Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Lookin' Cool!

Thanks, Aunt Jenni, for my cool sunglasses! I'm stylin' now!
Me and my cool dog, the best dog ever!

Breakfast Date with Kate!

A couple weeks ago Kate and I had breakfast at Family Cafe in Rowlett. Kate is with me a lot but we don't ever do anything "special", just the two of us. Mostly it's running to Walmart, cleaning house, going to the gym, playing at home, and so this time was different. She loves breakfast foods like me, and I was inspired by my friend Mikaela that my kids are not too young to start one on one dates. For awhile I have looked forward to when my kids get older and I can do stuff like this with them but after reading her blog entry one day I realized I can start now! Joel and I want to start taking one of the kids out just by themselves, even if it's just to the park, but something to get in some extra time with them to love on them and make them feel special. So thanks, Mikaela, for sharing about yours with your kiddos!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Fun with Aunt Christina and NACD update

A couple weeks ago Grant had his first re-eval with NACD. Christina watched Kate for us and took her to her friend's Rachel's house to see her goats. Kate loved it and even fed them, too. I thought she might be scared of them but she wasn't. Now anytime we talk about goats Kate says, "mmmmeeeeee" like a goat sound. :-)

Grant's eval went great. For the most part his program will stay the same for these next 3 months. A few things from the last 3 month's program have been taken off, a few things have been added, and a few things have been tweaked. Also, we were able to talk to Lyn about our frustrations with some parts of the program and she was great in giving us some ideas to make the program go better at home.

Last time during Grant's first eval, he mostly played with her radio. He was fascinated by it and kept going back to it. This will come as a shocker to those of you who know Grant well: This last time he could almost care less about it! That was one of the first things I said to Joel when we got in the car. Instead he played with his flashcards and interacted with the 3 of us.

Towards the end of his appointment Grant was sitting in Joel's lap and was talking to 'Miss Lyn'. Randomly Grant folded his hands and said seriously/quietly to Lyn, "Pay" and Joel said to Lyn, "Grant is going to pray." I'm not sure what prompted him to do so but his prayer went like this: "Dear Jesus, thank you for Mama....Tatie....Joel....Mammy and Ro er...." and then he pointed to Lyn all while his head was looking down with his eyes half closed and said "her." It was the sweetest thing. I had not ever heard him say the word "her" before and for him to think of Lyn and thank Jesus for her touched my heart! Parts of his prayer were not understandable but you could understand most of it. At home we pray before meals, snack, naptime, and bedtime. At first we started with before meals and before bed at night but then the kids carried it over to any time they go "night-night" or eat. We just go with it and tell them that they can talk to Jesus anytime throughout the day. So it was neat that Grant started talking to Jesus right there in Lyn's office, totally random and unexpected!

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Trip to Costco

After school on Friday, the kids and I went to Costco to eat lunch and then do grocery shopping. We've done this a few times now where we order pizza and get drinks, then eat, and then shop. Grant was being a really sweet boy that day and he was being sweet to Kate. At one point he held onto her arm like this:

It was so cute that I had to snap a picture. Later I tried to get another picture of them both smiling and looking at me but this is all I got:

Kate saying "Nooooo" and Grant saying "Cheeeeessseeeee". Usually it's the other way around with Grant being the stinker and Kate being the sweet one, but lately from Kate we hear a lot of "Noooooo." "No." "No-no." "no." - all with a smile on her face, thinking she is hot stuff. It's great when she tells me no to something she doesn't want as an option or to tell Grant to stop when he is doing something he shouldn't but when she tells me no to something I am telling her to do, that's a little different. I know this is a stage (and a stage Grant didn't go through at that age so in some ways it's a first for us even though she is our 2nd kid) but I desire for her to have an obedient heart and to foster that at a young age. I am finding that it is hard to get her to understand that she can say no to me (or Grant) sometimes and sometimes she is to say yes and obey. How do you get a cute 2 year old girl to understand this???

Cheap Family Fun!

Last week when the weather was nice the four of us went on a walk after Joel came home from work. Joel and Grant rode their bikes and I pushed Kate in the jogger stroller. We've gone to the park many times but this was the first time we did it like that, with the boys on their bikes and me jogging with Kate. It worked out great! Grant is getting better at riding his bike and I'm getting better at keeping up with all of them!

Along the way to the park we stopped to feed the ducks. Feeding ducks is such a simple thing but we probably fed them for 15 minutes and the kids loved every minute of it. As you can see, both of them sat for awhile and threw bread pieces at the ducks. Every now and then Kate would eat the bread and I laughed. Last year she would only eat the bread but now it's like she has to stop and think about it because she is so into feeding the ducks. She's like, "Oh, ya, this bread looks yummy to eat." :-)


Sunday, March 1, 2009

Grant Update

Tomorrow is our 2nd eval for Grant with NACD. As we were filling out the program review for tomorrow Joel and I realized all what he has done in the past several weeks:

1. He is saying a lot more word approximations and trying to talk more and more.
2. He is saying and using "No" appropriately.
3. He has mastered drinking from a straw - something we have been working on for 3+ years!!! He can drink for a juice box now - Praise the Lord! You can only imagine how nice this is now. :-)
4. It doesn't seem like he is falling/tripping as much. This is hard to tell as his parent since I'm around him all of the time but I will say that the past two weeks have probably been the longest stretch for Grant without having a bruise/bump/goose egg on his head somewhere. He did have a bad scratch on his nose but that, to me, was something different than from tripping over his own two feet: He walked into his room when it was pitch black (at night w/ out the light on) and tripped over his train tracks that were all over the floor and either landed on one of the tracks (I think) or hit his bed. I hope it wasn't his bed but I couldn't figure out that part from him other than knowing that he obviously tripped over the tracks from hearing him while in the living room.
5. He has mastered 3 of his goals at school during the past 6wks grading period: immitate/copy circle, immitate/copy cross, and unbutton large front buttons unassisted. The first two have been goals since day 1 of school so this is huge, too!!!
6. He is saying "Gra" with almost an /n/ at the end when you ask him what his name is. This is huge. Val has been working with him all last fall on saying his name and at school they have been working since the beginning of the school year on him saying his name and just in the past 2-3 weeks he has started actually saying his name, well, almost!

This really is a lot for Grant. It's possible this could all be coincidence since starting NACD.......or not. Time will tell, really. But none the less it is very encouraging to Joel and I, and I just wanted to share Grant's progress with you all!