Henry Update for May

Here's the monthly update on Henry...

This is his last week of speech therapy in the toddler group through the Ottawa Area Center and Early On. Tomorrow is "Barn Day" out at the OAC which I think Henry will love. There will be pony rides, face painting, a petting zoo and tons of other stuff. I think he'll really be into it since they have been working (successfully) on animal noises with him. He'll have group again on Thursday and then Early On is pretty much off for the summer. They have four meeting which Henry will go to - 2 in June and 2 in July.

Henry's doctor at DeVos Children's Hospital recommended summer speech therapy for Henry last time we saw her and today he had an evaluation appointment with a therapist through Holland Hospital Rehabilitation Services. I was really impressed with the therapist there and she did a great evaluation of Hanks. She placed him at "average" or about 20 months for comprehension of language and "poor" or about 7 months for verbal speech. Those numbers are found based mostly on yes and no answers that I give on an assessment test, so they aren't exactly 100% accurate. I think he's a bit further on verbal speech, but only a couple of months or so, still putting him at "poor."

None of this was surprising for us and just reaffirmed our decision to continue getting him available help. He will have speech therapy every week for a half hour each time one on one. We may decide to go twice a week if we aren't seeing improvement from the one session. They will work on more sign language with him (which is the cutest thing ever) and try to work on some things that may be frustrating for him. For example, he often gets really frustrated at dinner when he can't communicate what he wants/needs. The therapist talked about making a menu-book where there are pictures of his favorite foods and he can work on the words and signs for those, using that to communicate to us in the future.

We feel good about moving forward with this and have already seen growth in the past couple of weeks - it's a great thing to see!

Thanks again for prayers, emails and support - we definitely feel it all!

The Princesses

Credits Here.

Catch Up Time!

I have some serious blogging to do! I haven't had a real post since April 30, just layouts since then. So...time to catch everyone up!

It's been a crazy couple of weeks around here with Tulip Time, busy school/class schedules and Mother's Day. Our weather has been great around here lately - the warmth is wonderful! Here are a couple of random pictures from the past couple of weeks...Abigail's been obsessed with dandelions and Henry enjoys his food...on his head!

A couple of weeks ago I was watering the lawn and decided to splash Henry with the hose. He loved it! Before long both Abigail and Henry were drenched - with their clothes on! I got out the Elmo sprinkler for Henry and Abigail had a blast jumping in the puddle forming in our driveway (notice the white pants...nice). It's great to be outside again!

Abigail had Grandparent's Day at school last week. My dad, my mom and Lois came. It's kind of funny that they all came (and my dad took the morning off and Lois took a half day personal day!). She's such a first grandchild! :) We are so fortunate to have all four parents living nearby!

We had a lot of fun enjoying Tulip Time last week. Other than one day of rain, the week was wonderful! We went to the park and carnival on Monday, parade on Thursday and went downtown just to play a couple other times. The kids had lots of fun smelling ALL of the tulips.

Mother's Day was a fun day. I'm one of those fortunate women in the world who has a husband who is so wonderful and helpful ALL the time, so there really isn't much more he can do on Mother's Day. I did get to sleep in, enjoy Prime Rib at my parents' house, take a nap and then get Beef Tenderloin at Colin's parents' house so it was a great day! My Mother's Day/early birthday gift is something I've been dying for...a new Canon Rebel XT camera! I'm super excited - I found a great deal here and then got a total of $50 extra off, so I'm excited!! It should be here by the end of the week...can't wait to play with it!

Today after I brough Abigail to daycare Henry and I were going to go to Target and Meijer. We were about 5 minutes away when the car in front of me stopped fairly short. I had to stop quickly too, so did the man behind me, but the man in the truck behind him did not. The truck hit the Lexus behind me who then hit me. Ugh. Henry started crying, so I worried about him first, but he seemed to be fine, just scared. The Lexus' trunk was completely crushed, probably totaled. My van seemed okay, but then I looked more closely and saw that the bumper is completely cracked and will need to be replaced. Lovely. I'm just glad we are all okay, but it was a little scary for a couple minutes, especially since I had Henry with me - I didn't like that part at all!

Abigail only has 2 more weeks (4 classes) of three-school left and Henry has 6 speech classes left. Can't believe it! Where has this year gone?

There's the Mulder Family update for you...sorry to ramble for so long. If you are still with me...have a great day!

Tulip Time

We took the kids downtown for a bit yesterday. They loved smelling the tulips and running free in the park. This is a layout I did - I love that picture of Henry.

Credits Here.

2 New Scrapbook Pages

Credits found HERE.

Credits found HERE.