckily Santa played along and we have a usable picture.  The rest of the pictures have Kim's head in the background or me trying to move Elise's legs.  Good times...I have to say this is exactly what we expected though so no surprises :)

Smiles From the Heart

It's interesting watching Elise get older.  At her age it seems that's she pretty wide open with the way she feels.  Today, I was sitting with her upstairs on her couch reading while she watched tv.  I got up because I had to use the bathroom and she stayed on the couch content to continue watching tv.  I opened the door to the bathroom and stood there for a minute.  Usually, she likes to come in the bathroom with us when we go in there and she likes to go in the shower and play.  She never tears anything up so we always let her.  I was sure she would want in this time like usual, but she didn't..she just sat there on the couch.  I looked at her to see if she was coming and she was slouched a little more but still in the same spot.  When I was sitting with her before that I had my arm behind her so she slid down a little when I got up.  Then, I made eye contact with her and smiled.  She smiled back.

It may seem kind of over-emotional, but it was a great moment.  Just for a second, it was a great moment shared with my daughter.  And it's not that Elise doesn't smile or laugh often.  Quite the contrary actually.  She laughs all the time.  But, this just seemed a little more close and a little more undeserved.  Almost as if I want to ask God what I've done to deserve a daughter this amazing. 

It made me think too about how many times I smile and it's not geared through true joy.  Elise is pretty pure and honest about her smiles.  If she's happy, she'll smile.  If not..she won't.  And that's not to advocate that we put on a frown until we're ready to smile.  Because I think sometimes we need to smile to strengthen and encourage others or to give joy to someone else.  But, as a follower of God, I want to be honest and genuine too.  I hope that smiles come from me because I am joyful and thankful and content.  And when things don't go my way, I hope I can be honest about my hurts, downfalls, or fears and be encouraged back to joy by someone doing better than me.

Anyways, I feel like my thoughts with this are a little random but I hope it makes sense somewhat.

     After all the talk on smiling this is this is the look she gave for the photo

Insurance!! Arrrrrggghhhh!!

I hope you enjoyed my pirate sound in the title...I'm a little irritated to say the least. I've been on the phone with Anthem for 48 minutes and counting over one single issue of a prescription reimbursement. It's been extremely difficult to not take my rage out on the lady on the phone because I realize none of this is her fault. Here's the scoop..When Kim was first pregnant, she was constantly sick to her stomach. So, he doctor prescribed her a generic form of Zofran..to take every 4 hours..and gave her 20 pills. 20 pills...20. To take every 4 hours for a month. Do some simple math and you'll realize that if you took even just 2 pills every day, that would still only last 10 days. And our insurance company, like many, will only cover prescription refills every 30 days. So, we called the doctor and she prescribed a pill count of 120. But, it needed to have a prior authorization which then went before Anthem's medical review board.

 In the meantime, Kim was still sick. So, Anthem, remember this, ANTHEM themselves, advised us to pay out of pocket for the prescription ($117) to hold us over and if the prescription was approved by the medical review board then we could get reimbursed. So, Mark and Sharon were nice enough to help us out and we got the prescription. More than a month later we received a letter stating that they had approved Kim's prescription that she no longer needed. So, I set out on the adventure of reimbursement. Three, count em', three, phone transfers (full of holds) and 30 minutes later I was taken to the right place: a lady telling me that she would send a reimbursement form. As Kimmie would say, "Well, glory."

I Received the form, filled it out, took it to Rite Aid and had the pharmacy manager print out the appropriate documents and sign the form, and faxed it over...only to receive a response that our claim was denied because, "The claim is for an amount or dosage that exceeds your plan's limits." You don't say??? Of course it is. That's why we needed a prior authorization. Anyways, the lady is talking to her manager about it and we've talked here and there through the holds and despite my frustration, she is being very nice and helpful and giving her best effort. So, I have to be thankful for that. It's just one of those things that makes you want to pull your hair out even though it's not any one person's fault. I'm at 1 hour 6 minutes on the phone now. Here are some pictures of the process along the way.

I looked in to see how Kim was doing and saw she got a little sleepy holding Elise so I snapped a picture

Sammie likes to sit on my lap when I'm at the PC.  Aside from her wicked typing skills, she helps tons by guarding the computer.

Elise got down to get a swig of milk and went back up to her mom.  A minute later and she is chugging and Kim is sleeping :)

Helper with the Guitar

I finally changed the strings on my guitar recently.  A while back, I was singing at church.  I grabbed my guitar off of its hanger on the wall to get ready to do.  I leaned it against the wall to go get Elise and then Kim could grab the guitar.  When I got to the kitchen I heard a crash.  I went back in the living room and it was on the floor.  I picked it up and headed to church.  But, once I went to get it back in tune and practice, I noticed the head was cracked in half and being pulled further apart by the tension on the strings!  It was a disaster.  I thought it was ruined.  

I took it to CA House music in Parkersburg and thankfully the guy was able to fix it.  He asked me what kind of strings he wanted me to put on it when he was done and I was specific.  I wanted Elixer brand strings and I was willing to pay for their extra cost.  But, he totally didn't put them on.  He did a great job fixing my guitar only to put crappy strings on.  I still used them though for a few months and they've been terrible.  So, I finally ordered new strings and went to install them. 

I got the old strings off and started putting the first string back on.  But, Elise wanted to push my hand away and put her binky in the hole.  Finally, I just laid it down for her to play with and she walked away.  So, I picked it back up and started putting the string on and she pushed it out of the way and put her binky in the hole.  So, I laid it down again and she started playing with it.  Then, she put her foot in and got it stuck and had a meltdown.  Fun times..

4th of July (Old Pics!)

It's been another few months since the blog has received any attention, but alas, here I am posting pictures again.  4th of July was a while back, but here are some pics.

Elise waving in the car

This was one side of the flag for the float..Mad props to some of the guys in the youth group for helping me get this beast built and painted!

Float in the parade

Fireworks!

Cute baby in the sun room

Family Pic

Strolling

This is why we typically don't put her in the stroller anymore...

 Red faced after some time in the sun

Best Father's Day Yet

I was a little torn on whether to name the blog post "Best Father's Day Yet."  My reasoning is that I hope each one is better than the year before and I won't be able to use the same name on the next year's post.  Anyways, this Father's Day was great.  I enjoyed time with Kim and Elise.  We spent some time with Kim's family.  And we called my dad and talked to my granny as well (Papa is deaf so I told granny to tell him Happy Father's Day).  Here are some pics.

 This is my gift from Elise.  It's a photo album of the two of us from her birth til now.  I actually knew about the other couple of things I got, but this was a big surprise and I love it.

The back of it

Inside flap

My new Crocs.  I've been wanting a pair of white crocs for a while.  I got some off brand crocs when we were in Myrtle Beach a couple years ago and I loved them.  But, they got dirty over time and I've been wanting another pair. 

I got this tuner too.  I actually have the same one on my other guitar because this guitar has a built in tuner.  But, I like to be able to look down at the head of the guitar while I'm turning the tuners.

We ended the day by going to the Athen's Lowes to get some organizing stuff for the garage.  Not only did Elise drive the #48 cart, but she drove BOTH steering wheels at the same time!  Our kid is going places.

Me and Elise in the front room of the house.  She's my little baby girl and makes being a dad the most amazing thing in the world.

Vacation Bible School

I did games again this year with VBS.  But, Kim took Elise in with the 2-3 year old class and Elise had perfect attendance!  I think she was late a few times, but that's okay.  She spent time with the other kids and even watched games some too.

Here she is on the Friday before when they were setting up everything.  She decided to have a rummage through the tent to make sure she wasn't missing anything.

 She was grabbing a bite of animal crackers and giving her big smile where she squints so hard she can barely see.

 Here is Elise's first certificate from VBS.  We're awful proud of her!

We had a little get together in the gym after the Sunday night service when we gave out certificates.  She's offering mommy a cookie.

Enjoying the Outdoors

She loves her big purple ball from Wal-Mart

Playing in the sandbox

Along with playing in the sandbox, she also loves to play ON the sandbox!  She likes playing the drums on the shell.

She can't quite climb the ladder on the back of the play house so she tries going up the slide.  Then, we help her slide down and she likes it.

I was surprised at how much she enjoyed splashing around in her little pool.  She also likes when we squirt her with the water toys.

I don't know what it is about gravel, but she loves playing in it.  Here she is at Kevin and Alicia's house.

Playing in the rocks at church

Standing pretty good at the tree!

Here she is relaxing in her stroller for a ride around the block.  She likes to bring her doll (Esther) with her though.  It can get pretty wild if we don't have Esther.

Elise's 1st Birthday

Having a smackerel at her favorite place to eat!  McDonald's!

Kim set up the classroom in the gym and made it look really nice.

Her high chair all decked out

Owl cake

Her very own cake!

Mommy helping open gifts

She enjoyed the stringy stuff

Interested in a gift

Ready to touch fire!

She doesn't care to have her hands messy so her personal cake didn't go too well.

By far, my favorite picture!  I think this captures her goofy personality

The three of us

We got her this ball pit for her birthday and she loves it