Our fun story for today.  Quinn was at therapy and we were fixing her Dynovox yet again.  Our little man saw it start working, and in turn saw she was on her alarm page, so he runs over to Quinn, telling her, don't press the alarm, don't press the alarm.  So what does any logical 6 year old do, she presses her alarm, and then belly laughs for a long time, and then turns around as much as she can to look at him grinning from ear to ear!  Oh I love my kids!

 We had parent teacher conferences, and these pictures were outside of Quinn's room.  I love her picture!  It made me smile!

 We also had the carnival at my school, and I took all my kids and so I had my three plus my 402 kids, so it was a fun busy night.  It was so fun to see how my school kids were so excited to meet my family kids.  It was a beautiful night.

bowling!  It's fun to see how much little D helps Quinn.  D would play the game, then she would help Quinn play!  I tell you again, God works in great ways, there is no way I could have prayed to have her love Quinn the way she does.  Our little guy loves her too, but is not into helping her in that way. 

I have to say the fun story for the night, one of the 5th grade boys at my school won this basket of stuffed animals and he said he was to old for stuffed animals and wanted to give it to Quinn.  Quinn was so excited and clung to that basket for the rest of the night,  Quinn said she would share it with her sister.  So I got to talk to my 5th grader and his dad about what a kind act that was, and how he inspired all my kids, and quit a few of us grown ups as well.  

Our little D painted Quinn's cheek, and I think it looks beautiful!

Finally it was John's birthday, and we celebrated lots of ways, one way was at a Japanese Steak house, and the kids all loved it, thanks to the grandparents for helping make the weekend so much fun.

A fun day at the pumpkin patch!

It's getting harder and harder to blur out some of my kids!

 A slide out the castle, it's a good thing Chrissy was with us, because I don't know if I would have gotten Quinn up in the castle to slide down, she sure did have fun.

 Grandma and Quinn riding on the train.

 Quinn in the corn, oh we have a lot of cute pictures of all three kids in the corn!

 Going down the slide together, getting onto the slide was not graceful, but we got it done.

 Quinn was holding her head up like a champion on the spider web.

 getting out of the spider web was just as much fun.

 Watching the pig races, lots of fun!

 Going through the maze with Grandma.

Jumping on the jumping pillows, filled with air, Quinn loved it, Chrissy and I felt a little sick afterwards.

 On the hay rack ride, going to get our pumpkins.

 We love our grandma's!

 Picking out pumpkins was so fun, a hard choice, but lots of fun!

 Grandpa and Quinn waiting for the wagon to pick us up.

 It's not every day we can sit and watch the mummy band!

 The second band for the day was the chickens.

What a fun day!  

 When we work hard at walking, we get to have fun riding around!

   

Yikes, I'm getting to this later then usual.  It's been a crazy week, with parent teacher conferences two times, and Quinn choosing not to sleep two nights in a row.  There were two 24 hour periods that I did not see either one of my girls, when they were awake. 

So we had to make up time, and start creating some fun fall crafts and food.  I have to say that having two first graders and a second grader makes for fun holidays and memories and festive fun! 

So, we are working on fun fall activities.  I continue to say how blessed we are, as our kids are so good with each other, helping Quinn and each other.  What a fun weekend we had.

 What a fun day today!  We started the day off at Panara, and the kids loved it!  Then as we were leaving, Quinn wanted to make the kids laugh, and she has a spot on her dynovox that says toot, but it makes a noise that sounds like passing gas, so she thinks it's so funny to click that and tell us she has to go to the bathroom, and all the kids laugh.  I love how all three of them are finding their sense of humor and loving each others sense of humor.  Our little guy said that was his favorite part of the day today, having Quinn make him laugh.  Granted when we were in the mall, and looking around after her joke, we were minding our own business and Quinn had to toot (pass gas) through her machine and tell them "that was her but", and then I told her that was not nice, and that is not the way we talk in the store, so thankfully she stopped.  I bet that mom and son, who was maybe 5,  who were standing by us, had an interesting talk about us after we left!  Goodness!  Thankfully Quinn got her humor in check and behaved the rest of the day.

Sometimes it is overwhelming taking Quinn and her big ol chair out in public.  Is there going to be room to get her around, are there going to be stairs, are we going to get lots of looks, I feel like we put on a show, and sometimes it would be nice to blend in.  

Other times, I feel God blessed us with our situation and that is what we need to do, get out and educate, help people see that it's ok to be different.  Today was one of those days where we had lots of folks coming over to check things out.  Kids and adults both, and we are fine with talking about things, as Quinn, our family, and her chair are very unique and her dynovox is pretty cool.  The smiles we get and the folks holding doors open is heart warming.  We had a few folks stop and talk to us about Quinn and her chair for awhile.  This happens quite a bit, where they want to say their grandchild has this or that, or a friends child, or something along those lines, and I will always try to advocate and talk, as it's hard to find good support systems at times, and we are fortunate to have some great people in Quinn's dance class, and through her therapies that help us, so when we can talk to someone or share ideas, or listen, I always want to take the time to do that.  All three kids wanted to share all kinds of things with folks today.

This morning was one of those mornings I was grateful to live in Nebraska, although we got lots of looks, smiles, comments on how cute she is, and nice discussions, they were all done with love and we left with warm fuzzies!  It was a lovely morning!

Here are the kids sitting by the fireplace, they can't wait to go back to Panera when it's cold and sit there again with a nice warm fire going.

 Then the girls and boys split up for awhile.

Here are Quinn and Grandma Martha playing dress up, as Aunt Sarah was trying on wedding dresses.  Quinn kept saying put a new one on my head!

As Quinn uses her dynovox for the majority of her talking, we have to program in what her options are, and we have thousands of things on there and thousands more things we need to put on there, but Quinn is doing pretty good finding different ways to make things work for her.

I thought about how I should have programed a few things in to her machine for her to have some options on what to say at the wedding dress shop.  She was resourceful.  We have a dress up page that she went to, and when Aunt Sarah said she did not like a dress, Quinn would pipe up with take it off, when Quinn did like a choice she would say, that's it, or I like it, or can I try it on.  Wow, she really added to the conversation in such a meaningful way, I love it when that happens!

The gals in the store even said they were impressed, as we were looking at flower girl dressed and Quinn kept saying, I want to try that on.  She impressed the girls in the store big time!

In the evening, when we go through bedtime rituals, our little D's favorite part of the day was when Aunt Sarah said I don't like this dress, and Quinn responded, take it off!

Our little D loved being part of the day as well!  She was all smiles!

 They have a fun tradition that when you find your dress, you get to ring the bell, but I can't show the dress, as it's a surprise for a few folks to see.  So check back in June!

Aunt Sarah had to take a moment to get some pictures with the girls!  They loved being part of the day.

Then the rest of the day was spent getting stuff for the wedding and flower girl dresses material, wish me luck, I'm going to attempt to make a couple fancy tool dresses.  Good thing I've got lots of time to figure out what I'm doing.  Then a few moments for some special love between Aunt Sarah and Quinn!  Good luck Aunt Sarah, we are so glad we got to spend the day with you.

Here is Quinn with Suzanne at therapy walking.  It is so exciting watching her work so hard at therapy!