Fun with Aunt Jenni!

A couple weeks ago my sister Jen watched Kate for the day so I could have some one on one time with Grant to get lots of program done with him. It was so nice of her to love on Kate for the day and for Kate to get some extra attention. As much as she loves Grant, it is also really good for her to have a little break from him, too. Grant and I got lots of work done at home and enjoyed a nice lunch date together at Chick-fil-A.
Kate had so much fun with Aunt Jenni and they came home with lots of goodies from Kate's favorite store, Target! We had church that night and when we came home she was showing us all of her stuff. By this time it was going on 9:30 at night and Kate just wanted to keep playing. I told her that it was time to go to bed and all I got was "No." We made a special place for her new coloring books on her shelf and put all of her shoes in her room and the rest of her stuff when in her new favorite bag - the bag that Aunt Jenni gave her birthday presents in. She carries that bag everywhere and it travels all around the house! Somehow she felt better about going to bed with all of her stuff in her room. Silly girl!

Very seriously showing me her "mimmie" book:

The next morning this is what I woke up to:

Kate had moved all of her "stuff" from her room out to the living room and was happily coloring in one of her new coloring books. Her new shoes were lined up on the table, and the rest of her stuff was in front of the coffee table next to her pillow, snuggly, and stuffed dogs that she sleeps with. She made me laugh and I couldn't help but grab the camera. :-)
Thanks, Jen, for lovin' on my girl and for giving me a great day with Grant!

Birthday Fun Begins!

Aunt Jenni (and Uncle Shawn) gave Kate her birthday presents early since they were going to be gone out of town over her birthday. The next morning Kate was literally begging me to play with her new play dough from Aunt Jenni so I said, "Sure" because I'm so nice. :-) It's a monkey play dough set and the kids had so much fun with it. It's been awhile since we've gotten new play dough so they had extra fun! ;-)

Kate, wearing her super cute new outfit from Aunt Jenni!

Grant, working hard on his play dough

Thanks, Aunt Jenni!!!

Kid's Kingdom!

A few weeks ago my friend Sharee called and asked if we wanted to meet up at the park. I don't like going to this park by myself with just the kids because Grant is prone to random wandering at parks like this one but Kate will stay close by. So it's me constantly having to be looking for Grant to see where he went and then go chase after him. My brother Daniel was helping me out for a few days (Thank you Daniel!!!) and so we finished up program for the morning and loaded up. We were only there for about 45 minutes but I was pleasantly surprised by Grant. For the first 20-25 minutes or so he was within about 10-15 feet...and playing so nicely with Kate. I kept looking around for him to see which way he went and when I found him he was right in front of my nose! Sharee and I were actually able to have several conversations and it was really nice! It wasn't until after we were there for awhile that he thought to venture around the rest of the park and then found the swings. Again, I was really proud of him on the swings as he was trying to pump while I was coaching him. I said, "Keep your legs together!" and he did. He was starting to get the hang of it. Between him staying close, playing appropriately with Kate, and trying to pump himself on the swing, I was really encouraged! These are things that I know he could not / would not do prior to starting NACD.

can you see grant??

Water Fun

These are from our recent trip to Harriet Myers park in Rockwall. Sometimes we meet up with my sister in law and her kids when we go. Grant and Kate love going there and it sure is a cheap and fun way to cool off in the summer!

cousins: Mike, Timothy, and Michelle

peek-a-boo!

Icecream Date with Grant!

A couple weeks ago Grant and I went out for an ice cream treat, just the two of us. It was really nice and a sweet time with Grant. While most of my day is spent on Grant, I hardly ever have time with him to just enjoy Grant and to have one-on-one time with him. It's always working with him, redirecting him, disciplining him, checking on him (to see what trouble he is into), feeding him, etc., etc. So I desperately need time like this with Grant - time to just 'chill' and enjoy the sweet boy that he really is. Sometimes I feel like he is a different kid when it's just him and me.
He hadn't been to the ice cream shop before and he had fun picking out the candy to go in his ice cream. He had a hard time deciding between two different candy choices but he eventually decided on m&m's. Kate gets an m&m when she goes potty in the potty chair and so m&m's are a big deal around our house. So it was pretty cute that he picked those, since he doesn't get much at home but always asks for one. I have to tell him, "No, Kate gets one because she went pee-pee in the potty." You can imagine that he was pretty excited getting his own ice cream with m&m's in it. He ate it all up and then wanted to eat mine!
I really need to do more things like this with Grant. It wasn't much that we did but it sure was a sweet time together. He was such a sweet boy and I could tell he was really enjoying our little date!

Happy Birthday, Christina!!!

It's hard to believe but my sweet sister Christina turns 18 today! I was 12 years old when she was born and I still remember the night she was born clear as day (or night since it was 4 in the morning). I remember my mom getting ready to go to the hospital in the evening and my sister, Jennifer, and I could hardly believe it. We were so excited. So we stayed up late watching Phantom of the Opera, the old black and white version! By the time it was over, no baby, and we were so tired so we went to bed. Probably that was a good choice since she wasn't born until way into the night.

One of the neat things about having Kate is how she reminds me of Christina sometimes. I remember Christina being a cute girl, sweet, and curious. When Kate gets into my make up and nail polish, I tell her, "You are just like your Aunt Nina!" :-) And at times when she is just so stinkin' cute I think the same thing!

Christina, you are a beautiful girl inside and out! I love how you love Grant and Kate. You are so good with them, and especially kind and loving towards Grant, which I know at times doesn't come easy. I am so excited for your future and all of the wonderful blessings God has in store for you! Christina, I love you so much and am so thankful that God brought you into my life!!!

Three Word Sentence!

Yesterday and today Grant said completely on his own, meaning without me telling him what to say, "I want snack" and "My name Grant." Woo-hoo!!! For a very long time we have been at 1 word sentences. For example: "Home?" "Eat?" "Bike!" These mean "Are we going home?" "Is it time to eat?" and "I want to ride my bike!" This morning he said "I want snack" but I had to tell him no because it was 20 minutes after breakfast and I really wasn't in the mood. Both kids have been very bad today and right now I am about to run away. However, Grant saying a 3 word sentence is something to be very excited about and I am very proud of him. And we are very proud of him for going potty three times in the toilet yesterday! Today, not so much but there is hope.

Anyone want to volunteer in potty training my sweet dyspraic boy??

NACD Update!

Today was Grant's 2nd re-eval with NACD. We have these every 3 months, which means a 1 hour drive to Waxahachie, there for roughly 1 1/2-2 hours, and then a 1 hour drive back home. Grant did great today and my prayer for every time we go to something like this is that they will see the "real" Grant. Lyn, who evaluates him, said she can really see progress and change since 3 months ago. Sometimes it's hard to be objective when it comes to progress since we're with him 24/7 but here are a few things he is doing new and for the first time since the beginning of March:
- Grant can say "one" now! (When it came to any number he would previously say "two")
- He can wear rainboots and sandals without tripping! For the past 3 years he has worn only an athletic shoe (99%) of the time because he would trip over his own feet wearing any other type of shoe.
- He can repeat every letter of the alphabet!
- He is playing appropriately with more toys.
- He tries to say anything we ask him, even big words like watermelon and Dalmation.
- He is jumping like crazy, especially when he gets really excited about something he will just start jumping around. It's cute.
- /w/ is /w/ now and not "i yi i".
- He can unscrew and screw a screw using his play screwdiver. This might not sound like that big of deal but if you think about it, this type of activity takes some serious fine motor control!
- He really cries when he gets hurt, like you know by the sound of his cry that he is really hurting. Again, this might sound kind of weird but when your kid cries for literally 5 seconds after falling and getting a big goose egg on his forehead - that is not normal! So through part of the therapy we are doing at home, his body is starting to normalize and he is feeling things the way he should. Consequently, as he is feeling his body more and more, he is falling and tripping less and less! Praise the Lord!
- He is showing more emotion at times when he is sad or really upset. Grant has always been a pretty happy guy, which you would think is great, and for the most part it is - don't get me wrong - but it is also good to show emotion when you are really upset or sad, too! It is really neat to see this side of Grant.

Within the next couple of days we will get his program that will be much the same as the past three months but will be tweaked some according to the progress he is making. Also, a few activities will be added. My goal this summer is getting program accomplished everyday, shooting for 5 out of 7 days. When you think of us, you can pray for me to have patience and kindness towards Grant and discipline in getting program done. You can pray for Grant that he will continue to work really good with me during our "work" time together! Thanks!

Little Buddies!

Kate loves to have "snuggle time" with me in my bed for a few minutes before she goes to bed for the night in her own bed. So when our good friends came over for dinner one night, Kate thought it was so fun to be in the big bed with Emma! Here they are in their pj's and snugglies close by:

You can see in Kate's face how "cool" she thought this was. Emma looks like she's thinking "Um, what am I doing in here?" :-)

Can't wait for sleep-overs, although it will be a few years from now!

Morning with Kate

Last Thursday was Grant's last day of school for the year and was filled up with speech therapy for Kate and then hanging out with Grant until school was over at 11:00. So with Thursday being a busy morning, I reserved Wednesday for a fun morning with Kate.

We started out with breakfast close to where we live. I love eating breakfast food any time of day and Kate does, too. I asked Kate where else she wanted to go and she said Target. We don't go there too often so I was little unsure of why she wanted to go there but every time we talked about "our morning" she told me she wanted to go to Target. So later I asked her what she wanted to do at Target and she said "Play." I said, "You can't play at Target. You buy stuff. What do you want to buy?" And she said, "Socks!" Ohhh, now I understood. Every now and then I'll pick up a pair or two of socks from the dollar spot and she loves them! So first thing when we got to Target, she said "Socks" seriously, like we had to find and look for them right now, not in a demanding way but in a reminding me way. I laughed, she was so funny! We picked out a couple patriotic pairs and found a few other things. She was thrilled and held onto them until we got home, 3 hours later! Here we are at breakfast:

Leaving Target with our fun purchases!

In the car still holding onto those socks!

This summer we will have to try harder to have 'Mommy and Me' time with Grant being home all day but we like having Grant home, too. Summer has begun and so far it is going good! I'm sure we will have a few rough days here and there but anticipating those really helps a lot. My goal this summer is to: 1. Work with Grant everyday with NACD program, 2. get back on track with diet and exercise and 3. hang out with friends!

Hard at Play!

I love seeing Grant play like this:

Not only was he playing appropriately AND playing very nicely with Kate but he was using his creative imagination and making his train tracks go under his bed. I tried getting a picture of him "working" under his bed but couldn't get a good one. He would crawl under his bed and work on his train and play.
Shh! Kate is hiding under the bed! 8-)

Sticker Feet

I bought some stickers a few weeks ago for positive reinforcements while working with Grant and for some great eye/hand and finger coordination for Kate. Grant doesn't really get into stickers much but Kate loves them! She was having so much fun putting them all over one of her feet. I'm not sure where she got that idea from but she sure was proud of herself and knew that she was being silly. She is a silly girl!

Helping Hands

The kids, especially Grant, love to "help" me water the flowers in the front yard. Grant actually does a pretty good job and he will water for 15-20 minutes. Not bad, huh? :-)

Kate is helping by being cute!

New Swings!

Joel replaced the ropes on the kids swings with fresh, brand new, soft ropes! Thank you, Daddy!!!

Mr. Handy Man ;-)

Our Last Zoo Trip....

to the Dallas Zoo, for awhile anyways. Last year we went to the Zoo for the first time and got a family membership. We've gone several times over the past year but unfortunately the lion, elephant, and gorilla died shortly after we got our pass! So we have decided to try out the Fort Worth Zoo next time and pass on renewing our membership. Here are some cute pics from our last trip of the year:

On the Monorail, which the kids loved! They thought the train was pretty neat.

Before we left I thought it would be fun to snap a picture of the kids sitting on this wall, for the scrapbook, of course, but Grant and Kate were being such stinkers, as you can tell. Oh well, at least I got a few laughs when looking at these pictures later!

Almost a cute one!

"Mom, we are so done with this!"

Kate's Speech Eval

This morning Kate was tested to see if she will qualify for speech therapy through public school once she turns three. Right now she is in the speech program through public school for children 0-3 years old. Once she turns 3 she will age out and will go to the elementary school of our choice to receive speech therapy. She doesn't qualify like Grant did for the preschool program but based on articulation she will qualify. She will be considered an "in building" kid which means I will take her up to school 1 or 2 times a week for 30 minutes. The exact times and days will be determined by the speech therapist at the school.

She did really good today during her testing. I am always anxious when it comes to any kind of testing because I never know how my kids will be and if they will show their true self. Kate did for the most part and toward the end was getting a little too comfortable as she threw herself on the floor pouting because she didn't want to do what the kind lady was asking her to do. Such a hard life being a 2 year old! Within a few days I'll get the full report.

Her speech is coming along but most of her words she doesn't say the ending sound. Book sounds like boo, and bus sounds like bu for example. She is starting to put two words together like "Pray me" or "Me pray" at the dinner table and "Grant no" and "Me bye-bye". I have to be careful what I say because sometimes when I tell Grant to stop acting like a brat, she will point to him and say "brat" but without the /t/ at the end! This morning in the car she was counting the school buses that she saw and was saying "two five two two five two" It was really cute. I guess she hasn't quiet gotten the hang of 1, 3, or 4, but we're working on that!

What I've been up to lately

Is creating a dark room. Sounds fun, huh? In December when we got Grant's 1st program with NACD, one of the activities is for him to watch tv in a dark room 3-5 feet away. Add to that: make sure he will not be able to play with the tv buttons. Just about all of you who read this blog have been to my house and know that it is small. It would be one thing if we had a spare room or something that we could make into a dark room but we don't so we were really stumped at what to do. At first Joel and I thought that there is no way we can do this one.

Well, five months later and about 5 brainstorms later we finally have a solution: Grant's room! All of his toys are put up in the closet and his room is the least distractable. Within about 24 hours of Joel and I coming up with this plan, we had bought a tv/vcr combo off Craig's list for $20, got about 30 VHS tapes from my mom (Thank you, Mom!), a black sheet to cover his window during the day, two extra pillows (to be comfy), and two yellow pillowcases. I went to my friend's house one night this week to sew on velcro to the sheet and then I put sticky velcro on the wall around the window. It works perfectly and we can put it up and take it down easily when we need to. We rearranged Grant's furniture to maximize being comfy on the bed while watching tv. So for the past couple of days, we have been watching tv throughout the day on Grant's bed in a dark room 3-5 feet away from us. It's been wonderful! I told Joel last night that this is my favorite activity now because I can actually relax (and snuggle) while 'working' with Grant, and I'm putting forth the least amount of energy for this activity. Joel said, "Well, this is what normal parents experience when their children!" Grant (and Kate) has never really watched tv much. We're not big tv watchers to begin with but he has always been more fascinated with the buttons than with what's on the screen.

It took up 5 months to figure this one out but I'm just so excited that we did. The rest of Grant's program is going well. I feel like I'm starting to come out of the 'adjustment phase'. I'm still learning what works and what doesn't and I'm still learning how to make it fun for Grant. Yesterday I gave him a pair of sunglasses after he worked really well with me and he seemed to like that. I've never done that before with him so I'm going to try to do more things like that. I also have a bunch of stickers, which both kids love, that I use after doing really good at a certain activity. Coming up with motivating things is hard for me. And with Grant it has to be random. For awhile I was giving him "candy" after he did a certain activity and he got to the point where that was all he was literally thinking about. It was like he couldn't even think about what he was supposed to do! Stickers are the same way. So I just try to change it up and that seems to help.

If you have any great ideas that you think might work with Grant, let me know! Also, if you have any old vhs tapes that you don't need or want, feel free to pass them on to Grant! Anything family friendly is great! You can keep praying that we will get program done everyday, that I will stay positive, and that Grant will cooperate more and more. Also, praise the Lord that things are going better now than they were before!

Two New Words!

Every now and then when I'm talking with friends and their kids are close by I sometimes catch myself saying a word that I probably wouldn't want them to repeat. Not like cussing but rather words like crap or stupid or butt. One thing about having speech delayed kids is you don't have this problem of them repeating bad words! Not that Joel and I are in the habbit of using bad words but there are times we might use the word stupid or dumb and don't even think about Grant or Kate repeating it.

Last night all four of us were out and as we were driving Joel and I were talking. Joel was telling me about what he thinks when he sees people pushing a Wal-mart cart down the road close to our house in between our house and Wal-Mart. He said, "It's so W T (white trash)." And from the back I hear Kate giggling and saying "de uh T". I turned around and looked at her. She thought "W T" was apparently really funny and was trying to say it. A few minutes later I said "Duh" (don't worry, it was a nice 'duh' and it will take me too long to go into the story) and right away Grant said "Duh". It was so funny. So two new words that my kids are saying: "W T" and "Duh".

Still makes me laugh when I think about it!

Beautiful Bluebonnets!

A few weeks ago a friend of mine and I went to take pictures of our kiddos in the bluebonnets. There is a huge patch real close to our church that you would never know was there unless someone mentioned it to you or if you just happened to be driving by. Kate had just fallen asleep about 5 minutes before we got there so she was grumpy and did not want anything to do with bluebonnets or sitting or smiling or being nice. All she kept saying was, "No. nooo. No. no. NO. nnoooooo." I was about to loose my mind! I am so thankful that we got at least one cute picture of each of them. Here is the best one of them together. You can tell Kate is still grumpy but it turned out cute anyways.

These few were some of the last ones we took. I was about to give up when my friend's little boy started to make her laugh. Thank you, Evan! You saved the day!

Grumpy pics

Grant was having a blast! He did think it was fun to pull the flowers which we quickly told him that was against the law and do not do it. Of course, that just made it more fun for him.

This last picture just makes me laugh. Grant is trying to be so sweet with his arm around Kate and Kate is still being a toot and trying to shrug him off. This picture captures how often they are towards one another. This is how it goes with them: If one is nice to the other, the other is not. If, however, 5 minutes later the other one decides to be nice, then the other one is not. Makes me go crazy sometimes!

"Jesus Died and Rose Again!"

The title of this post was Grant's bible verse at Sunday School yesterday and his buddy, Val, who is also his private speech therapist, came up to me after church and said, "Grant said his bible verse today!" She was so excited and said she almost had tears in her eyes when he said it. He said it to me at church and then later that day to our friend's at their house. Today I asked him to say it again to see if he still remember it and he did. He doesn't say it all at once but with prompting but this is still so great!

It goes like this:
Me: "Jesus"
Grant: "Jesus" while signing for Jesus
Me: "died"
Grant: "di"
Me: "and rose again"
Grant: "ro a in" while raising his arms for rose again

Grant: big smile :-)

Joel and I are just thrilled. This is his first bible verse to ever say and what a gift it was to receive on Easter Sunday. It's because of this verse that we have hope for our future and that we can live with peace and joy in our hearts. May we never forget this verse!