Sea World 2014

 Sea World was our big trip for Anthony's vacation week he took off. This was a big hit with the kids. it was a super long drive and Caleb only slept 1/2 of the drive. It was an amazing day spent as a family. I am so grateful for my little family and the good memories we share.

Waiting for the dolphin show to start.

So grateful that they love each other so much.




Caleb was not a fan of the giant hawk above his head

Caleb wanted to touch those fishy so bad.

One of my biggest fears was that Caleb would get cranky around nap time and we wouldn't be able to stay past nap time. thankfully he crashed in the stroller just fine and my stroller ROCKS! Even with it being a double stroller I was able to completely lay him down. He slept all the way through the shamu show in it!

looking at the beluga whales

Caleb had a blast crawling through the ice tunnels and Madison refused until I forced her as you can see by her face

fun rides with mommy and daddy!

Caleb was getting fussy because he was tired of sitting in the stroller. so they had this soft play pit for infants and toddlers to play in.

peak a boo mama

While Caleb played in the soft pit Anthony took Madison to go and play on the bubble bouncy room. she was in there until sea world closed.

Caleb made a little friend. He couldn't stay away from her...it was cute

10 fingers, 10 toes, 10 months

10 Months

I truly believe that Caleb went from baby to toddler this month. he looks like such a big boy now and all the baby in him is kind of gone. I really missed out on the joy of watching your child grow, learn, and progress in life with Madison. By this age with Madison, although no one would acknowledge it, we were already starting to see major delays.

Here's Caleb's new skills this month

• Goes from stomach to sitting position and very smoothly
• cannot figure out how to get down off of things he climbs of and after he gets up and is done he screams for us to come get him down
• Recovers balance easily while sitting
• Lifts one foot to take a step while standing if we are holding him but he is not cruising furniture yet
• Comprehends “bye-bye” and waves sometimes when we ask him but not always
• Sill only says dada but he does attempt a mama sound with no intent
• Says hi when we ask him to as a repeat word
• He does not forget an item just because he cant see it anymore...he starts looking for it
• Repeats actions that attract attention especially screaming...he screams for everything!
• Tries to play interactive games such a “pat-a-cake”
• Enjoys being read to and follows pictures in books
• Finally started to crawl with his tummy off the ground he's slow and we have to encourage him to spick up his tummy
• Climbs on things but not very often
  
  
  
  
  
  we have a new schedule this month (YAY!!)

7:30 wake up and have a 7 oz bottle

8:00 breakfast

11:30 lunch

1:00 8 oz bottle right before nap

1:00-4:00 Nap time (he sleeps 3 hours now all at once)

5:00 Dinner

6:45 bath time

7:15 9 oz bottle and then off to bed

**Something to remember** if they start fighting you on eating a whole bottle its time to stretch the amount of time between feedings. this made a huge difference in feeding him.

Getting Brave

This boy is getting far too brave for his mama's comfort!

He made this big mess around him all by him self in a matter of about 10 minutes!

My mom's Birthday

My mom turned 53 this year. For her birthday she wanted to go to a restaurant called the lazy dog. Its really more of a bar and restaurant combined. We all met for dinner after Anthony got off work. Usually he can get off early but my mom didn't really give us final plans until like two days before which doesn't give him or his coworkers any time to change schedules around. thankfully my family understands this and was willing to wait for us to get there. The food was pretty good. Kind of loud to get all the family together and talk and the lights were super dim. I would recommend this place only if you are going for a special occasion. its a tad bit pricy but the food is good. The dinner guests included my mom, Amanda, Andy, Kelly, myself, Anthony, Madison, Caleb, my grandmother (Phyllis) and grandfather (John) and my cousin Lynn.

 My big boy trying to feed himself with a spoon. don't you love the mess on his face?

 One of the coolest things I've ever seen at a restaurant was they gave Madison and "activity" that wasn't crayons and coloring on a mat. they gave her about 20 fruit loops and a long string of licorice (it was like 20") to make a necklace with. She has never done anything like this. so i didn't tell her right away that she could eat the cereal and the "rope". she didn't ever figure it out on her own we had to tell her after dinner and show her how to eat the cereal off the rope and that she could eat the rope too. so she sat all through dinner with a cereal necklace on.

Caleb is OBSESSED with my mom. If she comes in the door and does not say hi to him or talk to him, he gets upset, starts fussing and making a screaming noise, and army crawls across the whole house hollering all the way to her. you can see a small part of that obsession in this picture...he is glued on her.

after dinner we came back to our house so i could put caleb to bed in his own bed and opened gifts and had cake.

Blowing out the candles

We got my mom a custom made calender ( I made it on shutterfly) with different pictures of my kids through out the year. That was from the kids and then me and Anthony got her a gift card to go and get herself a pedicure. It was fun to be with family and I'm always impressed with my kids when they are quiet and well behaved in a restaurant because in reality its hard for them to set for 90 minutes while we all eat dinner because it never takes them that long to eat.

First Day of Preschool and school district testing results

Its no secret that madison has had some major issues in her development. however they are so slight that unless you were her parent, teacher, or someone trained to see it you really cant tell anymore. In the beginning there were major concerns of Autism and/or Aspergers. at 3 kids with disabilites are tested by the school district either per the parents request or from some other source such as a doctor or in our case the Inland Regional Center. The results of the testing showed the following for madison at 35 months or 2 years 11 months...

Physical Abilities age equivalent 30 months or 12% delay

Adaptive Behavior age equivalent 22 months or 35% delay

Social-Emotional age equivalent 30 months or 12 % delay

Cognitive preacademic skills age equivalent 31 months or 9% delay

Communication age equivalent 26 months or 24% delay
         Receptive communication 29 months or 15% delay
         Expressive Communication 25 months or 27% delay

Gross motor age equivalent 25 Months or 27% delay
Fine Motor age equivalent 23 Months or 32% delay


All of these still show a delay but her original delay when she was tested the very first time at 15 months was a 40% delay in all areas except communication which was a 80% delay in receptive and expressive.

So according to the test scores above she still needs help. however this DID NOT qualify her for help through the school district. It did send up red flags for further testing. This testing called the goldman fristoe test of articulation showed Madison's severe deficit in her ability to communicate.

there are 9 letters and combinations a child should be able to say in the begining, the middle, and the end of a word by the age of 3 those are P, B, T, D, K, G, F, V, TH

Madison failed to make the correct sound for
Intial sound: P, T, K, G, F, V, TH
medial sound: K, F, V, TH
Final Sound: F, V, TH

the instructor states: Madison was observed to produce limited 2-3 word combinations with similar articulation errors and reduced intelligibility of speech. which basically means nobody can understand her because she's missing a bunch of letters in her speech which she either substitutes or she just deletes all together. THIS IS WHERE WE GET A REAL DIAGNOSIS AND THE TRUE PROBLEM BEHIND MADISON'S SPEECH.

Madison has a SPEECH ARTICULATION DISORDER which significantly interferes with communication and attracts adverse attention.

So my sweet little Madison finally has a diagnosis and she gets to go to a special preschool with kids who also have major speech issues.

I did ALOT of praying when it came to this. we were told multiple times that Madison would be on the edge of qualifying for help after three years old. I pleaded with my heavenly father for many weeks to let them see Madison's really problem so we could help her before she reached kindergarten. I testify that the lord answers prayers to the fullest extent. only 3 weeks after the test madison began excelling on her own with 3 and 4 word sentences and showing more "3 year old like symptoms" if you will. I know that my heavenly father was there with us in that testing room and he truly provided for Madison that day for the speech and language pathologist to really see her problem.

so off my not so little girl goes to her special preschool.

The Army Crawl

Caleb is no stranger to being mobile by rolling however today he learned a new skill. the army crawl. not mommy's favorite mostly because he's running his whole shirt across my always dirty floor and ruining them. I also think its super funny that both my kids first crawled for food...and the same food at that!

Letter of the week ... A is for Aquarium of the Pacific

Anthony had new years eve and new years day off so we decided that since most things are closed on new years day that we needed to take some time as a family and go enjoy the day. We decided to go to the aquarium of the pacific (since it was one of the few things open). the kids really enjoyed it and neither I or Anthony had ever been there so it was a new and fun experience for all of us.

They Loved that you got to walk right up to the tank and really get in on the action.

A big hit for Madison was being able to watch the sea lions swim by her...and they did it a lot. they were very active and swam right up to the glass on the tank. Caleb struggled to keep up with them visually but when one went by you saw his head just follow it as fast as it could.

They have several fun touch tanks outside with different sea life in them. I think Madison was in heaven she begged us not to go when we told her it was time for something else. I was surprised and so proud that she was willing to just reach in and touch the animals. she listened so well and was very gentle with each one. These moments show me how far she has really come from where we started with her sensory issues.

Caleb was all about the watching. He was just soaking it all in and watching every move the fish made.

 Caleb was all talkative when he got to check out the shark tank...i'm not a fan which is why Anthony is holding him so he can look in the tank.

 the sheer size of this guy was amazing...he's just a stink ray but he was about 4 feet across and 6 feet long

 Obviously Madison isn't afraid of the sharks either...I'm not going to lie i sure prefer to be on this side of the glass and 10 ft away just in case.

above the shark and sting ray exhibit there are penguins and the sea lions. Madison was super excited to see the penguin swim right buy us a couple of times. and boy are those things fast! still blows me away how fast they can swim under water.

I was super fun at the aquarium. I wouldn't hesitate to take my kids back. after our morning excersioun we were over due for lunch time. In walking distance are so many resturants its amazing, however I know that applebee's is somewhere I can get a kid friendly meal for madison so we decided to just walk over. First off they had us wait 20 minutes because they were down a chef. then we watched 4 cops who walked in after us be sat first. already a little irritated i decided it was best to let it go and enjoy lunch together.

 Love my homemade baby food pouches. I can put anything i want in them and no fake ingridents

The best lunch dates a girl could ask for!