Silly face

Ben and Sam were practicing their silly faces.

Ellie wanted to get in on it.

Zach refuses to be left out of anything!

Pasta

She hasn't met a bowl of pasta that she hasn't loved!

Walking

While he prefers to crawl, we know he can do it when he's in the mood:

Happy birthday

Happy birthday Papa!

Rain Forest

It seems like everyone has been to the Rain Forest in the past week.  We actually went last Thursday (before all the cool kids were doing it).  I forgot how dead the zoo is in the winter.  I think we're going to have to make several more zoo trips before it starts getting warm.

When I asked the boys what their favorite part was...they answered the rock! Typical.

I've seen this picture at least 4 times this week, just with different kids.

Ellie wasn't amused.  I think she's a cold weather girl!

Sneezes

I don't remember what we were doing, but one of us did a fake sneeze and Zach thought it was hilarious and continued to do fake sneezes for most of the day.  

Wordless Wednesday: Toes

Baby steps

Corrie has been working with Ellie for a long time now trying to get Ellie to say Corrie.  She will mumble something, but it hasn't resembled any real word...until now:

Zach has been doing double duty working on walking and talking.  So far he can say dada, but everyone is still dada. He's said mama maybe 5 times ever.  He definitely knows no and says Ellies version of all done. This weekend he said ball, choo choo and bite.

Zach took 5 steps last night.  Of course I didn't get it on video, but at least Jon and I were there to see it.

This is exactly how Sam would walk when he first started. His fists were always tucked under his chin.

Gone

One night (December 17th), during my Bible study, Ben came running down the steps to announce to all of us that he had a loose tooth.  I wiggled it, but it didn't feel that loose.  It didn't feel loose for the next month either, but Ben insisted it was going to come out any day.  Well, yesterday was the day.  We had a little help from Gram.  I can handle a lot of gross kid stuff, but when it comes to teeth, I'm out.  Jon couldn't get a good grip on it so Gram stepped in and yanked it out.  Ben was a little freaked out by the blood, but he did great. 

Ben showing me his brave face:

Ben had a visit from the tooth fairy last night and got a dollar coin.  He is very excited about the whole process. And, he has another loose tooth...

Readers

The boys got bed tents for Christmas and they love them. They have become a crucial part of many Mario stories the boys act out each night before falling asleep.  

Every now and then we'll find both boys hanging out in Bens bed reading together.  

The boys have a decent collection of books, but Ben is pretty picky about the books he wants to pull out and read on his own.  Prasti discovered Books A Million has an educators discount card so we finally headed up and got one of our own.  While we were there, we found Captain Underpants.  I've seen these books before, but I wasn't sure I wanted Ben to start reading them.  We hear enough potty/underpants talk as it is.  I didn't want to fuel the chatter.  However, if we want Ben to read a book, this is the perfect series to get him going on.  Jon picked The Attack of the Talking Toilets.  He couldn't have picked a more perfect book for the boys.  They thought it was hilarious.  Ben came home and read the first 12 chapters to Sam in one sitting.  They love it.  We have heard a lot of talking toilet jokes, but if it keeps his interest in reading going, I'll take it!

Light bulb

I've been telling Jon about my recent school struggles with Ben.  Last night at dinner, Jon started to talk to him about making an effort, always doing your best etc.  I think Ben started to take it as us being mad at him rather than a life strategy.  Then the light bulb clicked for Jon and he had a BRILLIANT idea!  Why not make school video game like for the boy who absolutely loves video games.
Ben started with 5 lives.  I asked him a question and if he got it right, he got another life.  If he got it wrong, we took a life away.  He had four chances to answer a question before I gave him the answer.  He used his "controller" to help him think of some answers.
The goal was to get to 15 lives.  Once he made it, he asked for more questions so we went to 20.  The kid still wanted more.  We went all the way up to thirty lives then had to stop because it was bed time.  Ben voluntarily reviewed every major (and some minor) topics we've covered since the beginning of the school year...and he had fun! I was shocked at how much he has actually retained.  I was really considering doing a condensed version of first grade during the summer or maybe even repeating first grade because I thought he wasn't grasping enough, but he proved me wrong.  We have a few areas that will need some more review, but its not nearly as much as I originally thought.  The absolute best part is that Ben is already talking about school on Monday.  Yesterday, when I told him it was time for school, he asked why we have to do it everyday.  He was clearly getting as frustrated as I was.  I'm so excited to put this to the test of a real school day with out dad throwing in some extra silly stuff.  Let hope the magic holds out!

Updates

Help Me Grow came out yesterday and completely shocked me. We did an assessment to see what kind of progress Ellie has made since we started.  At 24months, she should have about 100 words.  We counted up the words Ellie says on a regular basis spontaneously.  She is in the upper 90's! I'm sure we missed some words so I'm confident she is over 100 words.  She is doing great with her 2 word phrases and is now working on some 3 word phrases like, Ellie poo poo potty, Help please mama and no baby, mine. The therapist even put her in a 27-30month range on a couple other tasks like identifying people and animals and what an object is used for.  We've known all along that she is one smart cookie!  She still needs work on her tantrums and her pronunciation.  We are also going to have an occupational therapist come out in the next month to evaluate her facial movements.  Ellie is usually pretty animated when we are at home.  However, we've noticed that when we are out she has kind of a stone face.  She wont smile, does very little interacting/ talking and basically looks peeved.  It could just be she's over stimulated, she can't respond to her environment so she shuts down or a whole list of possibilities.  We are going to start more facial stimulation with her and then see what the other therapist thinks.  It could just be something she grows out of as her speech improves or she could be up for a whole other therapy routine with another HMG therapist.  Regardless, Ellie has made huge improvements especially since Christmas and we are so proud of her.

Benjamin is my challenge.  We started off the new year doing crazy good when it came to school.  All of the sudden he has lost his ability to read and follow directions.  I don't know whats going on with him.  Its not like he doesn't understand something and needs further explanation.  He just wants me to lead him through every problem without making any sort of effort to attempt things on his own. History is still a struggle for Ben.  He will remember the most random details, but completely miss the main point even on stories we're reviewed several times.  Of course then he will happily repeat word for word a library book he read one time...a month ago!  Spelling is still his best subject.  He is good at it, asks to do it, actually makes an effort and no one gets frustrated.  This week we did words like child, shoe, lunch, couch and chop.  Ben told Jon that his favorite subject is french.  I was surprised by that, but excited that he is enjoying a new language.

I had my parent/teacher conference with Sams preschool this week.  I'm worried they got his evaluation confused with some other kids!  They said Sam LOVES puzzles and art.  He'll do one of his puzzles with Ben, usually when Ellie dumps all the pieces out.  He doesn't go out of his way to do them at home though.  Ben is more of an artist than Sam.  Sam wants to spend his time playing with dads legos or racing cars.  They said he is one of the few boys that will go into the kitchen area with the girls.  He loves story time and always participates in answering questions, dressing the weather frog and singing songs.  They said he shares well (seriously, thats not my kid!), listens well and is just as happy to play alone as with other kids.  Really?  I'm so happy to hear that.  I just don't understand why he's so different at home.  They did say they usually have to remind him when its clean up time.  He gets side tracked back to playing very easily.  Thats my kid!  He is still surprising us.  He finally said his alphabet correctly.  He used to get lost at l,m,n,o,p and would say s instead of x. Tonight he wrote the word bug all on his own.  His writing was almost better thans Bens.

Zach went back to the eye doctor 2 weeks ago.  The stent had stayed in his eye and the doctor took it out right there.  Zach did great.  No squirming or crying.  He's so close to walking.  He just needs a little more work on his balance.  He can stand up on his own (most of the time), balance for a few seconds then falls over.  He has started saying a version of yes and no.  He doesn't always use them correctly and doesn't always say them, but its really exciting when he gets it right.  Just today he started copying Ellie.  When we ask her what an alligator says, she says chomp, chomp, chomp.  Zach clapped his hands and made a chomp ish noise.  Now if he could just get mama down, I'd be one happy lady!

Jon is still working his butt off.  He is usually up at 5am and doesn't leave work until 5pm.  I'll be so glad when his project is over....in August.
Thats my family in a nutshell.  

Sledding

I got a couple videos of the kids sledding.  Ben was fearless.  He went down by himself, on his belly and even backwards. Sam went down once by himself, but preferred to have someone with him.

Ben just went face first in the snow and was milking it!

Don King sings Twinkle...

The nursery kids spent most of December practicing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for the church Christmas program.  Ellie caught on and started singing in her crib every morning and now sings it with the boys all the time.  Cute doesn't begin to cover it!

Happy birthday baby!

Today Jon is another year older.  We had a quiet day.  We headed to church this morning and Jon got to beat on the drums for a bit.  He had some crab legs for lunch along with cookies and presents. After, we took Ben and Sam sledding. We had a blast and even though its Jons birthday, I kicked his butt on our races!  We're watching some football and waiting for the kids to go to bed so we can grab a late dinner.  Happy birthday!

Breakfast date

Ellie had her first official daddy/daughter date this morning. They went out for breakfast and Ellie was very excited to go.  At 2, I'm sure she doesn't understand the concept of a date, but she definitely understands being the center of attention and heading out with dad while her brothers stay home!

School

Ellie wanted to do some school so we got out a few coloring pages/word finds and got to work:

Ben is always willing to lend a hand:

Zach refused to be left out:

My guys and gal

Papa

We had a visitor today:

Hair cut

Jon needed a hair cut.  Since he started going the clippers route, he thought he'd let the boys help out.  They were pretty amused by the whole process.

Zach

I know, I've done a terrible job of keeping up with the blog this month.  We've been getting back into our routines of school, play dates, gearing up for Bible study to restart next week, doctor apts, occasional exercise and family time.  

Ben has done a great job of getting back into the school routine.  We're getting through the major subjects a bit faster all of the sudden and are incorporating more side activities like shows from National Geographic, extra books on a topic we are covering, PBS Kids videos, random activities or coloring sheets.  He is still having a hard time retaining a lot of what we read about in history.  I'm hoping this will help some of the big stuff sink in a bit.

Sam is back to his school too and still loves it. Conferences are spread out over the last week of January and the first week of February.  I'm extremely interested in what they have to say.  They are recommending Sam skip the 4 year old class and go to the pre-k class.  We've decided that each kid will only do 1 year there so he wont be doing either class, but I'm anxious to hear why they think he can skip a class.  While he has made huge academic strides this year, the boy still doesn't know his alphabet!

Ellie is making small improvements in speech every week. She now spontaneously says bless you after someone sneezes.  Her Thank you's are starting to get a bit more clear, she says love you although someone off the street would have no idea thats what she's actually saying.  She's also copying random words more frequently.  She still has a long way to go and we still have plenty of tantrums because we can't understand her, but she's making progress.

Zach has his eye surgery follow up next week.  We'll find out if the stent fell out or is still working in there.  If so, we'll probably schedule another apt to get that out.  His eye is amazing.  Nothing yellow has oozed out for almost a month now.  Its awesome!  Zach is walking around the furniture like a pro.  I got a video a couple weeks ago, but he's improved so much I almost didn't want to post it. He's let go a couple times, but falls pretty quickly.  He does the bear crawl now.  Its a little odd to see that. None of the other kids did it, but its amusing.  He had his 15month check up today.  He has officially surpassed Ellie in weight.  He weighs 22.4lbs (29th %) and is 2'6" (19th %).  He is now 1lb heavier than Ellie and 1 inch shorter! He is a tiny bit behind the curve in talking.  He should have a better grasp of who is mama and dada and he doesn't yet. All the boys took their time talking so I'm not worried about him.  

Thats where we're at.  I'm hoping to get back on the blog ball very soon and have some good pics to post.

Yoga

Bounce therapy

Ellie is still working with Help Me Grow.  They come out twice a month and we work on different strategies to help get Ellie chatting.  They've given me a few helpful tips, but our last visit was the best by far.  Our speech therapist was discussing Ellie with an occupational therapist who suggested movement.  I can't remember all the technical stuff, but basically bouncing and swaying are two movements that help stimulate the brain.  The side effects are enhanced facial expressions and speech.  We started with bouncing Ellie on my lap.  We would bounce through a short song then give her a few seconds to recover and repeat for about five minutes.  Ellie exploded after that. She was initiating 2 word phrases, answering questions and following commands.  She was happy and patient and for a few minutes I forgot she had any delays.  We also put Ellie on a blanket and swung her side to side. She didn't seem quite as sure about that one, but the results were the same.  We took turns swinging Ellie and her baby doll. She told us whose turn it was, she said ready, set, go.  She told us to go up or down, when to stop and when she wanted more.  It was awesome.  We're going to keep this going for the next two weeks to see if it continues to work. I guess they have a few more tricks to try, but they are a bit more intense so we wont go there until we know this is working.  

Turn it off

A few weeks ago I heard a news story about how our brains are always "on."  Between tv, video games, e mail, face book, pinterest etc etc we always have something to focus on.  Our smart phones ensure that even that 30 second elevator ride is packed full of Words With Friends or Instagram.  Obviously this is not a good thing. Unfortunately, I don't remember all the details because I was checking my e mail at the same time!
I am guilty of always having something on.  The tv used to always be on.  No one would be watching it, but I liked the noise.  Now that the kids are older, the radio is always on. When the kids are eating breakfast or down for naps, I'm catching up on e mails, FB, blogs, forums and so on.  This has taken its toll on my sanity. Sadly, I didn't put two and two together until very recently.  
I was having very stressful days.  School wouldn't go well, kids would fight, Ellie would scream over everything and it had me tied up in knots.  Jon would come home to me telling him how terrible my day was...everyday.  One night I told him I needed 30 minutes to myself to relax.  No tv, music, phone, computer etc.  Just me and my thoughts.  It. Was. Amazing!  
I'm now making it a point to take at least 15 minutes every day to be alone with my brain.  No Jon, no kids, no distractions. After just a few days, I can see it's already making a world of difference.  I have time to process the kids issues, unwind, breathe and on good days, completely turn my brain off for a bit.  I'm even falling asleep faster. All that stuff I had to think about before I fell asleep has already been taken care of.  The kids still drive me crazy, but I think I'm handling it better.  I guess the real test will be when we start school again next week.  I might have to bump my me time up to 45 minutes!

Art wall

I saw this on Pinterest and thought this was a great idea. If you've seen our fridge, you would agree!  The boys painted the letters and Jon hung it for me.  I think this will be a fun addition to our kitchen.