We had a hard time deciding what to do for Justus and Kaylee's birthday and ended up just doing separate parties. We had originally wanted to have a joint party for them, but since neither of them really care about other kids yet, except Malika, we decided to just do Justus' party at home with family and celebrate Kaylee's birthday at the zoo. Here are some pictures of their birthdays.
We tried to fill the living room up with balloons for Justus. We wanted to make the whole day fun, so we started off with some gifts in the morning and just played and had fun all day. Later in the evening my family came over for pizza and cake and more gifts.
I love Justus' face in these pictures, he was just so excited about his gifts.
Trying out his new gift. He loves to use Daddy's tools, but these are much safer to walk around with.
My mom makes all of the kids cakes, it's a good thing, because if I was doing it they would just have a plain cake with frosting and sprinkles :). Justus loves Cars, so she made this cake for him, it turned out so cute.
Both Justus and Kaylee trying out Justus' new blocks.
This was after everyone left, I found them on the table eating the leftover frosting.
In case anyone wants to see my HUGE belly and my silly husband :). I look at pictures and think, "no wonder I feel huge and uncomfortable". Actually, I started taking iron yesterday and I have so much more energy, it is amazing. I am 29 weeks here.
Who wouldn't want a super cute, naked carpenter?
Me with Malika at the zoo, I wanted to take this picture, because I have one holding her in this same spot when she was 7 months old.
Trying to get one of the kids together, but it never fails, at least one child won't cooperate.
Kaylee and my dad. She loves my parents and my parents love her. They act as though she has always been apart of our family. I am so glad for their support through this whole process and their acceptance of Kaylee.
Playing in the amphitheater.
I took Justus and Kaylee's 2 year old pictures while at the zoo. It was so hot and it was nap time by this time, so maybe it was a bad idea, but I got a few and I was happy with the few I got.
These are Kaylee's typical faces, so it is really difficult to take pictures of her. She always has her head back, and so in the right one I tried to take it from the top, thinking she would keep her head in the same direction, but instead she put it back even more. The eye doctor said it is a good thing that she puts her head back, because she has nystagmus and her eyes don't move as much when her head is tilted either up or down. He said this at Malika's eye appointment, Kaylee's is tomorrow, so we will find out more about it then.
My favorite picture of her.
I tried again to take pictues of the kids. I just held my finger down and hoped for a good one, I think I took about 50 of the same shot. I think these are pretty good.
Josh found this butterfly and it followed us through much of the zoo, it was strange to see it so friendly. I tried to get it to fly away or put it on a tree, but it kept coming back to us. It loved Kaylee, if only it knew sitting on her was a bad idea and it might become her snack :)
At the hotel, Kaylee opening her gifts. We actually took her to the store to pick out her gifts, since she has some sensory issues with some things. I was trying so hard to get a picture of Kaylee holding her baby and thought the second one was cute, until my mom pointed out that she was really looking at the piece of wrapping paper in her hand. She was way more interested in the wrapping paper than the toys.
Here you can see how excited she was over the wrapping paper and a preview of the next few days with Kaylee's new toy. I think she has gotten to play with it maybe once.
Eating her first cake.
I love this picture, it is one of the few I have of her actually looking at me.
Oh, and I had to throw this one in, the last bite before choking. We all knew it would happen and were just waiting for it, but also wanted to let her enjoy her first cake like any child would a first cake. She was so upset when we took her cake away, but was happy again when I put her in the bath.
Kaylee is doing really well and loves her new home. Some days are great and it is like she has been with us forever and other days are really hard, and she acts like she has never been with us. It is all a progress.
Our biggest issue is with eating. She has gotten better, but it is still difficult. She usually doesn't crawl around in search of food anymore, except for the last two days. And she is learning to feed herself and not shove her mouth full, but as soon as I look away, she starts shoving her mouth full.
Sometimes, she won't even feed herself if I am sitting next to her, she will hold her hand out and want me to do it. I think she is afraid of getting in trouble. It is really frustrating at times, because I don't want her to be afraid, but I also don't want her to choke on the food. I probably overreact when she does it, out of fear of her choking and I have somehow caused her to be scared that she will do it wrong.
She did feed herself using a spoon all on her own, for 2 days, I was so excited, but now she won't do it.
We just take 1 day at a time, and I know that in a year things will be completely different.
She seems to be very attached now and is always crawling around looking for me or if I come in a room, she will try to come over to me. I was so happy a couple weeks ago, when she crawled into the bathroom on her own to find me.
She has also become interested in toys, and tries to play with them. She still ends up hitting herself on the head with the toy though.
She has learned to climb up the stairs and climb off the couch. I was so happy when she got off the couch on her own, because we have been working on this since she came home.
She wants to walk so bad, she will stand up by the couch and just go, of course she does a nose dive after about 5 steps, but it doesn't discourage her from trying again. I think she is so proud of herself when she does it.