Update on Speech

This is Erica...Hailey's speech therapist! Hailey loves her! Erica has been coming to our house twice a month since September. I didn't realize how involved speech is in our lives. It has been a slow process, but Hailey has improved so much. When we started she probably knew 3 words and now we are between 10-15 that she can say or sign. Now the trick is getting Hailey to USE THOSE WORDS. Hailey is starting to realize that she needs to either say or sign a word before getting something. Some favorite words or signs are: treat (say and sign), drink (sign), more (say), milk (sign), mom (say), dad (say), help (sign), baby (say), eat (say and sign), purple (say), bath (sign), sleep (sign), i-pad (say) and probably a couple more I can not think of at this time! But a lot of words she says are "mom words" where only myself can understand what she wants. 

We are trying so hard to get this kid to talk...I know it will come!!

Once she is 2 1/2 they will retest her to see if she qualifies for the next 6 months and she will be able to go to a toddler class at the school once a week.

I am grateful that we learned about this program and she qualified and is able to go through this program. The program has been amazing. They do lots of activities for the family at the school and there are some very special people that help at this school (Kari Sue Hamilton). All the people there really want these kids to exceed! 

So, with time speech will be a thing of the past for Hailey and she will be non stop talking!!  

California

This past week, Makena, Kali, Braxton and I had the opportunity to go to California with Grandpa Hathaway. Neil has been wanting to get out of the cold and smog for quite some time, but the timing hasn't been right, until now. Neil came to our house the Thursday before we left for dinner and we were just chatting about how he is wanting to get to California to visit Courtney, Kim and the kids and how a guy asked him to pick up a trailer while he was down there. Neil said, "do you want to come?" I said, "yes I do but I don't think I can." Well, the rest went down pretty fast, Neil called Shirley to see if she would watch Tyler and Hailey (not enough room in the truck to take all the kids) and Jarel said he didn't care if we went, and soon enough, Shirley said yes she would watch them and since the girls are off track...it just worked out perfect. 

We left Tuesday afternoon and got to Mesquite. Kids were happy to be out of their carseats, but they did so good on the drive. I was worried about Braxton, but we only had to stop once between home and Mesquite. Wednesday, we drove the rest of the way and got to cousin's home. It was nice to see family and be in warmer weather! Kali fell in love with Allicen's rat and tells me she wants one for her birthday...we shall see! Makena had a great time playing with Allicen. While there we went to a trampoline place called Get Air and spent a wet rainy day at Sea World. It rained the entire time there, but it didn't ruin our fun. We loved watching all the shows and seeing all the animals. With it being rainy, the park was empty and so the kids could ride in their own cars on the rides, didn't have to wait in a line to see characters and we got great seats at all the shows. We had a great time!

Jarel, Tyler and Hailey had a great time with Shirley. She spent the nights over at our house sleeping in the bunk bed (Tyler was happy to have a Grandma as a room mate for the week), and they took many trips to Costco and Walmart. They all said it was a great week spent with eachother. Thanks for watching the kids!