videos of Kaylee

I had this long post I wanted to write, but I haven't had time yet, so I will post these videos for now. 

Kaylee started feeding herself with a spoon 3 days ago, she is doing amazing.

Here are two videos of Kaylee doing the signs she has learned. I am amazed at how quick she has learned. She still sometimes gets them mixed up, but is learning. She knows about 10 signs and even tries to say "all done" and "outside". I'm so proud of her.

Justus and Kaylee turn 2

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. 

4th of July

This was Kaylee's first 4th of July, so I had to get her an outfit to celebrate it. It was a little difficult finding one last minute, but we did and she looks so cute in it. 

I am always trying to get a good picture of the three kids together, and I have yet to get one, this is how it goes...

Either Kaylee is crying..

 Or Justus is crying.

 I actually kind of like this one, even though none of the kids are looking at the camera. Really, there wasn't much to choose from and at least this one no one is crying :)

 And then there is this one, no one is crying, but Malika is chewing her flag, and both Kaylee and Justus have weird looks on their faces.

Oh well, one day I hope to get a good picture of all of them smiling AND looking at the camera.

We had a fun 4th of July, we just stayed home and spent it as a family. The kids and I made sprinkle cookies from this website, except we used red, white and blue sprinkles. Too bad we didn't have a picture, we ate them too fast :). Then Josh grilled stuffed pork chops and I made broccoli salad and mac and cheese.

Later we went and watched fireworks. Malika talked about them all day and said she wanted to see them, but as I expected she was scared of them, but still did better than last year. Both Kaylee and Justus LOVED them, they both reached out and wanted to touch them.

This picture is so cute, even though Kaylee has a strange look on her face. I think they look alike here.

 Kaylee can take about 5 steps.  I just think she is so beautiful and I wish her mom could see her. I don't really know her mom's circumstance other than what we were told, but who knows if what we were told was true, so whatever happened, I still wish her mom could see how happy and beautiful she is now.

 Malika blowing raspberries on Kaylee's tummy. Kaylee is starting to play and love Malika. She still has a hard time around other children though. Maybe because she was in a crib with two others and not really watched all day. One day when we picked her up from the orphanage she had a bite on her arm. Poor girl, she probably thinks all children are mean, and Justus hasn't been much help to prove that wrong.

Random things about Kaylee

I have debated many times whether I should write anything else on here. Well, actually I did write a really long post, it's still there, I just never posted it.

I have been unsure whether to just write the happy stuff, or the whole truth, or maybe just a portion of the truth. I am still unsure what to write. It seems most adoption blogs only have happy, beautiful posts, so it makes me wonder what is really wrong with me. Maybe it just depends on the day that people write stuff. Or maybe it is like how I write in the kid's journals. I keep a journal for each of the children, but decided that I would only write the good things and never the hard or frustrating things. I definitely don't want them to read something I wrote on a very frustrating day and think I just didn't want them or that they were a hard child.

Anyway, to be completely honest, this is very hard. I believe it is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. But to be even more honest, parenting is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. There are many completely exhausting and frustrating days with the children that I have to remind myself that I indeed chose this life and that this is what I have always wanted. And then there are those days that I absolutely love every minute of the day. So, did the hard days only start when Kaylee became part of our family? No, but in all honesty, things are just harder with her than they were with the other two. I don't completely know why, but I have theories as to why.

Anyway, all that to say, things get better and then they get worse, and then they get better. Last week, up until yesterday, things were extremely hard. I think Kaylee took a huge step back. But today, she has been amazing. I only wish that I knew why and could re-create to make it always easy. It definitely gives me hope for the future.

I still think she is the smartest little girl, yesterday she signed outside all on her own. I was so excited. And she said "Da" and reached up to Josh.

So, now she can sign "eat","more","drink","outside", the one sign I know she knows but won't do is "all-done", she just doesn't want to be done eating, so she won't sign it :), we are trying to sign it at other times too.

We have been working on her walking between furniture and she can now take 5 steps. The way I motivate her to walk is by putting a piece of food on the couch and having her walk from the ottoman to the couch, yesterday she actually by-passed the food to walk to me. This is Huge! And if she falls down and I know it must have hurt, she never cries, she actually kind of laughs, but yesterday when I picked her up, kissed and hugged her and said "oh you poor baby", she actually wanted that over the food.

She knows who we are and is starting to prefer me over others. If someone else is holding her, she will reach towards me. Except with my mom :). We are working on attaching even more, because she still will go with anyone who smiles at her.

She loves her swing, I kind of think that is why she signs outside. At first, she hated it, now I think it is one of her favorite things to do.

She also lets us throw her up in the air and laughs, she hated this at first. I think she is trusting us more.

She loves the big pool now, still not the kiddy pool though. And now that she is becoming more attached to us, she prefers to be in our arms than in a floatie.

This absolutely drives me crazy, but she will crawl to her chair and stand up and scream until I get her or feed her. It drives me crazy, because one day I decided to see how long she would do it and if she would stop and come to me on her own when I called her, she did not. :) But, it just shows me how smart she is and how fast she picks things up.

She is starting to play with toys, but still prefers to bang the toy rather than playing with it, but it IS a start.

She is learning to use a spoon, but still won't do it on her own. But, it is progress because she doesn't cry now when I put it in her hand. She will put the food in her mouth, but then hold the spoon straight up in the air until I put food on it.

She is starting to love Malika as much as Malika loves her. She will now laugh and smile at her instead of screaming at her. Last night, Malika and Justus were running around laughing and Kaylee would not take her eyes off of them and would turn her head when they passed her.

Kaylee moans alot now, it is more of a zoning out. She will pick up anything tiny and stare at it and play with it and just moan. She would probably do this much of the day, except I try to stop her and re-direct her. This is one of the orphanage behaviors she has. It actually seems worse than before.

Yesterday, I was thinking about her life at the orphanage. I am sad for the life that she was given, that no one was there to care for her or love on her. I am sad that she spent the first 3 months of her life in the hospital with no one to love her or adore her. I am sad that she did not have someones eyes to stare into. I want to make up for all that. I want her to know she is treasured and loved now. On the days that I am frustrated, I don't want her to know the frustration, I only want her to know the love and peace of being in a family.

Malika and Justus are doing well too. Justus is starting to like Kaylee again and he is even giving her hugs and kisses now. He is starting to share with her, but only if he is told to. If I see him being rough with her, I say be gentle, so he will rub her head, it is too cute. Malika, of course, adores her and loves her as always, she will go up to her and laugh in her face and talk baby talk to her just to get her to smile and laugh.

 Here are some pictures of the kids:

Malika loving on Kaylee

 The sweetest picture of Kaylee, this is the picture we are using for her American passport. 

Malika and Justus in the sprinkler, wearing floaties, just in case they thought they would drown :) (yes, Lindsay, those are your floaties, we thought since we accidentally borrowed them, we should put them to use)

Kaylee finding a leaf, then putting it in her mouth.

 I couldn't refuse this picture, even though she is crying, she is just too cute. This was after I took the leaf out of her mouth.

 Reaching out to me when I called her name.

 Malika and Justus driving a car. Malika is pretending the thing she is holding is her stick shift and the hangars are the steering wheels.

 Playing in the puddles after it rained

 Kaylee sitting on her car outside. 

 This is from today. I put Kaylee down for a minute to get my camera to upload pictures and this is how I found them when I got back. Justus was patting Kaylee, saying "Kay-ee" over and over.