Busy, Busy, Busy!!!

Our social calendar is filling up quickly at our new home! I have been doing a lot of research to find activities, playgroups, events, story times, and toddler friendly locations in general. So far we are off to a great start! We have found several friends and lots of great free and indoor activities for the winter. We have also joined Parents as Teachers and we are getting ready to start services with MO First Steps and the Delta Gamma Center. These provide therapy for the boys vision condition. We have had several tests and assessments conducted recently as well. The DG Center sent out a speech and a vision therapist to assess the boys. They both said the boys were doing really well. Both boys' expressive language is a little low (Ashton has about 15-16 words and Ayden has about 17-18 words). They generally look for 20 words at 18 months and 50 words at 2 years - although this varies a lot. But, both boys receptive language skills (what they understand) was amazing! They were about the level of a 3-4 year old! She was pretty impressed! We don't know yet if we will get any speech therapy but, we should find out next week. During the vision assessment the boys had a great time playing with all the therapist's fun "toys". I think she was a little overwhelmed! Generally they are assessing younger kids but, since we just moved here we are getting in a little later than what we normally would have. She was not use to kids that were so interested in her toys. They boys knew where her bag was and kept going back to it to try to get out more fun stuff! She had also never assessed twins before so she was shuffling her paperwork back and forth (while the boys were trying to color on it none the less!). Oh, well! She thought she got enough information for the assessment in the end! She thought the boys were doing really well with their vision as well. Last week we also returned to St. Louis Children's Hospital for some more extensive vision testing for the boys. This will help determine exactly how severe their nystagmus is, confirm the OA diagnose, and help with the surgery plans. The testing could only be done one at a time and we were told it would last an hour and a half for each boy. We brought Nana with us to help entertain the boys. When we got there we found that we were in luck because there was a book fair going on at the hospital that day! The boys loved looking around and they each ended up only taking about an hour to complete the testing. They were very cooperative even though the technician was hooking electrodes up to their heads and putting patches over their eyes! We will hopefully be hearing the results for those tests any day now. All this excitement and adventure is helping the boys burn off their energy and they are now napping and sleeping great! I am sure once we move (wherever our house finally sells!!), we will have to deal with some set backs again but that is to be expected and we will start all over again. I will leave you with a few pictures from some of the fun stuff we have been up to!

Playing basketball

Building with Legos

Playing with playdoughMaking valentine craftsReading lots of booksColoringGoing on train ridesGetting into everything!Wresteling

Getting ready for spring!

(Don't ask about the hats! They have had a thing for them lately and want to wear them all the time!)

So...after going through all my pictures and posting them I realize that I haven't been taking pictures of our playdates and other out and about adventures! I guess I will have to do a better job of that now!