The Last Week...

 Last Tuesday, we were creamed by another hail storm.  It started around 8:30pm, but Stephen managed to sleep through most of it.  He woke up once, when Erik and I were running around the house, following the sound of broken windows.  There is a fair amount of damage this time, and we'll be getting some new windows and screens on the porch, in addition to the roof.  :-(

 This was the hail.  Some of it was larger than golf balls.  The way it was piled up against our sliding glass door, you would have thought it would have been damaged, but no such luck.  I thought about going out there with some golf clubs, but that's just too dishonest.  We would have liked a new door, though!

 

We will, however, be getting a new window in the dining room...

As well as the master bedroom and 2 other rooms.

To get over the stress, we headed over to our local amusement park a few days later.  We had a GREAT time, and Stephen was a SUPER walker while we were there.  We got season passes, so I think Stephen and I (and sometimes Erik too!) will be spending a lot of time there - maybe even once a week!

 

 

 

Stephen and Erik have been working on a baseball sticker book.  They are working on matching and number identification, and Stephen seems to enjoy it pretty well so far!

 

Our other excitement from the past week has to do with Stephen's speech.  He does not perform well under pressure, so speech therapy really hasn't been going well since he started school.  We hear him saying things occasionally here at home, but NEVER at school.  We are spending the summer focusing on other skills, as well as on using his speech program on the iPad (which is going VERY well, by the way!), and not put any pressure on him to talk with his voice.  Well... Stephen has been chattering up a storm lately!  We really don't understand about 95% of what he is saying, but we are pretty good at guessing, and he gets SO excited when we guess correctly!  It's pretty exciting, and we are looking forward to a BIG summer from our BIG BOY!

On Wednesday, Stephen was promoted from pre-k to kindergarten.  Instead of a ceremony, the class had fun playing outside with water and bubbles, and sand tables.  I spent time with Stephen's class while they were having their little party, and I was able to stand back and just watch Stephen for a little while (before he decided that he wanted to hang out with me instead of his friends).  Stephen isn't always able to interact with the other kids the way that he seems to want, because he isn't always able to communicate with them well, but he is ALWAYS in the middle of the action!

 This is Mrs. D - she was an aide in the class this year, and she is just wonderful.  Stephen loves her so much, and I know she loves him too.

 Mrs. K was a student teacher last year, and then stayed on as an aide this year.  Right after this picture was taken, Stephen knocked her over trying to give her a big hug.

 Mrs. M has been Stephen's teacher since he started school when he turned 3.  He was originally placed in a different class for this school year, but ended up back with Mrs. M because the other class was all-day pre-k, which was not what we wanted.  She is moving on to a new job next year, which is very unfortunate for all of the preschoolers and pre-k students who will come in for years to come.  She is very special.

 Stephen also got promoted at swim class!!!  Next month, he will officially be a "Ray."  And as you can see, there is still much fun to be had in doing "head bobs" and holding one's breath under water.

This has been a pretty exciting week for our little bear.  I'm excited to see what else the summer holds for him!

Happy Mother's Day to Me?

My Mother's Day was not relaxing, or indulgent.  I spent my day performing the tasks that led to my being celebrated - mothering.  On Sunday, we had 4 friends over, and they, along with Erik, spent 11 hours (including a lunch break) building this:

As you can imagine, Stephen LOVES it!!!

We'll have a lot of fun for years to come with this beast of a playset.  Stephen is climbing up the ladder very well already, and it only took a couple of reminders for him to duck when going in and out of the doorways on the upper level.  This has been a great gift for me, too, because I LOVE seeing my boy so happy.

I finally gave in and downloaded Google Chrome so I could blog again.  I'm sorry I don't have a lot of pictures to share, but all of this PLAYING doesn't leave a lot of time for my paparazzi habit.  So I'll start with a cute picture of Stephen coming up for air at swim lessons.  The aquatics director said that as soon as Stephen is able to come up for air WHILE he's swimming, instead of just holding his breath, he can move up to the next class.  YAY!

 Yesterday, Erik was at graduation activities all day, so I'd been talking to Stephen about us going to the zoo.  He'd woken up a little early, so I was just letting him play until he decided he was ready to go.  I was reading the newspaper, and Stephen came over to me, and said, "gooooo zooooo." We are SO PROUD of our little buddy for not just using his voice, but for communicating SO WELL!

We spent most of our time in the children's zoo area.  Stephen didn't believe me that there was something in this exhibit.  We kept looking for it, but it was hard to see - I think it was a spider, if I recall correctly.

 Then we went to the petting zoo.  There were a few goats that were just insistent that they sit on benches and chairs.  Stephen sat down next to this guy, and gave him a good pat on the bottom.

 After the petting zoo, we decided to go on the zoo tram, which we'd never done before.  It was a nice, relaxing tour around the zoo, and we learned a little more about the exhibits that we'd never known before.  Our favorite thing to see was the baby giraffe with his parents - he was born in January this year, and is already over 7 feet tall!!

That's basically all we've been up to for now, but we'll have a lot of exciting adventures when Stephen gets out of school for the summer!

Hoppy Easter Every Bunny!

We've been pretty busy around here the past several weeks, so I'll just share some pictures. Stephen's grandparents were here visiting from AZ, so hopefully THEY will send me some pictures that they took while they were here so I can share.

Stephen went to his friend's birthday party, and got to ride on a donkey cart. He was not thrilled - I snapped this shot RIGHT before he tried to get down.

He also played with his Granddaddy, this time with Bristle Blocks.

This is what I was doing while Stephen and his Granddad were playing - tiling the backsplash with my mom! Dad had a sore shoulder, so he was out of commission for some of this project.

It turned out pretty well, though!

Despite his sore shoulder, my Dad DID manage to get this new range hood put up for us! Doesn't it look nice - and the best part is that it FITS!

We went to the Easter Egg hunt at Erik's school on Friday, and despite what this picture might suggest, Stephen was THRILLED to see the Easter Bunny!! If you have read here for any length of time, then you KNOW that Stephen is a huge fan of "characters."

I managed to scope out a more secluded area at the egg hunt so that Stephen could collect some eggs without being knocked over, and he got about half a dozen before more kids saw that there were eggs hidden where we were. He was happy with what he found though, and it was good practice for the egg hunt in his pre-k class later that day.

Stephen TRIED to show me what was in his bag, but we just couldn't line up a good shot.

So, that's what we've been up to - just life as usual! Stephen continues to make a lot of progress on the swimming front. As soon as he is comfortable floating on his back, he can move up to the next level, so hopefully we'll get there next month. The changes we've seen due to his diet continue to impress us. He is using more words to communicate, as well as using his "talker" program on the iPad with more and more frequency and ease, and had a good progress report from school this month. We are very proud of our boy!!

Head Bobs

It's only taken a year of swim lessons, but Stephen finally is comfortable enough putting his head in the water to do head bobs. Well, sort of... he won't dunk himself under completely, but he is perfectly happy putting his face in to the water. The ability to hold his breath has been a very difficult skill for Stephen to develop - it's one of those oral motor skills that challenges him. But he has figured it out, finally, and we are SO PROUD!!

The little fish

Stephen has been making a lot of progress with his swim lessons lately, and actually spends more time withOUT a float belt in lessons than with one.

This picture is Stephen in his new swim trunks. He really likes them, and I caught him dancing in the locker room before his class.


He's been doing better with holding on to the kick board, and it helps him to get his feet out behind him to kick.


He also swims quite a distance with just the pool noodle for support.

Back floats? Well, we're still working on those. Today, however, he did manage to do it with just one hand under his back, and no float belt (obviously, not this picture).

But this... THIS is the most exciting thing - look at that little fish SWIMMING without a float! AND his head is under the water!!!

I think that there is a possibility that Stephen might just pass to the next swim level in the next few months if he keeps this up!