Eat in movie

No matter that the table is a plastic one meant for outside or that the "big screen" is the Nabi... Still a delightful experience to enjoy a show with a meal. Clam chowder for B and pb sandwich for K go wonderfully with Wild Kratts.

Christmas day building

I got some great blocks for Christmas from Grandma C. And she built some with me. Best way to do it, I say.

(Mommy note: I can't manage to do this bogging thing like I want to do... Documenting and pondering and discussing... So I'm thinking a snapshot format might work... Thoughts? We shall see...)

RK: Test run for new format.

I've debated this many times before. Using the blog kinda like I use instagram or twitter... Quick and to the point. Heaven knows I'd love to write a lot, but suffice it to say that is not gonna magically happen (consistently) ny time soon.
So maybe this will be better than nothing? Maybe not. Maybe no one even does blogs anymore...  I've debated caving in for fb to... But haven't yet. Hard to make changes,  ya know.
In the meantime... Test pic is me and my girl, as she sits with me in my "work space" aka recliner with laptop.

Kinlee quote: Accidentally forgot

(With all the drama and pathetic, yet loud excitement she can muster….
“Dad! I’m sorry, but I accidentally forgot to control myself! I ran around and threw Braska’s very nice birthday card under the piano!”

Ah, this kid… It’s hard being 4.

I’m 7 now.

Today’s my birthday.  I’m 7.  But I’ve been telling people I’m 67 all day.  I think it’s silly.

Mommy made me a sparkly bling shirt and I did my picture by the door like all the other birthdays.

Mommy came to school and brought cupcakes and goodies for my friends.  Mr. H gave me a cool birthday hat when I went to his class.  When my friends sang to me in Mrs. F’s class, I put it on again.


This is when they were singing to me.  It made me laugh.  And my picture is on the big board behind me too.  Mrs. F made that for me. 

Saturday is my big party.  Lots of my friends are coming, so it’ll be so much fun!  I’ll show more pictures after that.

But being 7 is kind of tiring, plus I had extra therapy tonight and I stayed up a little past bedtime to finish my Christmas show I was watching, so it’s time for sleep.  Mommy and me took a quick picture before bed… we’ve been together for 7 years!

7 years already

At the end of a long day, neither of us looking our best, we pause for a quick smile to set as a remembrance of the day.

Braska is 7.  It seems unreal.

I wish I had time to type through some of the ponderings and thoughts that have been swimming around in my head during the busyness of the last week.  How much has changed in 7 years for both of us…

But I don’t have the luxury of that time.  Maybe by next year.

Now to figure out what to do with the 20 kids (and their parents) who are coming to B’s party on Saturday at the cheer gym. It’ll be a blast.  Do I go last-minute cookies? Cupcakes? Little D*bbie something or other?  To say I don’t have 10 minutes to devote to getting ready is an understatement. 

But what else is new, right? 

The girl will have fun, so all shall be right.

Happy Birthday, Beauty. Onward and upward.

Photography: Fall. Attempt.

This afternoon I tried to get some fun fall photos of the girls. But they were not all that… ahem… cooperative.  Well, Braska wasn’t.  Kinlee threw some leaves and called it done.  I did get a few that I liked alright.

  

Hopping hectic halloween

Braska reporting: Thursday was a very big day. Halloween AND Grandma C’s birthday.  There was a bunch of fun stuff that we can show you so I won’t talk too much…

This is my class, well, one of them.  I also go to Mr. H’s class but it’s a LOT more kids.


Mommy came to the party and brought my cheer outfit to be my costume. We kind of forgot to get new costumes this year.


Since it was raining a lot, we didn’t get to have our parade outside. So we went to the gym. It’s kind of a long walk, but I did a good job following the class. (Sometimes I like to not follow so well…) Then we sat in the gym for a little bit to see all the costumes.


Jack was Spiderman and Dashlyn was a cute black kitty. They’re both in my class. We’ve been friends for a long time. We’ve had halloween pictures with them for a few years.


Their mom, Miss Julie, did some super fun games and we made neat things.


She also got out silly string at the end.  And here’s a secret… I do NOT like to be gotten with silly string!!!!!!!  Can you tell?  I was screaming, “STOP! I don’t like it!”


So Mrs. F let me help her get the kids that wanted more. And that was WAY more fun. 


This was my favorite one. J is my favorite guy from school, and he really liked the silly string. So we got him good and we all laughed a lot!


After school, we went down to Grandma C’s house to help her give out candy. Kinlee decided to put on my bumblebee costume from last year.  We went out right at the end to just a few houses. Grandma C and Daddy took us.


At the end of the night, we were all very tired, but we stopped for a pic with Mommy before we left.


This was us last year with Mommy. 

Wonder what we’ll be next year!?!?

Big ole' bon fire

Enjoying a cool evening by a huge bonfire with friends... Props to Hillsboro, MO!  That's M and his two tiny helpers stoking the monster.

31 for 21: Hallo-review 2007-2009

2007: Pygmy allosaurus

2008: Darling Duck

2009: Puffy alien/monster creatures… unsure exactly but cute.

31 for 21: Busy weeks

Mommy reporting: Sorry all the posts came to a screeching halt.  Life took over.  But I do have a lot of things to post hopefully in the next week or so…  In the meantime, here’s what two girls at a pumpkin patch who are cold and don’t want to bother getting their coats on look like.   They like “stealing Daddy’s body heat.”

Cutest of us

I tell her she’s the cutest Kinlee. She loves to tell me how cute I am, all mushy and sweet like…  we’re gooey like that. (When she’s not being one of the most frustrating little 4-year-olds I know…)  So I do appreciate the sweet times.  Together, we’re the cutest.

31 for 21: Trip with Coach Katie

Braska reporting: Last week on Friday, Mommy and I took a trip with Coach Katie.  She went with us to talk to a bunch of 6th graders in another town a little far way from here about Down syndrome.  Mommy talked to 6 classes of them… she said the same thing every time and they watched a video.  Coach Katie talked, too. She told a little about my cheer squad that I was on last year. 

After we talked, we went and had some lunch with the teachers. One of them is Mommy’s friend from a long time ago.  Me and Katie took some silly pictures, too.  Well, mostly I was silly…

It was fun day.  This is our second year to go down there and talk to the kids. And we’ll probably go next year, too.

Cute little work crew

This past Saturday we ripped our carpet out of the living room and hallway. We spent the day pulling hundreds of staples and prying up tack strips. After a couple days of subfloor only, with the girls banned from anything but passing thru with shoes on, my parents came Monday to assist with laying new floors.

Things moved slower than we expected,  but we don't know mush about the installation process. Or we didn't then...

But now they're in,  they look great, and we are finishing baseboards and door trim. Because of course I wanted to do that new too... M has been pretty amazing and diligent in getting done. He took off the whole week to work on it, and with the help of hundreds of dollars worth of tools,  saws,  and compressors borrowed from friends, we are almost done.

Soon the piano and two storage cabinets can be removed from the kitchen.

What,  your piano isn't in your kitchen?

Yes, it's chaos to have no place but a pathway to be in the kitchen. We are bringing back less furniture to help with the crowded feeling. I'll love to have a kitchen back with counters not covered in tools and various scraps of wood.

In the meantime, the work crew is hard at it. Brask is the measuring assistant while Kinlee oversees. Daddy is doing the tough stuff though. He is going to need a vacation after his renovacation.

31 for 21: Floor is done!

Braska reporting: Ta-da! Soon the rest of the little parts will be done too. But for now, I love to slide and sit on this new floor!

31 for 21: Reno-vacation

We’re getting new floors in our house. So our piano is in the middle of the kitchen. And we eat breakfast on Mommy’s bed.  It’s kind of weird. And we have to wear shoes all the time to be safe.

So right now I can’t show much pictures, but I’ll have some good ones soon!

31 for 21: Thanks goodness for friends!

Flashback from Nov 2011… fun times.

31 for 21 : Flashback to braids

Mommy reporting: This pic is from 3/20/11… Braska was 4.  She wore braids a lot back then.  Now, not so much.  Not because I don’t want to do them, because she is just plain not able to leave them alone. She gets in a zone, touching them, moving them, feeling the texture.  Seriously interrupts everything she’s doing.  It’s hard to watch, quite honestly.  It’s like this often with her hair, especially the last 9 months or so, and it’s getting worse.  It’s a sensory thing, clearly, but I just can’t figure out what tactile need isn’t getting met in order to be obsessed with her hair, especially braids. 

So we cut her hair much shorter, going with a regular ponytail, which has often been the preferred way since it’s out of her face and out of sight.  But she got to the point she wouldn’t leave it alone either.  So we cut her hair again, in the attempt to be able to have nothing in it (the ponytail holder got to be the obsessions for a while, just wouldn’t stop touching it) but it’s now a problem to have it down. She flips it and messes with it constantly.

To say I’m frustrated is an understatement.  It’s been an issue with school, with her following directions, and at home, too.  I just don’t get it.  There’s got to be a way to help her, but even with sensory specialists, no progress was made. And now she’s no longer in private therapy because our insurance has a limit on visits per year.  An appeal for more visits is in process.

I don’t know what the point of this is other than to say I saw this picture and I realized I missed the braids, they were cute and simple…  but we move on. Hoping this phase is short lived. I refuse to go bowl cut on her. No sir, not gonna do it.