Easter Sunday

We went over to Grandma Aitken's house today for Easter dinner. Mommy had the bright idea to bring her inflatable pool to entertain Kaitlyn. I was not thinking about the fact that the water would still be too cool. Oh well, after she recovered from the cold she ran around on the patio barefoot. Isn't her new suit cute?
I was cringing watching her walk around barefoot, so we put on her shoes. Such a fashion statement!

After we changed her out of her suit, she ran around some more. That was the theme of the night: RUNNING!

Then Mommy tried to get a photo-op with a flower hat. Needless to say, Kaitlyn was having none of that! This was the best I could get.

And 2 seconds later, the hat was thrown - man, look at the distance she got!

Here she is on our way home. Can you see the scrape on her knee? Such a tough girl, it didn't seem to phase her!

My little Longhorn

Since daddy is out of town, I pulled a blanket out in the backyard and hung out with Kaitlyn. She was in a cute UT dress from her uncle!

This next one is pretty funny. There was a big gust of wind that caught her by surprise and I was able to capture it!

And here she is squinting because the sun was in her eyes.

Zoo!

Eric left for California today, so I grabbed Grandma and Grandpa and we took Kaitlyn to the zoo. We got there early and went right to the kid area. Kaitlyn cannot be contained these days, so we figured she could run around more freely there. Right away she tired us out. She seems to always want to be where we aren't! She loves to be chased. Here she is when she ran off and was looking at one of the exhibits. We spent a lot of time in the "campground" area. Here she is sitting and playing in the mulchy dirt. We just love when she gets dirty and plays with different textures!

Here she is all smiles! She liked this bridge, although she tried to reach down into the water. Luckily here, it was out of reach. (Not the case in other places - thank goodness Grandpa kept her out of the streams).

She watched another little girl climb up on this stump and she decided it looked like fun! We are working on imitating, so good job!

Grandpa got her to climb through this hollow log. I didn't think she would do it. Once she tried it she was hooked and did it a couple more times.

A squirrel came to see her. Can you see it on the fence? Kaitlyn tried to go get it but she chased it away!

There was a garden area in the middle of the Discovery House. I knew we had to spend some time in there since she was contained and couldn't run away. She climbed on this little bench! Such a big girl! This was a first.

We only lasted a couple of hours and we decided to call it a day. Oh, that was after she got soaked in the fishing area. There was this little stream of water inside. She wanted to play in it and it looked OK to me, so I let her stick her hands in and splash. After a few minutes, I realized that water probably wasn't for splashing. Oh well.

Afterwards, we went to Bigz. We beat the church crowd, so she had the play area all to herself for a little while. She found a Frisbee and carried that all over the place.

What a fun day!

The Return of a Sound

Here is a sound Kaitlyn used to make all of the time. It had disappeared for awhile, but it is back! After about 15 seconds, you will see Snoopy come to see what all that noise is about!

Fun Weekend

We had a fun weekend. I didn't take many pictures though! On Saturday, Kaitlyn and I went to a Fiesta Event with Grandma and Grandpa - the Arts & Crafts Fair. While it wasn't a long day, we had a good time walking around and looking at the art. Kaitlyn liked looking at all of the people, but wanted to run around. We knew it was time to leave when we were tired of chasing her through all of the places she wasn't supposed to be! On Sunday we took her to lunch at Willies. We thought she might enjoy playing in the sandbox. She had no interest in the sandbox. She did enjoy running around on the patio though! Not a bad place for us to take her - we will be returning! Later, we were hanging out in backyard celebrating Eric's birthday which is this week. Here is Kaitlyn "before" when she was looking super happy up on the slide. Oh, and here she is "after." Wait, do you not see her? She fell off the back! She had a firm grip on a ball and wasn't able to catch herself. Eric managed to snap that on camera. She was OK - a little startled, but OK. We have one tough cookie!

OT and Speech Therapy Update

I haven't said much about therapy lately. We are still having sessions. The OT is 4 times a month and the speech therapy is 2 times a month. Due to the timing of the months and when we got started, this week will be 3 weeks in a row to do speech therapy.

The therapists are really good with Kaitlyn. The sessions are really just one on one fun time for Kaitlyn most of the time. We've had a few tough OT sessions where Kaitlyn is pushed past her limit and she has a meltdown. She is one strong-willed little girl and she doesn't like to be told what to do!

On the OT front, we are trying to work on getting her to pull on the spoon to get food. Right now she just sits there and opens up, waiting for you to feed her. If the spoon is a little out of reach, she will lean forward with her mouth to get it but if it is too far to reach with her mouth she gets upset. She won't touch the spoon to grab it. We are also working on adding more texture to her food (graham cracker crumbs to her yogurt). This weekend I tried to give her a lick of my ice cream cone. Without thinking she actually opened her mouth to go for it - but wimped out at the last second. Who knew I'd be begging my child to eat ice cream!

On the speech front we are working on imitating and speaking to her in simple phrases. We are supposed to offer her choices and encourage her to point at things in books.

It's hard to say if it is the therapy or just the passage of time, but I've definitely noticed some progression in her communication skills. Sometimes you can tell that she actually knows what we are saying. And she even responds with coos and squeals at appropriate times (sometimes).

We have progressed a little with bottles. She used to freak out if we offered her anything other than her plain old bottle. But I found some bottles that look a little different and she is now drinking out of those. Baby steps!

Water Table Fun

We got Kaitlyn a water table to enjoy in the backyard. We used it for the first time yesterday. At first, she wasn't so sure about it. But she dipped her fingers in and the rest was history. She really enjoys splashing around.

She ran around the yard a little bit with this ball. She licked it too! Which was pretty gross considering this ball has been in the corner of the yard since her birthday! I'm not exactly sure what she was doing here, but she did it for a few minutes. Long enough for me to turn on the camera and snap quite a few photos. "So big," perhaps?

Yummy, fingers!

A strange thing is going on this weekend. Kaitlyn constantly has something in her mouth! Now for most 17 month olds, that would probably not be that unusual. But for her?!?! The kid wouldn't put ANYTHING in her mouth. Which seems like a cool thing, since we didn't have to worry about her eating dirt or putting something dangerous in her mouth. But the problem was, she wouldn't put food in her mouth either. Could this be a sign of good things to come?