january

 Hello everyone! We have taken about a month of sick leave here in Arizona. It's a fun cycle, one of us gets sick and then we pass it to everyone else in the house.Whoever gets sick the most wins! I wish there was some kind of grand prize or something. We have spent most of January sick, but we have had some fun in between.

I asked Joel to make a fish face

Some of the things the kids have been up to:

*Joel has passed of 4 of his 6 IEP goals. These include things like talking to other class members, putting away toys at school when asked, and staying seated for story time instead of running around.
*We also found out that Joel qualifies for an state sponsored IPAD program, where the IPAD comes loaded with speech apps for him to help him communicate.
* He is still speaking in scripted language a lot. An example of this is Joel will start saying "P, P, where is the P.... there it is! P I E spells pie!" (this is from an episode of SuperWhy, as is almost everything he gets "stuck" on). According to his therapists, this is his way of "practice talking". It does get old after while, so there are two ways to deal with it-- #1 is to jump in and say "P I E spells pie, no way! How about CAT spells cat?" and kind of redirect him that way. #2 is to redirect him by pointing out things around you or things you are doing. "Look Joel, I am taking BIG steps. Can you take BIG steps with me?" He usually will repeat the last bit of what you say.
* We are working on NAMES a lot with Joel. We are constantly showing him pictures of people, and saying "Who is this?" If you see us soon, don't feel sad if he doesn't say "Emmalee!' or "Whitney!" right off the bat. He still doesn't say Mommy! We've found that the more you reinforce it with him, the better he gets. So don't be afraid to make him say "Hi" and "Grandpa" or whatever, that's what he needs and wants to say, he just is struggling with getting it out!

* Miss Charlotte, where to start... she has been doing great at speech therapy and occupational therapy. She really is pretty focused when she wants to be, which is great. We are really trying to just encourage her to talk. That means talking a lot TO her about what we are doing and then just giving her time to babble and squeak and whatever she wants to do.
* Charlotte has been staying with a neighbor a couple of times a week with some little girls. It gives her a chance to be out of the house and be with other people, which is great for her.
* Charlotte also thinks she is a "tinker fairy". If you have seen any of the Tinkerbell movies, she loves those! She has her own special corner where she steals toys and random things from around the house and then just fiddles with them and makes towers and piles. It's pretty cute, although sometimes I find some weird stuff in there.

Her tinker corner has all sorts of treasures, like a tape measure, Joel's favorite truck, a water bottle top, and an old milkshake cup. I have no  idea where she got that from, probably the garbage.

So, that's what we have been up to. Rob is super excited to start his vacation tomorrow, and even wore his Mickey Mouse tie to work to pep him up. We're excited to see most of you!