A busy summer/fall!

Esther is now Three Years Old!  And she's wearing glasses!

She is also going to be a big sister!  We are expecting blessing #12 on April 2nd!

That is why I haven't posted any updates for Esther since July!

Here's some updates for Esther right now - She is not currently in any therapies right now because she graduated out of the birth to three program on her birthday.  She is doing really well on all developmental levels.  She's behind typically developing children, but not that far, and she gains ground all the time as she is one motivated little girl!

Most parents of children with Down Syndrome put their children in public school preschool programs at 3 years of age so they can continue to get the free therapy.  We have chosen to not participate in that at this time.  We found out that we can enroll her and only go in once a week for a 1 hour session to see a speech therapist for 30 minutes and then an occupational therapist for 30, but for now we are happy with her learning here at home with all her busy siblings.

She has been very healthy this summer and fall.  We have experimented with less and less thickening  for her liquids and she did so well that now the only thing we thicken is her morning juice as we give her all her medications in the drink and the thickening helps to get the meds to suspend in the drink - but we are only doing half the thickening for that now too!

She is using more verbal communications - and we are starting to pick up on more of them. She is beginning to call family members by name and says words like "thank you" and "baby" and "please", although people outside out family would probably not understand them - but we do!

Her latest favorite things to do are playing/hugging/kissing her baby dolls, escaping out the front door (we now try to keep it padlocked as she will go outside in the cold without her coat/shoe), giving hugs to everyone (we call them hug-fests),  praying at meals and at bed time (and sometimes over her snacks/juice too!), saying new  words and having us know what she is saying and she still loves to be cuddled anytime, anywhere!

One very exciting thing is that Esther is featured on the Smiles of Life calendar this coming year - they should be out any time now  - you can see the photos we took on my last blog post.  If you are interested in getting a copy of the calendar, leave a comment and I'll let you know once I know how to get them!