Just keepin' it real. I think I may have used this title before...

Another birthday!

I'm always crazy about my beautiful kids.

Okay, I admit it.  Some days it's a while before I get to their hair.  Who am I kidding?  Sometimes I don't get to their hair at all.

True confessions.  Just keepin' it real.  And, I admit that I'm sorry about these bangs.  It's just that during snot season, it seemed to make sense...

Same day, same time-- his hair looked good.  Actually, I love my babies' hair, it's all getting so long, so most of the time, I do make it look good. 

Well, it's been kind of busy lately, and work schedules have been hectic. Work for me has been stressful, but I'm happy to have my job, and doing what I love, with a bunch of people that I love, so I'm grateful.

New things that Little Kids have been doing is learning how to sit at a table, and work on preschool-type activities. My usual is to sit on the couch, and work one-on-one with people, doing preschool stuff, but recent attempts to attend Sunday school have shown the necessity of learning a bit more self control in some arenas. So, the little table, and three small chairs were dug out of storage, and put to use. The first day, they sat for exactly one minute before they were completely done. The next day was four minutes, and we've been building up from there. We can manage a good half hour now, but that is only when the activity changes after about 5 minutes. Luckily, I have lots of different activities to trade out. If we ever decide to go to public school instead of homeschooling, I hope we'll all be able to sit at the desk, and stay on task.

The other big thing lately is focus on speech therapy. I've been researching a lot, and there's a lot to it. Stuff you take for granted. I helped one of my big kids learn to say, "R" by analyzing where I put my tongue, and then making her practice it every night for several weeks, after which she suddenly got it.

This is a little more complicated than that. I've discovered that my kids probably don't have good muscle tone in their mouths, and tongue, and that severely affects how easily they can form the words they try to say. So, lots of mouth and tongue exercises, massaging cheeks and lips, switching to straw cups (apparently, sippy cups are the devil) and blowing (whistles, bubbles.) We've focused on learning english this past year, learning lots of signs, and encouraging babbling. I think they understand a lot, and try to say a lot that we just don't get. Hoping all these exercises will make a dramatic difference.

Cute stuff: At the dinner table, Big Girl tapped me, and then signed, "I love you." First time ever, and I melted, "Awwwwwwww----!!!" Dad said, "Hmmm... Neat trick to get out of eating!" Little Girl observed this interaction, obviously thinking, "I wish I'd thought of it first!" Little Boy didn't even notice.

Just kidding-- he's signing "cracker" and "all done" with great flair. Sometimes he likes to tease me when I try to get him to sign "mama" and I say it at the same time, by signing "daddy" instead. Booger!

Today Little Girl carried the big baby doll around, patting it sweetly, and then took it, set it on the toilet to go potty, and then washed its hands. Kind of gross, but cute, too, right?