December Recap Part 4

Wednesday morning (Dec. 14th) was Benjamin's last speech therapy for this year.  He loved working for toys today--and he has some great sounds in isolation.

I don't know if I have really talked bout Ben's speech delay on the blog--so here it goes.

Ben "talks" a lot--but he leaves most consonants off (beginning & end) so he is talking using vowels (mostly).

So about a year ago, I took him to the doctor (for his check-up) & they referred me to the Idaho Infant/Toddler program.  After some testing,Benjamin qualified for speech therapy.  And then when he turned 3, the school takes over. (He had home visits before his 3rd birthday).  But we went through 3 speech therapists & lots of testing.  Since he has outstanding hearing (he had it tested), understands speech amazingly, gestures & signs, and tries to talk, the other speech therapists didn't know what to do for him.  (it was like the needed a diagnosis before they could offer treatment).

Anyways--he is in speech therapy & he is talking all the time.  And I am beginning to understand more of what he says.

After speech I found pictures from the past year that I could put in our newsletter.  I printed the letters & folded/stuffed them into an envelope and did some laundry.  After school,  I had 2 more piano lessons, and also Emmalee & Callum.  Then we had dinner & went to the Junior/Senior High School for the band/choir concert.

Zane played 2 instruments during a couple of songs--it was fun watching switch back & forth between the instruments.
Trumpet.....

....and French horn.

Brienna played the flute.

She also played for one of the choir songs.  Here she is with the 3 girls in the choir.

Brienna and Linsday.  They both looked so beautiful!

Thursday, Dec. 15th I got Ethan's package ready to mail to him.  I put cookies (2 kinds) & all of his presents in plus our letters.

After school the kids decorated the sugar cookies.

Ben did his own cookies--and he was proud of them.

Rusty looked under the van & thought the problem was with the exhaust system.  His dad came & looked too and they both thought it was the "catalytic converter".  We needed a new muffler anyways (under warranty)  so Rusty called the business and they said we could bring it in in the morning.

So Rusty got the flat-bed trailer (that was stored out on the land) & they loaded the van on it.  The van really didn't have much power--Rusty had to back up to get a "running start" to get up on the ramps.

So Friday morning, Rusty and I took grandpa's truck (pulling the van)  to town.  Emmalee & Callum had a field trip to the Museum of Idaho's Christmas display (nativities, gingerbread houses, & other old-fashioned decorations).  Zane was supposed to have his second week of taxidermy class, but it was cancelled.  The school is sponsering a taxidermy class (through a grant)  & so he working on a coyote & his deer.  He did have basketball practice at noon.  So that left Brienna to watch Ben.  

Thankfully it was a fairly "easy" fix for the van--and it only took a couple of hours (and didn't cost an arm & a leg).  While the van was getting worked on, Rusty and I finished shopping.  After we picked the van up, I drove it (and Rusty drove the truck with the empty trailer) to a Chinese buffet for lunch.

Then we headed home.  We were able to get a few things done at home before it was time for our "date"--we decided to go to the basketball games together.  So we took Emmalee (equipped with a bag full of "fun" stuff to do & snacks) while Callum babysat Benjamin (for the first time!).  Rusty and I took turns coming home to check on the boys between games or at half time.  Brienna and Zane both played in the band at the games.  It was a good evening.  Pamela came to our house around 9--she had gone into IF shopping.