Pound Party

We had a huge celebration this week in the Spence house. I'm sure you are wondering what the occasion might be...birthday, anniversary, graduation, promotion, etc. Well, this isn't just an ordinary party, but what we like to call a "Pound Party". Have you ever been to one of these fun and exciting celebrations? The Spence Family has been to Twenty Nine pound parties!

Since Kyle was born a micro-preemie at just one pound ten ounces, we have a "pound party" at each new pound mark. We clearly remember when Kyle was in the NICU having a "two pound party". At the time it was such a huge milestone and each pound from them on turned into a little party and it's own little milestone. I have always been concerned about Kyle's weight, especially his first year, that I purchased an infant/baby scale and would weigh him on a daily basis. I'm still obsessed with his weight, but only slighty and yes, we still weigh him every single night after his bath. For many months he has been teetering in the twenty nine pound range, but this week he finally hit the BIG 30! It was such an awesome feeling to see the number 30 on the scale. The three of us were very excitied...we even did a little dance, sang, and clapped.

I'm certain, many parents hit this "milestone", months, if not years before Kyle did, but since he was a micro-preemie we can't take anything for granted with Kyle and need to feel blessed for each and every one of his accomplishments, even if he may be behind the curve with many of them. I certainly am very proud of My Little Munchkin and look forward to many more "pound parties" in the future as well as many other milestone celebrations.

My Little Munchkin Turns THREE!!!!!

I'm not sure where the time has gone...it has truely flown by! I think back to three years ago not knowing what Kyle's future would be. I feel so blessed he beat the odds and has grown into such a happy and healthy little fellow. Kyle has overcome so many obstacles and has come such a long long way! He is my little "miracle" and I love him so very much!

Kyle's birthday weekend has been very busy and tons of fun! I will be writing several posts in the coming days about his celebrations....sorry in advance for the overload, but he only turns three once!

John and I have been super excited about his present....a Thomas train table and Thomas Roundhouse Train Set. We knew he would absolutely love it and I believe it's safe to say it was a huge hit!! The only thing he wanted to do today was play with the trains. We also decorated one wall in his playroom with all of Thomas's friends. The play area looks so cute and Kyle loves it so much!

Thomas train table and Roundhouse Set.

Thomas area in the playroom. Roundhouse Set. Doesn't the wall decor look great?? I spent hours painting and stenciling. Ha...they are stickers!

Kyle grinning from ear to ear.

Playing, playing....

and more playing!

Gift Suggestions

In two weeks, it will be time to say "Thank You" and "Good Bye", to several wonderful ladies who have worked with Kyle. He doesn't really understand the changes which will be taking place, but it is a very bittersweet time for me. On one hand, Kyle is "graduating", which is a milestone and I am very excited. On the flip side, his therapists have been such a part of our everyday life and they are genuinely interested in Kyle, so it will be a change to not see them and have them involved in Kyle's development anymore.

I would like to give a gift to each of his therapists and wonder if any of you have any great suggestions. In the past, I've always given a gift certificate, but for this occasion I'm thinking of any actual gift. I know they all love having pictures of the children, so I am planning to make a special card for each of them with various pictures of Kyle.

Thanks in advance for the ideas and suggestions! Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

My Little Strawberry

Since Kyle started preschool last November he has been in the Lemon classroom for ages two - three year olds. Today, he "graduated" and is now in the Strawberry room. This classroom is for the three year olds, which will provide Kyle different activities to hopefully adjust him to real preschool in October. I like to celebrate all the little "milestones" that My Little Munchkin achieves. Have I mentioned lately how proud I am of Kyle..oh, yeah, just yesterday!

One Down

One to Go!!!

A child's first year if filled with so many milestones, but as a child gets older they are fewer and farther between. I consider potty training and transitioning from a crib, two huge milestones for a toddler.

A couple of months ago, I thought "The Time Has Come". I was ready (emotionally ready) for this transition, but John wasn't completely there yet so we waited. Since we are all "ready" we removed the front portion (never to be used again) of Kyle's crib on Monday and put up the crib rail. We were anticipating a few nights of Kyle climbing in and out of bed, but he has done awesome. He crawled out of bed only once in the morning when it was time to start his day. We put a gate up in his doorway so he isn't tempted to tour the house in the middle of the night. This has been much easier than I anticipated...just hope I'm not jinxing the situation by saying this. We need to begin thinking about redecorating Kyle's room since his current stars and moon theme is a little too "baby" for him now. This may be a long process because we are debating about switching Kyle to a larger bedroom, which would require painting, ceiling fan installation and other projects unknown at this time.

Now, if the potty training could only be this easy. We have introduced the potty to Kyle, but haven't started the official process. I'm thinking he will be 3 - 3 1/2 when these fun times begin.

Day One - The Great Wolf Lodge

WELCOME TO THE GREAT WOLF LODGE

Our first day at the lodge was a lot of fun. Of course, the main attraction is the tremendous indoor waterpark, so we got settled in our room and then headed to the waterpark. There is so much to do...from a toddler area with many types of sprinklers and also a few slides. We weren't able to go down the slides with Kyle, but we did put him down a couple of times, but he really didn't enjoy it very much! We also rode on the lazy river...we sat in intertubes and floated down the river. I could have stayed there all afternoon because it was so relaxing. The three of us also went on a huge water slide which Kyle enjoyed somewhat. John and I took turns riding the slides by ourself as well. One really cool thing is a giant bucket which dumps 1,000 gallons of water every five minutes. We plan to spend much more time at the waterpark over the next few day as well, but will also venture out and about in the area.

In the following pictures, Kyle is having fun exploring all the fun water activities.

Tonight for dinner we ate at the Camp Critter Bar and Grill. The food was really good and Kyle even had the opportunity to meet Wiley the Wolf. Kyle liked Wiley and even gave him a High 5! He was nice enough to pose for a family picture!

Our room, The KidKamp, has a little room with bunk beds. We thought this may be a good opportunity to introduce the "Big Boy Bed" to Kyle. We brought along a bed rail so he won't fall out of the bed. He did wonderful tonight and fell asleep pretty quick. He was completely exhausted, so we shall see how the transtition from the crib to the bed works at home. We do have his pack n play with us in case our plan doesn't work out, but so far so good!

Beating The Heat

Kyle is getting fully prepared for the arrival of the summer heat. We haven't made it to the pool at the clubhouse yet, but Kyle doesn't seem to mind. According to him, his little toddler pool is working just fine. Kyle had the best time splashing, dumping the water out of the pool, and of course attempting to drink the pool water over the weekend.

Within the past couple of months Kyle has learned to drink from an open cup, which is an exciting "milestone". He doesn't always do this in a very "dry" manner, but the important part is he has learned how! On the negative side to this, anything that remotely looks like a cup, he wants to take a drink. He had such a ball filling his bucket with water and drinking from the bucket. He wouldn't take no for an answer and kept drinking. I guess you have to take the good with the bad and this doesn't seem to be an exception.

We had some family time this weeknd and it was so much fun. These days, just hanging around the house brings so much fun for the four (Chloe included) of us. It's just fun to watch Kyle laughing and enjoying himself. It really warms our hearts to see Kyle so happy.

Kyle had to take a break from his pool to be his silly little self. Daddy had gone inside for a moment and Kyle was waiting at the door for him to come back and this is what he was up to. I'm glad he had the camera handy in order to capture these priceless pictures of our Goofy Little Munchkin.

B Is For...

BIRTHDAY

This post continues my "ABC's of blogging" project.

Kyle's First Birthday was such a special milestone and we really had a fun celebration. My parents came to STL for the festivities. We began a tradition that year of going to the zoo. Kyle's actual birthday is October 5th so the weather is typically nice and it is our last zoo outing for the season.

When Kyle was in the NICU, Hayden was Kyle's neighbor for the majority of his journey. They were born one day apart and spent the same number of days in the hospital. I became good friends with Hayden's mom, Angie, and we have kept in touch since. We decided to have a double 1st birthday party for the two "little miracles". The party was held at a local park and the weather was perfect. It was so much fun and the perfect way to celebrate his first birthday milestone.

Included in the birthday invitations was this cute picture of Kyle and Hayden (shown below) with a sweet saying on the back of the picture. The card read:

No we're not twins.

We're not even related!

BUT we are two little miracles,

born a day apart and months too early!

We laid side by side in our little "boxes"

fighting for our lives for three months!

We have become dear friends and

thought it was only proper

to celebrate our first year of life together.

Picture included in the party invitations.

Mommy and Kyle at the Zoo - Oct. '06

Kyle's 1st Birthday Party

Kyle eating his cake at the party.

Our Little Family at the party.

Kyle's 2nd Birthday was more low key than his first. Instead of having a party, we had a small family celebration. We made our traditional trip to the zoo and had a celebration at home with cake and presents. Kyle's favorite "present" was his balloons. He played with the balloons for a week after his birthday!

The Birthday Prince at the Zoo.

Kyle wearing more of the cake than he ate!

Writing this post sure did bring back many good, fun memories. Time sure does fly...I can't believe he will be 3 in October.

I hope you enjoyed Kyle's birthday journey down memory lane! A is For...

The Time Has Come

HAPPY FRIDAY!

My Little Munchkin caught me by surprise this morning!

As I was getting ready this morning, Kyle was in the process of waking up. He decided to make a liar out of me since my post a couple of days ago about wanting to sleep in on school days! LOL. He does well having alone time after waking up...he plays, laughs, and entertains himself quite well. After showering and blow drying my hair he would have had enough and it would be time to rescue him from his crib.

Not this morning...I'm in the process of drying my hair and turn to see Kyle running to greet me. I was shocked...Yes, he climbed out of his crib! He had this sense of great accomplishment and such a big smile on his face. I was caught off guard, but honestly I can't believe it took him this long to figure out how to crawl out of his crib. As much as he likes to climb, I was expecting this much sooner! I so wish I could have been a fly on the wall to catch the action on video or at least have gotten a picture or two.

Well, our next step??? That is yet to be determined. I always said once he climbs out of the crib I was going to try a crib tent. Well, at this stage of the game, he probably is too big for the tent and would figure out in a heartbeat how to take it apart. Kyle is a great problem solver, once he does something once or twice he has it mastered and will repeat it continuously. I assume if this keeps happening a "big boy bed" will be in the near future.

On one hand this is an exciting "milestone", but on the flip side it may be a bit stressful. We will see how he does tonight at bedtime. It should be an interesting weekend around our house.

If anyone has any helpful hints or words of advice please let me know! I will keep everyone posted on how things progress.

Hope everyone enjoys the weekend!

UPDATE: 8:20P.M. Kyle climbed out of his crib again. We heard a loud thud and as we were heading upstairs we heard the door to his room opening. My main fear is that he will hurt himself, so we put some pillows on the floor around his crib. I'm afraid this will make it easier for him to get out, but for the time being it gives me a little bit of comfort. I will be researching crib rails on the internet tonight. If we think we may need to special order rails for his crib we will be headed to Treasure Rooms in the morning. (Treasure Rooms is where we purchased his crib.) Wish us luck. Hopefully I won't be back with another update this evening. I'm mainly updating just to keep a record for the future. Good night.

My Yard Stick

Kyle had his two and half year check up with the pediatrician this morning. He was 36 inches tall...the length of a yard stick! I thought this would be a cute little "milestone" to share with everyone.

"My Little Munchkin" is getting so big...compared to where he started two and half years ago at 12 inches. He is following his own growth curve...Kyle seems to grow up and not out. He is a skinny little fellow...hence the nickname Little Munchkin. He is so very active it's not surprising that he is so skinny. He received an all around postive check-up from the doctor and she was pleased with his health, growth, and overall development. She can certainly see improvement which is excellent to hear since she hasn't seem him in six months. He has all 2o teeth, which includes his two year molars, so hopefully this means No More Drooling!! The best news for Kyle at the appointment was "No Shots"...no more until he is four. Yeah!!