justin's ONE!

i've been such a bad blogger this summer. i have good news in place of my slacking!

justin has been doing awesome!! he is into EVERYTHING. i don't ever remember having this much trouble with keeping madi out of things. he makes the biggest messes within minutes of getting ahold of his toys. the boy is amazing!

so, justin had some evaluations done this summer prior to his one year IFSP update for early intervention. we had a teacher come in to evaluate him to see if he needed her (or any other services). oddly enough, she was a friend of the family! she was thrilled to finally meet justin after hearing so much from him not only from gram, but from his therapists at EI. she felt that justin was doing great with everything he's accomplished. she had suggested that he start speech therapy though, because that was his greatest delay. he can understand and follow direction, he just couldn't communicate. he wasn't talking AT ALL by the date of her visit. she really wanted to get someone in here right away to get him going with his speech. he was also evaluated with his OT and his PT. his delay with OT was barely a delay! we see jen once a week, and we were actually looking for things that would allow us to keep her on at all.. EI considered taking her out altogether. our service coordinator told jen she had to have reasons why she should be here weekly, let alone... at all! so, we came up with a list of things he should be working on and we're able to keep her at biweekly for now. he tested right at his age-range though, so that's great news... it makes me laugh a little to think 5 months ago at his last appointment, i was in tears because they thought so much improvement needed to be done, but now we're actually trying to keep his services! PT went pretty well. he still tested with a 3 month delay in most areas, but i think that's pretty good! he's crawling everywhere... he's able to transition to sitting from laying and laying to sitting. he's propping himself up on his knees and attempting to reach up now. he really enjoys being upright, but SB clinic has been giving us the run around with getting his AFO's and a stander. so, when we return to clinic in two weeks, i'm READY. everyone that sees him feels he's ready for some equipment, and i will be furious if they say they want him to do something else before he has it. PT will be kept weekly, so i'm happy with that. they're bringing in the speech therapist, but i still haven't heard from her to set anything up yet. i got a call from his coordinator on tuesday and she said they'd be doing speech therapy weekly.

since then, justin has said "DADA!" he's babbling much more now than he was before. we've thought he's said more than just dada, but i don't wanna get my hopes up. either way, i think it's great he's doing it on his own and now that we have speech therapy coming in, it will be even better.

madi starts preschool next month. i'm so excited, but sooo nervous. she's so independent and wants to do everything on her own. she listens well in a new environment, but i'm afraid once she gets comfortable, it'll wear off and she'll be back to trying to do her own thing. it will be so good though for her to be around kids her own age. i'm excited for her to bring home crafts and things... it will be so cute!

my dad was in the hospital this past week and he has to get surgery. i'm not exactly sure what the name of the surgery/procedure is, but the second option is for him to have a pacemaker put in. either way, i'm hoping he feels better. he went to the er on monday afternoon and they kept him overnight to monitor him. he was able to come home tuesday, then i suppose he'll get a monitor for a few days and could have surgery by the end of next week.


here are some of justin's first birthday pictures, as promised!! (there are also more on my facebook page, if you're interested).

^getting used to the cake..^loving the cake...

^justin's smash cake!

^the party cake...

^justin with his papaw!^the aftermath!

^madi & gram
^my lil athlete!
^he's ONE!!
^closeup. :)
^looks even better in black and white.

(*all of our professional pictures were done at www.portraitinnovations.com
and i highly recommend them to anyone. they have great deals!)