Hearing well!

We just had Ella's second speech pathology evaluation and they did a bunch of articulation tests and she did really well! All of her letter substitutions or wrong pronunciations are all developmentally normal ones (not abnormal which would then be attributed to her hearing loss). Apparently some sounds aren't acquired until age 4 or 6 and some even 8 years old! She also is "highly suggestable" (a good thing) which means that when they asked her to say "Yellow" after she'd said "Lellow," she could do it correctly. Overall, they're super impressed with her language skills, vocab, and comprehension. Although it's great that the county has all kinds of services for hearing impaired kids, it's really exciting each time she gets evaluated and they say she doesn't need any of them! We are really blessed :-)

On our walk...

Today while on a walk/run with Ella in the stroller...

Ella: Oooo! Look Mom! That car has a tunnel around it! (pointing to a car port)

Me: Ooo! Ella-do you see that bunny? Oh, he's running away.
Ella: He's not running away mom, he's just going home. To his mommy and daddy's house.

Me: (stopping to stretch)
Ella: What are you doing?
Me: Mommy has shin splints, I'm just stretching my legs out
Ella: Oh, you're hurting?
Me: Yeah
Ella: It's ok, I'll get you a bandaid when we get home

And finally, every time I start running (which believe me is not all that fast) Ella shrieks "Mommy STOP GOING FASTER!! AHHHHH!!" It baffles me that she actually seems to get a little scared. It usually works out because I only run a block or two a time. I wonder if my tendency to be a motion-sick-scared-of-roller-coasters-or-even-cars-going-fast-person is genetic!? We'll see. Meanwhile I'll do my part in exposing her to "speed" by occasionally jogging :-) I get some excerise and she can hopefully overcome her fear of going 3 miles per hour.

End of week wrap up

Ella is still having a rough week behavior-wise. She had a tantrum today at playgroup (because she didn't want to leave) that was the first one in a couple weeks and possibly the loudest ever. She was SOOO tired but of course, refused to nap even after complaining about being sleepy all the way home. Toddlers are not logical. At all. If you're tired, GO TO sleep!! Anyway, she did manage to throw in some comic relief this morning before the day went south.

This morning in the bath tub I was pouring water over Ella's head (not always her favorite thing) and she got all flustered and was sputtering and then finally turned around and looked at me and yelled "MOM! STOP MAKING ME GO CRAZY!!" Needless to say I burst out laughing and she continued to say "You're making me crazy! Just stop it!"

PS-The rock from strawberry picking is still being carried around and played with...interesting...
PPS-THE JAM DIDN'T SET!! What is wrong with me? I used a different recipe from last year and followed the directions EXACTLY. Why do I have four cups of strawberry syrup to eat now?? Anyone have any tips?

Strawberries!

Picking strawberries is becoming an annual event and I love it! Hopefully our jelly-making will be more successful this year-last year it never set :-( Here are the pics!

Running through the strawberry fields last June

Same thing this year but she's much faster!

We met a bunch of friends there-here's Amy and some of the kids picking away (very few moments were this seriously focused on actually picking strawberries)

Hannah's basket was full of stems instead of strawberries-she ate everything she picked! She's hilarious. Jen suggested that they should weigh the kids before and after picking so we can pay for the difference!

After picking we picnicked and played by the barns. For some reason Ella took a liking to this rock and "held it like a tiny baby" (her words) for quite a while. She only put it down for us to play "ring around the rosey" but then insisted we sing "ring around the rock" which made us all laugh :-)

Enjoying the beautiful sunflowers.

Jam making time! Ella washed 'em, I cut 'em, Ella squished 'em.

Her shirt got wet in the process and she was adamant that I needed to take it off for her. Then she helped add the sugar.

She's learning the art of controlled stirring so everything stays in the bowl-she did very well.

The finished product! After about step 4 Ella lost interest in the process and kept asking when we could put jelly on the strawberries-she didn't quite grasp that we were making the jelly-but we had fun until then! I'll report back about if it actually turns into jelly :-)

Father's Day 2008

We had a fun Father's Day Brunch at our house with my parents, Marissa, and my grandmother. Lots of good food, being amused by Ella, presents, and best of all we watched the Father's Day episode of the Cosby Show from 1984 which my family knows by heart-it was great!


Marissa's present to Chris-mimosas-which he loves!

A card she colored and a big hug for Popeye :-)

Chris in his new office chair! I was SO excited about this present and very sneaky :-) Out of nowhere two nights ago he almost bought one online and I FREAKED out but tried to play it cool and insisted that he needed to sit in it before buying it and though he thought I was crazy, he went for it-disaster averted and surprise saved :-)

Being the only grandchild on my side, Ella makes out like a bandit. Even on Father's Day she got presents!

Ella had some sweet moments with GG reading Daddy's new book about the VT Hokie's Game Day (really a gift for Chris and Ella). My grandmother thought the Hokie Bird was a monkey-oh well :-)