Life As We Know It: She Amazes Me

This little girl amazes me more every day. There were many days that I have spent worrying about the delay in her communication skills. But in the past few months her receptive language has just grown by leaps and bounds. She is following more and more commands and showing us how much she understands every day. Not only that, but her expressive language is growing too. In the past few weeks she's started saying words like dog, ball, up, and down. She's started signing things like down and music. When we checked in to the hotel this week I took her to see the parrot, Lisa. She pointed at it, said bird AND signed it. Lisa said, "hello" to which Kennedy waved and said, "hi." Talk about melting my heart. Today in the pool, she signed her own version of "water." It wasn't quite correct, but I knew what she was getting at. I could not be more proud of this little girl. She's using about 10 spoken words and 10 other signs, as well as several word approximations. She's made some wonderful progress lately, and I'm starting to feel like there are probably a lot of words she can say, but is waiting for the right moment to surprise me with them! So my new mission is to find a way to bring them out. Maybe more vacations?

Speaking of vacation, this one is proving to be one of the best, and we're less than a week into it. That's saying a lot, because it's no secret that we make vacations a big priority in this family. Kennedy and Caleb are at such great ages for this one. Kennedy is really understanding all of the special things she gets to see and do and Caleb is really in to exploring and taking it all in. Yesterday we spent the day celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the birth center where Kennedy was born. It was great to see the wonderful women who were a part of both kids' births and who provided so much support during our NICU stay and some of the more challenging and emotional times after Kennedy's birth. We have spent time seeing old friends and enjoying the hotel on the beach (where we got married nearly 3 years ago.) The last time we stayed at this hotel was Kennedy's first vacation. The month before her heart surgery. There were so many fears in my mind and it was definitely a bittersweet stay. But, here we are, 20 months later, and she is running around like any other toddler. We have all come so far in that time. This hotel will always hold special memories for us, for so many reasons. It was really neat watching Kennedy and Marlon run around the banquet room where our wedding reception was held. Tomorrow we head to Orlando to spend the week with family, and Mickey! We have made some wonderful memories this trip, and I've already taken over 1,000 photos. I'll try not to overload the post, but just give you some of my favorites. (Thanks to Blogger, these are in random order.)

Playing in the sand, she had so much fun and could have kept going for hours!

(Note to self. Or Grandma. We may need to invest in a sand box or table.)