Therapy Tuesday!

5/17 Tuesday
Today for therapy Grace got to play with a lot of toys she's never played with before! Oh, and there is kinda picture overload, so just letting you know! There's some pictures of the activities we've been doing for "homeschool" days, which has been so fun!

Grace checking out her book while we wait for her therapist to come. She LOVES pointing out the "baby" and "shoes!"

How stinkin' cute is she??? She's just growing up so fast, I can't believe it!

Kisses for mommy!!!

Once again, she pointed out the "baby" and I liked telling her there were fish so she could do the sign!

Here's her brown bear hanging art. She colored the paper plate, and since it's glossy paper plate, she was able to smear the ink . Then we colored cotton balls for the ears, glued on the ears and a button nose, and then mommy glued on the eyes and drew the mouth and added the streamers. I would have let Grace put the eyes on, but...one of them ended up in her mouth! I actually ended up having to take this down today (05/21) because when the fan was on, she FREAKED out because it was moving.
Here's her bee. I know, it looks like a fish. She helped put the stripes on, as well as the eyes, and I stuffed it an hung it :) She loves saying "BEEEEEE" every time I ask her what it is. She's so smart!!
Here's her "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" tree, but we aren't using the letters. She's just too young, so we will just do animal art and add it to the tree. That's her painted bird with hand-print wings, and today (05/21) we added a pink pig that she colored with brown to signify dirt!!
Ok, therapy time with LeeSee!! First off, reading!
Then a puppet! She LOVED the puppet, so I think I will be purchasing some puppets very soon! I think that would be wonderful for circle time during homeschooling!
A new project. At this point when the picture was taken, it was all a "teacher driven" activity. We usually allow for Grace to do "child driven" activities (where she uses the toy how she wants) but I really wanted to see her put all the rings in the slits, so Allyse worked with her on it.
Here's Grace playing with the container that the rings go in. She really enjoyed being able to look through the box and see us still :)
Here she is picking out the next activity she wants to play with. That's how we have her decide what she wants to play with. There is a picture frame full of pictures of toys that Allyse has brought with her that day, and Grace looks through the album and tears off a picture that she wants. The pictures are stuck on with velcro.
This is also a new toy for her!! She had a lot of fun with these magnetic toys!
There's her car!! BEEP BEEP!! All in all, a great therapy day :) Glad that there were new toys so she could figure out matching them with the cards from the album. I'm just sad that there won't be therapy for a while since both PT and Infant Specialist are going on vacation :)

Amanda

Visiting our Project RIDE friends!

Tuesday 5/17
Today we went to visit our friend at the project RIDE barn. I was sad to see that the horses weren't there, but they will be there next week, so we will definitely be going back!! Grace LOVED seeing her friends there!! It was so fun, too, because when I came around the corner and saw my friend Tina, who is the Director of Operations, she had told me she was JUST thinking about us that morning!!! I loved the look on her face when she saw me. And she said, "OH!! I was JUST thinking about you this morning!! Where's Grace?" And I said, "She's walking." And waved my hand around the corner (where she couldn't see). She RACED over to see Grace walking and they both teared up (my other friend Jean, who is the admin. assistant).
Grace loved showing off that she could wave while standing in her walker :) And she LOVED being able to walk around without me having to help her, or without having to crawl!
It was rainy, so we were bundled up!
Here's Tina's expression after Grace blew her a kiss!!! It was such a cute face!
And her giving Grace a pat while she stood up :) They watched her for SO long just walking around. This is the wonderful woman that let Grace and I know that her first year of riding with them would be FREE!! OH!! I don't think I told my blogger friends! I had asked what the price would be, and she said, "It's free. Don't worry about it. You'll be a scholarship rider for the first year, and we'll see about the second year too." I cried. I had to because I was SO happy!! And they cried because I cried! Women, what do you think would happen?! So right when she turns 3, the actual day, they said to come in and get started with the assessment, and they'll get her riding!!

Good day. We'll be going back there next week too. And we'll have LOTS of pictures with friends and horses!

Amanda

Dehydrating

So, I know that I haven't posted since Tuesday, but before I blow up my blog with tons of posts to catch myself up, I'm going to just write one about my dehydrating class I'm teaching. It's on June 18th at my LDS church building from 10-11:30, and I'm SO excited!! I was going to share the teaching 50/50 with a friend, but she would rather me do it all since I've had a lot more experience. So, the first thing I wanted to do was make a list of 20+ things that I 100% guarantee and promise myself that I will dehydrate before the class! Here's the list:

1. blueberries
2. cantaloupe
   
3. honeydew melon
4. eggplant
5. mushrooms
6. pumpkin
7. Roma tomatoes
8. apple cinnamon leather
9. banana chocolate leather
10. cantaloupe blueberry leather
11. mango raspberry leather
12. tropical fruit leather
13. strawberry banana leather
14. barbecue sauce leather
15. carrot leather
16. green pea leather
17. beans
18. barley
19. elbow macaroni
20. rotini pasta
21. fruit flavored yogurt
22. ground beef
23. tuna
24. chicken

So, hopefully 24 things by next month. I think I will be able to do it :) I just hope they all taste good! First thing first though, go shopping!!

Amanda

The Chili I Made!

I was asked about the chili that I made and dehydrated, so I figured I would put a blog out about it :)

I got the idea from www.backpackingchef.com, and I think everyone should go to that site! It's absolutely awesome!

So here's the chili recipe I used:

3 pounds of ground beef
1 15 oz can of kidney beans, drained
1 15 oz can corn, drained
12 ounces of chopped tomatoes
11 ounces tomato sauce
20 ounces water (about)
1 package of chili seasoning
1/2 t garlic powder, cumin, cayenne pepper, and black pepper

Cook the beef with the spices added (not the packet of seasoning). Drain fat. Use your spoon to chop the meat to very small pieces to make it easier to dehydrate. Add all the rest of the stuff, and simmer for 1 hour. At this point, you can either eat it, or move on to dehydrating...

To dehydrate:
Lay on your trays that are covered with either fruit leather trays or parchment paper. Do NOT use wax paper, as it will melt.
I have the Excaliber, and I used for of my 15 x 15 trays with 1 serving left over to go in the fridge. DO NOT overload the tray. I don't have a picture, but there were spaces between the food products. It wasn't completely covered to where you couldn't see the white. You want the air to be able to circulate around the food pieces.
Load your dehydrator and turn it to 135 degrees for 14-16 hours. About halfway through, I broke up the chunks and kinda rotated all the food so if it was wet anywhere still, it could be dried completely.

From the backpacking chef website, if you put this in a glass jar, it will last about 2 months, and if you food save it (which I did) it could last about 1 year. But we will be using it in July. :)

So there you have it!!

The left is the chili, the right is the tomato sauce leather that I can reconstitute for spaghetti sauce if we're camping!

Amanda

More dehydrating

So I have successfully dehydrated Chili and Tomato Sauce :) The chili should reconstitute enough for three servings, which will be one meal for us, and the tomato sauce is about one cup reconstituted. I had Brad taste a chunk of the Tomato Sauce and he said it was pretty gross..."tastes like...bleh, tomato paste!" Well, yeah! That's what I had on hand that was open. So the next time I dehydrate Spaghetti sauce, I'll make sure it's ONLY spaghetti sauce and not the tomato paste :) I'll have to remember to season this when I reconstitute it!

Today, well, I don't know what's going into the dehydrator today! I don't have anything made...so I'm kinda stuck on what to put in there. I was thinking more potato puree since we've got two bags of potatoes. Since I'm going to be teaching a dehydrating class with my friend soon, though, I think I'm going to focus more on trying out new things so I have more experience, rather than doing the same things over and over! The chicken that was supposed to be pressure canned today is still frozen...gr...so into the sink it goes with water to defrost quicker than in the refrigerator. That will probably be canned late afternoon!

The bread that I tried to make in my wonder oven..well...it didn't fully turn out. Half the bread was cooked, while the other half was...not really. So I'm going to try again but with smaller loaves (I used the 3 cup Chicken Broth cans), and I will pull it out after the time it should be in there, reboil it for another 10 minutes, and will put it back in for more time just to be on the safe side! Brad and Kailyn still liked it though...the parts that were done! Try, try, and try again! I was hoping to do some solar cooking too, but with the weather we're having, that won't be happening anytime soon!

Amanda

Our Homestead :)

Our homestead this week :)

Dehydrated some more food items!! Did you think I'd say anything different?! This week was strawberries, more spinach, potato puree, rice, and some beef stroganoff (complete meal). First, lets take a look at the garden!! And of course, the first thing you will notice is the weeds. We were supposed to get out there and tackle them...but Brad got sick, and then I got food poisoning...so that's for this week!
Peas and green beans. We definitely need to get moving on a climber fence for the green beans!!
The sticks are showing where to tomatoes are amongst the sea of green!
And our squash/zucchini/cucumber section :) I love watching all the plants grow so fast!
Our potatoes definitely took a beating from the hail, so our job here is to pile up the soil we bought. We'll probably pile a good 5 inches on these babies so they'll be just little sprouts :)
Here's a closer look at the poor things...I felt SO bad for them because of the stupid hail!! I hope it doesn't effect them at all.
Here I am boiling some banana oatmeal nut bread in chicken broth cans. I do that for 10 minutes, and then put it in my wonder oven for 3-4 hours, and then I will have yummy bread that didn't heat up the entire kitchen!! (The wonder oven has two "bean bags" full of polypropelene pellets in them. You sandwich the pot with a lid in between these bags after 10 minutes of boiling, and close the tupperware box they are enclosed in, and the heat stays hot enough because of the pellets to cook your bread! Saves gas and keeps the house cool!) Of course I forgot to take pictures of the entire process, but you have to be kinda fast going from the boiling to hiding in the box stages.
These are my beautiful jars of dehydrated goodness!! Left to right...rice (it's now like instant rice), potato powder (this is mashed potatoes with enough water added to liquify it, dehydrated, broken up and pureed. I could have left it as big chunks, like chips, but nah), spinach powder (this equals to about 15 4 ounce packages of chopped spinach. Now, if we ever need our dark leafies, I can just pour some of this powder into ANYTHING and we will get the nutrients, but won't taste it!), and the beef stroganoff (fully prepared. We actually had that for dinner and dehydrated the leftovers. Dehydrate 135 for 10 hours or until fully dehydrated).
And here's the strawberries :) I think the picture is fuzzy but you get the idea! YUM!!

Right now, I'm cooking a pot of chili (half for the fridge, half for the dehydrator), and am dehydrating one tray of homemade spicy spaghetti sauce and 4 trays of bread (for bread crumbs). Tomorrow I will be cooking up a bunch of ground beef, adding the bread crumbs and dehydrating the whole lot for when we travel up to MT. It's so much easier bringing food that doesn't have to remain frozen, especially when it reconstitutes well!!


Amanda

Grace's Water Therapy

This was from Last Thursday
SWIM DAY!!! I was so excited today because Daddy came with us to Grace's therapy!! Today was a pretty good day for Grace too! I think it was better because the routine was back to normal, with kickboard, sitting work and noodle work FIRST, and THEN on the ramp!!
I think Grace is just SO CUTE in her hat and glasses. Of course, neither of them lasted very long, but we tried :) So the first picture is her standing on a kickboard underwater. This helps with her balance, leg strength, and trunk ability. Here she is low...

And POP!! There she is popped up into the air, standing tall! They actually got as high as her knees out of the water, which is just fabulous!!
Now working on kicking her legs while on her stomach. This was her first time, but she did pretty good! She was kinda nervous, but that's ok!
Noodle work. She still doesn't like this, and would rather whine and try to get off, like she was right here :)
This is what we had the huge deal with last week with her lunging forward and going all the way under the water. Well, this week she did great!! Sat up nice and tall, let Elaina push the waves towards her, repositioned when she went off balance, just great!
This was something new for Grace, and she did pretty good. Elaina had her hold onto the boat with two hands and stand, and she was supposed to use the boat and her balance to stay upright. Well, she did pretty good until she pushed the back down just a bit too much and the boat filled with water! But she did good!!

Of course, at this point my camera ran out of memory...darnit! The only other thing we did was check her floating ability on her back, but she'd have dropped like a rock if Elaina had let her go. So I think swimming lessons are in order!!

Amanda

Grace's Tuesday Therapy and Play day!

This was from Last Tuesday

Today was so fun!! First there was therapy, and this is where we worked A LOT on dramatic play. We wanted to see if Grace could play "pretend." She did GREAT! They worked a lot on "feed the baby, brush the baby's hair, hug the baby, oh baby is sleepy...sh sh sh." I just LOVED watching Grace play pretend!!

The picture above shows Grace wanting to brush LeeSee's hair, but I gave her my hair instead...she brushes kinda hard!!
Feeding the baby. Isn't that just AMAZING?? This is the first time we've ever played this, and she just knew exactly what to do!
I know this looks so funny, but I was just so amazed the cups fit on her hands!
The next to pictures (one above, one below) are from when we went to play group! The picture above is Grace and her friend Nina. Nina is 13 months old :) We are such good friends, and met at the PALS play days we go to a LONG time ago (when Nina was 8 months and Grace was 15 months!)
And here's Grace and Preston. These two little ones just LOVE playing with each other in nursery at church!! And I just love hearing Preston say "Grace!"

Grace and I, as well as Preston and her mommy, had a wonderful chance to share Nina's first ever taste of McDonalds after the play group! It was so special for all of us!!

Amanda

Growing Up

In our situation (my husband and I), I have the unique chance to help his 16 year old daughter grow into a wonderfully strong woman. Usually, a 24 year old would have just been starting out, but I was chosen to lead a bit of a different life. Not so different, just that I was chosen to marry a fabulous man that was older than I am. And at first, I thought it would be a cinch. During about the beginning of our 4th year, I realized...it's no walk in the park. But now, after helping Kailyn sign up for the written driving test, for college courses while still in high school, and discussing with her her ideas for her future, I'm realizing I am SO blessed to be in this situation! I am SO blessed to have the gift of helping this beautiful young woman grow up in this crazy world. Granted, I know her mother could be doing SUCH a better job, but her job on Earth was finished early; Heavenly Father needed her for a purpose that we'll know of later. And for me to be the one He chose to marry this wonderful father, and to be here for his children in a special way that a mother can't really be...well, it's humbling really. I mean, a mom can be a mom, and a friend in a way, but I'm young enough that I remember very well the aches/pains and hardships of a teenage life that most moms might not remember by the time their child is 16, or maybe it's WAY different because it was SO long ago. I'm so glad that I can connect with her at that level. I've seen stress relieved from her when I can explain how I understand, and that she really sees the truth in what I'm saying. I'm so glad I was able to help her finish up her Young Womens work, and now, upon completing her reading of the Book of Mormon, she will be able to receive her medallion. I know her mother is smiling down on her, her beautiful child! And after helping her sign up for all that stuff, I realized...wow, it's been 6 years since her mother had to go back with Heavenly Father. And she's done so well. It's not been easy, actually, it's been so tough for her, probably so much harder than what's shown on the outside, but after making those steps together towards her growing up, and her independence, I just felt a maturity around her. It was kinda weird, really! All of a sudden, she was really a young woman, almost a woman, right before my eyes. I am so happy she's got a dream. I'm so happy she wants a future, and right now, she's got that idea in her head. And I'm so glad she wants me to be there to help her through the steps of gaining her future.

She had wanted to be a veterinarian for so long, but recently, she had changed to wanting to be a police officer. At first, I was against it. It's dangerous, it's life threatening, it's CRAZY!! That's what I thought anyways. But very quickly, I'm learning that you can't make other people's decisions for them. They have to choose on their own. So be it :) So, instead of pushing against her, and fighting her for a new desire in life, I will walk with her. I will help her the best I can. We will support her, both her father and I! (Of course whenever I say I, I really mean we!! He LOVES that she's so driven!!) So I discussed this idea with a police officer at one of our CERT training classes. I found out that Kailyn could go through college to get her AA, and get 5% more pay on top of whatever she'd get just starting out. If she got a BA in ANYTHING, then she'd get another 5% on top of that previous 5%. And if she got a Masters, she could get up to 25% more pay. And I also learned that police academy is 7 months of intense training, and $2000. When I heard the price, I thanked Heavenly Father. Why, you ask? Because the police academy will be free for her. I know what you're thinking...HOW??? Well, Kailyn has some money in the bank saved up for college, and it's been in there for so long, it's gained more than $2000 in interest alone. So, because of the strong dedication she had to keep that money in the bank, her academy will be paid for!!

So after hearing everything from the police officer, of course we rushed home and I went and told her! She was so ecstatic! So here's her plan... Starting junior year of HS, she will be taking 2 classes of college a semester (Not summer). But the end of HS, she will be about 8 classes closer to her AA!! (That will take about 16 classes to have an AA). Since she can't get into the police academy until 21, she will continue classes at the community college to complete her AA, which means maybe one more semester; 2 if she doesn't want to be at school 24/7. So basically one more year of college after HS for the AA. So she'll be 19 when she's got her AA. Then off to state college for her BS in anything, which will be probably 2 years, taking her directly to 21!! Then into the police academy for 7 months, and then hired to a position ANYWHERE that's hiring. Than after that one year wherever she's been hired, she'll be fully qualified as a police officer, and can try to transition to another place if she wants! AMAZING!!

I'm so proud of her!! Can you tell :)

Amanda

Up Up UP!!

Yesterday was such an amazing day. And no, not because I was sick. But because of the most wonderful thing I've ever seen Grace done (besides taking steps). Last night Brad was supposed to take Grace up to bed, and since I was still pretty sick, I made sure and made the process easier by changing her and singing her bedtime songs. But...for whatever reason, he was SUPER tired and ended up not getting up to take her. So I waited for him...and waited...but...someone wasn't waiting!!! Grace went over to the gate at the stairs, and started saying, "Up..up.." Then she started trying to pull it open while saying "UP!" And when I asked her if she wanted to go to bed, she stood up at the gate and said it yet again..."UP!" I was so ecstatic that she was telling me she was ready for bed that I ended up taking her. We crawled up the stairs together, and when held her by her bed singing her goodnight song, she was all too happy and lunged for her bed! And we didn't hear another peep from her once I put her to bed! Silly girl...you just continue to amaze me!

Amanda

Food Poisoning

Not much to announce today...I'm recovering from food poisoning that came on like a bandit this early morning. Sadly, I was unable to go to Cirque du Soleil with my husband, (I had bought him two tickets for his birthday) so his daughter went with him instead :) That's good, she's helped out so much with Grace while we are going to CERT training and other appointments. Hopefully I will feel well enough to blog more tomorrow...until then...

Amanda

Late Update!

Gosh it's already Friday and I see I'm two days behind. I will definitely be blaming that on not only me being sick, but also Brad! And not only that, but Grace gave us a scare Thursday with a 103.5 temperature after water therapy, and then we had CERT training that evening. So we've been SUPER busy! Then today we had a busy morning and a dinner put on by her therapy organization :) The dinner was so fun! Hamburgers, hotdogs, salads, pop, and cookies at the end! We got to see all our therapist friends, meet new people, and Grace got to see her friend Nina!!

So I guess an update is in order. Lets see...I've been spending TONS of time online trying to find applications for the IPad for special needs children. I am supposed to send a list...tonight...of all the apps I want them to put on it (the ones they pay for..free ones I can add anytime) but I just can't believe how hard it is to find $500 worth of apps, that are actually costing something, and that are around her developmental age. So I've come to the conclusion that we will put some on that are advanced, but that they pay for, and she will just have to grow into them. They want all the IPads to be sent out before the end of the month, so I've been spending all the time that she's asleep working on that list. It's really hard trying to find out what programs are good for special needs/delayed children!

Grace is doing great. She's now learned how to get up onto the couch and down (the right way) but many times has still rolled off from being parallel with the couch when trying to swing her legs down and conks her head (NOT FUN!) We leave the blinds up high enough so when she's on the couch, she can look out the window :) We have been doing the homeschooling in the morning (circle time/calendar time) and she LOVES the "song box" time!! She just sits there and laughs, and when she sees me reach into my "curriculum box" (the toy box) to get the box of songs, she gets SO happy!! She loves picking the cards, and sometimes does the arm movements if she knows the songs. We've also been working on stacking blocks. This is really hard for her, as she would rather knock them down. But she's gotten to the point where she can hold the block in one hand, set it on top of the bottom block, but right when I start to clap, she throws it! So she knows what I want her to do, but would rather not! The terrible 2's has started creeping in...she knows what NOT to do but would rather do it!! You think I'm kidding?? She'll throw blocks, well, throw pretty much anything...hit me, and when I say no thank you, she does it again with a look that says, "really, you think I'm gonna listen?!" She's got the foam alphabet floor and after I've put it all back together, she'll stare me down while crawling over to it and ripping it up again! She'll throw her food off her tray (no, it's not because she's full). So we're now learning the give and take. She gets the best of me, and finds the buttons to push, but I'm getting better at just letting it go! It's just a phase, and she'll get through it. One thing I like? When she throws stuff, I make her get it!! Ha! Silly girl; makes more work for her!

Thursday during therapy she did pretty good. Worked on wall crawling, standing/sitting on the stairs (she did SOOOO much better with this), kicking with/without a kickboard on her stomach, pushing off the wall, and walking on the ramp. This time, Elaina did something new with her though, which I REALLY liked. She wrapped a noodle around Grace's chest, and put the two ends into her armpits. She made sure the tips were in her armpits so Grace was about 2 feet in front of her. Then she let Grace walk about chest deep in the water. This was great because Elaina wasn't having to touch her to support her, and so Grace didn't have the feeling like she had to cling. And Grace chose where to go, and it worked her balance a bit more since a noodle isn't that stable. Then at one point Elaina let go one side of the noodle and let it float, and Grace did pretty good for some time, but then started getting fussy... (I've got pictures for all this stuff...but the camera is in the truck in the garage...I know...lazy). Daddy went to therapy too, so that was nice :) Oh, one new thing we tried was floating on her back which she HATED!! So I'm going to sign her up for some swim lessons through the community classes because I don't want her being scared of floating!!

I think that's pretty much it. Tomorrow Brad and I get to go see Cirque Du Soleil, so I'm super excited. It was a gift I bought him for his birthday this year :) Well, I'm going to stop here. I've got a couch, blanket and book waiting for me :)

Amanda

Finally!! I can Announce!!

So, I've been walking on eggshells trying so hard not to announce our wonderful news until we got the okay, which we finally did!! I had entered Grace into a contest to win an IPad, and it was based on the needs of the special child(ren). It was only for special needs kids, and I'm so excited to say Grace was one of the 40 children picked to receive an IPad!! I'm so excited!! Thanks to Mike at "Marissa's Bunny" blog, and for his company that was willing to offer these IPads out to all of our special children!! We will be receiving either a 1st generation IPad or a 2nd Generation IPad. But I don't care which one :)

I'M SO EXCITED!!

Amanda

Tornado Tuesday!

I said that Tuesday is going to be tornado Tuesday because it's going to be a whirlwind of things going on!

Super dee dooper early in the morning, 6:30 am to be exact, I'm leaving to go to the Galt Flea Market to buy some super cheap veggies! (If that doesn't happen, I'll be doing that Wednesday!) Then therapy at 9 (Where I FINALLY get to tell LeeSee that Grace WALKED!!!), and then a play group with some church friends from 10-12. I invited a friend and her daughter to this and I'm so excited she accepted the invite!! They are from Grace's PALS Playgroup!! And I am also meeting a friend there (her name is also Amanda) and she's bringing her daughter too! She is also bringing a friend/kid, and the...8 of us will be leaving the playgroup early (11) to go out to lunch!!! So it will be tons of fun!! Then after that, naptime for Grace...and right when she wakes up, snack and to the library!! After that, the day relaxes. SHEW!!

I can't wait for all this fun stuff!

Amanda

The Couch, The Stairs, The Door OH MY!!!

Once Grace realized how fun it was to get everywhere she wasn't supposed to go, there was no stopping her! It's so wonderful to watch her go everywhere, sometimes fast, sometimes slow...and sometimes she wants me to chase her!! She's recently learned how to get up on to the couch..and now, she does it like a pro...most of the time! We've given in, I mean, what are we gonna do? Put gates on the couch?? No way! So we've given in, raised the blinds while she's awake, and tied up the cords so she can't reach them. That way, she can climb, bang on the windows, look outside and do whatever else her little heart desires, and I don't have to keep telling her NO! I also put the pillows on the floor so in case she falls off, but she's REALLY good about sitting carefully, moving slowly, all that jazz. And to watch her get off is just hilarious!! She goes head first (I know, I know, not the right way, whatever) so it's so funny to watch her wheelbarrow crawl her way out until her legs hit the floor. Talented, my kid, heh? Then there's those darn stairs...

She has learned how to open the gate if we don't latch it, so we've all painfully latched it. (Painfully because it's such a PAIN to unlatch, which is why we never did!!) So little miss stinker; what's she do? Tries to figure out a way OVER the gate!! HA!! Yeah right silly goose! But in all seriousness, when she goes up the stairs, she's so good at it! Hands and knees, up the stairs she goes, and she's so smart, I can tell her "Go to the right, we're going to mommy/daddy's room" and she does! Or, "Go to your room" and what do you know? She goes straight!! My smart girl! Going down is the next thing to learn.

And lastly...the door. Not any in particular, just ALL of them! It just depends on if it's open. The garage door-she'll sneak out to the garage. The bathroom-potty hands! The pantry- I usually end up saying, "Grace, where are you????" The front door- She's OUTTA here!!! Our bedroom door- THE STAIRS!!!! (If she sneaks out, that's the first place she goes). Any cupboard doors-there is just bound to be a mess, so instead of telling her no all the time, we just let her explore, then she gets to help clean it up. We both win! So, as you can see, she loves going through doors. But the thing I like best? I like when I close the door ALMOST all the way, and she's so talented (I know, this is like "duh, that's a no brainer" but whatever.) that she can get her fingers into the door, position her body and open the door in one swoop without having to move herself. She used to open, move, have to open again, move, and possibly a third round of open/move.

I'm lovin' this though. Don't think I'm not! There's not one ounce of whine in this post. To think that I made this child just keeps me so in awe. And to think that her doctor said, "I doubt she will be able to sit up, crawl or walk" makes me so much more proud for everything she does, big or little! I even get excited when I peek my head into her room and she hears me but didn't see me, and so she sits there and looks around for the noise! That's wonderful to me!!

I could go on forever about her, but I'll stop here :)

I love this girly!!

Amanda

The Best Mother's Day EVER!

Ok, so I just can't believe how great my mother's day was!! It was by far the best one ever!! And it started on Saturday with Grace taking steps!! I was ecstatic! And even now, she will still take steps when we practice, but would much rather crawl still. Then on Sunday, Kailyn made breakfast for me (french toast, which I love) and then Grace and I went to church because the other two didn't feel well. Grace gave me a gift from nursery (a magnet with her picture on it), and all the ladies at church got Sees Candy and cinnamon rolls! Oh! I forgot about Grace's letters!!! I couldn't wait till Sunday to look at them, so I did Saturday night! Daddy helped Grace make both of them, and helped her write too. I just thought these were the cutest things EVER!!!
So, back to my wonderful day. After church, Grace took a nap and we were able to relax and watch TV (I like relaxing!) and then Ciara and Andrea came over, and we got to talk to our missionary, Elder Hildreth, that's on a mission in Boston! It was really good to see him (we got to Skype with him) and he was excited to see the little ones! After that I checked my email and got some GREAT NEWS, but I can't tell until I am given permission to tell!!! (Everyone will LOVE the news though!) then we went out to dinner (Pizza YUM) and watched a movie after. So all in all, a wonderful Mother's Day!

Amanda

Apple!

There are so many big things going on with Grace right now, that I just had to share a little one...Grace knows, and can say, APPLE!!! Every time we read a book, or go in her playroom, or go anywhere and she sees an apple, she makes sure I know! She'll point to it and say "Apple!" Today, we played on her kid piano, and she said, "apple, apple" and I didn't see anything. And then she pointed to a little picture of an apple on her piano! Good girl! Then we read a book about apples, and of course she pointed out every one of them, and I was just so happy! Good job Grace!

Amanda

Grace Walking for the first time!

I can't believe I'm writing this. I can't believe that I'm writing this ONE DAY before Mother's Day!! What a gift Grace has given me!! And she doesn't even know it..or maybe she does!

I love you Grace!

Amanda

Being Prepared

I'm pretty excited about my Excalibur Dehydrator. I mean, I've had it for a while, but I get excited about it every time i use it, or plan on using it! It's just amazing that you can dehydrate stuff, and it will last for so long without refrigeration or freezing, like it would normally need! I did spinach this time..9 trays, or about 18 packages of spinach, and here's the result...

Next will be eggs...do you think it's been past time for me to dehydrate eggs? I think it's going to turn into a weekly occasion for the eggs issue, seeing how we get about 12 a day from 10 chickens!

And here's our updated Garden...I HATE the weeds. Part of the garden has been weeded already from the wonderful husband...and maybe for Mother's day, I'll ask him to weed a bit more!! j/k. Anyways, everything is doing great. One of the things I've been doing to be more prepared for the garden this year is that I'm doing research on good dehydrator recipes that will involve everything from the garden. I'm hoping to use EVERY SINGLE THING out of the garden this year, and so I'm going to dehydrate, freeze, can or whatever else to make sure I do that. I know tomatoes will be salsa, ketchup, stews or just canned as tomatoes. Potatoes will be cooked and dehydrated and then powdered or in stews/soups to can, or even freezing in already prepared meals for "dinner in the freezer" days. Peas will be dehydrated or in stews, green beans will be canned, and some will be dehydrated (depended on the output of the garden). Squashes/zucchinis I know we'll have to dehydrate because there will be so many!! cucumbers...if we planted those...will be pickled (I've never done that before!), and peppers will be dehydrated!!

Well, on to garden pictures!!
The Green Beans have really taken off, but the peas...not so much.
The horrid sea of weeds...the difficulty in just whipping through there with the hoe is that there's tomatoes ALL throughout this sea...so we have to hand pick these weeds.
This is the section my hubby already weeded. It was easier over there because it was just hoed.
Can you see the one little sprout in the whole dirt section? That's a squash...I think a spaghetti squash, but it could also be a beet.
My little seedling section. I think the reason why the stuff isn't growing as well is because they don't get much sun. But I'm not speaking for the potatoes when I say that! They've done GREAT!!!
Here's a closer look at the potatoes. I am so excited to see what comes of all these plants!!

Amanda

PALS Playday Friday!

Grace had an exciting time at play day today because.....her friend Andrea got to go play with her!!! I had to babysit, so she tagged along!! The two girls had so much fun together, and sometimes played on their own too! Let me tell you...having two girls to watch over that are 3 months apart...wow. I'm TIRED!! Luckily a lot of people were there to help keep the girls entertained while I was busy with one or the other!

In the above picture, they are up on the slide :)

Grace really enjoyed snack time today because we had raspberries and a cupcake! There were other things too..but they were so not as good as the raspberries! Check out the pictures...do you see how there's a bowl in one picture for Grace, and then the other, there isn't? Yeah, that's because it went flying as she threw it over her shoulder!!



After play time, the girls talked pretty much all the way home, and then we played on the trampoline for a long time! Nap time was coming pretty quick, so Grace had her milk, and was off to bed. But it was so stinkin' hot in the house, I went around to close all the blinds/shades, and this is how I found Grace... HOW CUTE!!! I didn't even put her on Pooh Bear this way, and I was so excited to see her sleeping like this I had to take a picture!

Amanda

Self Help

So as I was looking over my post from last night, I was just thinking that some people might want to know why her "self help" category is so high (3 years). Well that's because she's able to do a ton of things that kids don't usually do till they are around 3 years old. Some things she can do are:

wipe her face with a napkin...usually it's just her tongue, but she can still do it
pulls her legs out of each pant leg when needed, without prompting
pulls her socks off
takes her shoes off
pushes her arms into her sleeves, and pulls them out when undressing
washes her body in the bath (I still bathe her though, but she helps a ton)
helps wash her hair in the bath
knows the motions of a spoon (But can't seem to get any food on it)

So her therapist was super excited to hear she could do these things!! And I'm excited to see that she's sooooo advanced!! Makes me super happy!!

Amanda