Movin' and Groovin'

We've had such a busy few weeks! The boys are growing like weeds, learning new things everyday. Damien is doing great and has met all his initial goals in speech therapy and we are so so proud of him. Little Mr. Mason is learning how to walk! He started taking steps last week and every day has gotten a little bit better. I bet in a week he will be running in circles haha. Here's a video of Mason :) Just ignore my "Mommy cheers" haha

Little Choo Choo Boy

Damien goes to Occupational Therapy on Monday mornings and he loves it. All his activities have some underlying way that they help him cope with his sensory issues but he pretty much gets to go and play for 45 minutes in a big open gym full of fun stuff that he doesn't have at home haha. He's doing really great and the combination of speech therapy and O/T has made a huge difference in him and in our life at home. He's really "blossoming" for lack of a less corny word!  Here's a few videos of some of the things he does at O/T....Sorry they're sideways!

Grow Baby, Grow!

Mason had his nine month well-baby check up at the pediatrician on Thursday. I knew he had gotten a little taller, because we had to pack away all his 9mo sized clothing and pull out the 12 month and bigger things, but I had no idea how much he had grown! The first week of October her was 19.9lbs and 27.5 inches, Thursday he was 21.1lbs and 31INCHES! He's grown 3.5 inches in a matter of 3 months, it baffles my mind! He's so healthy, he's in the 75th% for both his heigh and weight. He got and A++ from the doctor :) We went over all the normal well baby check up questions and answer, and the doctor cracked me up. He was overly concerned about us feeding Mason table food. Mason has been eating mostly table food for about two months. He kept insisting that he was going to choke on it haha, right, I'd purposely give my child food he would choke on! ;) Both my boys have preferred real food over mushy baby food, its just how they're wired. Another shocker for me the slip he handed me for blood work. We never had to do blood work for Damien at a year, but Mason has to go to the lab and have a CBC and lead test done. I'm definitely not looking forward to that one, but hopefully its just a toe prick and not a full on blood draw!

Trick or Treat!

Halloween was so much fun! We hit up the trick or treat at the mall first, thinking it would be easier with the kids to be somewhere with lights on, but it was a bust! Damien had fun but it was way overcrowded and we got there only 45 minutes after it started and most of the stores were out of candy already. After that we headed over to our neighborhood and Damien really got the hang of ringing doorbells, saying "Trick or Treat!" and then thank you. He got TONS of candy (yay me! ;)) and literally did it until he was near tears he was so tired. He didn't even want to stop then haha he kept asking to go to the next house! As you can tell by the pictures Mason was less than excited to be in a velour jumpsuit with wings on it haha....

Yogurt Painting!

So where do I even begin? Our house has been crazy the last couple of months, and in a good way :). The baby is growing like a weed(TREE), our 2 year old is busy as ever, summer vacations...makes me tired thinking about everything that has happened!
We recently had a speech evaluation done for Damien, and the SLP (Speech-Language Pathologist) has also referred us to an Occupational therepy to help Damien with some Sensory Integration issues. Thats a lot of big words in one big sentence but all in all, Damien doesn't process sensory input from his world the same way as everyone else. Certain sensory triggers like sight, smell, touch, colors, movement etc set him off because it's very overwhelming for him to try and take all in and sort out. While I think its a fairly mild "case", our main concern is his eating because he's underweight. We've always chalked it up to him being a picky eater, but the pathologist brought to my attention that everything he eats is tan/yellow/bland. Now how did I miss that in the last year?? Anywho, I can now sigh a big ol' sigh of releif that infact I don't have the world's most dramatic picky eater, and that there is something else behind it.
She informed us that it was going to take a few weeks for our insurance approval and referral to go through but prompted me to look for activities that would "gently push him outside his comfort level". This is what brings us to yogurt painting :) I played off an idea I found on an AWESOME blog called Play at Home Mom (http://playathomemom3.blogspot.com/2011/07/edible-paint.html). I didn't have all of the ingrediants I needed for that, or pudding mix, so I dug around in the kitchen and decided to just tint some vanilla yogurt. I split up one yogurt cup into four small cups, then added 1 drop of each color of food coloring to a different cup. I divided it up between the two kids and let them have at it. I figured what a good idea! He eats yogurt (though only a few of the plainer colored ones) so it was easing him into bright colored food with something he already normally eats and also gets him a little messy, perfect!
It was interesting to watch the two of them. My six month old, Mason, dove right in. He was smearing it everywhere, smacking his hands into it, eating it, rubbing it on his face, just having a grand old time. Damien on the other hand refused to touch it (normal for him) and used the different tools I got out for him to "paint" with. They both had a blast though and Damien has been begging all afternoon to do "More yots paint?" :)

Photo 18

Picture of your biggest insecurity

Im changing this to Photo # instead of Day because I don't have enough time to keep up with it on a daily basis!




Public speaking is easily my biggest insecurity!

Day 17

A picture of something that has impacted your life lately.