As of Today

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a little behind on blogging. :-/ Life has been nothing but a whirlwind of craziness around here. Usually when I get this far behind, I back-date posts. I will probably still do that, but for now, I thought I'd just write a post about what is currently happening in our lives.

As of today:

James
*'s drumline has earned Superiors and Division 1 ratings at all their full band competitions!

*Only has three weeks left in marching season and we will get (most) of our Friday nights and Saturday days back.

*Is still taking two online classes and making heroic effort to get the work done in addition to everything else he has going on.

Laura
*is going to DC this weekend for a linguistics conference. Super excited about the opportunity, but rather sad to be leaving my boys. One of my professors knows one of the sociolinguists from Galluadet University who will be there, so I am looking forward to all the networking!

*I have passed my first Phonology test (super hard subject for me!) - thanks for all the prayers and love. I think I might actually survive this class.

*I have also narrowed down the topic for my thesis and am doing preliminary research to see if it will work out. I have two classes left next semester and the thesis and then I am DONE!

*P.S. - James and I have both sworn we will never try to take classes during marching season again!

Ian
*Can accurately identify and say about 15 letters the first time he sees them without any prompting. J, U, I, N, T, C, Y, O, B, D, E, Z, T, & W are on the list right now. I find this kind of funny since he doesn't have 15 words that he says clearly enough for perfect strangers to understand.

*Knows all his body parts, including things like "elbow" and "bottom". This is huge because three months ago, he didn't know any of them! It is amazing what taking him off of dairy has done for his speech.

*Also has apple, coconut, and peanuts on the list of allergies. So far we are coping well, although I still miss ingredient lists sometimes and give him something he is allergic to. Sigh. Up until this past Friday, we had two allergy free weeks though and that was a major milestone for us!

*Is still having issues with pushing other children, trying to get them to play with him. We are working with an occupational therapist to try and deal with some of these sensory issues. More on that in another post. :-)

*Is incredibly sweet and loving and truly enjoying this exploratory stage of two year old life!

This is one of my favorite pictures of him from this month - he was out playing in the rain with his umbrella.