Happy Birthday, Uncle Todd!!

Happy Birthday, Uncle Todd!! We hope you have a fantastic day and we can't wait to celebrate with you this weekend. Gigi and Andrew have been hard at work planning your birthday party :)

Pool Time in our Backyard

We were able to finally have a day this weekend to enjoy some fun in our backyard and get some water in the kids' inflatable pool!! Andrew was having a great time while Mom & Dad were working in the yard and Nathan was down for his afternoon nap :)


Testing out the slide.


Enjoying the water.

All smiles :)

Marine Week in St. Louis

This week the City of St. Louis partnered with the U.S. Marine Corps to showcase the unique characteristics of America's Corps through a ton of displays, functions and special events. Today, Uncle Todd and Aunt Laura took Andrew downtown to see what it was all about. Andrew had a GREAT time and didn't stop talking about the day all week long. THANKS Uncle Todd and Aunt Laura for occupying Andrew while Nathan had two therapy sessions this morning (AND for all of the great pics)!!


Honoring the Corps' mission and the sacrifices that have been made around the world to protect our freedom and way of life...


Uncle Todd in uniform and Andrew touching the Arch.


Checking out an aircraft (I am not going to act like I know what kind it is)



Checking out the HIGH river - can't cross the yellow tape!!

Checking out some sort of artillery.

Aiming a .50 cal sniper rifle...

... and it didn't take long for Andrew to do it himself - SCARY!!

Aunt Laura and Andrew leaving another aircraft (again, don't know what kind).

Our beautiful Gateway to the Midwest!!

Happy Father's Day!!

We had a wonderful Father's Day weekend celebrating with our family. Saturday we spent the afternoon at my brother's house and enjoyed a great dinner at a local Mexican restaurant and then ice cream for dessert. Sunday, we spent the day relaxing just the four of us (Steve's Dad was out of town). We spent the afternoon at our neighborhood pool and were outside for pretty much the entire day. The boys LOVED it, but were wiped out by the end of the day.

We would like to especially wish Daddy, PaPa and Pops a very happy Father's Day!! We are all so blessed with the men in our lives. We love you!!

Cheers!!

Welcome, William Thomas Thach!!

Congratulations Nic, Christy and big sister Addison on the birth of William Thomas!! We are so happy for you and are glad the transition to a family of FOUR is going so well.

William Thomas Thach.


All the girls with Christy and her kiddos!!

The Thach Family (of four)!!

Nathan's Annual IFSP

We met this afternoon with our new First Steps' coordinator and team of Nathan's therapists. We started off the meeting going over the results of Nathan's PLS (Preschool Language Scale) completed by St. Joseph's Institute for the Deaf. The results didn't show or reveal anything really new. Nathan scored in the range of 1-3 years of age, which is pretty broad, but consistent with his age. This basically just gives us a baseline to compare Nathan to here on forward.

All of Nathan's therapy is basically remaining the same with the addition of a Speech Pathologist. Nathan is still behind with his communication and we feel that this may help us close any loops we may be missing. I can't believe I managed to find room in our schedule for yet another therapist, but we are trying to give Nathan everything we absolutely can in order to get over his hurdles.

We also are ordering Nathan a WALKER!! That's right, we are working on getting Nathan to stand up with support and eventually taking some steps. It's definitely a long-term goal, but Nathan continues to push forward and we keep challenging him. Nathan still tires pretty easily, but he is working so hard and we hope his endurance just continues to increase.

Our little guy is also ready for new orthotics again. He is growing like a weed and we need to keep his equipment fit for him.

At this meeting, we also discussed our transition out of First Steps - this happens on Nathan's third birthday - February 10th. We have this official meeting scheduled in a few weeks where we will talk with the school district about our options. We are more than anxious and nervous for this transition. We just want the very best for Nathan and don't know exactly where/what will be the best fit for him. I know we will make the right decision in the end, but talk about STRESS!! We have a lot to look forward to and are hopeful for the future :)

Down by the Beach

Today was the first day of another summer camp for Andrew. Parkway Early Childhood Center offered week-long camps with different themes for Stepping Into Summer Fun. Andrew picked Down by the Beach and just loved it!! The first day was a bit hard at drop-off, but after that Andrew ran into the classroom each day to hang up his backpack and start playing. They focused the days around art, sensory, science, games, stories and music. The amount of art projects Andrew brought home was amazing - numerous fish, a sand castle, sea horse, lobster, coral reef, dolphin, sand dollar, ornament, umbrella, jelly fish...the list keeps going!!

Funny Pics

Here are some cute pics of the boys messing around.


Andrew trying out his Toy Story goggles from Gigi.


Stylin' in Daddy's sunglasses.

This morning the boys woke up to their inflatable pool all ready to go!! THANKS Uncle Todd and Aunt Laura - we can't wait to get some water in it!!

Nathan hanging out by the slide :)

Preschool Language Scale

Today Nathan was evaluated on the Preschool Language Scale to get a baseline of his communication skills and behaviors. It was mostly driven by parent interview and a little bit of play and interaction with Nathan. We will get the results at Nathan's annual IFSP meeting in a few weeks. We are hoping it gives us something to work on and continue our push forward for even more achievement. At a minimum, it will at least be a standardized result that we can then track Nathan against.

All of these evaluations are so difficult especially when we know Nathan is behind his peers to begin with. When you are faced with question after question that the answer is, "No, Nathan does not do that," it starts to wear on you. Overall, the assessment wasn't too bad - just another hump in our journey.