Random Rambling

Lauren is continuing to increase her vocalizations daily and is becoming more communicative with her family. She is finally doing some nice shared joint attention and is showing better understanding and comprehension of following simple directions. I'm reducing my direct points (e.g. I will often point to her shoes when I say "Lauren put on your shoes") and I am noticing she is still able to successfully carry out the action.  PECs is continuing to go well. We are still on phase 3 with single pictures but the school has now fully incorporated PECs into her class and she is using pictures to request not only snacks, but activities as well. The next step will be to start bringing the PEC binder outside of the house and having Lauren work with other adults and children, i.e. exchanging cards. . Its such a drag, lugging around a binder full of cards - but it must be done! I also think it would be nice for other kids to see and understand that there are different ways of communicating and that verbal speech is only one method. Maybe we'll start with the cousins...

November has been busy. The girls are exhausted with late nights and early mornings - birthday parties, housewarming parties, play dates and some shopping. We look forward to this weekend where we don't have much on our schedule.

Kayla and Lauren are enjoying their swimming lessons on Tuesday nights. Kayla is learning to do back and front floats and is now extremely comfortable in the water on her own. Lauren is in Parent and Tot with Steve and is also becoming more comfortable in the water . She loves to kick and splash and and is finally more willing to lie on her back in the water.

I've been busy "crafting" these days. A good friend lent me a sewing machine and I sewed my first project - ballerina dolls, with tutu and ballet slippers. Having not used a sewing machine since grade 7, I endlessly watched youtube videos of how to thread the machine and bobbin. For the dolls, I downloaded the pattern from Dolls & Daydreams, bought the suggested material, and started sewing away. It was a learning curve trying to control the foot pedal and trying not to loose control of the sewing machine. The first doll took me a few weeks working on and off each night, but once I got the hang of it, the next 2 dolls were much faster to complete.

My house is a mess so in effort to organize some of the crap, I've turned to mason jars. A few yards of twine (dollar store), cardstock tags (Michaels), mason jars (Canadian Tire) and Kayla and I created jars for hers to organize all her arts and craft items. I also created similar jars for my own room for pens and coins.

My kids have not grown since last winter. Lauren and Kayla are both able to wear the exact same jacket as last winter - this is actually a good thing given Lauren's jacket cost me a small fortune. Mostly everything from last winter still fits now, including pjs and socks. Lauren is still in size 2 and Kayla is in 4 going on  5 for some items.