18 Months!

This sweet little thing is 18 months! I can't believe how fast the time has gone. Kristiina is such a sweet girl and we just love having her be a part of our family.

At 18 months Kristiina is talking up a storm! She says a lot of words and it is so cute! If you ask her a question she usually answers with "I do." In the morning she wakes up and says she wants, "nana" and even during Sunday School at church she saw a picture of a banana in a book and started crying saying, "want nana." She will walk around the house yelling "Z" when she is looking for Zeke. She says Mom, Dad, Meow, woof, milk, Cheese, hot, animal, Elmo, hat, shoes, hide, bath, back pack, eyes, and bath

She still loves to eat and will usually always try new things. She usually eats more then Zeke. :) Her favorite things to eat are Mac and Cheese, yogurt, bananas, pastas, potatoes, peaches, grapes, and toast.

She loves baby dolls and loves to give them kisses. Which is funny because she is pretty stingy when it comes to kisses for anyone else. I am lucky to get 1 kiss a day. She loves giving my tummy kisses though because it is big and there's a baby in it. I don't know if she quite understands that there is going to be a baby in the house in 7 weeks or less, and she is most likely going to have a hard time because she still is a baby.

This girl LOVES water. She is such a water baby. She usually wants a shower every single day and loves to just stand under the warm water. Which I think is kind of weird because usually kids hate getting water in their eyes but not her. When we went to Bear Lake this summer she would just lay in the water kicking her feet and she had the time of her life, she was in heaven!

Happy Halloween-2011

I know that this was pretty much from a year ago but I never posted our Halloween pictures from last year. I made Kristiina's costume and she was the Very Hungry Caterpillar and Zeke was Buzz Lightyear. 

Zeke at Gardner Village with the witches

Zeke at his school party trying to eat a donut off of a string

My Hungry Caterpillar trying to eat a leaf

 

Drake, Zeke, and Logan gutting their pumpkins

Zeke's friend Drake after carving their pumpkins

Zeke's preschool class.

To Infinity and Beyond

Family picture that I can't get turned the correct way.

Zeke is done with preschool at USDB

 I wrote this post  back in June and have failed to post it so I thought I better post on this poor neglected blog. 

  Zeke is doing so well and he gets to go to a normal little preschool in the fall. (He is currently going to one now.) We are going to miss Utah School for the Deaf and his wonderful teacher! We got  his end of year Aural Habilitation Summary  in the mail and I couldn't be more proud of Zeke!

It says:

Zeke is a 4-year-old preschool two student with a profound bilateral hearing loss. He has 2 cochlear implants and wears them 100% of the time.  WIth his implants, Zeke's hearing tests within the mild to normal hearing range.

Zeke has been attending Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind's auditory oral preschool program where the focus of the curriculum is auditory, language, and speech development. He has recieved both small group and individual auditory-based speech and language therapy.

Language:  Zeke has made excellent progress this year. At the end of the 2010 school year he was using 3-4 word utterances and now uses many 7-9 word grammatically correct sentences.  According to standdardized testing he is functioning withing the average range when compared to his same age hearing peers.  He is bright and learns new vocabulary and language structures quickly.

Speech:  Zeke's speech is  100% intelligible. He can produce all vowels and consonants correctly at the phonologic and running speech level. At times he may need to be reminded to use a known speech sound correctly, but will correct it with an auditory model.

 Auditory Skills:  Zeke has made excellent progress in his auditory skill development.  He had some difficutly adjusting to his new implant but this resolved after a few therapy sessions with the new device only.  At the beginning of the year, Zeke had difficulty repeating 5 word familiar sentences leaving off articles and be verbs.  His auditory memory skills have improved significantly as he is now able to approximate 7-9 word sentences.  He can repeat 4 single digit numbers presented in random sequence and follow 3 step related directions.  He can detect foolish statements about a familiar topic and fill in missing phrases from songs and nursery rhymes.  He answers riddles with three clues and is able to repeat all of the clues. He can discriminate rhyming words with initial consonants different by manner, voicing and place.

Summary: Zeke has made excellent progress this year and will be mainstreamed next school year!


Isn't that great! I am so happy he has done so well and he continues to improve everyday!

This is Zeke's amazing teacher, Teacher Shellee,  who we are going to miss so much! She is such a wonderful teacher who truly cares about these little kids.

Most of Zeke's little class on the last day of school. We are going to miss all Zeke's little friends that he has made at school! He loves each one of them!