It Takes Two...

 Did you know that it requires both sides of your brain working together to learn to jump? Well it does, and since we are currently all about helping this little girl use both sides of her brain together, look what the Easter Bunny brought her.... (excuse the fact that she has no pants on, I am not sure what sick looks like at your house, but this is what happens at ours, no pants? just be glad she had her diaper on for these shots, yep walking in the buff seems to be her rule breaking of choice when mom is sick and too tired to put her foot down) Her she is showing her appreciation....

And here she is in action. She has just been a jumping bean since it arrived, sometimes she doesn't really jump she is still perfecting it, but Jumping on the tramp has now officially been added to our routine workout before we start speech, which amazingly makes a world of difference, we do 15-20 minutes of deep pressure, movement and tactile stimulation throughout the entire day every so often,(re-training a brain is not an easy task, mind you) with a special session right before we sit down to do any table time or speech therapy...

We also had a breakthrough with finding a solution to a little issue we were having. Addy is very visual, it is crazy how visual she is, she eats her pizza upside down so she doesn't have to see the toppings, no joke, So we noticed awhile back that when she was overstimulated she would gauge at her eyes, really pushing on them. I was really getting a bit worried, It looked very painful to me, and at some point it had got to do damage, but she didn't mind it at all, just the opposite. So with a little investigation and testing with our OT we came to the conclusion that she is trying to stop the stimulation by covering her eyes and the gauging is calming to her... YIKES! This brings a whole new meaning to poke my eyes out, We have thankfully found a replacement for her, she is calmed by deep pressure on her shoulders, So when I see that she is going for her eyes, I start pressure on her shoulders until she is calmed, she naturally closes her eyes while I do it, now if I only I could figure out her tell for when she is getting overstimulated... Another piece of the puzzle for another time I guess. For now we JUMP!!!

Happy.....

No, he isn't really eating carrots, but he does love to suck on them. What a Happy guy. This is him joining us for our Easter dinner, Sunday was actually beautiful here, so we were able to grill, we had flank steak and asparagus a family favorite. Jim isn't ready for either of those so he had a carrot to suck on.

The Friday before Easter we had a few families over for Dinner and an Easter Egg hunt, these are the little nests Addy and I made for desert. Addy was in charge of making sure every ingredient was worthy of being served, she tasted them all...

The bishop's boys, these are two of Addy's favorite people in our ward... She loves them, she is almost always holding hands with one of them if they are around, and is happiest if she can get both of them to hold her hands at the same time. Should we be worried? One is about a year older then her the other a few months younger.... Here they are distracting Addy from the Egg hunt, which yes is inside, because it was snowing outside!

Easter Morning, another happy baby shot, he got this toy from the Easter Bunny and as you can tell he loves it, this is him checking it out before Sister woke up.

Ready for Church, Easter Sunday

Hello Handsome, his first time wearing a tie

I love his little hand holding his vest...

Addy Easter Morning, she got an apron for craft time from grandma and grandpa H. Good thing she can't read it might go to her head.

And here is what our days usually look like, Jim and Addy playing with Jim's toys, you would think he might get annoyed at this, but for the most part, he only cries when she leaves to go play with something else. It is quite endearing. I am guessing these days are numbered.

The Daddy Chair...Watching Mom and Dad hide Easter Eggs for our friends to come over.

This one cracks me up, yes she is standing on the scale, apparently she is watching her weight, she has been carrying it all around the house lately and pulls it out at the most random times. What a funny girl..

Oh Spring! Whose day wouldn't be brightened by these flowers, I think this is the first of spring we have enjoyed. We took dinner to an elderly couple in our ward, and they surprised me with flowers in return... They are such a sweet couple, we just love them.

More Vacation training, I really believe in preparing kids for change, our days are normally very predictable and very scheduled, they have to be to get everything in we cram into a day. I always love the idea of vacation, but if we haven't done some prep work vacations are not a pretty sight, and then there is a good chance that we will cancel them like we did last year because we had one bad one that put me over the top, we know we have some additional challenges to face, so as strange as it may seem in order to even hope to have a chance at having a nice vacation we have to prepare. Then we leap, knowing it is still change, but hoping that we have put enough variables in place that we don't sink,  so I don't want the kids to get blisters on vacation from wearing shoes they haven't worn in awhile, aka flip flops, sandals, etc. Since it is still cold here and I am guessing will still be cold when we leave, we are just wearing them around the house occasionally, Here is Jim ready for summer, He cracks me up, hat and all...so good chance he won't be doing much walking, but getting him use to not having his feet covered is the goal as that really doesn't happen much and he like his dad always wants to be covered and warm.

Addy loves to help with Jim, this is how she thinks it works best to hold him for burping, only because he hasn't spit up on her yet, GROSS...

So this week has been very busy, with a lot going on, Sunday was Easter, Monday was Addy's first day of Horseback riding (another form of therapy we are hoping will help her break through, the above picture is her and Dad heading out to ride the pony actually, which is definitely a Dad activity as Mom does not do horses in any form, it was a rough ride. They did an Easter Egg hunt on the horses, there is a class of 4 little ones all in therapy for different reasons. Doug said Addy was hysterical until about the last ten minutes, but that is a normal reaction to "new" so we will let you know in a couple of weeks how that is going, hopefully we can get a picture of her on the pony, she gets the same one every week, the littlest pony they have his name is cinder.) Tuesday was Doug and I's 9th anniversary! I am so thankful to be married to such a wonderful man.And to have our little family, I can't believe it has been 9 years already, how the time flies.. So we have had just one happy day after another, until today, today three of us woke up with colds, so we cleared our schedule, a much looked forward to play date, and a not so anticipated trip to the dentist, to have a sick day. Which means I had a chance to get caught up on the blog, which would be why it was so very long. We hope you are all having Happy days too...