Over the River and Through the Woods......

well, it is more like over the bridges and through the construction zones to grandmother's house we go. This week Jared and Allison are blessed to be able to spend the week with Grandpa and Grandma Lemponen in Cleveland. It will be a very special memory making week for them.

Ready to Go.

And they are off.

Pancake Thief

Allison learned the hard way, don't leave your pancakes in the reach of Jordan. She came back to find this........

Last Day of School!!

Jared with his 1st grade teachers

Allison with her teacher

Waiting for the bus. Jared is wearing the same shirt he wore the 1st day of school.

Waiting for school to start

Today was Jared and Allison's last day of school. They each had a great year of learning and growth.

Jared completed 1st grade, reading and writing at grade level. He made many friends and enjoyed many fun activities. He learned how to count money, tell time and started learning basic addition and subtraction facts. He studied fairy tales and wrote his own story. He also did a research project on the chicken, who knew there was so much to learn about that animal. As a way of finishing up the unit on animals, they went to the Columbus Zoo. He enjoyed a day at the park playing with his friends. Today, his class enjoyed snow cones, popcorn and cupcakes. We are so pleased with how Jared worked hard and always did his best. Now it is onto 2nd grade, where we are sure Jared will continue to shine.

Allison completed K, reading and writing at grade level. She enjoyed her class and especially her teacher. Allison enjoyed being the Superstar once a month, where she was able to share with her class items she brought from home. In May, she was able to study how baby chicks hatch and was even able to watch some in her class. Today, she had a beach party complete with beach balls, hula hoops and ice cream. Her teacher told me today, that Allison should do very well in 1st grade.

We just got Allison's IEP report today(6-5-09) and I thought I would post a couple of the comments that her SLP and HI teacher made.

Allison does great answering basic wh questions after a story.

Allsion continues to learn new words quickly and retains what she learns. She retains vocabulary with 80-100% accuracy.

During classroom observations, Allison is often more attentive than her hearing peers and is often the first to follow complex oral directions.( That's my girl, always has to be first)

Allison is consistently in an ideal position for viewing in her classroom observations.

When we get comments like these, we know all the driving to mappings, speech therapy and such was worth it.

Way to Go, Jared and Allison!!

This and That

This post is more for me, so I can have a written account of the cute things my kids do and say. Some day when I have some time(ummmm, Jordan will graduate when?) I will write it down in their memory books. But, I hope you enjoy it also.

Allison was riding in the car with my friend's daughter, Abbi,who had a hole in her sock, Allison looked at it and wanted to know why her socks were broken.

Here are some of the attempts Jordan has made in saying words

mymote=remote. Now we don't know if he is saying that it belongs to him or if this is what he calls the remote.

sissy= his sister, Allison

bro bro= his brother, Jared

illow=pillow

oudside=outside

no night night= well, no explanation needed

dog, go woof woof, right there( pretty good for a 20 month old, don't you think)

Jordan's newest phrase: packpack=backpack

Graduation Day

Ok, so it is not "the graduation day" for Jared, but it is pretty special. Today Jared graduated from the Reading Recovery program at his school.

We are so pleased with how far Jared has come this year with his reading and writing. At the start of school he was a bit behind in both areas. As of today, he is at grade level in both reading and writing.

Last night, Jared read a 328 word book and is writing sentences such as: He has a Dad and a Mom and a sister, Allison and a brother Jordan.

He got a book and a certificate to mark the occasion. WAY TO GO, Jared!!

Jared turns 8

Happy Birthday Jared!! You are a blessing in our lives and we can't imagine life without you.

Allison's Mapping

So, we had another mapping today at Children's. I spoke to her audiologist about the fact that Bill and I were not very pleased with the progress she has been making since her implant surgery. It has been a year since she got her 2nd implant and it is almost like she never got it. She willingly wears both, but if we take out the old one, she is not able to hear with her new one, not even a little bit. After talking and sharing what has been happening, Allison got down to work listening to some beeps in the room. Her audiologist made some major adjustments to her map and that really seemed to help. Off to the booth Allison went to check out the new programs. She was able to hear the beeps at 25 dB and the Ling Sounds at 30-35dB, that is a great improvement over her last audiogram where she was hearing at 45-50dB.
Allison has some homework to do, she is suppose to wear her new implant alone for 30-45 min a day. We really need to wake up this ear. Let's hope this is a start to Allison really hearing in both ears. We will keep you posted on her progress.