First Trip To The Zoo

Okay....we admit...we kind of dropped off the face of blogger for a bit there. It has been two weeks and many events have happened since our last posting. So, we'll sum it up in a photo montage.

At the end of May, Jen celebrated yet another birthday (we won't say the big number...since you're not supposed to ask ladies that question without getting the death stare).

Happy birthday momma!

On Memorial Day, we had a quaint little picnic and Kalista had some fun at the playground. She enjoyed a nice swing ride and shimmy down the slide.

Even dad took to the swings

We kicked off June with a BBQ and had some very tasty steaks and burgers off the grill. Matt, the master chef of the house, once again impressed us all with his culinary skills. Our cousins came by the house to visit and enjoy not only the food, but also an afternoon of creativity. Jen got herself a Cricut paper cutting machine as a birthday gift and has been caught up in scrapbook and card making mode. She decided to hold an impromptu card making session and everyone went home with some original masterpieces.

Kalista impressed us all and took her first three steps by herself this past Sunday. We think she even impressed herself, since she had a big smile when she landed in Jen's arms. We haven't seen a repeat performance since then...oh well.

When she's not running around, she likes watching Tangled and knows how to work the controller

She has been going through more teething woes and her left front tooth has sprout through the gums. She has three visible teeth now.

It is finally Wednesday and we decided to head to the zoo this morning for a few hours before Kalista's music class at Gymboree. It is her first time to the zoo! We made it through a few major animal exhibits before she fell asleep. Kalista visited the giraffes, elephants, wombats, meerkats, koalas and a few more animals before she dozed off. Too bad she missed the pandas and polar bears. We'll just have to save that for another trip.

Kalista's first trip to the zoo

A peacock came to greet us

Nice kitty

Did you know this??? We didn't.

Jen's favorite animal is the elephant.
Matt's favorite is the hippo.
Wonder what Kalista's will be?

Kalista loves papa

That seal is way too serious!

Teething Woes

We started off the week with Kalista's one year pediatrician appointment for her S-H-O-T-S. We suppose from this point on, we will be spelling out key words to protect Kalista's little ears. So needless to say, she got her infamous vaccinations. As usual, she was fine throughout it all.

Oh my, those little teeth are sharp!! Kalista is teething and trying to put everything in her mouth. As you can tell in this picture below, she is trying to eat our furniture since her teething biscuit didn't do the trick.


Putting Orajel on her gums has been tricky since she will take a bite of you with her new pearly whites on the bottom. And like we've said before...those two little things are sharp! We LOVE the nighttime strength Orajel since it is a blessing. Kalista no longer wakes up in the middle of the early morning crying from the pain. Those three o'clock morning wake ups seem to make mom an ogre beast for the rest of the day. Watch out Shrek!



The positive thing about teething is her increased her appetite to gnaw on almost anything. Healthy foods are obviously not on that list.....except carrot sticks. That apparently is still the exception to the rule.


Now that she can make decisions, she will often take her non-favorite foods and feed them to the dogs. She will either drop them over her high chair and look down to see if Joey and Bella will fight for it or she will sneak it under her tray so they can come up and get it from her. When we catch her in the act, she gives us this look. It is exactly the one you see above in the picture--we call it the "who me?" look.

We have good news! Kalista's teacher, Jodi, came early this week along with Linda, the school speech and language therapist. She told us that Kalista is on track with her speech and language development, even though she has not been getting the same oral input (meaning eating, sucking, swallowing) as her peers. That was very reassuring to know, since research has been shown that non-oral experience can delay speech development in some kids. We knew Kalista was going to be a chatter box someday.



We had our OT/feeding therapy this morning and we have found a common thread in everything that Kalista likes to "eat". They all seem to be solid and very flavorful. She loves the taste of Doritos Nacho Cheese chips, pretzel sticks, Veggie Stix and Fruit-by-the-Foot (since it is attached to paper). We know it all sounds like junk food, but we are happy that she puts any food into her mouth. Earlier this evening, Kalista decided to venture into uncommon area and accepted baby corn back into her circle of trust and honeydew for the first time. We also noticed that if we use "adult" utensils instead of her own cute, bright colored plastic kid version, then she is more willing to try. What a D-I-V-A!

Our OT and probably parents across the world would cringe at the sight of the next few pictures. We really are not raising a junk food addict, but it was too funny not to capture it on camera.

It has been a long discussion in OT about Kalista not wanting to drink from all five different sippy cups that we have for her. They all have something different about them: sippy lip/no sippy lip, silicone/plastic, handle/no handle...you get it. We've even tried cold, ice cold, room temperature and warm beverages with no success. So...it just so happened that we had just finished drinking a can of soda and rested the can on the coffee table. Our little protester of sippy cups decides to cruise herself over to the table, takes the empty soda can and tries it out for herself. Yah....explain that one!

(Um yeah...no endorsements here...right?)

The funny thing is that it looks like she has mastered the art of drinking from a can.