Gearing Up

We are busily packing and planning for the big day on Wednesday. Kennedy has a lot of questions and I'm getting excited just like she is. This is by far the biggest trip we've ever taken. Wish us luck and to those of you reading who we will be seeing at the conference, have a safe trip and we can't wait to see you!

Swim Party!

Kennedy's buddy Samuel had an impromptu swim party today - Kennedy and a couple of other neighborhood kids got invited over for a day of splashing, painting, running through sprinklers, and general kid-mayhem. The kids were all younger than her, but she enjoyed herself immensely and was really good with them.

Here are a few of the pictures:
What An Angel!


Soaked and Loving It!



Usually Doesn't Like Dirty Hands...Not Today!!!


Splish Splash


The "Gang"



It's A Rough Life...

The Insult Game

Strange title to a post, I know. Here's the thing, we have this whiteboard at the bottom of the stairs right near Kennedy's room. We leave a whiteboard marker attached to it all the time and I use it to write little notes to Kennedy. Well, sort of notes...I use it as sort of a silly insult board. There's nothing serious going on; it's just another way I get her reading longer, more complicated words. For example, I will write, "Kennedy is a spaghetti and meatball sandwich". She reads it, laughs her head off, erases it, runs upstairs and says, "I am not a spaghetti and meatball sandwich!!!" If I wait too long before the next "insult", she usually asks, "write another, mama?"

Today I went down, and to my surprise, Ms. Kennedy decided to get creatively involved in the game for the first time:
(I love the emphatic exclamation mark and BUTT in all caps)

Grade Three Portrait

As usual, the photographer taking Kennedy's school photos didn't take much time to get her to smile, her hair was messy by the time they got to her class, and the photos came back with a black spot right on her face. Needless to say, I didn't order them, nor did I send her back for re-takes. If they won't take their time the first time, they wouldn't the second time and I'm a firm believer in not partaking in activities which I believe are an exercise in futility.

I recently took a photo of Kennedy that I absolutely adored; however, we were outside in the evening at the campfire and she hadn't had her face washed in awhile, resulting in a dirty nose. Thanks to my handy dandy photo editor, I airbrushed the dirty nose and voila! the perfect grade three portrait (albeit at the end of the school year). I just ordered a bunch from Superstore and they turned out great.

Don't setlle for icky school pictures - you can take better pictures yourself!

Playing Tourist

We took a mini-vacation yesterday. Where did we go? Some exotic getaway? Nope. We stayed right here in our own little city. We packed ourselves up, went uptown and acted like complete tourists. We did all the things people do when they're tourists in a new place: we visited all the landmarks, took goofy pictures of ourselves, spent too much money eating at a restaurant overlooking the water, and we just took our time and walked up and down the city streets we so often fly by without giving them a second thought. We read plaques and monuments that we'd never read before, looked in shop windows we'd never stopped at before, we basically took a moment to stop and smell the roses of our own city, to appreciate the things we take for granted about where we live.

I'm not saying it's not good to get away or visit a new locale, but it doesn't hurt to stop and take the time to remember the great things about where you are right now. Try it sometime - go be a tourist in your own city!

Here are some other photos of beautiful uptown Saint John. The architecture is really impressive; I guess that's the one positive that came out of the Great Fire of 1877:

Walgreens Story

My friend Crystal sent me this link that I wanted to share with my readers; it's a great story about Walgreens and people with disabilities!

Pony Tail Girl

Kennedy likes me to do her hair in a pony tail once in a while (which she usually leaves in all of five minutes before she's "finished" and wants it out). Her hair is getting quite long as of late and I thought this bouncy pony tail was so cute, I had to take some pictures.

Left Profile:


Right Profile (you can see her BAHA implant fairly well in this one also):

The "Bush":

Countdown Is ON!

The big countdown until the CHARGE syndrome conference in California has been added to the top of the blog. I am excited to be finally having Ms. Kennedy accompany me to one of the conferences; she is going to have a ball. Kyle will also be coming to help his poor old mother and enjoy some southern California sun (and girls as well, no doubt!) Ryan & Graeme will be working so they won't be able to come unfortunately. I can't believe it's only 23 days!

Night Parties

Any of you fellow parents of a child with CHARGE, and most of you with children who do not have CHARGE, know what it's like to go without sleep. Sometimes, Kennedy wakes up at unbelievable hours and is clapping, singing, and just rarin' to go for the day; at 3 or 4 am, however, we are not. Even at 6 am some mornings (weekends, e.g.), it's just not happening. We decided on a new plan of attack this summer so we wouldn't be awake each day at the crack of dawn: a visual.

Kennedy is an excellent reader and LOVES signs, especially "rules signs" - she's the only kid I know who goes to the McDonald's Play Place to read the rules over and over and NOT get on the play equipment. She even likes to sit by them. There's just something she finds so appealing about those signs with a line through them representing "no smoking" or "no shoes" for example. If she isn't familiar with one, she has to know what it means.

Last night, she was up really late (and tonight again as well with the Canada Day fireworks), so I strung some tape across the top of the stairs with a note about when she could come up and get us. Tonight, when I was reminding her verbally and with sign, "don't come up until 8:30", she said, "I know, mama, we can put a string across the stairs with the sign again." Yep, she asked ME for a sign. What a girl!

So, Graeme and I made two loops in a string and put it across the top of the railing (which she can easily crawl under no problem) and put a sign on the middle telling her what time she can come up and to remember to close her door (that way, when she does want to get up and have a night party, put DVDs on, watch TV, play video games, etc...she doesn't wake up the whole house). She's very independent and doesn't get into anything, she just needs reminders when she wakes up and is super excited that everyone else doesn't wake up with quite the same "joie-de-vivre" as she does (to put it mildly). Here's our latest "Kennedy Visual" - the when-can-I-go-jump-on-mommy-and-daddy sign:

Happy Canada Day

We spent the day giving my brother a hand moving and Kennedy was a complete angel the whole time. She had fun running through all of Uncle Scott's empty rooms and playing hide & seek with mom. We brought our walkie talkies and she would take one and I would take one and we would give each other clues about where we were. She was pretty cute. We had a nice BBQ afterwards and now Graeme & I are just trying to stay awake long enough to take Kennedy to the fireworks.

Here is Ms. Kennedy enjoying some chocolate frosting off of a Canada Day Chocolate Cupcake: