Sunday, November 29, 2009

Thanksgiving & Puppies

For Thanksgiving this year we were invited to the beautiful home of my brothers' in-laws.  We joined my parents, my brother and his little family, and all of their family for a wonderful day. 

The kids were super excited to be entertained by their newest additions, two little eight week old puppies...

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I couldn't find any cute ones of Josh with the puppies, but had to get one of him in, since he looked so nice. Here he is playing with some of Autsin's old toys.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Pumpkin Muffins, pure Deliciousness!!

be thankful

So for Thanksgiving I thought I'd share a favorite recipe (Pamela's), which are absolutely delish pumpkiny goodness.  


Pumpkin Muffins


Mix Together:
 4 eggs
 1 2/3 c sugar
 1 c oil
 1 15oz pumpkin


Whisk Together:
 2 c flour
 2 tsp cinnamon
 1 tsp ginger
 1 tsp clove
 1 tsp salt
 1 tsp baking soda
 2 tsp baking powder


Slowly add the dry ingrediends to the moist ingredients.


For cupcakes: Bake 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes
For pumpkin bars: Bake 350 degrees for 25 minutes in a jelly roll pan


Cream Cheese Frosting


3 oz cream cheese
1/2 c butter
1 tsp vanilla
2 c powdered sugar


The frosting makes them simply delicious, and I usually double the recipe for cupcakes, but keep it the same for the pumpkin bars.


Enjoy!!

Monday, November 23, 2009

I'm almost done..



Done with what you may ask..


Christmas shopping!!


I have exactly two gifts left to purchase, and then I'm done...with the shopping part.


I do need to finsih quite a few handmade gifts, but a huge load will be off my mind when the actual visitng of stores, or shopping online has finished.


My deadline..before Thanksgiving.


Which is roughly three days away!!


Wish me luck!!

Thursday, November 12, 2009

What?

Natalie's new catch phraze is What?, What! What...


She is such a little imp, climbing and getting into everything, yet so cute and sweet.  Here are a few pics Dave snapped of her impish self in the backyard...

Notice how she is just too busy to actually look at the camera...What!


(The adorable outfit is from my friend Melissa's clothing line Knuckleheads (boys) and Hula Mula (girls)


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Friday, November 6, 2009

The verdict is in..

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Yesterday I had Caleb's Final Speech Review.  We went over test scores, talked about accomplishments and goals and put a plan into action.


Here are some of the details:
  • He has excellent gross and fine motor skills, and in some cases was off the chart (super fast at putting puzzles together, even ones with tiny small pieces)
  • His verbal, performance and full scale IQ's are right on target (He's a smart little guy)
  • His social/emotional and adaptive behavior are also right where they should be.
  • Then we get to speech and language..
  1. He did excellent at interpreting spoken sentences of increasing length and complexity.
  2. He didn't do so well at morphology and using appropriate pronouns.
  3. He did significantly below average on articulation. (Which was really no surprise, and our main reason for getting the testing.)
  4. He has difficulty with several sounds varying on where they are located in the word.  He drops certain sounds in both the initial (beginning), medial (middle) and final (ending) position of a word.
  5. He also had difficulty with L, R, and S blends (such as bl, gl, sl, sp, dr, i.e....)
  6. His biggest issues are both the S blends, and deletion of the final consanants (i.e. hou for house)
  • They also tested him for hearing, vision, and if there are any physical reasons why he would be unable to make certain sounds.  He did great on all these tests, and for the exception of his missing front teeth (which would make s and f sounds more like sh) he is perfectly capable of hearing, and making the needed sounds.

So, Caleb will start Speech Therapy twice a week for 30 min.  Their first goals are:
  • /s/ clusters
  • Final Consonant Deletions 
  • Medial Consonant Deletion
  • Velar Fronting /k/ and /g/
If he needs more time they might add a day, and another one on one workshop (Language Builders).


We are excited to start work on this, and he is thriving in his preschool environment and he is doing fantastic socially.  Both speech therapists and teachers believe he will be prepared to start Kindergarten next fall.


So there ya have it, lots of words I know, but wanted to share all the nitty gritty details, just in case you wanted to know!!

Monday, November 2, 2009

Halloween

Check out my cuties..

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Daniel (Luigi) and Josh (Mario) as the Mario Bros.

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Caleb as Ironman

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Natalie as a Charger Cheerleader


A few more Trunk 'r Treat Pics
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Trick or Treating Halloween night


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Oh, What fun we had!!