4/26&30/13

Kenzie ate bites of both her whole wheat bagel and her dried apricots at breakfast. At lunch Kenzie ate seconds on peas and pasta with cheese and all of her tilapia and her applesauce.

On Friday, Kenzie told Joslyn, "lets go measure Lauralea, okay?" She came over with an imaginary measuring tape stretched out between her wide open arms. I asked her how big I was and she said very emphatically, "HUGE!" Now that wouldn't have been so bad if she had been measuring up and down rather than side to side. : )

Kenzie saw the shirt that Joslyn had on today, pointed and said "stinkin' bobcats" without either of us saying anything. It just cracked both Gary and I up!

Kenzie was painting faces today. She started with Emily then did Riley and Thomas. She was so cute when she would hold their head in her two hands while she explained what she was going to do. I imagine it was pretty much how it happened to her when she was getting her face painted at the circus.

Kenzie was primarily playing with the two bigger boys today. She, Aaron and Thomas played, jumped, danced and his for the majority of big room play time after breakfast.

4/24/13

Kenzie ate all of her biscuit and thirds on peaches at breakfast. At lunch she ate all of her dinner roll, baked beans, peas and thirds on pineapple. I think she is back on her eating roll again.

Kenzie and Thomas had a very brief altercation, but nothing drastic. She said she bit him, but I could find no marks so she must have just put her mouth on him. I also tried to shadow her and intentionally keep her close to me or out of temptations way more effectively. She likes being my side-kick/helper anyway, so it makes it fun for her also.

Kenzie was very excited when I told her I had to go finish fixing a pie for dinner after breakfast. She had a ton of questions about what kind it was, what it looked like, tasted like, who was going to eat it... She is such a smart and curious little girl. She wanted to come watch (followed by Riley and Joslyn) while I did the last 10 minutes to it. She was thrilled when part of the last 10 minutes included chocolate chips and I shared with the girls. She could hardly wait to go brag to Gary about what she got!

She has been cracking us up about how she has been vacillating from Gary to me. Gary keeps asking her is she is his kid, which she won't answer, but she does keep calling him "my Gary" with the cutest little smirk ever!

Joslyn and Kenzie were dancing like crazy when I put on the new kids' cd that Pat gave us yesterday. A friend of his is in the band. Some of the songs are very peppy and Kenzie loved that! They would dance for a while, then race over to the mirror, saying "I gotta fix my hair!" How funny is that?!

4/23/13

Kenzie seconds on waffles and all of her hashbrowns at breakfast. At lunch she ate all of her oranges and her shrimp, about half of both her brown rice and her fresh peppers.

Kenzie had a better morning overall with one big exception. She was trying to take the teddy bear Joslyn was using away and Joslyn wasn't giving an inch. Kenzie then bit her before I could get to them to intervene. It left a full set of teeth marks all the way through her shirt.

Kenzie and Thomas played together nicely a lot this morning in large group. They were using the tools to work on posters, the box and multiple other items in the big room. Thomas was really watching Kenzie to see how he was supposed to be doing everything. Smart boy...

The whole group of kiddos (except Nora and the babies) were piling all of the stuffed animals up on the black chair in the big room. It was stacked so high some kept tumbling off. That made it even more fun for them because they were falling off as fast as they stacked them up.

Kenzie has really been pretty evenly attached to Gary and I lately. I think it started the first time daddy was gone for a few days, but really has just continued since then. He has to tease me about her being "his" kiddo on a pretty regular basis! : )

4/22/13

Kenzie ate all of her Cheerios and a couple bites of banana at breakfast. At lunch she ate all of her cheese sandwich and her tomato soup and about half offer apple slices.

Before leaving to go to her doctor's appointment, she had either scratched or pinched 6 faces. None of them were really provoked, other than being slightly in her space or not doing what she wanted and told them to do.

We was also super sensitive and teary about everything and kept saying she didn't feel good. I ended up just having her either snuggle with me or sit by me for her sake and others.

After Kenzie came back from seeing the doctor, she mostly snuggled with Gary until lunch time. Hopefully after a great nap she will be much better.

4/19/13

Kenzie has been back to not eating quite as voraciously most of this week. Probably the developmental streak she was going through has calmed down a little. This morning she only ate a couple bites of her oatmeal and craisins at breakfast. At lunch she ate all of her applesauce, about half of her lean ground beef and a couple bites of her peas and pasta along with all of the cheese of the top.

I hadn't done a developmental checklist on RaeAhnna before when we did everyone else because she had just started and we dent know how long she would be around. The caseworker was wanting some extra observation information her from us and what we saw so I decided the easiest way to accomplish that was to do the actual assessment on her. Today I spent a lot of the morning focussing on that! Kenzie was right their listening, but did a great job of letting Rae do the stuff, rather than jumping in herself.

At art time we just did free draw so I could watch Rae's hand usage, how she held the markers and what she could and couldn't do. All of the rest of the kiddos had a blast drawing too and

When we first went to the back room Kenzie and Joslyn announce "This room is too messy!" They then proceeded to clean up literally the whole room. The put all of the Duplos in the Duplo table drawer, the cars on the shelf and piled all of the it interlocking blocks in a pile in one corner. When they were done they looked around with their hands on their hips with great satisfaction. Kenzie announced, "that's better!"

Obviously, after everything was picked up it was a little boring without anything out to play with. they then asked if i would help them build something. I asked them if they wanted me to make them throne chairs, which they decided was okay. At first i made them just big enough for one child to fit, but there were only enough blocks for two chairs. Having only two chairs with four children didn't work well after the newness of sitting on each others laps wore off so i had to enlarge them to fit two each.

After the chairs were completed, Joslyn decided that one of them should get up and sing for the spectators. She was encouraging Riley to take turns singing too. Kenzie took it to a whole new level and got up and started break dancing! During one of her crazier dances she kind of slipped and bonked her head pretty hard on the floor. I think she would have cried if it hadn't been that Riley, Aaron and Joslyn started laughing!

Yesterday afternoon, out of the blue Joslyn decided that Cooper (who was in the saucer right outside of the gate needed a story read to him. Gary got a pretty good picture of it! I thought I would add it here so you could see it.

4/18/13

Kenzie ate a bite of blueberries and several bites of blueberry English muffin at breakfast. At lunch Kenzie ate all of her kiwi and her turkey burger sandwich, along with a couple bites of green beans.

Kenzie came up and told me "This is my granddaughter!" pointing to Riley. She was telling Riley what to do and applauding her when she did it.

Kenzie, Aaron, Emily and Thomas were playing "big bad wolf" on the rowdy side for quite a while this morning. We have a felt wolf mask that goes with the three little pigs and little red riding hood story and masks. Kenzie started the chase game by putting it on and telling everyone to "run away from the bad wolf!" They were loving it.

Another thing Kenzie started is having the kiddos crawl through her legs like a tunnel. She stood straddle legged and announced, "who wants to crawl through my legs?" Emily and Thomas also were being tunnels for the others to crawl through too, but Kenzie is the one who actually helps them be successful by standing on her tippy toes.

Kenzie was working on Aaron today. She had him laying down like he was her patient, but asked her assistant, Emily, "will you get me a wrench?" I'm not sure if she was pretending to be a doctor or a mechanic.

4/17/13

Kenzie ate all of her whole wheat jelly toast and thirds on dried mangoes at breakfast. At lunch she ate all of her beef and bean burrito and her tropical fruit and about half of her sweet potatoes.

Kenzie had to show me her owie underneath her chin where "daddy got me with the helmet." She also told us that daddy felt bad and it was an "accident", which I guess she didn't think we would know without telling us! : )

For some reason Nora was a little extra sensitive this morning and would start fussing over literally nothing that we could observe. Kenzie gave her loves at least five times. The first couple times she stopped crying even before Kenzie got to her with her arms out. It totally comforted her all by one time, and that was when she freaked out when she saw the fire extinguisher service guy walking up to the big window.

Kenzie asks me to show her the "weather" (an app on my ipad) literally every day. Today she added to it by starting a discussion about the weather at breakfast with the other kiddos. She notified them that we "can't do bubbles today because it is too cold"' but would start doing them again when it "warmed back up".

Cooper started fussing when he woke up. Gary didn't move quite fast enough to get him, Kenzie interceded with "That's your baby, Gary!" with a no-nonsense "Go get him" tone of voice.

Joslyn had made a big pile with all of the stuffed steady bears at the end of the mattress for the kiddos to jump off of the mattress and into. They actually spent more time rebuilding the pile than they did jumping into it, but they all were having a great time.

My kiddos did Doodle Buddy art today and all loved that! Kenzie was the one that initiated that, of course! She is very technologically savvy and is often talking about cell phones, iPads, emailing and more!

4/15 & 4/16/13

Kenzie ate all of both her prunes and her cinnamon roll at breakfast. At lunch she didn't eat very much -- about half of her cantaloupe, some waffles, a couple bites of hashbrowns and a bite of scrambled eggs.

Friday afternoon, I got too warm so I took off my jacket outside. Kenzie was standing beside me, started to climb up on my lap and said, "Oh good! Now I can look at all of your bumps and moles and stuff!"

To go along with that, I have some pretty defined scars on my left hand from a car accident when I was 18. During one of her daily times of scrutinizing me she noticed them and asked about it. I told her what had happened briefly. One day last week (days after we had talked about it) she was holding my hand and said, "your friend made a bad choice and wasn't driving carefully, huh?" That was a very good summary, even though that wasn't really how I had explained it to her. : )

Kenzie sat her two bears up in the chair and then said, "I will take a picture of you. Say cheese!" After that she looked at the palm of her hand and said, "That's a good one! Look I put it on Facebook!" showing me the palm of her hand.

Kenzie was "getting Riley" and Riley was laughing so hard. They did it for about 5 minutes straight.

Kenzie was working hard using the staple gun to work on the poster and made it look so fun that several of her friends found staple guns also and started doing it too.

Kenzie has had very good days of listening, cooperating and being a good friend MOST of the time yesterday and today.

4/12/13

Kenzie ate almost all of her rice and most of her her raisins at breakfast. At lunch she ate all of her meatloaf and French bread, about half of her apricots and a couple bites of carrots.

Kenzie and I were looking at one of the posters in the big room. She was wondering what the letters on it were, so we were talking about the difference between big letters and small letters. I showed her an small "I" and she showed me a big "I" (which happened to be an exclamation point--upside-down I).

Kenzie wanted to be right with me, no matter what I was doing this morning -- getting baby bottles, rinsing out the bottle, putting Reid to bed, getting my tea, making a phone call... I had to work hard to convince her I wasn't going to let her come into the bathroom with me when I had to use it! Like Riley, I think it is just because she has been "feeling like crumb" much of the last three days.

Joslyn has kind of taken Morgan's place as Kenzie's 'frienemy'. They vacillate drastically between playing together great and then switching to even physically fighting like cats and dogs.

When we went to the back room, Kenzie immediately asked if I would help them make a train. I told them I would, then noticed that the floor where it would fit best was literally full of Duplos. I facilitated Duplo pick up time first before we started building. She, Joslyn and Riley both picked up the Duplos, then brought the big blocks and helped build it like troopers. As soon as it was completed, Kenzie took her place as the engineer and wasn't about to relinquish it for anything!

4/11/13

Kenzie ate all of her grapes and thirds on cinnamon toast at breakfast. At lunch she ate all of her dinner roll and potatoes, and seconds on chicken strips and cherries.

First thing this morning Kenzie came up to me and asked, "how was your massage?" It always amazes us when she does something like that -- remembers what has gone on the day before and then thinks to ask about it.

I asked Riley if she was "feeling like crumb" this morning when she was fussy. Kenzie was very indignant and said, "No! I feel like crumb!" I guess only one person at a time can "feel like crumb!" ; )

We played with craft sticks and talked some about alphabet letters during art time today. I helped them make some of the basic letters-- mainly their first initials using them and they loved that. Kenzie understood that Riley's was the hardest of them. Kenzie was practicing, not just her own letter, but Emily's, Thomas' and Aaron's, as well as Y, I, F, H, L, C (for Cooper)' and M (for Morgie). She was also lining them up to make "a train". She is more interested in letters than anyone we have had for some time! It is fun!

Kenzie and Aaron were. Interacting quite a bit in the back room today. At on point Kenzie was saying his name and Aaron was ignoring her. She finally went right up to him, touched him under the chin (like I know I do) and said, "when I say your name, Aaron, you say 'What?'" He immediately did it. He also remembered and did it at least three other times while they were playing without the reminder. Kenzie has heard us work on that with various kiddos (including her) enough, she knows the exact drill! : )

4/10/13

Kenzie ate over half of her peaches and about half of her bagel at breakfast. A lunch she ate seconds on macaroni and cheese and all of her ham, corn and salad with ranch.

Kenzie told me "I don't feel good", "I feel crumby" or the most said one, I feel like crumb!" so many times today -- poor sweetie! I have to say I kind of "felt like crumb" quite a bit myself today, so I was definitely empathetic!

All of the kiddos were pretty testy and tired acting (probably because of their colds). For example, Kenzie decided she didn't want anything to do with Emily today, so of course it was like she was a magnet to Emily and she wouldn't stay away. On the flip side, she really wanted to play with Joslyn and that also was like the opposite end of the magnet and Joslyn was determined to stay as far away from her as possible most of the morning! They are so funny! I find child behavior so fascinating!

Kenzie told me that she had a lot of fun swimming last night, but didn't want to give me any details! : )

Kenzie was in the igloo today and Riley was behind it (popping). When Kenzie came out, Riley popped up and scared her, which both of them cracked up about! They then repeated it several more times!

Kenzie and Joslyn were cracking me up today when they decided to play "potty training" in the back room. They were using the big block creation as their bathroom and were taking turns training each other. When Kenzie was the trainer, she asked Joslyn, "OK now... Did you poop?" Joslyn dutifully grunted a few times then nodded. Kenzie then said, "Okay, lean up and I'll wipe your poopy butt, then we'll go get you three stickers!" Oh my goodness! I haven't heard that one before and thought I was going to die laughing!

Kenzie has decided that the little cubby hole in the back room in part of what used to be the closet is their "shower". In the picture below she is "taking a shower". Right before that Riley had been in taking a shower with her, scrubbing her hair also, but she left as soon as I got the camera.

4/9/13

Kenzie ate seconds on pears and all of her waffles at breakfast. At lunch she ate thirds on saltines (the first one having tuna on it), seconds orange slices and all offer sweet potatoes.

Kenzie has been quick to be a little teary over very small things today. Probably it is mostly from not sleeping well, but could be partially from yesterday's event also. Also, her nose has run more than Riley's today, so she probably just isn't feeling great. The sensitivity definitely increased as the morning went on. She also wanted to cuddle quite a bit!

Kenzie has been calling Gary "my Gary" and looking at me to see if she can get a rise out of me!

Kenzie, Aaron, Thomas and Emily were running their fingernails down the paneling creases and it was making a very annoying scratching sound -- not quite as bad as fingernails on a chalkboard, but close! It literally gave me shivers.

Kenzie has been checking out all of my flaws -- moles, owies, freckles and age spots (which she also calls "moles"), stray hairs, and so forth. It is a little disconcerting to be scrutinized so thoroughly.

A big blue truck with a big red boxed bed on the back pulled over to the neighbors house and Kenzie said, "Hey! That's grandpa's truck!" He obviously must have one kind of like it!

Kenzie was talking with Joslyn about "peppermint patty cake" and "strawberry shortcake" this morning. I especially liked the "peppermint patty cake"! That would make a great "before and after" for Wheel of Fortune!

4/8/13

Kenzie ate all of her fruit and about half of her Chex cereal at breakfast. At lunch she ate seconds on roast beef sandwich and all of her apple slices and tomato soup.

Kenzie was helping Joslyn doctor Mia on the step examination table. Mia let them examine, poke and prod her for several minutes before deciding it was more than enough.

We had multiple brief conversations about "why are mommy and daddy sad this morning?" I mostly told her that Tiger kitty was going to hang out with Tucker and you guys were sad because Tiger wouldn't be hanging out with them at their house anymore. I hope that was OK! : ) Everyone has a little bit different way to handle the hard situations. Of course, there were many more "why's" to go along with it and I also. Told her that the kitty doctor said Tiger needed to. She never was really sad herself, just curious and concerned about you guys, from what I could tell.

Kenzie was persistent in trying to play with Emily, who mostly wanted to be alone. She moved away from her when Emily asked her to move back, but would try again within a minute or two. She finally succeeded and they played together for several minutes before Emily moved out of the play again.

Kenzie and Emily were pretending there was spiders everywhere. Kenzie said, "they're creepy!" They were both trying to "get 'em with a tissue" or step on them. They were just cheering each other on with "Get 'em!"s and "Step on 'em!"s.

Kenzie made a great "car" with the big interlocking blocks in the back room. She has totally figured out that she needs to line up the bottom layer with the top layer overlapping the ones on the bottom to hold it together. We haven't had very many kiddos that actually consciously got that at her age.

4/5/13

Kenzie ate about half of her oatmeal and all of her prunes at breakfast. At lunch she ate all of her mandarin oranges, about half of her hashbrown casserole and a couple bites of her biscuit. She was very tired by lunch and just wanted to go to sleep.

Kenzie was asking Joslyn what her bed was like. Joslyn described it as, "big now that daddy fixed it". Kenzie then went too tell Joslyn that hers had strawberry shortcake sheets on it. Joslyn then told her hers had smiley faces on it.

Kenzie was studying Joslyn's shirt and asked her, "What's that say?". Joslyn told her "Bobcats!" Kenzie tipped her her head off to the side and asked, "Bobcats?!" with a look of total disbelief! I'm with her! How could she possibly wear such a shirt!?

Aaron, Kenzie, Emily and Joslyn all played together for a while this morning on the rowdy side of the room. Mostly they were taking turns "burying you up" (Kenzie's words) each other with the stuffed animals.

Kenzie build another of her super-tall towers with the Duplos n the back room today. She is always so proud of herself when she does it.

4/4/13

Kenzie ate thirds on French bread and all of her cantaloupe at breakfast. At lunch she ate all of her dried mangoes, sliced turkey and fresh pineapple and about half of her crescent roll.

Kenzie was being Riley's doctor this morning. She had the stethoscope, examining tool and medicine. She was definitely giving Riley a thorough check-up and Riley was a trooper with the ordeal! See more on Riley's journal.

Riley had been Kenzie's puppy for several minutes, then she went over o the other side to play for a minute or two. When she went back over to the other side they hugged and Kenzie said "welcome back puppy".

Kenzie was trying to get Emily to do something she didn't want to do. Kenzie then said "my patience are gone with you." That cracked me up! It always cracks up up because we can tell if it comes from here or somewhere else. Neither Gary nor I can remember hearing each other ever say that, but there are many other ones that definitely come from us!

Kenzie has been very cuddly with Gary, both loving on him and harassing him today. She used to do that almost every day, but she hasn't done it for quite a while. Gary was loving it! While she was cuddling, she told him, "I was looking at pictures of you on mommy's iPad." She even wanted him to be the one to tuck her in at nap time.

4/3/13

Kenzie loved the sign review we did today. She was actually the one who requested it. We hadn't really sat and worked on them for a while, other than spontaneously, as needed. I was surprised as to how many of them she, Joslyn and Emily remembered. They had fun both identifying the signs when I did them and doing them when I would say the word or phrase.

We did some bath foam painting today and Kenzie was super into it! Usually everyone is done after about 10-15 minutes, but Joslyn, Thomas, Kenzie and Emily were still really into it after almost 30. It was great! They had all four colors, were drawing in it, just handling it and enjoying the texture, were using the craft stick to draw in it, traced their letter after I helped them with it...

We had a class of five early childhood ed students from Butte and their instructor visit us for the tail end of art and when we went outside after that. It actually went pretty well and it didn't seem to bother Kenzie at all. We had prepped the kiddos after breakfast that they would be coming and heard Kenzie telling a friend or reminding herself several times until they came. "There will be some big people like Gary and Lauralea coming to visit in a little while.". She played like she always does, seeming untroubled by the visitors after they got here.

4/2/13

Kenzie ate bites of her whole wheat bagel and all of her apricots at breakfast. At lunch she ate all of her applesauce, the cheese off of her peas and pasta with cheese, about half of the peas and pasta and a couple bites of tilapia.

Kenzie was excited about the new toys out with this exchange. She was taking her babies to the doctor and then being the doctor and "fixing" them up.

Kenzie asked Emily if she could take her temperature very sweetly. Emily kind of mumbled and turned away. Kenzie went over and stood close to her, with one of the play thermometers in her hand, then asked again. This time Emily didn't say anything so she took advantage of the pause and put her hand on her head then said, "You're okay!" Emily kind of came to and said, "No, I'm not!"

Thomas, Emily and Riley were all running around the rowdy side of the room. Kenzie must have been the baseball sportscaster because she announced "and the winning score is on its way!" I cracked up!

Kenzie spotted the moon in the sky while she was waiting to wave at mom this morning. Later, after breakfast, she also spotted the rainbow sun spot on the ceiling again. She said, "Look the rainbow is back!"

Joslyn, Aaron and Kenzie were all singing into their echo phones on the big block stage I made for them. They were quite the trio. What they may have lacked in tone quality, they made up for in volume!