A Yellowstone Family Adventure & New Skills for Kinsey

Our Yellowstone vacation was amazing! We did a lot of driving, but Kinsey was great in the car, as usual, and the scenery was beautiful along the way. Everything went well with the camper and we really enjoyed taking our "home" with us.

I think Kinsey's favorite part of the trip was playing in the dirt - any dirt or rocks she could find - and making a total mess of herself. . . something that's hard for me to let her do. She did like the geysers in Yellowstone, although Old Faithful was too far away for her to be impressed by it. She enjoyed seeing the animals - we saw Elk, Buffalo and Mountain Goats up close and personal!

Below are a few of my favorite pictures from the trip. Oh and a couple of videos: Kinsey watching a geyser - this one was close up and even got us wet! Riding the Arial Tram in Jackson Hole WY. If you'd like to see all the pictures, click here. (If you're on my Facebook page, you've already seen them.)

Anyway, Kinsey achieved some new milestones along the trip this week too. In her boredom in the car, she took her shoes and socks off and for the first time ever, she put her sock back on her foot totally on her own! She's been close to doing this before and often puts her socks on her hands, but this was the first time she actually got it on her foot. Kinsey also decided she liked a few new foods on the trip including lunchmeat and cantaloupe. She also drank from a juicebox for the first time. This isn't a huge accomplishment because she's known how to drink from a straw for a long time now, but it's interesting because she's never been a fan of juice. She really liked it though.

The biggest new thing is that she is learning how to climb up onto furniture by herself! She climbed onto the bench of a picnic table at one of our campgrounds and then she climbed onto the couch in the camper! I've seen her try this several times in the house before, but I think all of our furniture is just a little too tall for her to do it. Maybe we'll spend more time in the camper while we're at home just so she can practice more! But her ability to do that is pretty impressive - it shows her physical strength as well as her understanding of the concept. I just love watching her learn!

Kinsey is also up to 26 lbs 1 oz these days and while I haven't measured her yet, I think she's grown as well. That's it for this week. We're looking forward to another fun and busy week next week - my best friend Cheri and her family will be visiting us from FL. We can't wait to see them and show them where we live now! So the blog might be late again next week as we'll be out having fun!

Here are a few of the trip pictures:

Major Chewing Progress and other Amazing Things

Lately we've noticed Kinsey making major progress with chewing! I've seen her chew things and moving food around in her mouth with her tongue only, not her fingers! She still uses her fingers quite often, but it is getting less and less. As a result, she's able to eat more foods now - the other day she ate an entire pickle spear, biting pieces off and chewing them up, including the skin! (We've never given her the skin before, only the fleshy center part of a pickle and always cut up into small pieces.). We also give her chunks of cheese now instead of having to shred it for her and she eats string cheese now too! She has also discovered a new fruit - grapes! Before she couldn't chew through the skin, but that's no problem now. And she's even started eating chicken nuggets!

She's has also started making a really cute sound when she eats, especially when she puts something in her mouth that she really likes. It's like a mmmm mmmm mmm sound like it tastes really good! I'm also excited about this because it means she knows how to make an "m" sound so maybe I can get her to say momma soon :)

Speaking of food - here are a few food pictures:

Eating a frozen yogurt pop

Pasta! I had to take a picture once it was all over her forehead!

And the clump of cheese on her arm tops it off!

Kinsey amazes me on a daily basis with the new and funny things that she does, but this week I've really been appreciating some of those things thinking back to how hard we worked to get there. The other day she was playing with her toy piggy bank and easily putting the toy coins in the slot over and over again. I can remember when I had to hold her hand and turn it so the coin was lined up right with the slot so she could put it in. I remember when she would do one or two coins and then refuse to do any more. But now she can do it all on her own pretty easily and has no problem putting all 10 coins in and starting all over again.  She has also been walking around the house a lot lately with her shopping cart or baby stroller. She will go back and forth through the house over and over again. The truly impressive thing about this is that she knows how to steer the cart around objects and turn it around when she gets to a dead end. I can remember when that was impossible and she would get so frustrated when she got stuck. Now it's no big deal at all. And I don't have to follow her around anticipating having to catch her either. She's pretty steady and doesn't fall down very often, but if she does, she falls in a way that she doesn't totally crash like she used to.

Last week she decided to start stacking blocks of her cheese during dinner instead of eating it. We've never seen her do that before. Plus that's something I've worked on a lot with her with her toy blocks. Until recently she was never interested in stacking them, but loved knocking them down. Now she loves to stack them up too though. We got a hand me down toy from my friend Aliy last weekend - a mega blocks firetruck and Kinsey absolutely loves playing with it, especially stacking the blocks!

It's noticing the little things that make me realize how amazing she truly is! And there are many more little things that I see on a daily basis - too many to remember to post here. But as I sit here typing this, she just reminded me of another thing - the way she sweeps her hair out of her face now and pushes her hearing aid headband back into place when it slips down on her forehead. So cute!

Speaking of progress, here are some pictures that reflect that:

Playing on the playground. So cool that she could walk around and play on this!

New glasses!

Getting into trouble - trying to climb over the baby gate to get to Bailey!

True progress! From L to R: Kinsey a few days old, about 6 months, nearly 2, 2 1/2 and 3 1/2
I found these pictures inside a picture frame when I went to put that latest family photo in it.

Speaking of family photos. . . I forgot to share the pictures from our most recent photo shoot. I think they turned out awesome! Oh, but first, a cute video of Kinsey at the ice cream store - she was watching some other kids play in these chairs and had to do it too.

This is the best picture in history! I've NEVER seen Jamie smile like that in a picture!

Vacation & Sad News from the Trisomy Community

We had a great time on our first trip with the new camper last weekend. We went to Colorado Springs for a quick trip as a "test run" with our camper. Our campground was great, with tons of kids running around, a great playground and pool with a splash park. We went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, which is totally awesome! Kinsey fed the giraffes (we got a total of 4 servings to feed them because she liked it so much), fed an elephant and even pet a baby Wallaby! We had dinner with an old friend of Jamie's and her family and the kids loved playing together. And we went to a kiddy park called The North Pole where they had lots of rides that Kinsey could do all by herself. We were so proud of our big girl! There are too many pictures from the trip to share here, but you can see them all here. (If you already saw these on FB, they are all the same.) But here's a little video of Kinsey on one of the rides at The North Pole.

There's not much else to report from this week. We've had some fun playing outside and Kinsey is getting good at walking outside with a push toy - even something as unstable as the little bubble lawn mower. She can push it on the grass or gravel. Here she is mowing the lawn.

And here's a funny picture of her eating rice and beans with her hands (at our favorite Mexican restaurant). It was pretty funny to watch . . . and very messy!

In other news, we are mourning the loss of a very special Trisomy friend this week, Nora Rose Yusko. I "met" Nora online two years ago when she was born through her mom's blog. Nora's parents received her Trisomy 18 diagnosis when they were expecting her and chose to carry her even though they were told she wouldn't survive. I witnessed Nora's birth thanks to a beautiful video and I cried with her mom when Nora took her first breath. I've been cheering Nora on and providing her mom with advice, support and love ever since. I've anxiously awaited the latest blog post so I could hear about Nora (as I know many of you do with this blog to learn about Kinsey). In April, Nora celebrated her 2nd birthday and was overall doing very well. But a couple of weeks ago Nora went into the hospital after her family caught a stomach bug and they suspected Nora had as well. It turned out to be much more serious than that and Nora ended up having emergency surgery to correct her stomach that had somehow turned itself upside down. After a tough few days, she seemed to be on the mend and then things took a very bad turn. Nora passed away early Tuesday morning. Nora was a very special little girl who impacted the lives of thousands of people, thanks to her mom sharing her story through her blog.

Nora's life, and her death, has impacted me in ways I cannot explain. It's a reminder that tomorrow isn't promised to any of us. A reminder that tiny people can make a huge impact. A reminder to enjoy every moment and not worry so much about all the "what ifs" and "I wishes".  

My heart goes out to Nora's family right now. I honestly do not know how they are going to get through this. But their faith is strong - stronger than anyone else I know. If you'd like to learn more about Nora, check out her mom's blog at http://www.noraroseyusko.com/

Nora Rose Yusko