Its been a while....

Hello out there. Its unfortunately been quite some time since I had a chance to jot down what's been going on in our corner of the world.

Christmas was great. Grandpa Carl came out from California to spend a weekend with us before the holiday. We went and saw Santa, had some chocolate from the local shop, went to a Thomas the Tank Engine store, and put up our tree. The boys had a great time decorating it and then opening presents from CA Grandpa and Grandma.

The new year brought Jack to speech therapy for stuttering, just like Ben. We are still trying to determine if its because of his own genetics or if this was a learned trait from Ben. Being that Jack was so quiet for the first 3 years of his life its hard to tell. Instinct tells me this was a learned way of speaking but time will tell if I am correct. He goes to therapy one day a week for an hour each time and loves it.

Sam just turned 2 a few weeks ago. Time flies when you have 3 kids I tell ya! We had a "small" party of family and close friends only, it was nice but definitely not a small group. Sam was not really thrilled with being sung to but he got over it. At least there was cake for him to make up for the noise. At his 2 yr checkup I was told by his pediatrician that he might have a speech delay. Right now we are working our way through a state sponsered testing program (beginning at home, then with professionals) to determine if he will need some therapy to catch him up. He's extremely quiet like Jack was at this age and screams or makes different inflections of grunting to get his point across. Its a loud process with him to figure out what he wants and many days ends in a mom headache. Apparently Brent and my genes create speech/hearing dysfluencies. Oh well, it could definitely be worse.

Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Jim are in town (sort of) from Germany until Thursday. Jim has been in and out with conferences, travel to see his family in Nebraska, and Nancy has been here more but also in and out going to Nebraska and LaCrosse to prep their house for renting. The kids love having them here and its nice to have extra hands on deck.

Jack is also taking an ABCs and 123s class with the park district right now. Its only once a week for 90 minutes but he wakes up on Friday morning and says "Mommy, its a school day..and I love school!" He brings home artwork and loves to tell us all about what he did. We're hopeful that with fall will be Preschool for him. He's potty training FINALLY and does really well.

Ben's fantastic! He's got 2 more loose teeth now (upper front, 1 is already missing), and 1 on the bottom front (1 is missing, 2 have fallen out and the new ones are coming in)...he's going to be quite the site soon! He's reading all the time and getting better at it. Grandma Nancy was amazed he could figure out the word Establishment the other day. In school he's working on comprehension, which we are doing at home as well, and money. He just played flag football and liked it, though I was not a fan of it. Next is more than likely a skateboarding class through the park district, which he's pumped for and then we are nearly at summer for swimming lessons and camp this year. Last year he missed the Kindergarten age cutoff for camp so this year I promised I would send him for a few weeks.

Tuva is doing well with his medications. The last round of antibiotics kicked out his skin infection and nearly all of his hair has regrown. He's still taking the thyroid medicine and back into doggie daycare one day a week for the social time and exercise. With the cold we don't walk him or run around the yard.

Brent and I are good. We got to meet a new cousin in my family last weekend..and no it didn't change Brent's mind, he doesn't want any more children. I am still on the fence, why I don't know because I am plenty busy with the 3 I have! I think I would just keep having them if we had the means and a nanny. Who knows, maybe in a year we will change our minds. ;) We have a great new babysitter from down the street, she's good with the kids and cleans up after them which is a big deal for me. We poached one from our gym to add into the mix and we start with her in 2 weeks so we can have a double date with friends. All in all life is pretty damned good!