Our Weekend & Happy Birthday!

We had a really nice weekend. Jon had to work up at the office all week and since he is usually at home everyday, it felt like he was out of town! He would leave around 6:30 every morning and not get home until 8:30 or later most night (a group of his team was in town and they had dinners and such to go to every night after work).

Needless to say we were all ready for the weekend!

Saturday morning we just hung around the house. I got some cleaning and laundry done and Jon did some yard work. Then, Saturday night, one of the guys from Jon’s team brought his family over. He is from Orlando and since he was going to have to in Austin for 2 weeks, his family made a vacation out of it. We had a great time hanging out. They have two older boys that Aedan LOVED and an older girl that gave Adelaide lots of attention.

On Sunday, I took Aedan to see the new Planes Fire and Rescue movie. We always go to the Alamo Drafthouse and we ordered popcorn and pickles (both of Aedan’s favorites!). The movie was cute and Aedan really liked it. It was a fun little mom/son date.

I can’t wait until Adelaide is old enough to go to the movies and we can do things like this as a family. Of course, judging by her attention span when it comes to watching TV shows, it will be quite a while before she is ready for the movie theater!

We’ve got a busy week ahead of  us and then I am heading down to Houston to visit my sister for the weekend. I am so excited! After that we only have 4 more weeks of summer vacation…where did the time go?!?!

And of course, I wanted to wish a very happy birthday to my mom! Her birthday was yesterday but I was able to hang out with her last week and give her, her present. My sister and I went in together and got her an Erin Condren teacher planner. It looks so fun! I can’t wait until it comes in! I am tempted to buy myself one of their life planners. They just look so fun!

Happy Birthday Nenna! We love you!

-Lauren-

New Blog Design

How do you like the new look?

I love it! It is just the right mix of clean and simple, with some fun colors!

I have had this little blog since 2008, which is pretty crazy! I have always made my own headers/backgrounds, but I was ready for a change. I had Leslie over at Sweetie Baby’s Designs help me out. She did a great job! I have been reading her personal blog, Lambert’s Lately for years now.

I love the new look and I am hoping it motivates me to get back into posting more often.

For now, I will leave you with a picture of this little trouble maker.  Yesterday, while I was making dinner, she decided to help feed Hiro, by putting all his food in his water bowl.

Speech Therapy

My grandmother asked me last week about a speech appointment I had mentioned in a previous post. That made me realize I never did a post on Adelaide and speech therapy.

Let’s start about a year ago…she looks so little!

Last summer, I noticed Adelaide's drooling kicking into high gear. I honestly think she has been a heavy drooler since maybe 4ish months. Obviously at that age, and her age last summer, that can all be blamed on teething. But it still seemed like a lot.

Most of the time I kept her in a bib, otherwise her shirt would be completely soaked in minutes.

I remember talking to the doctor about it at her 1 year check up. He wasn’t concerned and honestly I wasn’t (and am still not) too concerned. I don’t think she will drool like this forever. But early intervention is my thing. It is a big part of what I do, well I guess did until I started to stay home full time!

So around 15 months, I called ECI. They came out and did a speech evaluation. She qualified for services based on her expressive language and oral motor behavior.

She has been getting speech therapy, twice a month since March of this year. Her speech has come a long way. Originally she was testing about 3-4 months behind in her expressive language and now she is only about a month behind. Really at her age, there is a wide range of typical speech development, so she is doing just fine. She is not as big of a talker as Aedan was at the same age, but she is gaining more and more words each day. Her receptive language has always been good. When they first evaluated her, she was right on target and now she is about 3 or so months ahead. Which may explain why we are seeing some two year old style tantrums…I have a feeling two is going to be a rough year for her us.

The drooling. Sigh. Hasn’t slowed down. I don’t keep a bib on her anymore, because she doesn’t seem to care if her shirt is wet. Her speech therapist and I are pretty sure the drooling is related to some oral motor hypo-sensitivities so we are working on a few things. Obviously it is such a minor thing, but why not get some help with it while we can.

So in a nutshell, Adelaide has an awesome speech therapist that comes out twice a month (can I just say how much I love that ECI comes to our house vs. me having to drive somewhere). I think she likes all the 1:1 attention she gets and so far Aedan has been really good at entertaining himself during our sessions.

-Lauren-

Summer Days and a New Blog!

We have really been enjoying summer and it is just flying by (I’ll probably be singing a different tune in August, but for now, we are having fun!)!

Aedan has been doing swimming lessons twice a week this month. He is doing really well. He doesn’t look like the best swimmer, but he can really get wherever he wants in the pool on his own. We had a neighborhood party a few weeks ago, and he was keeping up with some older, better swimmers, just fine.

I usually get in the pool with Adelaide during Aedan’s lessons, but occasionally she is entertained outside of the pool.

One of my friends gave us this idea. We made a bunch of roads on the floor upstairs. Both kids had a blast with it! This would make a good rainy/winter day activity to, so I will have to remember it!

Jon goes to soccer practice once or twice a week in the evenings. Since I have to do bedtime solo those nights, I have been sneaking out for some alone time on another night. A few weeks ago I ended up at Target…surprise surprise. I forgot my reusable bags and I really didn’t want to have to play for a paper bag, so I stuffed everything in my purse. I felt a little like I was shoplifting as I walked out!

Last but not least, my sister just started a blog! I am so excited for her. I hope that it becomes a memory/scrapbook for her just as this has for me. You can check out her first post here.

-Lauren-

Pictures

I really thought I would have more time to post, now that I am not working, but this summer is keeping us busy!

I wanted to post these pictures that my friend Steven took while we were in Plano. They turned out so well!

We had such a great time catching up with his family!

-Lauren-

Our 4th of July Weekend

We headed up to Plano last weekend to celebrate the 4th of July! This was the first time we have taken both kids up there. We used to go a bunch when we just had Aedan, but with two kids and busy schedules it is hard to get away. We managed to fit all of our stuff, both kids, and Hiro in the car without much room to spare.

We decided to pick up some tablet mounts for the seats. Both kids got to watch their shows as we made the drive. Best decision ever! Now if we could get Adelaide to wear some headphones, we could almost forget there were kids in the backseat!

We made it to my parents’ house in great time on Friday and just hung out for the day. We walked down to their neighborhood park Saturday morning.

My mom broke her foot recently and can’t put any weight on it. She rode this little scooter to the park and Jon pulled her back home. Ha!

Saturday night, we got together with some good family friends. They have been getting together for the 4th of July for years. We missed last years get together, but you can read about the previous ones we have been to: 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2012.

I didn’t take any group pictures with my phone, but here are a few of my family.

On Sunday we were able to meet up with on of my high school friends and his family. It’s hard to believe we met in medical science class 15 years ago! He took some really cute pictures of the kids while we hung out. I’ll post those next since this one is getting a little long.

The kids did well on the way back and everyone took a long afternoon nap as soon as we got home!

-Lauren-