The Holiday Season

We have thoroughly enjoyed our holiday season. It is has been full of parties, trips to see Santa, family time, baking and eating... but just not a lot of blogging time.

AnnaKate's Christmas program at school

A trip to see Santa

So excited about the packages under the tree...

Meyer Center Holiday Luncheon

We wish your family a very Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving

Innocence

Sometimes I worry about AnnaKate.
I worry about her future.
I worry about her cognitive abilities.
I worry about how she will be accepted.
I worry if she is reaching her potential.

Then I step back...
and look at the world the way she does.

No need to worry.

I love her innocence.

Happy Halloween

This Halloween AnnaKate was a show pony.
She was so cute with her mane and her little feed bucket.

Runaway Pony...

Our Halloween festivities went on for days.
We first did a Trunk or Treat at AnnaKate's school.
The community is always so generous and it was tons of fun.

AnnaKate's most favorite treat of the whole weekend...look how many she had in her bucket!

Seeing her SLP for the first time in months since she was on maternity leave.
We are so glad she is back!

Dr. April, AnnaKate's dentist, participates in the trunk or treat!

We went to our local grocery to trick or treat.
They are always so sweet to us and just love AnnaKate.

Carving a pumpkin with daddy.

Of course, no Halloween is complete without a visit to see Kinney and Wilma.

Whew...we have one tired pony at our house.

Hope you had a wonderful Halloween!

Denver Downs Farm

We had the best time visiting a local farm with our Sunday School class last weekend.

AnnaKate loved the giant "corn ball". (whatever that is...)

But her most favorite thing was the corn box. She would run back to it when we would try and take her to do something else.

A little quiet time on the hay ride.

She jabbered away to the goat...bet she told him a thing or two!!

A great way to see the farm.

We had such a good time...maybe we will make it an annual trip!

fall

...............fall...................

pumpkins, leaves, soup, holidays, crisp air, apples

Welcome old friend...we have missed you!

It's just a tooth...

While brushing AnnaKate's teeth last night, I noticed that one of her front teeth is loose! She fell about 6 or 7 months ago at school and hit it but it seemed to be fine. But after a brief talk with the nurse at the dentist's office, that fall may have sparked the tooth to become loose prematurely.

When I saw the loose tooth my stomach dropped for lots of reasons...
1. I hate loose teeth! Ask my students...they know not to show or tell me about any teeth issues.
2. Vanity...I really don't want AnnaKate to be snaggly toothed for the next few years.
3. Sadness... my baby really isn't a baby anymore.

I called my mom in a tizzy and she reminded me that I knocked out one of my baby teeth around a year old. This kind of put it into perspective that it is really just a tooth and that I needed to get over my issues since there was nothing I could do about it.

So now we are just waiting for this loose tooth to fall out...really it makes me sick to see it all loose and dangly. I better just get over this since AnnaKate has lots of teeth to loose!

**Side note: we are still dealing with our sleep issues but some progress is being made. I hope to have things back on track in the next few weeks. Lack of sleep is really the worst!

Do you have any good tooth stories to make me feel better?

Getting ready...

for an iPad.

The iPad has won over most people, but the special needs community is going crazy for it too. It is being used for all kinds of things but the one that is the most exciting for us is communication. There are tons of neat apps that you can buy to assist your child in communicating.

Our plan is to buy one for AnnaKate for Christmas (shh...don't tell her.) To prepare her we have been working on the iTouch practicing the basics. We are using iCommunicate and some fun apps that help her learn how to use the touch screen.

What apps do you suggest when we get the ipad?

A trip to the Children's Museum

A few weeks ago, we enjoyed a trip to our local Children's Museum.
We all had a really great time!

AnnaKate loved the market exhibit.
She decorated a cake...

Shopped...

Picked out her own groceries...

A girl after my own heart...

One of her new favorite words is apple...

AnnaKate loves bananas.
I died laughing when I turned around and saw this...Yep, she is kissing the poster!


Isn't her apron cute!

Of course, she loved this horse.

A giant lite brite

Brush-Brush

She loved the electronic vending machine that taught you about healthy foods.

Water is always big fun!

But the most fun thing was the Garage Band exhibit. She could have made music all day!

We had such a fun day!