New blog...

For anyone who is interested...I have created a new blog. It's just somewhere for me to post pics of my little crafty projects. I won't be posting there as much as I do here, but I don't want to take up space on Kelsey's blog for this. Bookmark it, save it to your bloglines, or it will be listed here as a favorite.
My new sewing blog is: Lori's Sewing Creations....www.sewzalittle.blogspot.com

Swinging with a ball....

Kelsey got a new ball as a gift from her swim instructor. She is loving this ball (it has a fish inside of it), so we brought it to the park with us today. She wanted to swing with it, so I let her. The ball is half her size and took up much of the swing. At one point she was resting her head on the ball while she swung.

(PS I took all these pics with my cell phone, I'm pretty impressed)

Playing with Daddy...

Lou decided to play with Kelsey by trapping her with the ottomans. She thought it was hilarious and had fun "peaking" at daddy through the crack and then bopping him on the head

Favorite hiding spot....

Kelsey has a favorite hiding place at G/G Mcd's house. Sometimes she hides there

and sometimes she just puts her stuff in there and opens and shuts the door.

Swimming at G/G McD's

After swimming at G/G McD's!!

Kelsey showed off everything she learned over the past 5 weeks. I got mom to video some of it. In the first Video she's doing the swim float swim.
In the second video she swims off the step to me (sometimes she actually does it without prodding).
And the last video she swims from me towards the steps.

Then and Now

I thought this was quite funny......

10 weeks

13 months

All dressed up....

and ready for her final swim lesson! Kelsey had to do her final swim lesson fully dressed in clothes and shoes. This way if she ever fell in in her clothes, she'd still be able to know what to do.
She did really well (even though she still cried through the whole thing) We took video on the video camera and I don't know how to upload that yet. So when I can I'll try to put it up. Something the instructor did, that she never worked on during lessons, was to put a wet towel over Kelsey's face while she was floating on her back. Kelsey hesitated, but then realized she needed to move it off of her face every time so she could breathe. This was to simulate if she fell in and her dress or something covered her face. It was neat to see her reaction. All in all....best $410 we'll ever spend on her! If all she learned was to flip over and float, it would still be worth it.


We had a special treat, as Daddy was able to come to watch the final lesson!

Our Little Teenager....

Luckily, I got a new cell phone this week. So Kelsey is now the owner of a cell phone that she can push all the buttons and make noise with, without breaking mommy's!

Kelsey new favorite toy...

I caught her riding on him this morning. Then she proceeded to roll over him, lay on him and then she even lay at his paws and wanted kisses. Thank goodness we have a gentle easy going old dog

Is she asleep??

After Lou got home from work, we decided to take a bike ride. On our return trip I noticed Kelsey head was bobbing down slowly. I thought it was b/c the helmet is a little loose and it was falling over her eyes, but then I realized she had fallen asleep. Visualize yourself in high school geography class ....your eyes are heavy and your head drops and you jerk it back up and then it drops again. Now put a red bike helmet on my precious one year old's head and place her in a bike seat behind her daddy and you have a perfect picture of today's trip!

Sign Language

I'm not BIG into this, but am trying to teach her a few signs. For almost 2 months now we've been using the sign for "all done" at the end of meals. Recently, I've been just asking her if she wants "more" and the other night she got it and used it...it was very cool.

Letting her become independant (trying to)

We are "trying" to get better at letting Kelsey learn to use a spoon by herself. Very hard to do when you know the food is going to end up on the floor. I bought some wider spoons and it's going...she did well the other night at least. I found that if I put the pasta on the spoon and then laid it down on her tray, she was less likely to dump it on the floor.

So proud....

I know I said I wouldn't post video till the end, but I am just so proud of how Kelsey is doing with her swim lessons after just 2 weeks. She still cries through the entire 15 minutes I just praise her and clap for her and tell her how good she is doing. In my mind...crying is much better than drowning. WARNING!!! If you don't want to (or can't bear to) hear her cry, turn your volume off before watching the videos.

Kelsey floating all by herself

Here you can see her swim by herself and then the instructor helps her flip to breathe, flip back over to swim to the bar

This is the newest thing she's been working on. Kirsten puts her in/under the water vertically and then she has to learn to flip over so she can breathe.

This is Kelsey putting the swim and flip together on her own. She does the first flip totally on her own. After Kirsten flips her back t swim, you'll see Kelsey flip backover to breathe quickly. She's got the breathing thing down....we just need to get her to swim longer.

First Bike Ride

As I posted earlier, Lou got a bike seat, for Kelsey, for his Birthday. After reading about bike seats and infants, we decided it was best to wait until after she was 1 to put her on the back of the bike. Yesterday, we decided we would take a bike ride in the afternoon. We (Lou) had yet to install the bike seat... a feat in itself. I don't think either of us imagined it being as difficult as it was, but he got it all set and off we went. Putting Kelsey's bike helmet on was fun as she does not like hats at all. Luckily we could tighten it enough so she couldn't pull it off. I wish I had taken the camera on the bike ride because she was laughing and giggling and pointing at mommy (who was riding next to her) Repeatedly we did have to tell her she had to keep her helmet on because it will keep her safe. Towards the end of the ride, she found that she could reach Lou with her hands and began touching him. It was cute. Hopefully this will become part of our evening routine as a family.

She's doing it

Needless to say I forgot to take pictures and/or film today at swimming, so you'll just have to take my word for it. We are about at the end of the first 2 weeks of her swim lessons and (even though she cries through the entire 15 minutes) she is actually getting it. Today Kirsten let her go under water vertically, Kelsey surfaced herself onto her back to breathe and float!!! When Kirsten lets her go horizontally, she will sometimes kick her feet and "swim", but usually wants to turn herself onto her back to float and breathe!! She's actually getting it and I can't be happier. She still has at least 2 more weeks of lessons and I am hopeful that eventually she will stop crying, but know that even if she doesn't, she is learning how to survive!