Thursday, July 29, 2010

First Day of 1st Grade

This is it, our baby is officially a 1st grader and is in school all day just like her sister! Rachel was very excited for today. She up and dressed and totally ready for school by 6:45am. We had requested her teacher and were pleased to discover yesterday that our request had been granted. She's got a lot of kids in her class that she knows and looks like it'll be a great school year!School gets out at 2:15. I can't wait to hear how she enjoyed her school day and eating lunch at school and what she thinks!

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Playdate at the Park

This morning, we met a friend from preschool at the park for a picnic and for a few hours of playing together. Rachel's been asking for months for a playdate with Kaylee and with just a few days left of our summer vacation, we were finally able to make it happen. The girls had so much fun and enjoyed seeing each other.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Lost Tooth!

Rachel lost her first tooth this afternoon! While we were out back to school shopping this afternoon, she was eating a peach and hit the pit and it loosened her tooth just the right amount where once we got home and she wiggled it and played with it, it came out! She was/is so excited to have lost her first tooth.The tooth has been cleaned and put in a baggie and tucked inside the little tooth fairy pillow and placed beneath her pillow! Daddy said the first lost tooth was deserving of $5.00 and that's what's been tucked inside her pillow!

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Camping at the Beach

We went camping last week, the longest we've ever camped, six nights! We had such a great time with our church family. Rachel had a blast and as always, asks when we're going camping again! Here are some highlights from her week:
Sand in her sandwiches. LOL.
Playing all day, into the evenings, with one of her best buds, Isaiah.
Climbing trees and being told to get down...only to find another.
Playing hard every day, all day, and passing out in the chair around the fire at night.
A surprise midweek visit from the cousins.
Playing Dominoes and Go Fish.
This girl loved playing in the sand. Everyday she played in the sand, either digging, being buried, or sitting in holes the kids had dug and then filled with water. Thankfully, one of our friends who had a shower and hook ups, let me shower her in her trailer everyday. There's no other way I'd have been able to get the sand out of every crevice of her body. LOL.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Swimming at The Grand Californian

We had a fun afternoon today. We were invited to join some friends at Disney's Grand Californian Hotel for swimming and lunch and cupcakes in celebration of Katie's birthday.

It was a great afternoon and Rachel LOVED the little water slide that one of the three pools had to offer. She loves her lifejacket that Katie's Mom gave to her at the beginning of our break and was ALL OVER that pool. She definitely has become quite the fish this summer vacation.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

A Speech BreakThrough!!!

Rachel has been receiving one on one private speech therapy now for the last 8 weeks. The therapist comes to our house once a week, and does therapy for one hour. She pours her heart and soul into planning the lessons and therapy for Rachel each week. She recently purchased a computer program that she's added to their lineup of therapy, which Rachel loves. She's made a treasure box and set up a reward system for earning treasures and stickers and really works well with Rachel.

Wednesdays is speech day. When school starts up in 2 weeks, Wednesdays will be minimum days for the girls which will still work out perfectly for Rachel and our weekly speech.

When Dr. D'Antonio first evaluated her over 8 weeks ago, we learned that Rachel's speech was worse than we originally thought. She has what's called a Phonic Awareness Disorder in addition to other speech issues. There are certain sounds in the middle of words that she simply does not hear. Her hearing is fine, it's that she doesn't hear the phonetics.

For the last few weeks, we've been working and dwelling and working hard on distinguishing between certain sounds. Tooth tapper sounds such as the 'th' sounds and lip biter sounds as in 'f' sounds, etc. We have homework and things to work with Rachel on during the week and we've been really good about it (we aren't paying the big bucks to not do our homework! LOL).

This morning, Dr. D'Antonio brought along a colleague, a speech pathologist who specializes in cleft affected children birth to three years of age. Together they did therapy and it gave Dr. D'Antonio a change to get the thoughts and opinion of another pathologist. The most exciting news is that she was BLOWN AWAY with the breakthrough that Rachel seemed to have reached this last week!!! It's like something clicked and she got EVERYTHING correct and made all the sounds perfectly the first try and was able to self correct on a few words without prompting for correction! She's even cleaned up sounds that were first documented as problem sounds in the initial evaluation without having even been worked on!

We are so excited for this breakthrough! And so very thankful the Lord brought Dr. D'Antonio into our lives to help Rachel...