A Walking Set Back

Kinsey had a good week at school. Her teachers are telling me she's doing a great job with matching colors and objects and doing much better at sitting and paying attention for activities than in the past. I think she's really enjoying it, even more than before, because she threw a fit when it was time to go home nearly every day this week!

Kinsey's favorite toy lately has been her Hug Me Elmo. She carts it all around the house with her and grabs him to sit in one of her chairs with her all the time. I got this cute picture of them watching TV together this week:

Unfortunately, Kinsey's had a pretty big setback with her walking skills. We really slacked off on practicing her walking on her own between the two of us for a while over the summer, so I recently told Jamie we need to get back into it, but that didn't go so well. We've tried it nearly every day this week and she pretty much refuses to walk! She will sit down or lean back real far so you can't take your hand off her back. It's really frustrating that she's not willing to walk right now, but hopefully we'll get her back into it. Between school and us practicing at home again, I hope we'll get her back on track soon.

I weighed and measured Kinsey this week and she's grown an inch I think, up to 37" tall, and she gained a few more ounces getting closer to an even 28 lbs.

Here are a couple of pictures from a week or so ago of Kinsey drawing on her dry erase boare:

Back to School

Today was the first day of school for Kinsey - year two in Preschool. We had orientation on Thursday morning as well. Kinsey's class is pretty much the same this year, with all but one of the same kids returning. She has the same teachers and one of the same aides, and one new aide. Apparently one of the aides that was in her class last year switched with an aide from the other preschool class. I'm a little relieved because she was the one who has young children and was sick quite frequently and still coming to school sick herself. That meant I kept Kinsey home to avoid being around her. So hopefully this will be a good change.

Anyway, Kinsey was excited to be back at school with all her friends and had a great time at orientation and the teachers said she had a good day today too. 

We also had a meeting with the teachers and therapists on Thursday to review Kinsey's IEP (Individual Education Plan). It's due to be formally reviewed annually, which for Kinsey is November because that's when she started school last year, but I wanted to make some informal changes/additions to it based on the new things she's started doing recently. So some new things they're going to work on include:

• Helping her learn how to stand up totally on her own without holding onto anything - she's close already!
• Learning to step down stairs (with hand holding)
• Practicing drinking from an open cup
• Puzzle matching 
• And there are more that I can't think of right now!

I can't think of anything else to report from this week, but here's a funny picture of Kinsey from a few weeks ago that I forgot to share. She had this doll swing down on the floor and she was trying to sit in it herself!

3 3/4

Last Sunday was Kinsey's 3 3/4 birthday! That means she's going to be 4 in less than 3 months now! That's crazy!

We've been busy enjoying the last few weeks of summer break lately before Kinsey heads back to school the end of next week. A couple of weekends ago Kinsey participated in the Colorado Angels Pageant again. We had so much fun doing it and Kinsey had a huge fan club there to cheer her on (Pop-Pop, my friends Aliy and Cathy and her family, Nanny Kelley (from back in the FL days - she lives her now) and her daughter, Jamie's boss Penny and several of the Mentor Moms from my MOPS group - Sharon, Joy, Sandy and Marge.). Aliy was gracious to come and take pictures to document the day again for us :)

She really didn't want any lipstick!

Last weekend we went on our last camping trip for the year. This time we just took a long weekend trip up to Grand Lake in the mountains. We drove through Rocky Mountain National Park to get there and enjoyed the beautiful drive. We saw a ton of Elk! We also got lost trying to find our camp ground, but in the process stumbled upon a momma Moose and her baby! So cool!

Kinsey enjoyed watching videos on her ipad on the trip (I save it for when she starts getting tired of being in the car and that buys us some more time!). I downloaded some episodes of Sesame Street before the trip and she was really into them. She held the ipad in front of her for the entire hour long episode and was actually laughing out loud a lot! I tried to capture it on video, but only got a little bit. You can see her smiling at the video a few times, but only hear her laughing once. Plus the truck is very noisy! 

It was a pretty relaxing trip - not a whole lot to do in the area and Kinsey was a little out of sorts most of the weekend - she got really off schedule with her sleeping and ended up taking naps every day. That combined with afternoon rain meant we chilled out in our camper quite a bit (I read an entire book on the trip!). We still had fun though, going on a few bike rides around the camp ground and meeting up with Aliy and her family, who happened to be camping about 10 minutes away the same weekend, for a short hike. Our camp ground was awesome with a horse stable and a farm of baby animals, which Kinsey loved! Here she is feeding the chickens grass. She also really enjoyed the river that ran behind our camp ground and throwing the river rocks in to splash!

Hugging the calf!

The calf tried to eat her shoe! The day before, he was eating her dress!

Our hike to Adams Falls

 

Playing in the sand with the mountains in the background of the lake. Beautiful spot.

Hugging Amara (Aliy's daughter)

These horsey trikes were so cute!

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a video on Facebook of Kinsey drinking out of an open cup totally on her own. We've given her sips out of our cups on occasion for a long time now, but just recently she's started trying to hold onto the cup and we discovered she was getting really good at regulating the amount of water she puts in her mouth on her own. Then one day I caught her picking up a small water cup from the side table in the living room and I watched her drink from it without spilling anything or choking herself on too much water. I made her put it down while I went to get the camera and then took this video. She's been practicing a lot since then - only with water and only when we're sitting at the table for lunch or dinner. This is something I'm definitely going to have them practice at school.

Speaking of school, I mentioned that she starts again the end of next week. On Thursday I'm having a meeting with the teachers to amend her IEP from last year to add some new goals or change some of last year's goals. We'll officially write a new one for the year in November (because that's when this one started last year), but she's been making so much progress lately that I want to make sure they're working on her newly emerging skills!

Lastly, this week we got Kinsey some new pets . . . nigerian dwarf goats! She loves them so much at the petting zoos all the time, she's not allergic to them, they'll always be small and they're really friendly so we thought they would be perfect. Plus we have PLENTY of weeds for them to eat! So far, we found a great deal on 3 boys and we picked them up on Thursday and we're picking up 1 girl on Sunday (we're still looking for a few more girls). They're all registered, so we'll be breeding and selling them - fun!

A New Adventure & New Skill

This week Kinsey and I had a new adventure - we went on a hike in the mountains with our MOPS group on Monday. The trail we were on was only stroller-friendly about 1/2 way up and Kinsey obviously couldn't walk herself, so that meant I had to carry her in the hiking backpack the rest of the way! I'd never done that before and wasn't sure if I could manage it - did I mention she now weighs 27 lbs? Anyway, I really wanted to go with the group and do something different, so I was willing to make it work. It turned out the hiking backpack I bought recently on Craigslist is more comfortable than the one we borrowed from a friend for the Yellowstone trip and it was actually pretty easy to carry her - might have been easier to carry her the whole way instead of using the stroller at all. The hike was only about a mile up to a waterfall and then back again and we had a great time, although I was sore the next day! We had lunch with our friends before heading home too.

She doesn't look very comfortable, but she actually likes it.

Taking a break with friends on the hike up to the Falls

Checking out the Falls - the water is snow run-off so it's really cold and Kinsey refused to put her feet in it!

I recently noticed that Kinsey was getting really good at putting together her large farm puzzle so I decided to video her doing it and what do you know, she did it all by herself - while I had the camera rolling! We tried another puzzle that has smaller pieces and she still has some trouble getting the pieces in the right spot, but she has the idea. This is something I'm definitely going to have the school work on more with her. They've been working on matching like objects and telling me she gets it right about 6 out of 8 times! Since the puzzle has the same picture underneath the puzzle piece, it's just as much a matching skill as it is fitting the piece in the spot. Anyway, here's the video of the puzzle. 

Kinsey is done with summer school and has about 3 weeks off before the regular school year starts. We're going to enjoy sleeping in for a few weeks and playing together as much as possible. Speaking of which, we are taking one more trip in the camper this summer - this time just for a long weekend up to Grand Lake in the Mountains next weekend. So I might write the blog before we leave, but if not, you'll know why it doesn't come next weekend.

Finally, here are some pictures we took last weekend. I've been dying to take these since Jamie bought Kinsey a Farmall pedal tractor last year for her birthday! I found this idea on Pinterest and thought it was just too perfect.