A Cozy Place to Read....

Must be a good book!

Yummy Cake Batter

Yesterday I put William down for his nap and Robert and I made some cupcakes for our FHE treat. With William sleeping and the girls at school, that left both beaters for Robert to lick.

 

What more could a four year old ask for?

Who Needs a Bed?

William was taking a nap after church when he woke up, came part way down the stairs, and fell back to sleep. He slept there for almost an hour!

Cougars on the Pier

We headed to San Diego yesterday for a BYU basketball game. While we were there we also went to Historic Old Town and the kids got to meet Don Quixote and Dulcinea, the donkeys.

Then we went to the pier at Ocean Beach to eat dinner and watch the sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the day ended on a high note with a BYU Victory!

Four in a Bed

Thursday night the kids all snuggled up in our bed to watch a movie.

David and I began "24" downstairs!!!! YEAH!!!

Floating Away and Blue Tongues

It has been raining (or snowing for a brief period) pretty consistently since Sunday night. The roads are flooded, the schools are flooded (says Anna and Alahna), and the playroom is flooded. I am really starting to miss the sun!

But, the good news is....

NO SCHOOL!!!!

That's right, it has rained so much that they have canceled school for tomorrow.  And not just David's school district which is notorious for canceling for rain, but EVERY school district in the Victor Valley.

And here's the part about the blue tongues.

Alahna's new Glasses

Alahna lost her glasses for reading and we had to buy her a new pair.  (insurance only covers one pair/year)

Luckily, we found some cute ones for cheap.

Robert's new Framehugger

Robert picked out the design himself and when I put it on this morning he said, "Aaaargh ye mateys"

He is excited to wear it on the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride when we go to Disneyland.

This type of patch is SO much easier to deal with, and not to mention cheaper!

Tub Time

 He looks innocent enough.

 

Well, maybe slightly mischievous...

 

 Here's Robert with his sudsy spike.

 

Yup, not so innocent, that little one.

Robert was a good sport and tried to laugh it off, but there were too many bubbles in his eyes, nose, and mouth.

Bath time officially over.

Progress

So that you can fully appreciate this, I am going to give you some background. After a well baby visit about two and a half years ago, Robert's pediatrician recommended that we have him evaluated, which of course, we did. He was diagnosed with severe speech and language delays and had some mild sensory issues. (And you might be thinking, "he wasn't even 2 how could he really be that delayed", but imagine never hearing your baby make a noise other than crying or screaming, and that was Robert. There were no coos or babbling or anything of the sort. You could go hours without hearing a single sound from him.) 

A little later we began to realize that "the weird thing he was doing with his eye" was not normal and took him to see a pediatric ophthalmologist. Come to find out there isn't much to make noise about when you can't see. Glasses changed him. He went from being a silent, somewhat detached little boy to a boisterous, talkative, and fully engaged little boy. It was night and day and we were thrilled to see this new being emerge.

Now the language delay was basically gone, but there was still the speech problem. He talked all the time, but we rarely understood anything he said and that made life extremely frustrating for him. When he was born we noticed he was tongue-tied, but were told not to worry about it becasue it shouldn't cause any problems.  His speech therapist told us that is often true, but his tongue was worse than any she had ever seen and it WAS causing problems. So with her encouragement he had his tongue fixed. But fixing it didn't mean he would automatically be able to use it. It has taken many hours of therapy, but gradually, bit by bit, he has figured it out.

And now for the exciting part, at the beginning of the last school year he was evaluated and his speech delay was rated as "severe"

Last August he was rated as "high moderate" being only 3 pts away from "severe"

After Christmas break he was evaluated again. Today I got the results. His score went from 97 to 26. A "MILD" speech delay.  I am ecstatic! Robert would be ecstatic I'm sure, but he doesn't get what the big deal is. He just smiled at me and said, "Are we going home now?"

Oh man, I love that little boy!"

Glasses and Crazy Hair

Yesterday Robert got his bifocals.

And today was crazy hair day at school. My girls LOVE this day.

 

 

Robert wanted to get in on the crazy hair action.

Fifteen Minutes

The reward for behaving during our nightly scripture study is that you get to stay up for 15 minutes and play.  One of Robert's favorite things to do during that 15 minutes is puzzles.

(The string attached to his wrist is from a balloon that he received at the dentist office. Zero cavities-YEAH!)

 

And William's favorite thing to do is whatever Robert is doing!

yucky me

William was sick for a few days this week and has been cracking me up in spite of his less than cheerful disposition. He has started saying the funniest things.

When he has a snotty nose, "yucky my nose."

And when he wipes his nose with his hand, "yucky my hand."

Which is then followed by, "yucky my face." as the snot smears across his cheek.


And we know when he's really feeling crummy because he'll tell us, "Robert bite me." (Robert was very concerned about this at first and felt the need to defend himself, but now he just laughs.)

And in the middle of the night when he crawls into our bed he says, "Not my by daddy." Meaning he has to be as close to mommy as humanly possible.

Today his fever is down and he is starting to feel better. Hopefully no one else gets it.

Wonderful Break

This Christmas break was wonderful! We mostly just stayed at home and enjoyed each others company. We played games, watched movies, took naps, and ate way too much!!! The kids all got along amazingly well and...... NOBODY got sick!  Who could ask for anything more from a Christmas Holiday!

It took William a while to wake up enough to get excited about presents.

Elefun-one of many games the kids got this year.

playing barbies in their new jammies

Clue was another game we got for Christmas, I think it is Anna's new favorite.

We took a day trip to LA and went to Olivera St., China Town, Griffith Park, and then saw the Christmas lights at the LA temple. We also ate at Philipes, a sandwich shop we have been wanting to try.  It was a fun day and my camera mostly stayed in the bag.  Believe it or not, I didn't feel like taking pictures. Shocker, I know! Actually I didn't take many pictures the entire Christmas break. I was too busy cooking, eating, being lazy and enjoying my chickabidees.

 

And while we were there we found out were we can go if we ever need a fix...

Seriously, only in LA.  This was a block from the WEHO HIV testing sign. I could not stop laughing.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! We sure did!