Katelyn’s birthday party has come and gone and she had a lot of fun. We had an Over the Rainbow theme to celebrate. The inspiration for the theme came to me partially from Barney and partially from Pinterest. Katelyn loves Barney but I was not too keen on having a Barney party and I’m pretty sure the guests were appreciative of that as well (have you heard the Barney songs???). So I took the “rainbow” image that is in every episode and drew on that. It was a very colorful party with all the colors of the rainbow spread throughout the downstairs with balloons, banners, the food and even the cake. I had a shirt custom made for her and was able to order a rainbow colored tutu wholesale from one of my online friends. All of our family and close friends showed lots of love for Katelyn with the special gifts they gave her and we are so very thankful for everyone. Several weeks after her party we were finally able to get Katelyn’s birthday portraits taken and they turned out wonderful. I’m still working on sending those out so if you are on our Christmas card list, you should get your pictures soon (I had to order extra prints of my favorites).
Katelyn had her 2 year well check in late April and she is 24 lbs. & 35 ½ “. She’s a smidge taller than Ryan was at this age. He was 27 lbs & 35”. Developmentally she falls right on the charts for a 2 year old with her fine motor skills, social skills & speech. We are having early intervention still monitor her every three months due to her Omphalocele. I want to make sure she isn’t lacking in areas especially her fine motor and gross motor. She’s done exceptionally well despite her defect and even recently began laying on the floor (both the hardwood in the kitchen and carpeted area in the den) on her stomach and coloring in her coloring books. She’s still a drama queen and probably in about a year she will be running the show between her and Ryan. Even now when he does something to her, such as take away a toy, she lets it be known by running to tell us or screaming until he gives it back to her! We started compression on her O about 7 weeks ago. We have an ace bandage that we wrap her O with and tighten it as much as she will allow. We made a gradually transition into it and after about 4 weeks her O was looking smaller. Then a couple weeks ago on our “staycation”, we were at Dean’s mom’s house and Katelyn started telling us her tummy hurt. She was very tired because we had taken the kids to the pool the day before and it was also nap time for her. She cuddled up against me and went to sleep. When she woke up she continued to complain and started crying. We took her home and I took off the ace bandage and snuggled with her in our bed. She went back to sleep and when she awoke she did not complain of her tummy hurting. Needless to say, it scared us and we kept the ace bandage off for the next few days. Once we did so, her O began getting larger again. So we were back to square one. I eased her back into the tightening and so far she hasn’t complained of her tummy hurting. She definitely will tell us when it’s too tight so we can only make it but so tight. We go next week to see her surgeon so it will be interesting to get his opinion, although I’m fairly certain he’s just going to say keep doing what we are doing.
Now that I mentioned our staycation, I guess I should tell about some highlights. My sister and brother in law came in town so we spent the whole week off from work doing fun things with them and the kids. As I mentioned previously, we went to the pool at the Y and the kids had a great time (well, Katelyn had her moments but overall she was good). We also went to the Children’s Museum, rode a ferry across the river, went to a painting studio and the kids painted pottery, went to the beach, saw one of my best friend’s in North Carolina that I had not seen in years and had never met Katelyn, went to the Grave Digger monster truck shop, went to the Outer Banks and flew kites on the sand dunes (in Kitty Hawk). We also spent time with the whole family for Father's Day and got to visit with my 6 week old niece. The kids love their new cousin and Ryan is looking forward to her growing up and having another playmate. The kids (and us) were exhausted each night and slept so well.
Ryan is now a Kindergartener graduate. I can’t believe he will be 6 years old in about 3 weeks and a 1st grader in September. He LOVED Kindergarten and it’s been such a joy to see him grow. He is like a sponge and just absorbs everything and talks..boy does he talk. Which is wonderful; I couldn’t have imagined 4 years ago that he would be talking so much. He loves to draw and read. He insists on doing everything himself, right down to making his own breakfast (as long as the stove is not involved).
Ryan starts summer camp this week and was very excited this morning. We’ve enrolled him in the weekly camps at the YMCA and each week is a different theme so they will do different activities related to the theme each week. He had a great day of swimming, playing and meeting other kids. He will go this week and then won’t go again until the last week of July. One of my best friend’s will be taking him for a couple weeks and doing fun activities with him and then the week of his birthday my parents will do something fun with the kids and Dean & I are taking off work for a couple days.
I’m sure there is more to write about but I will close for now. Hope everyone is having a great summer!
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