Emily picked to swim for her birthday party. She also picked her party theme to be a Snow Princess party. To be a Snow Princess she got a special blue dress with pom-poms sewn on to make it ‘princess-y’.

We went to a local heated pool to have her party. We started off with some running around a gym, followed by decorating princess shoes with gems (Aiden got a frog to decorate), then lunch of pizza and cupcakes, and lastly all the swimming the little ones could handle. Emily had a lot of fun at her party. She is already planning her next one.

The birthday girl – she was having a good time despite the serious face.

A little pre-party game of tag. They do not understand the game and just had fun running away from Ms. Rachelle.

Craft time

Emily was serious about her shoe decorating. She had been planning for days which shoe she wanted to decorate.

Julia took her gluing seriously. She spread it all over her shoe like she was icing a cake.

The frog turned out pretty cute!

Our table of goodies

Emily enjoyed a lot of freedom in the pool because she was willing to kick herself around on the kickboard. She seemed to have the hang of the kickboard more this day than she has before.

Julia was pretty busy in the pool. Every time the camera came out she seemed to be turning her back to it. She had a great time just playing.

Aiden and his Mama – what a great photo. They both have great grins.

Elena floating on her own

Maeve’s eyes seem to always have such a sparkle

The little girls floating and having a great time together. It is nice to have friends.

Oh Julia, how you make Mama laugh! When you went to bed last night you wanted to lay on top of all of your blankets. It is January and chilly, so Mama figured when you got cold you would just climb underneath to warm up. This is not what you did. You got up and found the pile of play blankets and drug three of them to your bedside and wrapped yourself up in one of them. Also with the blankets looked to be the clothes you had selected for yourself to wear the following day. Mama came in to check on you after you fell asleep and chuckled as she covered you with another play blanket to be sure you would be warm all night. Mama hopes your dreams were good ones, with your morning organized and your body toasty.

We planned a family trip to visit the Aquarium in Gatlinburg while Daddy had some time off. As life does not always go to plan, he was sick and unable to join us girls on the trip. We went on and made the most of our day without Daddy. The girls took naps in the car on the way. After they woke up, we ventured inside to see all the fish.

Emily was very intent on getting down to an interactive area and hardly looked at the fish exhibits on the way. Julia seemed interested in looking at most things for a few minutes each. Once we got to the lower level, the girls chose to ride through the sea tunnel and watch the fish. The moving floor was a huge hit with the girls. Both girls seemed to really watch the different fish and sharks around us.

Then the girls played in the interactive area for quite a while. They were very busy and just turned knobs, flipped switches, slid windows, and ducked in and out of a dark room to their hearts content. In the past we have visited and attended a preschool program, and Emily was curious why we weren’t seeing Jessica and doing a craft.

When we were finally done in the play area, we ventured into a new part of the exhibit about sharks. And then caught a ray feeding while we had a snack. After the excitement of the play area, the girls were most looking forward to seeing the penguin habitat. They have several tunnels to crawl thru and observe the penguins. The girls were a bit disappointed to find the penguins not active and hanging out in the warmer room of the habitat. The idea that it was near the penguin’s bedtime was too hard for them to grasp.

The last treat of the aquarium was Mama allowing the girls stay in the gift shop for a long time checking out all the fun trinkets and books. Normally the stay in the shop is brief, but for a treat we stayed a bit longer.

We went out for dinner on the way home and enjoyed warm bread with dipping oil and pasta. The only thing that could have made the day more perfect was to have Daddy with us. We decided that in about a month we might try the day visit again taking him with us.

Chris the scuba-diver and fish feeder. When he ran out of food to feed the fish he did a few tricks to entertain us. We caught two of his feedings, one with the Rays and the other in the Reef tank.

Emily checking out the penguin habitat. They loved climbing thru the tunnel.

The girls checking out a shark overhead. They found a lot of sharks to watch in this tank.

Julia peeking up at the penguin habitat. I think she was as excited to be able to look back and see Mama as to see the penguins.

We made our final trip of the year to Dollywood the week after Christmas. We arrived an hour after they opened for the morning and they were already filling up parking lot F. Wow, it was busy. Luckily for us the lines were for things the kids aren’t ready for. Maybe we would have caught a show, but we didn’t even try. The day was cool, but comfortable. When the evening cool came we had plenty of warm clothes and blankets to bundle up in to stay warm. We did the girls favorite rides and activities: car driving, carousel, pig, duck, bumble bee, playgrounds, and rope course. We got our funnel cake to share too.

Emily took her nap on the way to the park, but Julia was stubborn and stayed awake. Well, she only made it so long and then fell asleep in the stroller. When we said goodbye to the sun she got wrapped up in a blanket.

We stayed until after dark so that Emily could see all of the lights and see the lights show. She loved it! I’m so glad we got to go so many times this year and enjoyed being together.

We didn’t get many photos of them awake together, but once one goes to sleep it get a bit easier. We are bundled up to stay warm!

Julia got so excited while driving! She was thrilled to get a pink car to drive.

One sacrifice of the park being so busy is that the girls had to share a seat with each other and sharing the rides with other kids. Sometimes they loved it and sometimes it was a bit frustrating for them. They seemed to connect with these girls and they loved the ride.

Our girls like to play games on our phones. They think it is normal to get to see their grandparents when they talk to them across many miles. Their world view also has music on iPods, pausing TV, and TV and movies recorded on digital media. They will never know a world with rotary telephones, typewriters, and not being able to call someone from anywhere. I can’t imagine what else will change in their lifetime.

Ms. Patty with Julia – Julia loves to take her stuffed chicken finger puppet named Bawck Bawck with her

Julia has been going to therapy since April and has shown a lot of improvement. She loves her therapist Ms. Patty. Our weekly sessions are early morning and despite being a little on the groggy side, Julia has kept her excitement and joy of going. Their sessions involve speech games and exercises intermixed with good ‘ole play. When she arrives for her hour session she gets to pick a toy from the toy cabinet. She doesn’t pick the same toy each time, but they tend to be playhouses with fun people and characters.

From not making a two syllable sound and not talking in conversation, Julia now is working on harder sounds of h and blended s sounds. She is willing to perk up and make statements that involve two or more words in conversation. I’m sure we have had improvement because of developmental stages, but the increase in speech has been magnified by her hard work with Ms. Patty.

When Julia turned three she was old enough for the local school system to assist with her speech development. Julia is able to meet with a speech therapist at the local preschool on a weekly basis. Because of going to a private speech therapist and having the ongoing performance tracking and assessments, enrolling Julia in the additional school program was really easy.

Julia has loved meeting with Ms. Trish for her thirty minute weekly session. We can see such an improvement in Julia’s speech with the addition of this second session over the last few weeks. It has been a joy to take Julia to her appointments. Emily hangs out with Mama during the preschool therapy sessions and we work on pre-kindergarten activities.

When we enrolled Julia in her preschool therapy we talked about the long term therapy requirements for Julia. Ms. Trish said that by the time Julia starts Kindergarten she would no longer require speech. She thought in a year we would see her speaking equal to her peers. What great news for Julia!

Julia loves being a big girl and going into the Preschool and she and Emily love to run up and down the stairs in front of the building.

Ms. Trish with Julia – once again Bawck Bawck makes the photo.