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Saturday, May 7, 2011

And we're off....

Disclaimer: This post will contain no pictures.

Kennedy and I leave this afternoon for 3 weeks in Wisconsin. For those of you in the North, I will do my best to pack some warmer weather in my suitcase.

Kennedy starts her Intensive Therapy on Monday. Poor girl has no idea what she is about to get into. She is used to her 4x week 45 minute therapy sessions. She is about to get 3 hours a day for 3 weeks.

We are super excited about the possibilities with this therapy, but are trying not to get our hopes too high. We have decided that if she comes home doing just one thing that she didn't do before we went then it is a success! Two or three or four would be icing on the cake!!!

Also....we are excited to say that we have a new member of The Wallin Family. Jessica and Chance welcomed a little boy, Calvin Howard, on Thursday! Caden, Makayla, Cole & Connor are very excited about a new baby in the house! I'm excited that we will be there while Jessica is on maternity leave!

I'll try to post updates while we are up there.

Have a great weekend!

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Especially for you Blog Stalkers out there!

I got a "new to me" camera a few weeks ago, so I've been snapping away. And, be honest....it's why you come to the blog anyway :)


Kennedy LOVES the water. I took her to the YMCA earlier last week and then we went up to Daddy's Pool on Saturday. She does a great job floating, splashing and kicking. She also "talks" a lot while in the water...maybe we need to move speech therapy to the pool :)







One of my favorites!














Before swimming at the Y early last week.



Grandma & Grandpa came to visit April 13 - 18. We loved having them here and wished they could have stayed longer. The day after they got here we (minus Danny who had to work) traveled to see Great Grandma & Great Grandpa in South Texas. It was a 6 hour drive each way, but well worth it. We left Thursday morning and came back Friday night. It was great to see everyone down there.







While they were here we made a trip to Galveston. It was VERY windy, but we ventured out to the beach to put our feet in the gulf.



This is where Kennedy's glasses end up several times a day. We do our best to keep them where they belong. (About the picture of just the glasses...it's a scrapbook thing)



This is what I see every morning when I get Kennedy out of bed. Is there a better way to start your day???



Holding her head up like a big girl. A little dissheveled, but holding her head up nonetheless.



Kennedy got a new toy a few weeks ago. It has a suction cup and sticks to her high chair tray. I wish I would have gotten it for her a long time ago. She really likes it and it is great for her fine motor skills.







"Can we be done with the pictures, Mom?"

Monday, April 4, 2011

Public Service Announcement

Here is my Public Service Announcement for today: if you use pay at the pump use a CC not a debit card. Twice I've had to dispute charges (which is a lot harder to do w/ a debit) because people put these card readers on the pump slot. It saves your info & they come back later and get it. Then they transfer it onto an old card with their name or a hotel keycard and use away. So frustrating!!!

Danny 'bought' $198.92 worth of swimwear at Everything but Water in Orlando, FL. Earlier this year I 'spent' over $400 on gas in Canada and $65+ at McDonalds.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Lots of New Things

This post won't have pictures, but I did post some in the previous post "Blogging on the go"

The last week or so have been pretty crazy around here. First, we have decided to venture into house hunting. Our lease is up at the apartment at the end of August and it is ridiculous how much rent is and you get no tax break for it. Plus the obvious things like upstairs/downstairs neighbors, no backyard & no patio. And even though our apartment is a pretty good size as far as apartments go...a house will just give us so much more room. Half of our stuff is boxed up and/or stored in the garage. It will be like Christmas when we get to open them again!! We found a house that we liked and were going to put an offer on it yesterday, but someone beat us to the punch. I guess it wasn't meant to be. And so the search continues....

The other thing that has kept me busy this past week is setting up therapy for Kennedy. We have been doing 2x a week of physical therapy, 1x a week of occupational therapy and 3x a month of speech therapy (all 45 minute sessions). Last week her PT suggested that we look into an Intensive Therapy Program. I've posted a youtube video of what it looks like.
The Cage they show in the video is just part of the program, but it is 3 hours a day, 5 days a week for 3 weeks. She really felt like Kennedy is a good canidate for this because of several things. 1) She wants to do things. She does things that show us that she wants to move from point A to point B, just can't figure out how to get there. 2) She has made progress consistantly since we started therapy 3) The Intensive Therapy program uses pulleys, weights, etc during their sessions and those are things that currently we physically can't do at the house.

I started researching the program and saw a lot of positive feedback. There are just over 100 places in the US that use this program. Luckily, one is only about 5 minutes from us. What are the odds, right? Well, I called them and they don't take our insurance and $6300 was a lot of money! So, the research continued...Hudson, WI has a location. Awesome, but I thought what are the chances that they take our insurance when the one down the road doesn't? Apparently the odds are 100%. They take our insurance and we would only have to pay a copay for each visit. Granted that can add up too, but it will be less than 1/4 of the cost.

Avanti is 15 miles from Jessica (my sister) so we could stay with them. I was getting excited and the possibility that this may work...not only for the therapy that Kennedy would get, but also because I would get to be around my family for 3 whole weeks!! The last week has been spent going back and forth with them on insurance, prescriptions and scheduling. I talked to the lady today and paid the downpayment. Kennedy is scheduled to start on May 9th! I will book our plane tickets later today and we will be all set. My mom's friends, Jeff and Lori, have graciously agreed to let me use their van while we are up there. We would have made it work somehow, but with their van it will be so much easier on everyone. Thank you so much!!!

Her sessions will be either from 9-12 or 10-1 and the last 30 minutes are so will be spent in the pool doing aquatherpy. I am so so so excited to see what this will do for her!!!! I can't even imagine the nap that this girl is going to take every afternoon! Hopefully I can keep her awake in the car long enough to get back and have lunch before she conks out :)

We will resume our normal therapies down here in June. With the kickstart that we are hoping the Intensive Therapy will give her she should have an awesome summer!!

I'm off to look at more houses online. Wish us luck!

Blogging on the go

I've installed an app on my phone that allows me to post from anywhere. Since I take a lot of pictures with my phone I'm hoping that this will get me to blog more often. We'll see how it goes. Here is my first attempt.



I was super excited when she was able to do this during therapy on Tuesday!!



She has also learned how to tear apart her play mat.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Visiting Great Grandma & Grandpa

Kennedy and I flew to South Texas from the 26th through March 2nd. We didn't have any big plans while we were there...just wanted to visit. We took lots of walks & golf cart rides and went to the outlet mall one day. It was great to see them.

We had to bring her car seat so I bought the thing that attaches to her car seat and make it a stoller. It worked great!! Highly recommend it if you travel with little ones and need the seat.


Playing with Great Grandma


While on vacation you have to improvise since you can't take everything with you. This is how I got a shower on Sunday morning while G&G were at church


And as long as it was in the house you might as well use it to enjoy some cartoons.


One of the many rides with Great Grandpa


5 Little Monkeys Jumpin' on the Bed


Kennedy & Great Grandpa are buddies


We will miss you!