All in a week...

DANCE REHEARSAL/ Practice


My dancing girl...Kaylee's dress rehearsal was this Tuesday...She did so good. Her recital is this Friday night. She is dancing to "At the Hop"...at the very end, she has to hold this leg lift for about 10 seconds and she has been practicing like crazy. We are so proud of her and look forward to more dancing next session as she is adding a Compitition jazz dance...so yes, we will just be busier than we were before...LOL. She loves it though!







Birthday Time
Last Saturday we celebrated Cody and Kaylee's birthday at my brother's house...Disneyland was their choice over having a big friends birthday party, so it was so nice to not have to plan much other than a family bbq...and everyone brought something, so that was even better. My uncle Tom and Aunt Suzy were in town, so they came too and it was nice to catch up with them! Kids swam, had great food, cupcakes and ice cream...fun!




Some of my nieces and nephew...group pic!

Cody enjoying the pool...

Kaylee awaiting her cupcake and ice cream...

Daddy brought birthday balloons for Kaylee...She does like Spongebob...only Daddy would pick that one out for his girl...LOL.

Kaylee decorated all the cupcakes...she called them her TIE DYE cupcakes...they were yummy!

Cody and his birthday balloons brought over by his friend Corbin. We went out to dinner at Me-n-eds that night with our friends...he had a fun birthday as it was his last day of school too!

SLEEPY TIME
The following two pics are of Brayden sleeping in his bed...now that he has the hang of getting into sitting position all by himself, he does NOT want to stay lying down, even though he is so tired and ready for a nap...so he falls asleep like this. If there are any pointers on helping with this let me know, I go in after he falls asleep and lay him down...but it just looks so uncomfortable.

I found Brayden one morning waking up talking to his teddy bear...this bear was given to him at the hospital after he was born by a good friend and has been with him ever since...Thanks Brandy ...

One of the MILLION of kisses we get a day from Brayden...poor Kaylee sometimes gets all kinds of hair pulled out with his squeezes...but she LOVES it!

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY/ TEACHER TIME
We were at our CITI kids center the other day for our last session of OT with Erin before we start at another agency and Teacher Paula who is his Developmental teacher worked with him too. He loved this bar where he stood all by himself and looked at himself in the mirror... When Brayden turns 18 months he will be coming to the center twice a week for toddler time/play time...he will also be having Speech therapy start at 18 months...so 5 visits somewhere EVERY week...oh, we are going to be so busy!

Then it was play time on the floor with the stacking rings...

OT session with Erin, we are still really working on SELF-Feeding...he likes to eat, but he doesn't want to work at it too much. So she played games with him putting his puffs everywhere and making him put them in his mouth...he did pretty good with this...so we have been doing the same thing at home.

Yay, in the mouth!

We finally mastered pounding two cups together, or two toys together, and clapping hands together...it really took a long time to get here, but we did it all last week A LOT! So, yep...now time to move on to new stuff! When we showed his teacher and therapist what he could finally do, I was so excited...and when they said, OK..time to do some new things now...I said," Noooo...we just mastered this! It took forever for us to do this, can't we just stick with this for awhile?!" I'm sure those of you with little ones with Down syndrome can relate?

And then there is my Cody boy...he ended 2nd grade this year with some fabulous awards! We are so proud of him...he received the Academic Achievement award...(students have to maintain a 85% or higher average on all spelling tests for the whole year, pass all math benchmarks 11 all together with a 85% or higher and pass all levels of reading for 2nd grade...he also got a reading award...Way to go Cody! You are going to be a great 3rd grader and such an example to your little sister who is going to be going into Kindergarten!

Physical Therapy...

Brayden has been working with another therapist Nikki, who is wonderful! Sandy is doing an intensive therapy for the month of June...but I have enjoyed everything Nikki is doing as well...I think it is good to have a change once in awhile...although we LOVE Sandy too! Brayden has started to want to stand against many things and try to pull to stand on his own...we are looking at getting our IN STEP braces ( I think that is what they are called) very soon...he has also learned how to scoot around on his bottom...not the way I am wanting him to get around, but yes, once they figure out how they can get somewhere...they will do it. So now he is fighting the whole crawling thing again...maybe he will just start walking instead??? There are many things we are working on, thanks to all of Nikki's suggestions. Brayden loves sitting on the step stool and having to bend down and pick up toys off the ground as he is trying to balance sitting on the stool.

Brayden absolutely LOVES the camera and has started to smile a cheesy smile everytime I turn the camera on. I am so thankful that his therapists don't seem to mind all the picture snapping I do!

We are so proud of his progress and I have enjoyed his PT's so much! I love that there are people in this profession that have such huge hearts, patience and concern for our children.

I forgot to mention that Brayden turned 14 months today...wow! I can't believe he is that old already! What a blessed 14 months it has been. I truly thank the Lord everyday for him!

Just another week in the life of the Lehnick Family. Summer is always a busy time, but we love it! We have created chore lists for the kids this week and implemented them, with goals at the end of each week...so far they are doing well. Cody has began his upper level soccer league and is practicing twice a week...Kaylee is starting her 2 dance classes this next week..and Brayden has his 3 therapies scheduled for this next week...LIFE...BUSY, busy, busy...