Kinsey is 5!

It's hard to believe that Kinsey is now a 5 year old! Five years ago, I never dreamt that I'd be saying those words. I remember being so on edge the ENTIRE first year of her life and being afraid to make plans for her first birthday party, even right up until the day of her birthday. You may remember only 10 percent of Trisomy babies live to see their first birthday. I'm so relieved that I no longer live in that constant state of fear that we might lose her - in fact I no longer worry about that at all really! (That's not to say I haven't found plenty of other things to worry about when it comes to her, but that's another story.) Anyway, I bring that up because turning 5 is another major milestone for Kinsey - only 5 percent of Trisomy kids live to see their 5th birthday! Just proving, yet again, how very special, unique and amazing our Kinsey truly is!

So here are some pictures from her fabulous 5th birthday party. We had a My Little Pony theme with live ponies here - although I think most of the kids were more excited about the barrel train than the ponies! Kinsey blew out her own candle this year and enjoyed all the attention of everyone singing to her again (such a ham!).

Today Kinsey appears to be fighting off a cold. Jamie and I have been sick this week with a minor cold and she's showing signs of getting it, but still acting like her usual self for now. Pray that she doesn't get "hospital sick" this time!

A Quick Update

It's been pretty hard to keep up with the blog lately - very difficult to type when holding a baby!

Anyway, I wanted to provide a quick update. Kinsey really loves being a big sister - she tries to be very helpful giving Winnie her pacifier, patting her on the back, wrapping her up in her burp cloth like a blanket, etc. Of course we have to watch her very carefully because she doesn't exactly know when she's being too rough, but she's generally very good with her. We haven't seen any jealousy issues so that's wonderful!

Unfortunately Kinsey caught a cold a couple of weeks ago and spent the weekend in the hospital. That was really hard because I couldn't be with her - no way I can be in two places at once and we didn't want to expose Winnie to the hospital germs. (Winnie and I had already caught the same cold, only a much milder version of it so we stayed home while Jamie and my dad were with Kinsey.) It was just a cold, but as usual it hit her harder than a cold should and she was in the hospital because of her low oxygen levels. She came home on Monday and recovered quickly. She was really excited to see me and Winnie again too!

Developmentally Kinsey is getting better every day at using silverware. She's really good at putting food on a spoon all by herself (sticky things like yogurt or even jello) and getting the spoon to her mouth without losing the food on the way. You can really see her watching to be sure she doesn't turn the spoon upside down. And she's getting better at using a fork too - she's just recently become successful at stabbing food with the fork and getting it to her mouth. She's been attempting to stab food for a while, but usually gets a little over zealous with it and ends up with nothing on the fork in the end, but she's getting more controlled with her efforts and doing better now. I've been trying for some time to get this new skill on video, but as usual she stops doing it as soon as I pull out the camera, but I caught her in the act when we were at a restaurant recently and she was distracted :) Here's the video.

Other than that, here are some pictures from the last few weeks. Enjoy!

Enjoying her New Role as Big Sister

Kinsey is officially a big sister and she's loving it! Winnie Ann made her debut into the world 2 weeks ago on September 4th at 12:48 am. She came quickly (we got to the hospital at 11 pm and I wasn't even sure I was having real contractions since I'd had so many braxton hicks, but she was born less than 2 hours later). Winnie is amazing and doing great!

Kinsey got to meet her little sister later that morning at the hospital and she was instantly in love! She really wants to play with her - constantly trying to hold her hand or give toys to her. She loves to sit and "hold" her, always comes with me into Winnie's nursery to watch me change her diaper, has helped to feed her a bottle and is very curious when I'm feeding her. She gets excited every morning when she sees her again (yes, she's still here!).  I sent a picture to school and the teachers said Kinsey was all excited when they shared it with the other kids at circle time and she was so proud to show her off when I came to pick her up from school with Winnie earlier this week.

She's adjusted well and hasn't been very jealous, although we have seen her get a little upset when she can't get my attention on a few occasions. The hardest part is stopping her from getting into trouble when I'm busy feeding Winnie and can't really get up. But I think we'll both get better at that - sometimes she listens well and I'm sure in time I"ll be able to multi-task through feedings.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks: https://winnieann.shutterfly.com/pictures

End of Summer and Back to School

Kinsey went back to school this week for her final year of preschool. She's been really excited to be back and the teachers say she had a great day all week. Her class is a little different this year...they've integrated some kids that are "in need" of early preschool for reasons other than developmental disability (previously these kids were in the other preschool class and her class was just kids more like her). The last 2 years there weren't more than 6 kids in her class and this year there are 10 now, with a max of 12, but still the same 4 adults (2 teachers and 2 aides). I'm not entirely comfortable with this since it means Kinsey is exposed to more germs and less one on one attention, but she really likes it and will probably get a lot out of having more "regular" kids around her.

I found a bunch of pictures on my phone this week that I forgot to share, so here's a little photo catch up:


I took Kinsey to the movies for the first time this summer. It was a $1 kids movie thing the theatre does during the summer months, so it was during the morning with tons of other kids and I wasn't out a lot of money if she decided not to sit through it. We went with Aliy and her kids and Cathy's too. To my shock, she sat through the entire movie (plus 20 minutes of previews) without any real fidgeting and she loved it!

A few weeks ago we went on a short "hike" with some of our MOPS friends. Kinsey walked a little bit of the hike all by herself, but she rode in the stroller for the most part. She had a great time.

All the kids enjoying our lunch spot

When Gramma was here for the pageant and baby shower, we also went to the Larimer County Fair. Gramma got to take Kinsey on a pony ride:

Kinsey recently learned how to operate the trigger on her bubble gun. She LOVES running around the house shooting bubbles everywhere. The bubbles don't always come out, but it always lights up and she just has the best time. Here's a video.

We are still waiting on Winnie's arrival - about a week until her due date to go! That's it for now.

Pageant Girl

Last weekend Kinsey participated in the Colorado Angels Pageant again. We had a busy weekend with Gramma visiting and the pageant on Saturday morning and Winnie's baby shower that night! Many thanks to everyone who came out to be in her cheering section again this year :) It was fun to see her be able to walk out on the stage all by herself this year! The pictures from the pageant can be seen here. (if you've seen them on Facebook already, they're the same).

Speech therapy has been going well so far, although I'm not sure Kinsey would agree. The therapist is pushing her and she gets pretty frustrated! One of the reasons we started additional speech therapy is because she seems to be getting more frustrated with not being able to communicate what she wants. She's been doing a lot of screeching lately, which is definitely not my favorite sound. We've also been struggling with her attitude mostly in the evenings - dinner and afterwards. So in addition to the therapy, we've "reinstituted" nap time. . . sort of. Kinsey stopped napping regularly at about 2 years old. For the past few years the only time she takes a nap is when she is sick or very occasionally in the car. But we've decided to give it a try, so for a little over a week we've been very consistent about making her lay down in her crib every afternoon from about 2-3 pm. She hasn't napped yet, but she lays down and sometimes quietly for that time period and it seems to be helping.

We are getting ready for back to school in a little over a week - Preschool starts on Tues Aug 25th. I'm sure Kinsey will be excited to be back at school with her friends. We're also getting really close to Winnie's arrival - about 3 weeks to go!

We did a family maternity photo shoot recently. Here's a link to the pictures. You just have to enter my email address to see them (tristagangestad@gmail.com).

Busy Summer Fun

Sorry it's been a while since the last post. We've been busy with summer school, another small vacation and getting ready for baby sister!

For July 4th weekend we took a short trip down to CO Springs with the camper and went to the zoo and The North Pole again. We met up with Jamie's friend Cindy and her 2 daughters at the zoo and Kinsey really enjoyed having some friends to play with for the day. She wasn't crazy about feeding the giraffes this year, but she really got into feeding the little birds and watching the gorillas. Our day at The North Pole got rained out, but after the weather cleared up, we went swimming at the campground and Kinsey had a great time "swimming by herself" for the first time using a small inner tube and arm floaties! It was amazing to see her enjoying the pool all by herself! The other exciting thing that happened on the trip was watching Kinsey climb the stairs of a playground all by herself - she can climb stairs as long as she has hands to hold or handrails on both sides and this playground had the perfect handrails for her.

Here's a link to the pictures from that trip: https://gangestadjuly2015.shutterfly.com/pictures/8

Kinsey is finished with summer school now and has about a full month off before returning for her final year of preschool. She really enjoyed attending school over the summer - not sure how I'm going to keep her entertained for the next month!

Since Kinsey's on Medicaid now, we finally got her set up for some speech therapy in addition to what she gets at school. I've been wanting to do that for a while since she only gets about 30 minutes of specific time with the speech therapist at school, but insurance was an issue. Anyway, last week she had her evaluation and now we're set up for 2 sessions a week. Right now I have to take her to the office in Fort Collins, but starting in Sept. they have a therapist who will be able to come to the house instead, which will be great so I don't have to drag 2 kids out for an apt twice a week. We're hoping the speech therapy will help her start talking and also help with the drooling, which has already been improving lately, but it sure would be nice if she could stop needing the bibs!

This week Kinsey got a new pair of glasses! The old ones weren't reaching all the way behind her ears anymore so it was getting really hard to keep them on her face. She also needed a slightly stronger prescription for the left eye. These glasses are totally different than before - no nose pads for her to bite off anymore! (Although she has gotten better about that lately. In fact, she pushes her glasses back into place when they slide down her nose and she hands them to me when she takes them off now instead of just chewing on them or throwing them on the floor.)

Catching Up on Our Summer Fun!

We've been having so much fun lately! A few weeks ago, we went on our big vacation for this year to the Mount Rushmore area in South Dakota. We took the camper and stayed the first part of the trip at a KOA campground in Rapid City. We were so impressed with Rapid! They have a great little downtown area (sort of similar to Old Town in Fort Collins) with lots of fun shops and great restaurants, but also a fun little square with a splash park, grassy area and stage. We ended up going there for a little while each day we were in town and the square was packed every day - especially with kids running around in the splash park. Apparently they do free concerts and movies at night on the stage too, but we didn't see any of those. Kinsey really enjoyed the splash park - it was fun to watch her run around with the other kids since the last time we went to a splash park last summer she didn't like it because she wasn't walking and couldn't get out of the way of the water when she wanted to. It's so different now that she can run around like the other kids!

There's also a great park with several playground areas around the corner from the downtown area that we went to one afternoon. But Rapid also has tons of great kid tourist things to do too - we went to Bear Country USA, which is a drive-thru zoo. You're only going about 2 miles an hour, so we were able to get Kinsey out of her carseat and let her come up front with us to see the animals. She really enjoyed it. They also have an area where you can get out and walk around to see some smaller and baby animals (more like a regular zoo) and Kinsey found a young girl to befriend while we were there. She kept grabbing her hand and walking around with her - it was so cute. We took some pictures of them together.

We went to Reptile Gardens where Kinsey really liked checking out the giant tortoises, watching the gator show and hugging a baby alligator, petting a snake and giving a parrot a dollar bill. She was really intrigued by some baby turtles that were in a little enclosed area that she was determined to climb into with them. And she and a python had a mutual interest in each other - fortunately through a piece of glass. It was really cool to watch though - they were watching each other very intently.

We also went to a place called Old MacDonald's farm where Kinsey enjoyed some things she can do at home like a barrel train ride and hugging a baby goat, but she also got to ride a pony and help feed a calf a bottle of milk (boy they drink fast!). It was a fun place.

For the end of the trip, we relocated to Custer, SD to stay at Bedrock City, a Flintstone-themed RV and theme park. Unfortunately the theme park was pretty disappointing (pretty run-down and basic) and Custer was tiny and boring too. When we were at the splash park one day in Rapid we met a local who told us about a great hamburger joint and a pie place that we had to try in Custer - those turned out to be the best things about that city. We ate at each of them twice! 

Kinsey also decided on this trip that she likes the swimming pool again - yeah! We were fortunate that the KOA had a regular pool as well as a kiddie pool and we used the kiddie pool to ease her in. Once she got used to having her feet in the kiddie pool, we got her in all the way, then we eased her into the regular pool too. She was unsure, but it worked and now she loves it again like 2 years ago :) We had a rainy, cold day and found a nearby hot springs indoor pool to go to that day. They had 2 kiddie pools - one was only 1 ft deep and the other was 3 ft deep with a little water slide that Kinsey loved! I wish we could've gotten a video or pictures of her on it, but it took one of us to put her on the slide and the other to catch her at the bottom, so no extra hands for the camera.

Of course, we went to see Mount Rushmore while we were there too. Kinsey didn't care about that, but we enjoyed it. Kinsey's favorite part of that was bouncing down a bunch of stairs in the stroller! I'm not sure who enjoyed that more - Kinsey or the people going up the stairs that were laughing at her laughing! Going back up was nowhere near as fun for any of us though!

Kinsey did great on the whole trip - sleeping well in the camper for the most part and was good in the car (as usual). We were careful not to plan too much each day and tried to give her lots of playtime. She was most interested in making friends and playing with other kids everywhere we went. It's so sweet to watch how friendly she is, but at the same time it breaks my heart to see the reactions of other kids sometimes. Some are friendly and play with her or hold her hand, but others stare and some run away :( It's awkward because she approaches them, but then just stares at them, reaches for their hand or starts making gestures they don't understand. We try to help by introducing her and explaining that she doesn't talk, but wants to play, which works sometimes. On the other hand, some kids are extremely receptive to her - like the young girl at Bear Country or 3 young girls we met at the pool one night who took turns holding and hugging her while near the stairs of the pool. They were really sweet. 

Since we've been home, we've continued to have lots of fun. Kinsey started summer school, which is Tues and Thurs mornings for 3 hours. We also started music class on Wed mornings - the same class we used to do a few years ago and she's liking that a lot. We decided not to do gymnastics since she got sick a few days after the trial class (I blame the foam pit)! I can clean everything she touches at the music class, so that makes us feel a little better.

Anyway, we've spent lots of time in the water - going to the beach lake with Aliy and her kids, checking out City Park Pool, which is zero entry with play structures, and going to the local splash park with our MOPS group. I was really impressed with how well Kinsey walked on the sand at the beach! Here's a video and here's one of her playing at the splash park too.

I have so many pictures from vacation and the last couple of weeks - too many to post, so you can view them here instead (If you've already seen them on Facebook, they're all the same). A few pictures and vidoes that haven't already been on Facebook are below.

Enjoying a merry go round. 
Swimming with daddy.

At Carhenge:

 

Enjoying the Pool: 

 

Eating one of the best burgers in the country (as rated by Food Network)

 

Playing at City Park Pool

A hospital stay...make that two!

This is just a quick update from the last two weeks...

Kinsey came down with a cold two weekends ago. Started out as just a runny nose on Saturday, but by Sunday evening we were on our way to the ER with her. As usual, a cold somehow devolved into lots of puking, which began to turn brown. Turned out it wasn't serious, just that somewhere along her system got irritated by all the throwing up and started to bleed. Anyway, she was admitted to the hospital, but improving by the following afternoon. She was sitting up, watching tv, and eating and holding it down. She needed oxygen, but we could take care of that at home, so they discharged her. She was understandably exhausted and slept all night long, but the next day when we expected more improvement, she got worse. She wanted to sleep all day and when she was up, she was complaining and unable to hold even water down again. After a call to the pediatrician, we were headed back to the ER again less than 24 hours later! She was admitted again, but they still didn't find anything more than a cold wrong with her. By the following afternoon she began to improve again, but there was no way they were letting us go home that quickly again. By that night, she was eating like a champ...downing a bowl of Mac n cheese like no tomorrow, staying up till late into the night and causing trouble...she bit through the connector on her IV and was pulling on all her other cords, so they disconnected everything. By thurs morning, she was more than ready to go home. She even walked out of the hospital!

Since we've been home, she's been doing great. Her cough is even gone now and she's been eating like crazy...guess she has to make up for not eating for 3.5 days! She's even been causing trouble as usual. This is her latest...really trying to climb out of her crib!

And we've been doing lots of playing. I recently taught her a new matching game. She continues to impress me!

Anyway, tomorrow we are headed out of town on our first summer vacation to Mount Rushmore, so lots of pictures coming in the next few weeks!

End of School

Kinsey finished her second year of preschool this week . . . I would say it's summer, but it's hard to wrap my head around that idea since it's been 40, rainy and cloudy all week long and doesn't feel one bit like summer :(

Her class did their end of year program last week and my sweet girl was a flower in the story of a butterfly's life. Cutest little flower in the world! And I was so proud to see her standing up on the stage all by herself!

 

Kinsey will have Extended School Year again this summer, which is 2 mornings a week for 5 weeks, but we've got a few weeks off before that starts. We're looking forward to a vacation in our camper in a couple of weeks. I'm also signing Kinsey up for a toddler gymnastics class that's one morning a week. We went for a trial class this morning and she enjoyed it. They have a little obstacle course to go through, a small trampoline that's built into the floor, a foam pit and floor fun time. I think she'll like it even more as she gets used to all the activities. 

Kinsey gave me a heart attack this week - she managed to find one of those Silica Packets that comes in bags and shoes for keeping them dry and of course she put it in her mouth. I found her with it after she'd already put the entire thing in her mouth and went into total panic mode because I know they clearly say on them Do Not Eat! I'm always really careful about throwing them away because I knew this is exactly what would happen if she found one. I quickly fished as much of it as I could out of her mouth, attempted to rinse her mouth out, looked up the danger online and called Poison Control. Turns out Silica isn't toxic, it's mainly labeled that way because it's not food and it could be a joking hazard (the little Silica beads are hard). I watched her carefully the rest of the afternoon to make sure she was ok - she was perfectly fine after she got over being upset from me fishing it all out of her mouth - I was the one who was traumatized! Not that I'm going to relax about those packets now, but at least I know they're not toxic! 

Last night Kinsey did something new - she picked up her little cup off the table and took it straight over to the water dispenser in the door of the fridge. She put the cup behind the lever, so she didn't get any water, but she had the right idea! I helped her do it a few times (putting just about 1/4" of water in the cup each time). I tried to get it on video, but it's not very good.

Not much else to report right now. Hopefully the weather will improve and start to feel like summer soon and we'll be able to go out and play with the baby goats and do other things outside! 

Catching Up

I'm catching up on a few weeks in pictures and videos: 

The Garbage Man visited the Preschool class a few weeks ago and all the kids thought that was pretty cool. Kinsey sat in the front seat: 

 

 

Gramma bought Kinsey her own purse for Christmas this year (a real leather one from Florence, Italy!). It's full of little toys that she can play with when we're waiting for our food at a restaurant and it's a great way to keep her entertained. She loves taking it in with her and insists on carrying it on her shoulder just like mommy! 

 

Silly girl! 

 

Last weekend the local kid's store Clothes Pony celebrated their 5th birthday with a pony out front, appropriately. Kinsey got to pet and brush one of the ponies while we waited in the long line for a short ride on the other pony. She loved it and it gave me inspiration for her birthday party this year (more on that when it gets closer). 

 

Kinsey also has some new friends to play with here at home now too . . this week one of our goats had her babies! We have a little boy and a little girl and they're so adorable and tiny! They are dwarf goats, so even mom is little. Kinsey loves them and she's even really gentle with them too!

Kinsey's really growing in lots of ways and doing cool new things all the time. A few weeks ago I took this video of her putting together some matching animal toys. This was super impressive because she was matching the colors, but also because she was making sure the body parts were matched up correctly so the animals could stand on their feet and also because these are a little difficult to push together, especially for her hands.

She's also started clapping for herself when she does something. I took this video the other day. They've taught her this at school.

Things are moving along well with my pregnancy. A few weeks ago I took my 20 week belly photo and Kinsey had to get in on the action:

Easter Fun and a Growth Spurt

Kinsey really enjoyed Easter this year! She had lots of fun coloring the eggs again and the Easter Egg Hunt was a big hit - so much fun that she could walk around by herself!

Kinsey has also been enjoying the goodies the Easter Bunny brought her, including these cool large stamps and stamp pads.

She's really trying to communicate more these days. She's constantly pointing and making a noise that's an obvious question. She's also getting frustrated more because she can't communicate. She's had some rough days at school lately crying a lot when she doesn't get what she wants. She's also got a new fun way of taking a bath - she likes laying down and "swimming" in the tub, on her stomach and her back.

We're making progress on the addition to our house - the foundation was poured a week ago and Kinsey really enjoyed "supervising" from the windows. The framers will be here next week so I'm
sure she'll really enjoy that!

Kinsey spent a solid week eating everything in sight and then she spent a week sleeping a lot more than normal so we figured she was going through a growth spurt. We finally measured her and we were right - she grew 2 inches (up to 40" now) and gained 2 pounds (up to 30.5 pounds now)!

On another note, we'll be at 20 weeks with Kinsey's future little sister on Monday. Halfway there! I can feel her moving around all the time now and we're starting to see my stomach move when she moves too. I'm sure Kinsey will get a kick out of it when she can really see her moving! And if you haven't heard yet, her name will be Winnie Ann :)

Catching Up

Kinsey had a really bad cold a couple of weeks ago (only a week after recovering from a minor one). She missed a whole week of school because of it and had a rough couple of days before she started to recover. We took her to the doctor to be sure she didn't have RSV because that's been going around here, but she didn't have that or the flu. We were able to avoid the hospital since we had the oxygen here at home and were able to monitor her oxygen levels, which were down in the 70s even on oxygen sometimes. But she recovered after a rough couple of days and quickly got back to her normal self.

Since recovering from the cold, she's been eating like crazy! At first I thought she was making up for not eating for a few days, but she's kept it up with every meal for the last 2 weeks. She must be getting ready to grow! She's getting better at using a fork and spoon on her own. I've tried to get her on video with a spoon a few times, but as usual, she always stops as soon as I get the camera out. Stinker!

She's been having a fabulous time at school too. The teachers are always telling us how social she is - constantly wanting to hug her classmates and following them around on the playground.

We finally took her for updated allergy testing recently and it appears that she has outgrown the egg allergy! Woo hoo! The doctor said all the breads she's been eating helped get her body used to eggs. We need to do a "challenge" with a little bit of cooked egg like scrambled or french toast and watch her for a reaction, but she was sick and we haven't had a good time to do that yet. But we have given her things like mayonnaise and she had some items from a salad that had hard boiled eggs on it and no reaction to those.

Kinsey's personality has continued to expand and she's finding new ways to express herself all the time. She knows how to ask for what she wants, usually by pointing and making a noise. She's been playing with her baby dolls a lot lately and I see her wrapping them in "blankets" all the time and carrying them around like that or I find them laying on the floor under a blanket. So cute. She's also been loving the warmer temperatures and being able to play outside, especially with the chickens and goats. It's fun that she can walk around outside by herself - now she can really play outside.

We watched her do something really interesting a few weeks ago - Jamie put the hamster in the bath tub and Kinsey was standing outside it watching him run around in the tub. She really wanted to get to him, but couldn't reach so she decided to try to climb in the tub. Turns out she can get one leg up on the edge of the tub, which in itself is impressive because the tub edge is pretty tall. But she still couldn't get in, so she turned around and grabbed the stool that's under the sink and we use for her to wash her hands in the sink. She pulled it out from under the sink and over to the tub, climbed up on the stool while holding onto the edge of the tub, swung one leg over the tub and then grabbed Jamie's hand to stabilize herself while swinging the other leg into the tub! We were so impressed with the thought process and problem solving skills that went into the whole thing.

Fortunately Kinsey recovered from her cold in time for us to take her to see Disney on Ice last Saturday. We'd bought front row tickets for the show so we were so glad we were still able to go. And Kinsey LOVED it! She got frustrated with us a couple of times because we wouldn't let her get down - there was no wall between our seats and the ice rink and we were afraid she's try to just walk right out there. She wanted to reach out and touch all the characters, especially Mickey and Minnie and some of the toys from Toy Story. Here are a couple of pictures and a little video. You can see how excited she was watching the show. We'll definitely take her to see a show like that again!

I think I remembered all the updates for now. . .

Kinsey's BIG News!

Last week Kinsey shared some BIG news . . .

That's right! She's going to be a big sister in September . . . to a little sister! She doesn't understand it yet, but she will be very excited when the baby comes. In fact, she loves babies so much, she might be too excited!

We are obviously thrilled! It's been a long road for us to get here and we run a high risk of having another trisomy child, so we did early prenatal testing at 12 weeks and found out that her chromosomes are healthy (and we obviously also found out that she is a girl)!

My friend Aliy got in on the excitement with us . . . we got the gender results in an envelope and gave it to her along with the stuff to make a cake. So she got to find out before us and made us a cake with a pink layer inside. Then she came over with the cake to take pictures of us cutting into it. It was a really fun way to find out! Here are her pictures and I also took a video.

Just cutting in . . .

I saw a hint of pink and Kinsey got excited . . .

And now we could all see it (see that slight smile on Jamie's face?)

 I'm in the 2nd trimester now and feeling good, especially now that we're past the stress of whether the baby would be healthy or not. Now I'm excitedly planning (and shopping) for her arrival. . . due Sept 7th (Labor Day - how appropriate)!

Kinsey's been doing well recently. She had a little cold (which we all got), but it wasn't a bad one. That was her first cold since early December, which makes it the longest she's ever gone while in school without getting sick. Hopefully that means her immune system is getting stronger!

More news on Kinsey next time . . .

Kinsey's First Field Trip (and other fun)

Kinsey went on her first school field trip today to the Fire Station. I wasn't able to go with them, but her teacher sent me a bunch of pictures and everyone (even the teacher from the other class) told me how much Kinsey loved it! She was really into the trucks and the firemen - probably some of the same who saved our house from burning down 2 years ago!

Riding the school bus for the first time!

She really liked the truck!

They've been working on matching colors and objects at school with Kinsey for a long time and it's starting to show. Last weekend we were in a store and she saw a shelf of stuffed animals. There were a bunch of pink and purple animals and there were 2 green turtles that were pretty far apart from each other. She grabbed one of the turtles, then touched a few of the pink and purple ones and reached back in the pile for the matching turtle! I didn't even realize what she was doing at first until she grabbed the 2nd turtle and then I realized she was purposefully getting the only other one that was the same as what she had in her hand already. Pretty cool!

Then one afternoon this week she was sitting on the couch with me watching a video on the ipad about turtles. She decided to get down and I thought she was just done with the movie, but she walked straight over to the new stuffed turtle from the store (because of course, I bought 1 of them, but not both). She obviously knew the character in the movie was the same as her new stuffed animal!

Speaking of which, watching videos on the ipad is her new favorite activity. We signed up for netflix and I started watching some old shows/movies on my ipad while she watches cartoons on the big tv (I'm pretty tired of watching her cartoons). Anyway, she wanted to know what I was up to and started climbing up on the couch to sit with me so I found some kid movies for her and put my shows on the big tv instead. Now whenever she sees my ipad or hers, she immediately grabs it and wants to watch something on it. She'll sit on the couch and cuddle up with me, which I absolutely love because she's usually too busy to sit with me, or she'll sit on the couch by herself to watch a movie.

Last weekend we went out to eat and the restaurant had a soft serve ice cream machine with teeny tiny ice cream cones - just the right size for Kinsey! So I filled one up and handed it to her. At first she wasn't sure what to make of it, but she eventually tasted it and decided it was good so she ate it. She did a good job with it until she ran out of ice cream at the top and decided to turn it sideways and take a bite out of the side of the cone. Here's a video.

And the last bit of fun from the past week is that we went out to see the chickens yesterday and Kinsey wanted to carry the egg collecting basket, which gave me the idea to let her collect the eggs for the first time. We've been cautious about it because she might break them and because of her allergy. So I added a little towel to the bottom of the basket for a little cushion to protect the eggs and we headed out. She really enjoyed picking up each egg (we found 14!) and putting them in the basket one at a time. She was being really careful with them at first, but then she started dropping them in the basket and a couple of them broke when they hit each other. But she did a great job and really enjoyed it. Next time I'll put another towel over the first layer of eggs so she doesn't break them.