Need a Dog Groomer?

Anyone need a dog groomer? My brother may be the guy for you (uh...your dog). What do you think from the pictures? Poor dog - Harry didn't deserve that!

Catching Up From the Weekend!

We had a fun and busy weekend. Friday and Saturday were normal days with Colin working Friday and Saturday during the day and me working those nights. Sunday we went to church in the morning and then grabbed sandwiches on the way home (no lunch at mom and dad's this week). The weather was gorgeous so dad came over to work on the swingset, Colin went golfing with his dad and Tavid and my mom and I took the kids to the zoo. It was a perfect day for that - 70 degrees- we were warm, but not sweating and all the animals were out.

On Monday Abigail and I went to the greenhouse to get flowers for the flower boxes. She was perfect there - so, so good! We then went to the mall and did a little shopping. Got a couple of great deals which was nice! We were home by 2:30 and worked in the yard the rest of the day. My dad spent the whole day over working on the swingset. He's making things perfect and extra strong so it's taking awhile - it's going to be awesome in the end! We ended up getting the flower boxes planted, some seeds planted, grass seed put down in some bare spots, lawn mowed, bark down, driveway edged, some trees trimmed and some other stuff I can't remember! We were so exhausted last night!

Today I bought a new toy at Target. It's the Little Tikes sprinkler ball. The kids were having a blast with it! You hook it up to the hose and can make it so it doesn't move, just shoots water or you can have it move and shoot water. So fun!

I'll leave you with some pictures from the zoo, pictures of the sprinkler and a pic of what the swingset will kind of look like when it's finished - without the tube slide though. Basically it's an addition to our house! :) Have a great shorted week everyone! :)

Here are some pictures with my NEW camera (love it so far!) of the kids outside the other day playing with the hose - they were lovin' life! :)

Click on the pictures to enlarge.

From Abigail...

Abigail and I took a walk tonight. We had a great conversation...

Abigail: "Mom, look - there's a church. Who's church is that?"

Me: "That's God's church."

Abigail: "Where is God? In the church?"

Me: "Yeah, He lives in there."

Abigail: "Does God have clothes in there? Dresses? Pants? Jammies?"

Me: (sidenote: one of those hard parent questions): "Um, yeah, Abigail, God has everything."

Abigail: "Does God have a chicken in that church?" (That would be a KITCHEN - Abigail calls it a chicken).

Me: "Umm..."

Abigail: "How about a bed? And toys? And food?"

Me: "God has everything. And He sees everything. He's everywhere. Did you know that God is everywhere, Abigail?"

Abigail: "Mama, God is in my heart. He lives there."

Me: Holding back tears. It's moments like this that I live for.

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!