Family Update

Many of our faithful readers have been asking me how Ace's speech therapy is going and then that leads to questions about Ben, and then to Steve and I, so I thought I'd post an update on the "behind the scenes" of our household.

ACE
Ace is doing wonderfully in speech therapy! The progress he has made is amazing! I keep a word log for him and as of this evening, he is up to 32 words. It is obvious that he really wants to talk and that's half the battle. We've discovered that he is particularly interested in animal sounds (meow, woof-woof, baaa) and environmental sounds (beep-beep, toot-toot) and those account for about half of his vocabulary. Our therapist taught me to give him lots of choices during play and that encourages him to use words. For example, I'll hold a ball and ask, "Do you want it to bounce, or roll? Bounce or roll?" instead of just asking yes/no questions like "Do you want it to bounce?" It seems very logical but I'll be darned if I would have thought of that on my own. And the best part is that he loves these games so therapy is actually FUN! Ace is such a sweet kid. He loves his brother like crazy and has the best belly laugh in the world.

BEN
So what does Ben do, during our speech therapy sessions? He climbs in our therapist's lap, brings books to her, repeats the words that she's practicing with Ace, and joins in on all the games. Both of our therapists are really sweet and always include Ben. He is quite the charmer so it isn't as if they really have a choice. And I can't talk about Ben without mentioning that he is in a train-phase. Ace likes trains too, but Ben really likes them. If you came upon Ben at any time of day, you could wait five minutes and you'd surely hear him say, "toot-toot!". He only wants to talk about trains, play with trains, watch movies about trains, etc. I even made train-shaped sandwiches for dinner tonight and he sat at the table shouting, "toot-toot!".

STEVE
Steve is doing great. His job with Cisco is still going really well. He has worked there for almost nine years now, with the same guys, who are among our best friends. He's one of those rare people that truly loves his job. His hours are flexible, so he spends a few hours with the buddies each morning, then goes into work, and returns home after they are asleep for the night. The schedule works well for us and we don't mind having a family breakfast each day instead of a family dinner. Steve is playing in a softball league and a soccer league and he still plays golf every chance he gets (which isn't that often).

ME
It is hard to believe that I've been a stay-at-home mom for almost two years now. It is the hardest, yet most rewarding job I've ever had. I never thought I'd come up with so many ways to fill my time, but I am busier (and happier) than I ever have been. I was recently elected to the Board of AMOM, my twin mom's group. In addition to that, I am the Family Activities Coordinator and have been working on our annual trip to the Austin Zoo (coming this weekend!). I also co-coordinate our NW AMOM playgroup where we meet weekly with our kids, have a babysitting swap, and a monthly Mom's Night Out. It is an awesome group of moms and kids. I've also joined the Guild of the Christ Child at our church, which is a group of moms that get together once a month for fellowship and periodically meets for playdates. I joined their Spring Bible Study and will complete it in a few weeks, but have discovered that I am not the Bible Study type. Even so, I've made some more friends, and that can't be bad. :) For fun, I play Bunko once a month with the ladies in my neighborhood and I'm taking a cake-decorating class at Michael's this month with a few friends. We have massive amounts of homework before each class. Last week, my friend Stef and I got together to do our homework. We whipped up three different consistencies of icing, colored it, leveled our cakes, iced our cakes, cursed, drank wine, and totally wrecked my kitchen. Three hours later, we were done.

OUR FAMILY
That's a glimpse of each of us and what's going on in our lives. We spend a lot of time at parks on weekends, where Steve teaches the buddies to climb on things that make my heart stop. They love it, of course, and so far haven't attempted anything too dangerous while they're on their own with me during the week. We're looking forward to summer, when the pools and spray grounds open. It won't be long!