Enoch fixing his door with Daddy

One of Hugh's projects around the house this weekend was to fix the handle on Enoch's door.  Since it was an easy job, Enoch even got to help him, which was super cute and fun! 

 Drilling the holes:

Tightening on the screws:

After this little project, however, Hugh decided that Enoch needed some of his own tools, so he ordered him a little set.  They should be arriving on our doorstep in the next few days, so our Little Man will then be prepared for his next Daddy-Son project... whatever that may be!  :)

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FFF: Karis is becoming such a big girl

I feel like over the past two weeks, Karis has transitioned into such a big little girl!  I think the two main changes have been learning to sit independently and learning to self feed.  She is just so much more independent now!!  This also means that she gets treated less like a baby these days, which I think she's loving! 

For instance, this morning when we went to Lowes, she got to sit up in the front of the cart instead of in her carseat!  She did so good the whole time, sitting up (buckled in and with some padding behind her) and watching everything we passed!  And as you can see, Enoch enjoyed his promotion into the back of the cart, where he was able to play with (almost) everything we bought.  ;)

Karis has also gotten really good at picking up puffs or lil crunchies (baby cheetos) off the table and putting them in her mouth.  And she looks like such a big girl when she eats them... makes my heart melt!  Here's a video:
(At this point she probably has a 90% success rate off the table and a 75% success rate when she takes them from your hand.)


Her big girl-ness also means that she's able to do more playing with Enoch.  I have a video I need to post on that soon, but until then, here are some cute pictures of Enoch "holding" his little sister.

 kisses

 smiles

 hugs

 bigger hugs

 and some not so gentle hugs....   haha...  Little sister can't get away without a little bit of rowdy-ing from her big brother.  ;)

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Enoch is Learning How to Spell

Just last week Enoch learned how to spell his name (out loud, not in hand-writing yet), and it's too cute.  I taught him to spell it kind of like a cheerleader would say it (E-N-O-CCCC-H, ENOCH!), but now he says it more normal.  Now he's figured out that other words can also be spelled, like "mama" and "dada," so we've started doing lots of spelling around our house as of late.  Here's a cute video of him spelling and writing.  Though he can spell his own name by himself now, he still has to be prompted and helped with other words. 



(for those of you who've gotten a note from him recently, the "enoch" written on it was me holding his hand and guiding him, which will be obvious after the video.  ;)

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FFF: My Big Boy (and his underwear)

Behold the view that I'm seeing an awful lot of as of late: 

That's right folks, Enoch is using the bathroom like a big boy more and more now!  Yesterday I showed him what big boy underwear were, and I let him try some on, which he loved.  After parading them around the house for a few minutes, I explained that he would need to poopy in the bathroom again before he could wear the big boy underwear long term.  We also chatted a little about how babies wear diapers and big boys (like daddy, of course) wear underwear. 

Sure enough, a few hours later when I thought he was trying to poop in his diaper, I asked about going to the bathroom, and he agreed.  Let's just say it was a successful bathroom trip!!  He was so proud of pooping in the bathroom like a big boy, and after we had celebrated and flushed, he ran straight to the underwear drawer in his bedroom and picked out his first pair of underwear (red with helicopters).  

Of course, when we put them on we re-hashed the big boy/bathroom/underwear connections.  Throughout the day we took a few bathroom breaks, and it was actually rather painless.  Who knows what today will hold, but at least our first day of pursuing big boy underwear is in the books and was pretty fun and exciting.  :)


This is how Karis hangs out while we take bathroom breaks.  Now that she's sitting up, I feel like we are in a much easier season to be spending tons of time hanging out in the bathroom (and to be able to drop EVERYTHING and run to the bathroom quickly). 

 Isn't she cute sitting with her little teddy bear in the laundry basket?  

And of course, Karis wanted to give Enoch a congratulatory kiss after all the excitement of his first pair of big boy underwear...   ;)

 melt my heart

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Karis blowing raspberries

I finally got a video of our Sweet Girl blowing raspberries.  She's been doing this more regularly now for a week or two, which is so cute... unless she's in the middle of eating puréed prunes, and then it's just down right messy! 

Hope you enjoy!

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FFF: Therapy with Karis - 6 months in

I've been working this post over in my head for weeks now.  Do you know what that means???  It's long, long, long!  I apologize in advance.  If Hugh were writing this, he'd have written a series of 4 separate posts, but my mind doesn't work that efficiently (yet)...  So, if you've been wondering about how we are doing 6 mos into therapy, this is the post for you.  I'm going to try and cover some common questions, but if there are any I didn't think of, feel free to comment below, and I'll add it to the post.  Without further ado...

How is therapy going?

ST - eating with a spoon

I would say that overall therapy is going really well.  Hugh and I are so thankful for the therapists who are working with us to help Karis develop to her full potential.  Each of our therapists are talented in their specific fields and seem to enjoy seeing our Sweet Girl hit milestones almost as much as we do.  At this stage, our Speech Therapist (ST) is seeing the most rapid progress, with Karis learning new eating skills almost weekly.  Our Physical Therapist (PT) is also seeing continual progress from our determined little mover.  However, because we are in the teething phase right now where everything goes into Karis' mouth, our Occupational Therapist (OT) is seeing only slow progress.  She has assured me that this stage is typical and will pass soon, and she has been a trouper about working around Sweet Girl's non-stop attempts to mouth whatever she puts in front of her.  :)  Our therapists have also been so good to work with our tight schedule so that I can come during Enoch's nap time while Hugh works from home a few days per week.  This helps me focus more on learning how to work with Karis during a therapy session (as opposed to focusing on Enoch's obedience while his 2 year old self tries to sit still with self control in a room full of new and exciting toys that he's not supposed to touch... that's a tough job for a little guy... and his mama!).

PT - prop sitting

Milestones Karis has met (praise God for the progress!!!):

• rolling over 
• prop sitting
• sitting unsupported (no propping)
• kneeling
• grabbing & holding a toy while laying or sitting
• picking up puffs and putting them into her mouth
• drinking from a straw cup
• eating solids with a spoon

Goals for OT (Occupational Therapy - fine motor skills):

• raking objects with her hand (open palm grasp)
• pincer grasp (thumb & pointer finger)
• transferring toys from one hand to the other
• clapping hands together

OT - working on clapping

Goals for PT (Physical Therapy - gross motor skills):

• kneeling longer and more independently
• quadruped position (hands & knees)
• pivoting 180 degrees on belly
• propping up on extended arms while on belly (longer duration)
• protective response righting reaction (extended arms)

PT - working out her core muscles

Here is a video from a few months back showing one of the core strengthening exercises our PT would do with Karis on the exercise ball.  As you watch it, notice how she is learning to pull her head back to center when her body leans to the side.  That is called a "righting" reaction.  

She's mastered this one very well now, but there is one other one left for her to learn that has to do with sitting up.  Basically, when she is sitting and begins to fall, she needs to learn how to catch her self with her arm so that she can push back up to the middle (and thus "right" herself again); this is the protective response listed above.  (If that isn't making much sense and you want to understand it better, go to this video and watch around the 4:30 mark as they explain it.)

Goals for ST (Speech Therapy):

• continued improvement in chewing and swallowing
• learning to keep her tongue in
• chewing thicker/clumpy solids
• ability to eat sitting up straight in high chair (right now she's reclined a bit)

ST - drinking from a straw cup

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