Quinn is finishing out her summer working hard on standing and walking.  Here are her new shoes and braces.  Her right shoe now has a lift in it, and she is figuring out how to walk with her lift, and is doing great.

 The kids went to open house with Chrissy and Grandma Martha, as I had to work at my school's open house and John was working late.  Quinn got to fill out a survey, questions like where the bathroom is, finding her cubby, her work space, and such.  It sounds like it took close to an hour to get through everything, as she continued to get stopped in the hall every few feet by someone who wanted to tell her hello and see how her summer was.  I have said it before and say it again, I love Maxey staff and students, and how they embrace Quinn and love her for how wonderful she is.

Here are Quinn and her first grade teacher, Ms. Meyer.  How can she be in 1st grade already?

The summer is coming to an end, where did it go?  We have been busy cleaning the house, a good deep clean, and ironically after cleaning so well, three of the 5 of us were sick enough to go to the doctor's and get antibiotics!  All three of us girls!  Lysol has been a big thing in our house lately, but it is clean.

Decluttered is a better word.  Things seem to get put in a place and stay there rather then get put away, and now things are put away and looking so good.

We have been in our house over a year now, and we still have some boxes of stuff at my mom's, and we keep getting a few boxes every once in awhile, and this frame came back, and how I love it, little Quinn in three poses, and how I love the one of her singing.  I also love our "You are my Miracle" book.  She is!

Finally thank goodness for therapies this week, I have been exhausted with my flu bug, that if it were not for therapy, Quinn would not have been up and about very much, and I can be as frustrated as I want, but when I am sick, I can not be picking Quinn up and doing lots with her, I just don't have the energy, and I don't want to be breathing all over her.  She had the least bad cold, but it was bad enough for antibiotics, so I did not want to make it worse, and getting her to the bathroom and a few repositions is about all I could do.  Thank goodness for our little D, who is so good with Quinn, that she is always helping move her around, not picking up, but helping her roll or repositioning Quinn's head if she needs it.  With little D not feeling great either, we had quite a week, but being together and out of the hospital.  Willing to hang out and watch a little tv, which does not happen very often, it was low key, but wow we did have some interesting conversations!
Well I am going to rest, as I start school this next week, and so I better rest up now, and get better, because the crazy part of my year is going to start soon!  Oh the excitement of a new school year, fresh and new.  All these art projects running around in my head, and getting back to a very structured schedule, will be good for us.
How grateful I am for this summer having two girls going into 1st grade and our little guy going into 2nd grade, this has been such a fun summer, we have checked so many things off of our list, and have been so busy, it has been a wonderful summer, but getting back into a structured schedule will be good for us as well.
Blessings
Susan

Well, we did some driving with Chrissy this week, and Quinn wanted to take a nap instead, so Chrissy and Quinn had some fun swinging and with Quinn getting so big, she better enjoy it now, because this won't be happening for much longer.  We will have to figure out a different way to get her to giggle like she was!

now for the exciting part, that swinging woke her up and she drove around without taking her hand off of her joystick for over 30 minutes.  Her goal was 3 minutes and we had not hit it until the other day, and she went crazy driving all over the place!  Chrissy and I were both almost in tears!  It was amazing to see her go and go.  What a wonderful afternoon!

 We also went to the dentist, and at the dentist, Quinn lost her first tooth!  The tooth fairy made it to our house and everything!  Wow!

 She also worked with Stacie on her dynovox too, and she was going crazy with it.  We finally got it into the perfect position so she can see under it, and can easily talk using the buttons all over the screen, she was having issues hitting all of them, but not any more.  She told the dentist she needed to be suctioned and everything, and wow, they were impressed.  We saw Chrissy later that afternoon, and Quinn was talking so much, Chrissy even asked her to be quiet so she could talk to Troy, as we were working on her chair again, so she is doing so good with her dynovox, she is now being asked to stop talking!  Oh boy!!!!! :)

 Thank you Lord for helping us see all these special moments and we are not taking one of them for granted!  We are so grateful!

We made it to Memphis, and Quinn got her Grandpa Ron time.

Oh I love this picture.

We all rode on the trolly, Quinn slept the entire time.  Quinn and Cindy in this pict.

 We all rode one of the boats that Grandpa works on, and everyone had fun driving.

 Grandpa and Uncle Adam and a few folks helped work on a couple things on Quinn's chair.

 We went swimming in cousin Chases's pool, and both of our other kiddo's said this was their favorite part of the trip.

 Quinn loves her Grandpa time.

At the Peabody, right after the ducks walked from the elevator to the fountain.  We are with the duck master, who tends to the ducks there.

Family!

Our family on top of the Peabody, our two extra kiddo's are blurred out again or covered in some way in these picts, as we can't put them on the blog at this time.

Our little D was great, as she was willing to share with Quinn for most of the time we were driving home.

Thanks to Chrissy we can go bike riding again!  Yeah for making things work!

Now we have the road trip bug.  I'm so thankful that we have three kids that are pretty dang good at traveling.  I can say that we only had to stop two times on the way to KC, that was due to Grandma and me, not the kids.

Then this last weekend, we went to Ogallala to see Aunt Sarah, Brandon, and his family, and that drive went wonderful as well, we only had to make one stop, and that was for me again!  Goodness, I guess I need to work on my bladder issues.  I'm a teacher, I usually can do such a good job, but I guess I loose that power during the summer.

On the way back we stopped by Pioneer Village, and it was lovely!  We shackled dad up, but he managed to get out.

We also talked about how fortunate we are to be living in the technology age, and how Quinn's life is so much better then it probably would have been.  Here are a few of the wheelchairs from back in the day.

Then we were back to Lincoln to work on homework, and wow, our two kids that I can't put on here, their reading is getting so much better.  They are not happy with me for giving homework and reading time, but they are slowly coming around, and to listen to them read now is so wonderful.  Quinn is also hard at work.
Stacie is helping her get her dynovox figured out so she can use it better, right now she had a hard time getting her eyes to read the entire screen.

Suzanne and Chrissy are working on how we can help Quinn with her legs.  She still is not quite even and we are trying to figure out how to help her be her best, so we are looking at a different heal lift of sorts.  I'm so thankful for amazing women who are so willing to help Quinn be her best.

After the hard work, they go to go for a walk, and then take a little break.  Wow, Quinn will work so hard for all these women.  We are so blessed.

Finally we got to get fitted for new braces, and we all got to see how that happens.

It's pretty neat!  So give us a few weeks, and we will have some new braces to show off.  Goodness, I know we try to get lots in during the summer, but I continue to think, how in the world do I get all this stuff done, when I am working full time during the school year, and there are lots of hours involved in that.  I am trying to be thankful for every minute we have this summer, as it is such a lovely summer, I'm exhausted, but a good exhausted, the kids are learning so much, be it homework, or life experiences, a good bunch of both of them.
Blessings,

Susan

KC trip

We got to go to KC for a few days, Grandma Vicki, our two kiddo's that we can't show their faces on here, Quinn, and I.  The men had to stay home and work so we could afford the trip! :)

 We started out at the T-Rex cafe, I would highly recommend it.  It was lots of fun.

 Lego Land.  It  is ok, but a favorite of the kids.

 the 4-d movie is pretty amazing!

 the aquarium is amazing.  The touch tank is awesome, and better yet they got a bunch of stuff out of it and put it in a mini tank for Quinn to touch!  YEAH!

 Quinn loved the sting rays, the music in there was so calming and the sting rays were lovely.  Did you know they have an extra sense that can feel the heart beat of others.  They would swim right over by us and stay there.  It was fun!

 My girl and me!  Oh if only you could see the group of us in there, so fun!

Finally a picture of all the kids.  Watching the fountains dance to the music of the KC symphony, it was amazing and we ran across it by accident, such a lovely accident.

Phew, what a fun few days!