Ah, weekend

So glad it is the weekend! We had a busy week, and it was nice to see it come to an end.

Thursday Cainan had speech therapy. We talked about all of his little quirks. He seems to be going backwards a little, but we think it is because he is learning new things and becoming a little more adventurous. We have noticed his tongue being out more, but both the OT and ST think that is due to him trying new things. We just have to constantly remind him to put it back into his mouth. And he forgot how to drink from a straw. That has been very frustrating! But today (Saturday) I got him to drink from it again using a plastic hard straw. At first I needed to close off his nose to get him to suck air in through his mouth and then he remembered. I was glad about that! We just need to practice more! He is very nasal - his soft palate is very weak. But we are working through it. I am hoping the surgeon can take a look at it while Cainan is under for his surgery and give me an idea if it is something that might require surgical repair or just time to strengthen. We were told it could go either way. So we will see!

Friday we had a great playdate with our friend Tracy and her little girl that she adopted from China. It is always fun to have them over. It gives Tracy and I a chance to have adult talk and talk about the kids and the kids have fun together! Her little girl and Finley get along really great - they are really cute together! I am glad to see Finley have a little playmate around her age.

Today Arlington had a birthday party for one of her best little friends. She had a really great time. It was at a place called My Gym. Great place for parties! The people at My Gym run the WHOLE party and all the parents have to do is sit back and watch. It was nice. Mat stayed home with the babies because it was during their nap time and I went and hung out with the other mommies while Arlington had fun for 2 hours with her friends. She should sleep good tonight! My Gym runs them around the whole time and it was PERFECT!

We also had a chance to talk to Mat's parents, Mat's sister Jess and her husband Tom, and Mat's brother Zac on Skype tonight. It was nice for the kids to get to see them on the computer and visa versa. I am so glad that we are able to visit that way since we live so far away from each other. Plus we got a chance to use Skype with Mat's sister Carrie who lives in Jacksonville so that we could see our niece and nephew! That was a great treat! We don't get to see them as often as we would like, and now we can see them over the computer when we want to. Yeah! I love technology.

Tomorrow Mat is taking Arlington to Universal Studios. She is so excited - so is he for that matter! They are going to leave bright and early tomorrow - it is about a 2 hour drive. The park is open from 9-7 so I am sure they will stay the whole time. The babies and I are probably are going to hit church and just hang out for the rest of the day. It will be fun! I am sure they will have a good time.

Arlington is doing well. Worked hard on her workbook pages Gramma sent her this week. She loves cutting, so she did a ton of the pages where you needed to cut out the pictures and glue them together. She is becoming such a big girl. She also wrote her first "letter" to her best little friend. We watched a show the other day that talked about writing letters and she wanted to send one. So she got some paper and an envelope and wrote a little letter! It was cute.

Arlington is also very into Webkinz. For those of you who don't know this, this was a wonderful invention! She loves it. You buy a stuffed animal that comes with a code that you use on a website Webkinz.com. Once you type in the code, it gives you access to this site full of games and challenges, and the stuffed animal you have comes up on the screen and that is the animal you now take care of in a virtual world. She has to feed it, and give it a place to live and give it clothes, etc. It is so fun. You would be amazed at the computer skills she has picked up using this site. She knows exactly what she is doing - I don't have to help her anymore. One of the things they said they would need in Kindergarten would be computer skills, so a friend of ours recommended Webkinz last year at this time. And she plays it all the time - I would say a couple of times a week. I call this a great buy. (and inexpensive too!)

Finley has some new words - she has new ones all the time that I can't keep up. This week I taught her "school bus" and she says "school butt". She will see a bus on our way somewhere and she will say "bye bye butt". What a goofball. She can say "Jess", "button", "cookie", "penguin" (although penguin sounds like pen-gin)

We were looking at a book the other day and it had a picture of cookie monster holding a large plate of cookies. Now, my grandmother (who my kids call GiGi) makes tons and tons of cookies. She makes my girls cookies without eggs in them so that they have a treat to eat. (since they have the allergy to eggs). Anyway, Finley say the cookies and I said, "look at cookie monster and the cookies". She said "Gigi, go?" She associated my grandma with cookies.

Cainan is doing well. He is working on "Papa" He has it pretty good. "P" is so hard for him. "S" too. If I pinch his nose closed, he can make the "S" sound. But because of his soft palate, it won't come out otherwise. He is getting more active, which is nice to see. He isn't crazy about rough housing, still, but he is more willing to climb and slide and goof around. Little by little.

Anyway, here are just a few pictures. The few pictures of Arlington at the gym are from the party from today. Also, the picture of Finley lining up the books -Arlington used to do that. Instead of playing with something, she puts it in a line! It is funny! Yeah, I caught her taking the books off the shelf one at a time and lining them up. At least she wasn't ripping them up!