Every year, Nate and I love driving around looking at Christmas lights. We discovered that Naperville has a website with all the "must see" houses. So this year, on the night of the 22nd, we got Jade in her jammies and headed out to look at as many of these houses as we could! Jade seemed to enjoy it, and stayed awake the whole time.
This was our favorite house on the tour!
Nate had a couple of very busy days at work between that night and Christmas Morning. Luckily he got home around 8 in the morning on Christmas Day, just in time to open presents and enjoy a cinnamon roll breakfast!
Today we took Jade to see Santa at the Bass Pro Shop as we did last year. They have a great setup that includes a free picture with Santa, coloring, a carousel and lots of exhibits. Here are a few pictures from our morning!
I finally got around to taking some pictures and video of Jade today. She loves wearing her name tag sticker from church pretty much the rest of the day, so she has it on in most of these pictures.
Weeeee
I told Jade to be silly...however I have seen her much sillier than this :)
Best friends (this photo was not enhanced, I do not know why Charcoal's tongue looks that pink)!!
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Jade was standing at the fridge looking at her letter magnets, so I thought it would be a good time to quiz her on her letter identification. She did pretty good considering half the letters were upside down!!
Just a random hodgepodge of pictures from what we've been up to, and let me tell you, it hasn't been much! :)
We took Jade up to Carthage for her first tailgate and football game. It was pretty cold, but Jade (wearing my big gloves) was such a trooper. We only stayed til halftime and never made it in to the game, but Jade sure had a blast playing bags by herself!
Two of her newest obsessions, bracelets and Da Bears! :)
Wearing her hair in a ponytail, sometimes.
Blowing kisses.
Snuggling with Grammy.
Looking and playing like a big kid!
A little side note, Jade climbed out of her crib during her nap on Friday. We were not quite ready to switch her to a toddler bed yet, so the little escapee is currently sleeping in a sleep sack which has worked out perfect since it's so cold outside. Mommy and Daddy - 1, Jade - 0.
A couple months ago, I began a process to enroll Jade in some speech therapy sessions to help prompt her verbal communication. I know all kids progress differently, but given how early Jade did everything else (crawl, stand, walk, etc.) I was slightly concerned as to why she wasn't babbling as much as other kids her age. She had a complete evaluation that assessed all areas including her interaction attachment in which she was age equivalent, receptive language where she was the equivalent of at least 21 months and expressive language where she was the equivalent of between 12 and 15 months, thus making her eligible for speech therapy services through the Early Intervention program.
So far she has had 5 sessions (which are at our house which is so nice) and as made so much progress. While she isn't using a lot of real words consistently yet, she is making SO many different consonant and vowel sounds and using vocalizations in play that she hadn't been before. Yay! :)
On of my favorite things that they teach the kids is some simple sign language to help communicate with them. Jade looks so adorable when she does her signs and has picked up on them so quickly. Here is a little video of her doing signs "more", "open" and "help". The fake cry at the end was not one of the signs she learned in therapy, it just kind of came on it's own and I think its so cute!! :)
I should also add, that while she is doing the signs on command in this video, she does use them correctly in day to day activity. We now request she sign more if she wants more, open if she needs something opened or turned on and help if she needs help.
Once again, another amazing photo session with Sylver! She got the most amazing smiles out of Jade. This whole shoot happened in about 20 minutes as it was 40 degrees outside and super windy. I couldn't be happier with how they turned out! Maybe if you are lucky, some of these will end up in your mailbox. :)
The weather around here has been pretty rainy and dreary. It rained all day on Halloween. Luckily, there was a period of about 45 minutes where the rain stopped just long enough for us to trick or treat around our neighborhood!
My little Minnie Mouse ready to trick or treat!
Jade walked the whole time and held my hand so nicely!
She loved picking out her own pieces of candy!
This was the best "smile" i could get (I am holding up a piece of her candy)!
Full shot of her costume, minus the shoes that you can see in the background! :)
Nate's awesome pumpkin carving really made our front porch festive!
