A Little of This, A Little of That

So this post will include several things...
1. updates on our week
2. updates on Tav & Penn's speech
3. updates on the kitchen
Just some tidbits throughout the week that deserve to be blogged about, but I figured one post would be better than 3!

On Tuesday, the little guys and I had a fun little lunchtime adventure.  Doug has a friend that works for a local restaurant group, so we got invited to a soft opening (and free lunch) at their newest location downtown.  Doug had the van, so I got to take Tav and Penn on the bus.  Here they are waiting (adorably) for the highly anticipated downtown bus.

They loved the ride!  Penn was in awe much of the time.  It had been a few months since he had last ridden the bus.

We had a short walk from the bus stop downtown to our lunch location and meetup with Daddy.  The boys loved their meal (Doug and I did too) and while we were there, one of the major local news stations was interviewing customers for a report on the restaurant opening.  They interviewed me, Penn and Tav.  Penn and I didn't make the cut.  But Tavin was best part of the news brief on the new restaurant location.  Click here for the interview (Tav's near the end).  This is definitely just one of those random coincidences, right place/right time kind of things.  But Doug and I took this a completely different way...Here's our sweet Tavin, who a year ago would never have been intelligible enough to be included in a news broadcast, now articulately (and adorably) expressing himself (while pounding down fries no less).  When Doug showed it to me, I immediately teared up.  Tavin has worked so hard, as have we, but he gets the real credit, and he is now at a communication level that is completely average for his age.  He was just retested by his speech therapist last week and he scored right where he should for a five year old, only making 12 errors, all of which were age-appropriate.  AMAZING.  Great job, Tavin.  You could be a spokesperson, a speaker, a teacher, whatever you want, you've worked so hard, Tav.  We are so proud of you and can't wait to see how the Lord ironically uses your gift of communication and confidence for years to come!!  Well, let me wipe the tears away and keep going on my catch-up post.  After lunch we walked back to the van with a quick stop at the big Christmas tree at PPG Place.  

That was our big event for Tuesday.  On Wednesday morning, Penn had his Early Intervention speech appointment at home.  He is really showing progress lately with engaging and trying and having some great success on some words.  In general, his vowel sounds are fantastic, which tremendously increases his intelligibility.  It will be interesting to see what lies ahead for Penn in this area, but after watching all that Tav has accomplished in just a year and a half, I have every confidence Penn will be fine.  For now, we are enjoying watching him learn new words and enjoy working on words more in general.  Some new word/phrase additions this week were: "tiptoe, tiptoe," "I'm so happy" and "good day."  Here's  a picture of him happily spouting words off as he reviews a favorite book with his speech therapist, Allison.  

The big family thing on Wednesday was that our new stools for the kitchen arrived.  Doug spent the evening with the boys putting them together.  Koen was a big help.  

Tav just loved being around and involved (and smashing the cardboard with his tools).

Penn loved being around too.  Doug gave he and Tav big boxes to make into boats.  They were all over it.  Here's the happy little helper!

The real fun was finally getting to sit in our kitchen again the next morning.  Here are the big boys enjoying their first breakfast back at the island.  Yay!!

That's about it for the highlights, except for this hilarious gem from this morning (Friday).  Penn and I dropped Tav off at preschool, ran an errand and then hung out at home having some quality time and getting a few things done.  While playing upstairs, Penn found Tav's pajama pants and proceeded to put them on over his jeans.  He asked for my help to finish the hilarious job.  This was the outcome (and you can see he's pretty proud of it!).

Well, that's it for what I have in pictures.  Stay tuned though...it's Christmas tree weekend!!