Summer Is Here

It's heating up in Bakersfield as summer is beginning.  Next week starts our new summer schedule of therapy and I'm really excited to have two days free.  This morning I asked Mia to put on her shirt all by herself and she was able to do it.  I'm so proud of her, she's come a long way and today I spent some time reflecting about how far God has brought her this year.  .  Last fall she was unable to get her shoes on herself and she can now quickly do it when necessary.  She couldn't dress herself in any way and now she's putting on clothes almost completely by herself.  Her speech has made so much progress this year, we are almost completely caught up to sounds she should know at this age.  In fact, I really wondered if she would ever be able to produce the "g" sound...I was honestly skeptical, but she's gotten there.  God has blessed her with another sound and I continue to be in awe of his healing.  It's not that I ever question His ability to heal, I just wondered if He would choose to do it. 

So, I'm excited about having a bit more free time this summer, but I know that therapy is making a huge difference in Mia's life and so we continue to plug along.  I have no clue how that will look in the fall with school for her, but I've given myself permission to not worry or think about it for the next two months.  I will think about it in August.  And as always, God will work it out and sort it out and carry me along because I know that I could not and would not be able to do what I do without Him.  Eternally grateful to serve an awesome God, a God of miracles, a God who loves us so deeply, I can't even fathom.  I see this tiny glimpse of Him every time I look at Mia's life and it humbles me.  It helps me to keep things in perspective, Praise God for His healing work in our daughter's life!

Cute!

Yesterday we made a trip up to Palmdale to see my brother and his family.  Normally we take the 5 south over the grapevine and then head east through Neenach (how do you say that?) to get to their home.  Just to change things up a bit, we decided to drive home through Tehachapi.  As we are driving along, Calvin looks out his window and exclaims with pure joy, "Mama, Daddy...spinning wheels!"  I guess we've never seen windmills before...he couldn't get enough of them.  We explained what they were and he tried to say windmills, but he was just so enraptured with those "spinning wheels".

Kindergarten

It's official, Mia will be in Kindergarten in the fall.  We've decided on a mixed placement for her and we are super happy about it.  She'll be in a high functioning special education class for 2/3 of the day and mainstreamed for 1/3 of the day.  Her mainstreaming will happen at the beginning of the day, so when she is fresh and ready.  And if she does really well with that, then we can add more time to it if needed.  The goal is for her to be completely mainstreamed by 1st grade.  She's come so far and we are so excited that this is how her year will look, we think it is the right placement for her and the right school for her too.  We are so glad that our district is so willing to work with us. 

It's going to be a long day and I'm not exactly sure how we will fit in extra therapies and our other daily activities, but we'll just have to sort it out.  She'll be in school from 8:20-2:35...crazy. 

In the meantime, we are slowing down for the summer.  She'll be finishing some of her therapies here at the end of May and taking a break during the summer months.  I'm looking forward to not so many commitments and more time playing at home.  We might even get a couple days where we don't have to go anywhere...that would be awesome.

Mia will also be participating at our church's VBS program and I'm sure she will have a blast with that.  Yay for summer!

Family Pics

Nana got the kids these great shirts that say, "Property of the Sturm family".  I've been meaning to take some pictures with the kids in them, so we did it on Sunday.  It's a lot of work trying to get three kids to face the same direction, much less get them to smile.  Nana and Grampapa were making strange noises and saying as many funny things as they could...even bringing out toys to get their attention...so after what seemed like millions, but probably only 50 or so shots, we got a couple good ones...here they are.  

Cute Things

So, I was at our last MOPS meeting of the year last night and I was sharing some cute things about Calvin and the ladies at my table told me I should write them down...of which, I promptly thought...yes, I need to write this down, why haven't I blogged about it yet?!

I absolutely hate letting our babies cry it out, so there has been a lot of sacrifice on Brad's part and grandparent's to go along with my parenting ideas at nighttime.  I've always nursed and rocked our babies to sleep and then when they no longer nursed, we lie beside them until they fall asleep...at around 2 1/2, they finally get it and are able to fall asleep on their own.

So, Calvin has finally reached that milestone, with a bit of pushing from us, but he now happily goes to sleep on his own, which is amazing.  Well, for awhile, I would tuck him in and he wouldn't let me leave, he kept saying, "one more hug, one more mama..." and of course, I just couldn't resist, but it was getting worse and worse that Brad finally stepped in and said, "tonight mama is going to give you two hugs and then leave and then you'll go to sleep."  Well, he didn't like it, but that's what we did...the next day at naptime I asked him, do you want 3 or 4 hugs, thinking if you give them a choice they will pick one and be happy because they got a choice.  Well, he promptly said, I want 12 hugs.  Why, you ask?  Well, 12 is the highest number he can count to.  So, it is now tradition, that we give 12 hugs and then he makes the "I love you" sign and promptly tells me, "ok, go mom, bye."  So sweet!  I love this boy!

Going Green

I've wanted a vitamix for sometime now, but I kept waffling between whether or not I'd use it enough to make it worthwhile.  Well, I finally went for it and it arrived on Monday.  It is awesome.  It's so hard for me to get any veggies in Calvin and I thought this would be a perfect way to make some green smoothies...and boy have they been a hit.  The first one was a little heavy on the kale, but he still gobbled it up and asked for more.  This morning it was the perfect amount of green.  As he watched me put everything in the blender...he says, "lettuce?" when I got to the kale...hehehehe.  I told him that is what makes it have the nice green color.  And he couldn't get enough of it. 

3 Months!

I can't believe it's been 3 months since Asher was born!  It's going so quickly.  Asher is doing great, he weighed in at 14 pounds today.  He is such an easy going baby, God has been so gracious with this little guy.  His feeding in the night have stretched to only once or twice, I think it took Calvin until somewhere between 6 and 9 months to do that.  That has been such a blessing.  Asher loves to smile and boy does he talk...so much cooing, it is adorable.  Lately he's been gnawing on his hand/fingers (he tends to suck his middle fingers and does not like the pacifier) with lots of drooling, I imagine teeth are on the horizon for us.  Here is the adorable guy.