Summer is Here (Finally!)

Kinsey and I've had a very busy first week of Summer. It's officially summer in my book since A) Kinsey is out of school and B) the weather has finally decided to warm up, I hope for good! And I'm writing this blog a day early this week because tomorrow (Fri) we are taking our first family vacation in the new camper! We're heading down to CO Springs just for the weekend. This is sort of a test run to make sure we know what we're doing with the camper before we go on our big trip to Yellowstone next month!

Last weekend we went to a party for some friends and Kinsey really enjoyed playing with the other little kids there. Kinsey and another little girl sat on the steps playing with a couple of baby dolls for a long time. And later in the party she saw the other kids playing with the ice & drink buckets. She was really motivated to get over there and play with them she so started walking over there totally on her own. In fact, we couldn't keep her away - every time we made her stop (because her hands were freezing) she would walk right back over there! She was even walking on the uneven grass totally on her own too for short distances. Apparently we need to get either some more kids around or a bucket of ice to motivate her to walk more. Here's a video.

Anyway, this week, on Monday Kinsey enjoyed splashing in her pool for the first time this year. She was quite happy for about an hour while Jamie and I were working outside.

On Tuesday, Kinsey had her first official appointment with a dentist. She's seen a dentist briefly before at the Cleft Palate Clinics, but the last time she went to that was more than a year ago, so it was time to go. We went to see the same dentist that is part of the Cleft Palate team and she was excellent!! Kinsey isn't particularly cooperative when it comes to brushing her teeth (and that's putting it nicely) so it's not something I've been good about doing regularly. So I was shocked when Kinsey was super cooperative for the dentist and even seemed to enjoy it! Up until they put some funny tasting stuff in her mouth and then she didn't like to so much (you can see that at the end of the first video). But she did great! She even sat in the dentist chair all by herself like a big girl! Here are a couple of videos: 1 and 2

On Wednesday we headed out to the splash park and playground with Aliy and her kids. Kinsey wasn't too excited about the splash park this time because the water was very cold! She enjoyed it for a little while, but she had more fun in the sandbox and on the playground equipment.

And today Kinsey went back to see the eye doctor . . . finally. We've scheduled several appointments over the last 6 months or so, but always had to cancel because of sickness or weather. Since Kinsey's been wearing her glasses at school, I wanted to get her in for a new eye exam. Plus the nose guard things came off (ie., Kinsey bit them off) of her current glasses so they weren't too comfortable anymore. Anyway, she did great with the exam and was much more responsive to the eye "tests" that the doctor uses to check her vision. (I often get asked about this and no, they obviously don't ask her to read an eye chart! They have other ways to check a little one's vision.) He did say her eyes are not crossing as much, but she does need a new prescription for the left eye. And her current glasses are actually too small - the lenses are too small for her face. So she's getting new glasses.

So, I think that's it for this week. I'm sure I'll have lots to report again next week, especially about our first camper trip!

Oh, here are a couple more cute photos from this week:

Driving the shopping cart car. . . both wheels at once!

Her pug PJs - they say Mommy's Little Love Pug. Should be Daddy, but still cute.