The Last of Summer and Some Exciting News!

First the exciting news - our dossier has been submitted! If you want to know more about what that means, read My Blog Post about that!Our summer officially ended over 2 weeks ago.  We began homeschooling early this year since we know that we will be taking extra time off for our two trips to meet and bring Priscilla home, plus I will need to take a week off to prepare for Jeremy's wedding - just a little over 5 weeks away now!

Speaking of the wedding, I have a lot to do and I need to get going on it - color coordinating clothes for Daryl, myself and all the children Rebekah on down.  That is a lot of shopping.  I also need to get shower and wedding gifts and workout the last details of catering the rehearsal dinner.  On top of all that I need to begin to think about our trip to meet Priscilla, which could happen in very close proximity to the wedding!  I just keep reminding myself when I begin to get flustered that everything is still under the control of God's sovereign hand, and that if I look to Him for wisdom and strength I will have all I need to accomplish His will for me each and every day!

We ended our first week of school by spending the afternoon at the beach.   We had a great time, especially Esther who just can't get enough water time!  Carese has not quite developed a love of the water, but she loves playing in the sand and getting a little wet!

The Shirt Says it All!

Carese has found that she love fruit.  Even if her little teeth aren't quite up the challenge of eating an apple quite yet, she does try for all she's worth!  She's also a great subject for Rachel's photography!

In other news, Daniel turned 12 years old this past week, and Rachel will be turning 16 this weekend!  How time flies!  Esther will also have a birthday this month - she will be turning 5 years old!  She is suddenly growing like crazy!  She getting bigger and she's learning news words and new things to do!  Read my Blog Post about her recent advancements for more on that!

Carese is growing and learning too.  She is saying new words, and she is learning sign language very quickly.  So far she has signed without prompting "more", "please", "milk", "cookie", "all done" and others.  If she's all fussy about something, and you suggest the thing that she needs, like a bottle, she'll stop crying and sign!  It's amazing!  She loves pointing at things too.

Esther and Carese are quickly becoming buddies.  They love to play together and in general, Esther is really good with Carese.  We do have to keep an eye on them though, as Carese is a little dare devil and has no fear, and Esther can get a little pushy at times.  Esther is about twice the size of Carese, and she knows it.  But she loves Carese and the two of them often have little hugging and kissing parties.  Sometimes these parties even take place on my lap as they vie for my attention - too much fun!

This week another big event is happening - Jonathan is moving out.  Since Jeremy is getting married, Jason is moving out of Jeremy's house.  Jonathan is going to share an apartment with Jason and another friend.  Jonathan is still driving truck and loving it.  We will miss having him at home, but I think this will be good for him.  The three younger boys will have such a spacious bedroom!  I'll get a photo of that once Jonathan is moved out and we've re-arranged. 

Speaking of re-arranging bedrooms, I did that this week for the little girls and I really like the new arrangement.  We removed all toys from the bedroom in order to simplify things both in general as well as to prepare for Priscilla's coming home as she might be overwhelmed if the bedroom is too exciting.  I was just realizing this week that we will be in the market for another crib in the next few months as Carese will be outgrowing her little crib - I think it' a one year crib, but I really have no idea.  She has learned that she can climb out if anything it near the crib, so I had to change that right away!

Looking over this post I realize that I have too many photos of Carese, sorry about that.  I will work harder to get photos of all the children and be more fair about that! She's just so stinking cute!

Fir

Summer Time + Esther's New Therapy

I'm copying this from Esther's blog as this is really keeping our family busy these past few weeks!

Esther LOVES to help Carese...
far more than Carese likes to be helped, though!

Summer has arrived, and with it some beautiful weather!  In the past few months, we were given a swing set which is getting a lot of use now, and we got a steal of a deal on a swimming pool (ours died of old age last year) as well.  The kids haven't been in the pool much in the last two weeks due to cool/rainy weather, but that all changed this week!

Esther enjoyed our first "Lake Day"

Summer also means "Lake Days."  We have some sweet friends who live on the lake, and they invite us over almost every week for some beach time.  We all enjoy this special treat!  Last Friday was our first "Lake Day" and we all had so much fun.  Esther spent almost the entire time in the water, and enjoyed every minute of the day.  Carese kept me busy, and it took a while for her to get used to wearing a life jacket, but Esther had no problems with the "life jacket all the time" rule at all!

Last winter we heard about a neurodevelopmental program that a dear friend of mine had discovered, which had made a huge difference in her child - leaping 18 months in development in just 4 months.  The second 4 months did not show this great leap of developmental progress, but there were other extenuating factors.  But she had continued to progress more rapidly with this program than with any of the other therapies that they had tried.

Esther learning her alphabet while getting her hair combed,
after getting dressed and getting her glasses on.
While we are doing therapy with Esther we have Mozart
playing on our stereo for brain stimulation.

We researched the "Can Do" program, and found out that they would even be at our Christian Heritage Homeschool Convention!  Even though it was difficult to come up with the up front costs, we decided that it was the best time to start this program for Esther, as during the summer months I have less on my plate (homeschooling break) and it would be good to start this program before Esther's new sister come homes (her adoption should be finalized next winter).

Esther had her first evaluation at the beginning of May, and at that time I was also taught everything I needed to know to implement the program that they custom designed for Esther.  We will be sending in updates every two weeks and later every month.  We will have her re-evaluated every 4 months (that is how often they are in our area).  Can Do services 8 states (WA, ID, CA, ND/MN, MI, OH and NY) and families drive a long way to use their services.  Thankfully, we only have to drive about 1 hour away!

Here are some photos of Esther's therapy!

Esther leaning animal sounds while getting deep pressure massage
to her hand/arms/feet/legs.
Jessica is doing the massage in this photo.

Our therapy checklist for the week, and her daily meds/supplements
most of which go into her yogurt.
The penny bank and pennies is for fine motor skills
- she has to pick up the pennies and put them into the bank!
That is Daniel's job - to help Esther with this therapy.
You can also see "bite tubes" in a baggy.
The bite tubes are part of her mouth stimulation and for
strengthening her jaw for better speech later.

Esther gets a vibration massage to her hands a feet while she eats her yogurt
this helps develop her brain/body connection to help her overcome
her high pain tolerance and prepare her for potty training.
Here Rachel is working with Esther

Esther's memory cards.  She is learning the names of the items on the cards
both to say them and to point them out on command.
She can only do one at a time, but we are working to help her be able
to point to two in a row and then three, and then four.
You can see Carese is also at the table "playing" therapy.

These are photo cards that I made.  There is the word for the item in the photo on the back
We show her the word, and then the photo, and then the word again
She loves these cards and is saying more words now, as well as
pointing to the object in the photos!

Dayton is helping Esther learn her numbers.
All the children (except Carese) help Esther with different parts of her therapy
as each child is able - it's their "school" for the summer!

This is Carese - she stole this sucker/sponge that we use for mouth stimulation with Ether
She loves these (she's been teeting)
We use this with Esther,one is dipped in very warm water and swished around in Esther's moujt
The other one is put in very cold water and we alternate between the two.

Esther has many other therapies, but I'll save those for another post!

If you want to check into this program, check out their website - Can Do

They are a christian company who focus on teaching parents to work with their children at home to enable their children to reach their greatest potential - it's for children with any disabilities, even ADHD, dyslexia and Autism!