It's February....

........so I should probably blog some stuff from January!

I have a TON to blog and I am going to try to cram it all into one giant post so I can move on to February and be all caught up! :)

So this kid.  He's funny.  And ridiculously cute.

And we learned that we had to meet our $$$$ insurance co-pay or pay $90/half-hour session for Grady's speech therapy.  After many sleepless nights and much internal mommy struggling, we decided to give Grady a brief break from speech therapy just to see what happened.  He has been in speech since October, and while he has made big improvements, we couldnt be sure that the speech gains were directly related to the speech therapy.  The therapy certainly wasnt hurting anything, but $90/session is a lot to spend (three times each week!) if we arent 100% convinced the sessions were the key factor making the difference.  

So I toured a few preschools/day cares in an attempt to still encourage speech in other settings, and in the three weeks without speech therapy, Grady's speech is continuing to grow and grow! And, sniff sniff, he starts preschool tomorrow morning.  Just 9-12 two days a week, and Im sure hes going to LOVE it.  But it amazes me how grown up he seems now compared to just a few months ago.  

And maybe now that he will be in school two mornings each week, I will get to blog more and run more.  Win! Win!

He had a gift car to Toys R Us burning a hole in his pocket, and I had something to exchange, so he and I took a short trip to the Cars aisle at TRU.  He immediately saw this Cars dump truck he wanted, and would not let it go.  So, he walked it to the checkout...

...popped it up on the checkout counter when I told him we had to pay...

...and made me realize how truly well-behaved this little dude is.  He follows directions SO nicely.  He holds out hand when we walk in public.  He listens so well.  He really is a cool kid.  His speech may not be as clear as it could be, but he had a 50% hearing loss for several months....so his speech will improve.  But the rest of this little boy is so incredibly perfect and silly and typical toddler boy.  I am amazed by him every day.

And this little girl??

Is my favorite little girl in the whole wide world! She cracks us up and blows us away with how smart she is every single day.  She is kicking PreK's butt and doing SOOO well! Her teacher told us that she is truly a joy to have in class, and we are thrilled to listen to her reading Bob Books and Starfall books at home.  We toured a local Elementary School last month and were thrilled (and a little worried!?) that Whitney already knew all the sight words on the classroom word wall in the kindergarten class we toured.  

We will find out next month which school she will attend in August.  Kindergarten?! Ugh. 

Another big "first" for Whitney....A skating birthday party for her friend Faith! 

Whitney had talked about Faith's "Frozen/Roller skating" birthday party for weeeeeeeks.  She was so excited!!!

These two silly girls had a BLAST!

They have the BEST laughs and always have so much fun together.  Its so fun to watch them grow up as besties!

Their dads were high school besties, too!

Happy 5th Birthday, Faither!

 

And as each month passes, I am continually amazed at how much closer these two grow.  They love each other so fiercely and Whitney truly never stops telling Grady how much she LOVES him!

I LOVE when they hold hands in the backseat.  Pretty soon, Grady will turn around and face forward in the car, and I wonder if they will still hold hands :) 

She plays SO nicely with him.  She makes him laugh more than anyone else, and I get teary-eyed when I am standing in the kitchen and suddenly hear two distinct belly laughs coming from the playroom.  Love. 

We were trying on some outfits Mac bought them for this Summer, and they decided to have an impromptu tea party :) 

Love these two.  

And now I can carry on with the things that have been going on in February.  Maybe I will have the blog caught up by March....or April.  Though I still have to complete two Shutterfly albums, load and edit tons of pics, and actually find time to type it all out.  Sigh.  Maybe Ill be caught up by July.