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).