MOMICABLOG

Ava (just turned 4 yrs old) has some difficulty with her speech articulation/phonology.  It’s something we noticed ever since she started talking, it’s hard to understand her.  But she never “out grew” it and it gets frustrating not being able to understand her.  I can tell she gets frustrated too!  I was always saying WHAT after everything she said, that Ava and Aden thought it was normal to reply to someone talking to them with WHAT, even if they heard them.  That was very annoying, thank god we all got over it.  In May we took her in for some testing and she was accepted to receive speech therapy through the school district.   I take her twice a week for 20 minutes.  She started 5 weeks ago, we haven’t seen any improvement yet…but I’m not worried.  She has missed 4 sessions for different reasons.  But I was able to sit in on a couple sessions, so we can work with her at home too.  Tonight Ron was able to get her to sound V, she typically substitutes the sound B  for V.  Like in Ava…she says Aba.  Some of the terms they use in therapy are fronting, backing, and clusters…that’s some of her difficulty.  Instead of saying CUP, she says TUP…or LOCK is LOT.  She has a hard time with S words, like SPIDER and SNOW…she leaves the S off.  Hopefully with her being in Pre-K classes 3 times a week and the speech therapy, within a year we will see great improvement.  We also have to watch Aden, he learns from her and has picked up her sounds.  He does talk better than her, but he still says/repeats what she says.  I’m sure it will be an issue with Sofie too, she’s about to start talking!  It sucks when Ava has to repeat her self several times and I still don’t understand what she is saying….then like 5 mintues later it will hit me what she was talking about (putting it all in context).

It’s been almost 2 years since I’ve updated our family/friend website of pictures.  With the exception of a shower we had several months ago.  I don’t know what happened, I used to be so good at updating the website almost daily.  I guess 2 kids…now 3 really do take up a lot of time!  Ava and Aden’s website are horrible, so out of date!  Sofie’s blog is not that bad because she has only been around for a little over a year!  Today I updated it with some pictures from the Arboretum Pumpkin Patch, a weekly playgroup.  It’s now one of my top priorities to get the website back up to date and try my best to keep it current!  Another big challenge!  You can take a look by clicking the links under BLOGROLL.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071011/us_nm/usa_recall_coldmedicine_dc

has anyone ever benefited from cough/cold medicine???  I’ve used it maybe twice on my kids and it never seemed to make a difference.  My thought is, why pump them with meds that don’t make a difference.  I’m so glad I haven’t continued to use these products.  I’m sure the homeopathic industry is loving this bad pub on the pharmaceuticals!!!

After putting out Halloween decorations last weekend, I’m really looking forward to Christmas now!  I guess it finally hit me that the holidays are about to fly by!  I did some “research” on the internet today to get ideas for the kids gifts.  With their birthdays so close to Christmas, I try to give each relative/friend an idea for a gift….and I leave a few for me!!!!  Sofie is the hard one, being the youngest and we already have most everything a kid needs!  There are a few things we can get Sofie, like her own bike.  Santa is going to bring Ava a doll house.  Aden will get the I can play guitar from Fisher Price.  He needs a basketball hoop too!  Let the shopping begin!!!!!!!!!!

I’ve been to a few birthday parties….and have had a few as well!  Goodie bags are always fun for the kids, but after awhile it’s the same thing over and over.  Don’t get me wrong, I like the candy every now and then too!!!!!  We try to keep it age appropriate and within a budget.  For Ava’s little playgroup party last week we did a craft….and what fun we all had!  I went with the foamie art from Hobby Lobby.  They made door hanger things, spelled out their names and decorated with princess stuff for the girls and airplanes/trains/race cars/etc for boys.  What a great alternative!  Last year, a friend told me that she received a little wooden stool (painted with her sons name) as the “goodie bag”.  If you have the time to paint each one individually, more power to you!!!!  But still a great alternative!!!  Maybe at Aden’s birthday party in November the kids can make a chirstmas ornament or something?!?!?!?

what a great way to give back….it’s estimated Americans have 1.5 billion unworn pairs of shoes in their closets.  I AM GUILTY!  Since I’ve been home with the kids, I wear flip flops or tennis shoes.  Rarely when we go out do I dig out a nice pair of shoes!  Don’t forget the kids shoes!  Check out the website

www.soles4souls.org

yet again, our friends are blessed with babies!  I was just updating a friend in Austin with the latest going on in Big D and our gang.  Amazing to have another “baby boom” amongst our friends!!!  The Oltmann’s had Fletcher….the Rajwani’s had Sam and Lucy, the Staley’s had Pierce and the Quella’s had Cort!!!!!!!!  And we are expecting Eli Fredrick, Lily Peterson, Baby Boy Calderon, Baby Girl Angel.  so exciting to expand our gang and hopefully our kids will be friends for life!  Man, will they have stories to tell!!! ha ha!!!!!!!

I think I’m finally to a point I would rather not take the 3 kids out and about (to various events) by myself.  Now that I have 2 potty training and Sofie is walking around, eating, drinking, etc…it seems to be harder to keep up and I’m getting frustrated easily with them.  The other Mom’s at playgroup are awesome.  We have always helped each other out, but they have kids too (that are potty training etc).  I don’t want to give up on playgroups, birthday parties or other events, I know they have a blast.  It’s not fun having to keep track of Ava and Aden going different directions and Sofie wanting to have some fun too.  Most of the time she stays strapped in the stroller, I can keep one contained!  Hopefully it will get easier again as time passes. 

wow…the last 10 days have been crazy with my computer.  Ron finally had to reload to clean it up and kill the virus (actually it was called the vundo worm!).  what a pain in the butt!  I thought I was pretty good about keeping my computer protected.  I never open email from people I don’t know.  and I save most attachments to my computer so it goes thru a scan.  somehow this worm got by and screwed it all up!  He added more memory so it runs a little faster…always good!  so ladies….and gentlemen, watch out for executable files you receive.  don’t always trust it, even if you know the person!

I decided to work with my sister at her church, they needed another teacher in the 18mth old class to keep the child/teacher ratio even.  I’ll be there the same time my kids will, so that makes it easy for all of us to get up and go.  But I will be giving up my “free time” – break from my kids (since I am a stay at home
mom….24/7) to be with a classroom full of 18 mth - 2 yr olds for 4 hrs, 2 days a week.  I just feel good about the decision.  If it doesn’t work out, I don’t have to stay.  It will save us money on tuition for my 3 kids (bonus) and it’s a change that might do me some good.  I want to be the best
mom I can, and I think I’m getting burned out with  my current routine.  Maybe I can get a maid with the extra cash!!!!!  That would be NICE!  I start in October….keeping my fingers crossed.  I’ll keep blogging on how it goes!