First day of school

Natalie started her second year of preschool today. Since we have moved she is in a new school and new school district (actually the same one that I went all through school in). The drop off was a little chaotic so I did not have time to get a picture but when I picked her up I was able to get a few although Natalie was obviously not in the mood for a picture. Aunt Hez and Ronan were there with me to pick Natalie up - they needed to practice since they will be doing the school drop off/pick up several days a week.
Natalie's teacher said she had a good day but I didn't get much detail about what they did so there's not much to tell. I'll update again soon when I have some more details.
In the meantime, compare last year's first day of school to this year by clicking here.

Best Friends

Natalie loves when anyone reads to her but she especially loves Amy. Oh, and even though I didn't get a picture of it, she also loves when Brian reads to her. Thanks to Amy and Brian for cutting down on the time that I have to spend reading!

June updates

Wow! So much has been happening with Natalie since I last posted. Here is a recap of June in pictures: She finished her first year of preschool. Here she is with her teacher, Miss Davis, who she LOVED! She got glasses in mid-June and has been so good about keeping them on! She started Hippotherapy (again) and Aquatic Therapy (new therapy for her). She's been spending a lot of time with her cousin Ronan. And Kiernan and Carter too. She's been walking like crazy too!
Which makes her so tired that she sleeps all night (ha ha..let's say half the night if I'm lucky) in her new big girl bed!

Interesting article

Just wanted to post a link to an interesting article that I just read about stem cell therapy:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/06/05/ST2010060503456.html?sid=ST2010060503456

A WALKER!

Back in January, during a brief encounter with Natalie's school physical therapist, she said to me "I see Natalie being a walker in the future". A few years ago I would have cried with relief if a therapist had told me this. At that time, however, I just thought "I know". This is because even though I had a hard time picturing her actually walking, I was more confident that she would eventually get there even if it wasn't until she was 5 or 6 or even 10!

Now, 5 months later, she's really getting excited about walking. FINALLY! It's as if something clicked for her and she went from doing just about anything to get out of walking to wanting to walk EVERYWHERE and ALL THE TIME! To make it clear to those who don't see her often, she is not walking independently (yet). She walks with someone holding her hands, as you would with a baby first learning to walk, or she uses a walker. Just this week, I was able to borrow a bigger walker than the one that she was using and she really took off with it. I think she feels more secure in it than she did with the other walker which was really too short for her.

Below is a video of her walking this week! Try to ignore Howard's loud background commentary.

Teddy Bear Picnic

Reading in the car

Combining two of her favorite things right now - Dora and books! This is how Natalie keeps herself occupied lately on our drives to and from Dayton. She will look at one page for a long time and then hand the book to me to turn to the next page for her.