Zoo Preschool

It was zoo preschool day again. Today we learned about vultures. The teacher does a really good job handling the "icky" factor of the fact that vultures eat dead things. She is really good.

It was chilly today, so the vultures weren't out. Which mean we got to go see them where they keep them at night and when it's cold. This area was in the basement below the giraffe house. We had to take this long little spiral staircase down to the basement. That took quite some time with 4 kids. All the African animals they have were down there. Several types of birds, the zebras, the Lesser Kudu. It was pretty neat to see! The vultures are LARGE birds!!! They would flap their wings and you could feel quite the breeze from it!

While driving home I was thinking about how neat the class is. Then I started to wonder if Courtney really gets anything out of the class, or not. I think it's neat to get the up close and personal with a lot of animals you don't normally get to meet. And it's neat to see different areas of the zoo you don't normally get to see, like the basement below the giraffes. Back to my question, does Courtney get anything out of the class? My answer: I have no idea... She seems to enjoy it. She likes making the craft every week. I don't know. I guess I am going to have to watch her closer and question her about it.

I feel like we have had a few good days the last few days. By that I mean I didn't feel like I was battling with Courtney all day long. I am not sure what changed. Whatever it was, I hope it doesn't change back! Maybe her "3's" will end early! I could only be so lucky.

We are pretty sure that Kasey now says "Hi Birds". It's really very cute! Both girls are enamored with the birds. Of course the birds are still new, so the newness factor is still big, but they are both so cute with the birds.

Kasey is quite a character. She has really been showing her sense of humor the past few days. I think she will be a little joke-ster. Ok by me! She has the words Mama, Dada and HI down pat. I swear she is also working on Nana. And it looks like she is trying to cut another tooth. Someone turned on the drool faucet and she's chewing on her fingers.

Breathing treatments

I forgot to mention that Kasey is currently receiving breathing treatments. Last Friday night she had a fever. Since Courtney had an ear infection, I figured it would be best to get Kasey checked out. She did not have any ear infections, but she did have a red throat as well as some wheezing in her chest. So, the doctor decided it was best to get her on a few breathing treatments. Seems RSV has been running rampant lately. So, we are going to try to prevent her from getting RSV. Good thing I still have a nebulizer at home!

I keep thinking about the hippotherapy program. It really did bring tears to my eyes. It is just such an amazing program. And I kept thinking about how I was the one that had to push to get her there. It's not something any suggested to us. It's something I came across, looked into, and asked about.

I don't know how parents with kids in worse condition than mine do it! It's exhausting, it's frustrating, it's time consuming. No one every seems to tell you about programs out there that may help you. For example, I told a mother I was talking to at the barn about the Child Find program. Her child had some pretty sever problems, and she was not aware of the program. With all the specialist he has, and all the doctors he has seen since birth, no one shared about the Resource Exchange program or the Child Find program. I think that is just awful.

Thankfully at my MOPS group, someone put flyers on our tables about an upcoming meeting for Mothers of children with special challenges. I plan on going to that.

Another season of American Idol has begun! Time to go focus on that!

Pictures

Here are the birds, Piglet on the left and Muse is on the right.


Piglet and Courtney:
Bristol intently watching the cage:Hippotherapy with Harley the horse:

Wednesday update

So yes, I said the birds have arrived. We decided to possibly get 2 birds about a week ago. The Gabriel Foundation took the week to see if there was any other females that Piglet would get along with. We heard a rumor that cockatiels aren't adopted very often, not sure if that is true or not, but between that and the wonderful work TGF does we decided two would work for us. The cage we ordered ended up being a bit bigger than we pictured it being so there is plenty of room!

Hubby went and picked them up on Saturday morning. I spent the morning taking Kasey to the doctor. She had a fever the night before of 102 degrees. And the day before I was there with Courtney, she has an ear infection. And I too, have a cold now. So, we have a sick house.

Anyway, Hubby went up and got the birds. The second bird is named Muse. They named her some time ago, she has been at TGF since 2006. We have no idea how old she is. She does have a heart murmur, and when TGF gets their ekg machine they want us to bring her back up to get one done.

Once they arrived at our house we put them in the cage and the both found spots they liked and stayed there for most of the day. They finally started moving around a little bit that evening. We have taken them out several times to work with them. Muse has her wings clipped and Piglet does not. However, Piglet never really learned to fly, so she really doesn't go anywhere at this point. If we need to get her wings clipped in the future we will, but she doesn't need it now.

Courtney has really enjoyed having them here. Both on Saturday evening and Sunday evening we went out to run some errands and the whole time Courtney kept saying she wanted to go back home to see Piglet. Piglet will get up on Courtney, Muse is still unsure of most of us and really only step up onto Hubby.

The dogs are doing well. Bristol is the most curious. He will sit in front of the cage and stare at it trying to figure out what is going on in there I guess. Maggie will occasionally show interest in it, but not at much as Bristol. And Buddy, well, he can't see them, so he really doesn't care. We do lock Bristol and Maggie out of the room when we take the birds out.

Courtney started a new preschool Monday. This one is only about 1 mile from our house. I really was worried about her losing social skills and getting behind in what other kids were learning. She is going to start preschool in the fall but until then I wanted her in some sort of program. So, she is at a Kindercare two mornings a week now. I dropped her off in the morning and when I picked her up after lunch she was really happy. She obviously had a good time. That was great to know!

Kasey is finally just starting to pick up sign language. Her first sign she is using is all done! Yea!

Courtney has been in big girl panties since last Wednesday! She has only had 2 accidents! So, she is doing great! I am so excited to get her fully potty trained! Now I want to get the second one potty trained also. No more diapers would be great.

We got Kasey a new car seat. She was in the infant carrier still and although she is not yet 20 lbs, she was really pushing the envelop with the infant carrier. We also noticed a week ago when we were at Babies R Us looking for a new gate that they had a trade in deal. If you traded in a piece of baby equipment (high chair, car seat, crib, play pen, etc) you got 25% off a new piece of baby equipment. So, we took her infant chair and bases in and got her a new seat. It's rear facing for now, and it will be for a while still. This chair can hold kids backwards up to 40 lbs! It's not as easy to use as the infant carrier, but she fits in it much better!

Courtney has been on the waiting list for hippotherapy now since December. No, amazingly enough that does not involve hippos. It involves horses. We have a center here in town that does therapeutic riding! (www.pptrc.org) Courtney got her first taste of it the other day. They had a cancellation, and so they called us to come try it out. She LOVED it. She had the biggest grin on her face! They had her do things like ride the horse backwards. They also had her throwing bean bags at a bean bag toss on the wall from on top of the horse. We are on the waiting list to get a regular spot out there, and I think Courtney will really benefit from it! What a wonderful program!

I will get some pictures up later!

Mark it down

Mark today on the calendar. Today Courtney wore big girl panties ALL DAY and we had NO accidents! There is hope yet! And we even left the house! AND she wore them for nap time and still didn't have an accident (I know, I am daring). I can not believe it! She just may actually potty train yet!!!!!

Princess Party

Well, it's been a busy few days here! And for anyone interested, Happy is still at the shelter and goes up for adoption tomorrow! Great dog! Loves kids! If I could have him I would!! I feel so bad that no one went and claimed him! I really hope he goes to a good home, he really deserves it!

Anyway, Hubby came with me to MOPS on Friday morning. The lady who runs the program and her husband did the talk. I really liked what Megan had to say. I felt like I really identified with what she was saying, but then again, I seem to identify with most of the talks. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I am not sure!

Hubby said he thought it was "ok". At least he got free food and to come check out where his girls are spending every Friday morning. After we were done there we took him back to work.

That afternoon had been shaping up to be a busy one for me, but that all changed really fast! Hailey was supposed to come over and play while Kelly went to Kinsey's Valentine's party at her school. But Hailey was showing signs of pink eye, so Kelly made the decision to keep her home.

The plan also was for a play date with Ava later in the afternoon. However, when we got home from MOPS, I noticed they were putting a roof on Ava's house. I called Molly (Ava's mom) and offered our house for nap time if she needed a quiet place. She said she knew the roofers were coming, just not that exact day. But she took the girls to her in-laws house for nap time. So, we went from having a super busy afternoon planned to actually having nothing to do. Not necessarily a bad thing!

Hubby had a meeting at his office at 7pm, so he was planning on staying at work until then. So, the girls and I picked up some BBQ for dinner and brought it to the office and had dinner with Hubby. Courtney enjoyed that. The BBQ place near us that we picked it up from is just OK if you ask me, however, they have fried okra on their menu. And I LOVE fried okra! MMmmmmm! I need to just start going there to pick up fried okra. Kasey liked it too! Finally, someone else in the house likes it!

Saturday morning my mom arrived at our house at 9am. Then we all hit the road! We all went up to Denver to a store called "The Birdbrain". It's a bird store run by The Gabriel Foundation. So, we picked up some food to get ready for the arrival of Piglet.

From there my mom, Courtney and I continued up to Greeley. Hubby and Kasey headed down to The Gabriel Foundation's aviary in Elizabeth, CO, for a visit with Piglet.

We arrived in Greeley about 12:30pm. We quickly unloaded the car and the loaded the people back in again. And we were off to Ft. Collins. My sister works with a girl who her whole dream in life is to be a Disney Princess. So, for now she has started a company that offers Princess for rent for birthday parties and tea parties and such. She also apparently does a story time at a bakery in Ft. Collins. We may have to check that out sometime soon too.

Anyway, she was holding a Princess party. So, all of us (including Zak) went to the Hilton and met 5 Princesses. Well, 4 princesses and a fairy technically. Let's see, of course Cinderella was there, as was Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Tinkerbell. Courtney LOVED it. She participated in the Princess Parade (just around the room), she got to meet each princess individually and talk to them and she got to have a group shot with them at the end. It was cute and Courtney loved it! She also dressed up in her "Christmas dress" as she calls it, otherwise known as the dress she wore for Christmas pictures. She loves that dress and wears it whenever she gets the chance. Cinderella was her favorite of course!

After we were princessed out, we went to get some dinner. We headed to P.F. Changs which was surprisingly crowded for 4pm. But eventually we had a delicious dinner with double delicious desserts to follow. Then to kill a little bit of time we stopped at a shoe store. Susan had to work that night and it wasn't quite time for her to go yet, so the stop at the shoe store filled up that time.

Anyway, from there we headed back to Susan and Zak's house. We had set up an air mattress between my bed and the wall for Courtney to sleep on. It worked out really well, it was pretty high but about 6 inches below my bed, so she couldn't roll off. We finally got her settled in about 7:45pm. However, she didn't fall asleep until about 9:15pm (my mom had brought her monitor). I think she was just too jazzed from the events of the day! And she didn't get a nap so I was really surprised she stayed up that late. You would think (or I always hope) that if she stays up late or had a long day or whatever that she would sleep late the next morning? NOPE, she wakes up at the same time every day no matter what. So, she was up at 7am the next morning. Not too bad, but the adults had stayed up until midnight watching the Olympics and trying to figure out how to turn the Olympics into a drinking game. (By the way, best idea we came up with was to drink every time someone falls).

Anyway the next morning after a late breakfast we hit the road. We made it home about 1pm. Courtney and I took long naps. We ate Spaghetti for dinner. Nothing too exciting for Valentine's day, but that's ok by me! I love Spaghetti, but ever since I was pregnant with Kasey, any kind of red sauce gives me horrible heartburn! Thank goodness for Tums! But at the same time, I am recently on a kick where I could eat spaghetti every day!

Today Hubby had the day off. So, we took advantage of the time as a family and headed back up to the Aviary to visit Piglet again. We only spent about 30 minutes with her before our girls were done and we headed out again. Once we came back into town we got a few errands done that we needed to do.

We have our home visit set up for Thursday. So we just may be able to pick up Piglet and bring her home this weekend! We have had the cage set up for a few days now. I have to tell you, for me, a birdcage is very relaxing! And there isn't even a bird in it yet! But when I look at it, I can feel my body start to relax. I can't imagine what it will be like once there is a bird in it.

A long but really fun weekend come to an end. And we return to reality tomorrow. Reality sucks, but at least I can think about this weekend and look at my bird cage to make it to next weekend!

Quick Update

I have had a hard time recently finding time to sit down to update my blog. So, this is a quick update. I think I will try to do more quick updates instead of waiting so long between updates so it doesn't take long to do.

Anyway, zoo preschool today! Yea! We learned about Emu's. What neat birds! Did you know they lay dark green eggs? They look black they are so dark.

Tomorrow will be fun. It's Pops at MOPS. Meaning it's bring your husband to MOPS morning. So, Hubby gets to come with me! I also need to bring snacks tomorrow for Courtney's room. I purposely signed up for tomorrow to bring snacks so I could bring some Valentine's stuff. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find HEALTHY Valentine's snacks? Ok, maybe it wouldn't be as hard if I wouldn't have waited for tonight. Yes, I waited for tonight, the night before every school's Valentine's party tomorrow. The Valentine's area was a bit picked over... Not only was it picked over, there were still several kids coming in with parents looking for things. It's funny too because most of the parents were dads. And the only boxes of valentine's left were of the Jonas brothers or Batman.

I didn't have much luck finding healthy Valentine's snacks. So, the kids are getting one Valentine's cookies each and a box of raisins. So be it.

Have I mentioned we are adopting a bird yet? Yes, we are. We have always wanted one and we have talked about it for years. Something spurred us recently to take action. Not sure what, but we are now on the path to bird owning. We are going to get a cockatiel and it's name will be Piglet. Why Piglet? Well, we went and visited the "Foundation" we are adopting from. They introduced us to a cockatiel named Piglet that they thought would be a good fit for our family. Now we are going through the process of adopting, which includes taking an online class and getting things like a cage and toys. Anyway, we hope to get "the" Piglet, but we aren't sure if she will still be available when we are approved for adoption. But Courtney is set on Piglet coming to our house. So, we know that no matter what, our next bird will be named Piglet.

We got a cage off Craigslist, and we ordered one. Our cage we ordered arrived today, Hubby built it tonight. We have to have a home visit soon, and we are almost done!

And remind me some time to tell you about the aviary we went and saw (where we met Piglet). Wow! The place is run by The Gabriel Foundation and it's quite impressive!

Kasey has started to wave Bye-Bye. If you say bye-bye to her she will wave, but inevitably she will then say her favorite word to you: HI! She is so darn cute!

Courtney is so into the princesses that I am about to explode. She walk around singing like Ariel all the time. Yes, it was cute the first 1000 times. At time 1001 it starts to grate on you a little bit.

Oooh, yesterday the girls and I went to the mall. When we got home we suddenly had a little stray dog in our garage! He was adorable. I ended up trapping him in the garage after luring him back in with fries and McNuggets. I called our Humane Society who assured me they would "come get him as soon as possible". This little guy was still really unsure about me, so he wasn't coming close to me at all. I put a bowl of water in the garage for him and I left him there while I went and put the girls down for nap. After that, I went back and opened the door to the garage (my dogs were locked outside). I sat down on the floor to see what would happen. The little guy comes in and curls up on my lap! After he figured I was ok, he was a lovable little guy! I gave him some food and some water and played with him.

Kasey only slept for an hour and the little dog, I have since named Happy, was still here. I brought her down and Happy just about turned himself inside out! He loved her! It was sooo cute! Finally 2 hours after Happy entered our garage, he was picked up by the Humane Society. I called to check on him today, he is still there and they are not finding any health issues.

He did not have a collar on, and I am guessing he isn't micro-chipped either then. But his fur was not matted or dirty so he had to have had a home somewhere! He was a little thin and his tail did appear to have been broken at some point in time, but not recently. I will call and check on him again tomorrow. The owners have 7 days to pick him up before he becomes available for adoption. I really wish someone I know would adopt him. I know he is a fabulous dog! He's a tiny little think, and probably only about a year and a half old. He certainly has some terrier in him.

Ok, that is my quick update! Time for bed!