First Week of School

Well, we are wrapping up the first week of school and we couldn't have asked for a better start for Josie. She once again loooooves school! She has the same teachers this year, Nancy and Robin, and two new boys to replace the two boys that graduated to kindergarten. The teachers have already reported that Josie is signing much more this year and using more sentences, so it is exciting to know that we continued to make progress this summer. Last year Josie only went three hours a day even though the program is a full day, so we decided to try a few full days this fall. They have reading time, a rest time and some therapy in the afternoon that Josie had been missing. She has done extremely well with the full days and will most likely progress into full days all the time in September. I know some of you reading this are thinking...full days for preschool, that sounds like too much. I would agree with you if Josie wasn't in the process of learning a new language that is not the first language used in the home. She is very delayed in communication so it is critical that she is in an environment that is using sign all the time as much as possible. While Chad and I sign at home, we are not fluent signers and we have already observed a difference in her communication skills after a few short days at school. It is really exciting to see!

 Poor Henry is not a big fan of Josie going to school:( He misses his playmate badly. He and I spent some time at the children's farm to take his mind off of it and that helped. He is so excited everyday when we pick Josie up. There is a lot of hugging going on:) Henry had his own big milestone this week. He graduated to a toddler bed! He's finally getting tall enough that he's going to crawl out of his crib, so we converted it to a toddler bed. Last night was the first night and he did get out once to test if he could open his door and leave, but otherwise did really good. In fact, I had to go into his room this morning and tell him it was okay to get out of bed. He likes to just lay in there and suck his thumb and jabber.

Before school started we had a couple of quick trips to Derby and Pittsburg. The kids stayed with Grammy and Papa Stewart for a few nights while Chad and I celebrated our anniversary. They had a really great time. Then we spent a couple of days with Nana and Papa Scott while Chad was out of town for work. We figured this was the last time for us to travel for awhile with school starting. The next time I blog will probably be for Mr. Henry's 2nd birthday!! Hard to believe it has already been two years since the little man came into our lives. We are looking forward to a Buzz Lightyear birthday:)