Summer Week One

We did the first week of summer up right. I've been so looking forward to this summer because I am not having a baby. Let's take a moment to recognize how awesome that is. I'm loving not being pregnant right now. It's awesome. 

So, back on track. We had a lot of fun last week. Here's what we did. 

Monday: We went out for our first hike of the season, and Luke's first walking hike ever. The destination was Memorial Falls, which is a perennial family favorite. It was beautiful but cool, and the boys are begging to go back. I've been calling them our future mountain goats in the making. 

Tuesday. We packed the kids in the car and hit up the library on Tuesday. We were supposed to see Smokey the Bear, but he's off fighting wildfires in Alaska- literally. The ranger who plays smokey got called out as part of a hot shot crew. It was still a fun fire safety presentation, and I got a new stack of books to read on the way out. The book grab continued into the evening when we went to Max's school to nab our free summer books. It's such a cool program!

Wednesday: Our anniversary! Yay! I can't believe it's already been nine years. The past five have flown by especially fast. We met Grandma Great in Gibson park that morning to feed the ducks and play at the park. Another summertime classic. Wednesday evening Gram watched the boys so we could go out to dinner. It was a welcome treat to enjoy a meal without having to wrangle all the boys. 

Thursday: Since my parents were out of town, we fed Sheldon the tortoise all week. On Thursday we fed him, left the car at mom and dads, and walked to the tennis courts. We had a blast playing around then walked across the street to the park. That night we headed back out to Belt for Max's last baseball game. He's had such a great season! He's an amazing little batter, and it was fun to see how much he's improved since last year. Being in Belt was also fun. Something about the laid-back, small-town atmosphere just screams summer. 

Friday: Darreck and I got to go out again Friday morning while a family friend watched our kids. It's was a pretty low-key morning, but we played some more tennis and walked through a few stores. Darreck started his first learning weekend in the evening, and we didn't see him much after that. 

Saturday: With Darreck still working like a mad man, we played at mom and dad's house for awhile in the morning then met Gram back at Gibson Park for the Lewis and Clark festival. The kids got a kick out of the tepees. 

Jack is Eleven Months

This is it! The last monthly update before Jack's big birthday next month. This time last year, I was huge, pregnant, and miserable. This year I'm much smaller, much more exhausted, and much happier. Jack is the cutest, sweetest, most contended (and slightly mischievous) baby in the world. He has the best little personality, even though he's been trudging through teething and a head cold. As I mentioned, he's also a little hard to pin down. He has an unnatural fascination with the outlets, and he loves to dump water everywhere. Jack's also taking tentative forays into walking, which means lots of tumbles. Luckily, he always has a brother to pick him up and hug the stuffing out of him. He's pretty much a family favorite.

His favorite foods right now are pretzels, cheerios, and vanilla Greek yogurt. He also loves his baby food pouches, but I'm trying to wean him off them, if for no other reason than they're expensive. He's still nursing five or six times each day, two of which are at night. He's given us a couple good nights where he wakes up at 10:30 then sleeps until morning, but they're few and far between. He also has six teeth, all in the front.

We love our Roo-Roo, and we're getting very excited to celebrate his big day next month!

Max's Recital and Hoedown

These last few weeks leading up to summer break are pretty crazy, as per usual. Wednesday was Max's baseball game, Thursday was my student recital, and Friday we saw Max's kindergarten hoedown at school. It's been fun, but I'm ready for some serious downtown in one short week.

My student recital Thursday night went really well. The kids played great, and I am so impressed with the hard work everyone put in this year. I taught 18 kids over the course of 10 hours a week this year. It's my biggest studio to date, and I'm drawing the line at this amount. I love the kids I have, but no more. We lost out on family dinner all year long, and I'm anxious to recoup some valuable family time. Max also played in my recital, even though my mom is technically now his teacher. He's done awesome this year, moving from primer level to completing almost half of level one. He's a great practicer, and a natural musician. He may be young still, but he's coordinated, and that's what matters.

Max further proved his musical prowess at his kindergarten spring program. The hoedown theme was funny, but the costuming proved difficult for our family. Aside from jeans and a bandanna, we have no cowboy/farmer appropriate clothing. Max was one of the few kids without a hat or cowboy boots, poor guy. His parents are too citified, apparently. The songs were fun, and I even got him to do his "I'm a Little Piggie" routine for the family afterwards- under great duress. Max embarrasses easily, a trait he picked up straight from me.

Unfortunately, they also did a little "graduation" ceremony towards the end, which led to a serious meltdown the rest of the day. It suddenly hit Max that kindergarten is five short days from being over, and he won't have the same teacher or all the same classmates next year. He went into total meltdown mode for the rest of the night. Tears were shed, heartfelt journaling was done, and no amount of consoling on my part had any effect. I think we're entering a mourning period. I'm suiting up for an epic battle on the last day. Wish me luck.

Luke Graduates Speech Therapy

Since December, Luke has been attending weekly speech therapy sessions at the Scottish Rite Language center. His speech difficulties are a result of his allergies- surprise, surprise. The allergies cause inflammation of his ear canals, which then traps fluid behind his ear drum, which then makes it hard for him to hear. Even as a baby, he never babbled or cooed, largely because he couldn't hear soft sounds. His ear tube surgeries are instrumental in restoring his hearing, but after almost two years of hearing loss, he still had a speech delay.

We started out attending therapy at the Great Falls Clinic, but the therapist wasn't a good fit, and like everything else concerning Luke's health, it was expensive. We were so lucky to find Scottish Rite and even more fortunate to get hooked up with Susan Sanford, his fabulous speech therapist. Under her guidance, he went from 2-3 words in November to stringing together 5+ word sentences in May. His recovery has been miraculous to watch. He used to be so fearful of speaking, and now we can't get him to shut up. Ever.

We worried about ending his speech therapy, however, because it's pretty much become the highlight of his week. He loved playing with "Miss Susan", and it certainly resembled play more than what you might term therapy. It really was the perfect fit for our toy aficionado. After his last surgery however, we knew it was time to let another little kid in need have Luke's spot. We said goodbye last week, and he even got a little diploma. We'll certainly miss Miss Susan, but we're so grateful for her and their entire clinic.