Westley Alexander DeBeikes

James has a new cousin! Westley Alexander DeBeikes was born January 26th, 2012 at 5 lbs 14 oz. At about 3:30 Thursday morning, I got a call from Elaina saying that her water had just broke. Her and Danny dropped Daniel off about 30 minutes later and off they went to the hospital! Elaina delivered Westley about 6 hours later! As soon as I heard, I told Daniel he was a big brother and this was his reaction.

The next day I went to visit them at the hospital and we got a pic of the girls!

James Update

When we went to James's 2-Year appointment, our pediatrician recommended putting James into speech therapy through a company called Kids on the Move. It's a state-funded program, where we as a family only pay about 20$ a month, and with some families it's actually free. We set up the at-home evaluation a couple of weeks ago and the speech therapist and referral specialist came and basically had a 2.5 hour play date with James. It was so interesting to watch him interact with them - he absolutely loved all of the attention and the games they played with him. I was worried about him not showing them what he actually can and can't say/do yet, but he did really well. They test him on lots of different aspects of communication, and if he falls at "moderate delay" or below, he qualifies for the program. After the tests, they found him to have only a mild delay in all categories, but the speech therapist still felt that he needed speech therapy despite what the tests showed, so by writing her own personal clinical review, he can still be enrolled in the program. They think that because of all his ear infections, a lot of what he was hearing were underwater sounds, which is why some of his sounds still sound like he's under water. That plus his cataract problem, which prevented him from seeing us form our words clearly, is probably why he's still not speaking clearly at all.

The speech therapist will come twice a month to work with him, although it's more of a parent education class. Since I'm with him all day, I'll know what tools and activities to use with him. What I love about this entire program is that it isn't just about speech. They will be sending out a nurse next week to do an entire physical screening on him, while focusing on his sense of hearing. This program also offers specialists on behavior and eating habits. If I wanted to, they would actually come to my house to observe James during the times of day I'm concerned about. I can also have unlimited access to their library in Orem where I can check out toys and other activities that focus on certain skills. For now, I'm going to enroll us in a "Positive Discipline" class. I'm really excited about finding ways to help shape James's behavior around other kids, especially for when Lily arrives!

Super excited to get the classes going and see what the future holds!

Visiting Oregon

A few days after Christmas, James and I flew to Oregon to visit my parents and see their newly renovated house! They spent about six months renovating, and their house looks fantastic!!! Nearly every single room was changed somewhat, but my favorite rooms are now the kitchen and my parents' bathroom. I took a few baths in my mom's claw-foot tub :) It was so much fun spending almost two weeks with my parents, Cassandra and Sam, Chris and Mal and their 3 kids, and Marc and Britni and their 3 kids. Chris wasn't supposed to come because of his foot surgery and work, but he ended up being able to get time off, and he surprised all of us the 2nd night we were there. Typical Chris behavior!

We enjoyed the unusually sunny weather in Oregon! It wasn't nearly as cold as we were expecting. New Year's Eve was a beautiful day, and we started it off with a Christmas present exchange between all of the siblings.


Afterwards we enjoyed all of the homemade cooking. We had shrimp, oysters, and crab. It was AMAZING. We topped it off with homemade eggnog and bananas foster. We ended the night playing Mexican Train.


We celebrated "The Chris'" Birthdays while there. For Chris W., we celebrated by going to Thai Food (a rare occurrence in my life nowadays!) and for my Chris we had a spaghetti cook-off! Mom's spaghetti vs. Chris W.'s spaghetti. Chris D. was diplomatic and gave equal points to both. :) We had a great night and everyone enjoyed giving presents to the birthday boys.


The rest of our time in Oregon was spent visiting family and enjoying watching the cousins play together.



Besides all of us getting sick the last few days we were there, we had a fantastic time and loved spending time with the family in the new house!