Winter in Utah

It has been cold, cold, cold. Work has been busy lately too with so many meetings, paperwork, scheduling on top of therapy. But of course that's all part of the job, even though the best part is the actual therapy. Today was a fun day. A paraeducator, Melody, who helps me has made a couple hundred speech bucks. Each of the students (not the preschoolers, they're a bit young) gets one speech buck for coming on time to speech. They also can receive one for completing and retuning their homework. At the end of the month, they can use their "money" to buy from the Speech and Language Store!! Yipee. They can buy marbles, small erasers, tiny pieces of chocolate, jumping frogs, chinese finger traps, mini frisbees, mini candy bars, etc. It is kind of fun. It seems that this system has been the most motivational. Kids were getting bored of the stickers. One even said, "no thanks," last week! I laughed and knew the stickers had to be done away with! Funny. The kids at school are great to work with. They are all making progress.

What else has been happening? I learned a good lesson on bargaining last week. It is worth it! Ask for discounts and deals, and then bat your eyes girls!!! Getting the Nissan an oil change, manual transmission fluid change, tires rotated, etc looked to be pretty expensive. But just asking to have discounts sure did the charm, and then pulling out my nifty Jiffy Lube VIP card for an additional 15% discount was AWESOME. Seriously, you can save a lot of money by just asking.

A Kenmore sewing machine was a big present for Christmas this year. Yes, I am a sewer now. The last quilt I made was in high school, for one of the 20 hour Young Woman Medallion projects. Mom helped me make a couple dresses, skirts, blouses, then too. This week I got all the fabric to make a quilt. It has black and white prints, with different patterns along with blue prints. It is going to be great. The only setback I have had was a few days ago, when I was ready to thread the bobbin, I realized I'm missing the accessories pack, which has the parts to help you work the machine. It'll come in the mail.....

Finally, other exciting things going on are the two babies on the way in the family. My sister-in-law is having a C-section this weekend, and my sister Kelsey is already 18 weeks along with her first. It is an exciting time.

Here are some other pictures of the happenings here:




We built a snow fort. There are still remnants of this fort six weeks later. Yes, this is basically the same photo!


Giving Vance a haircut. Kelsey looks happy, I'm interested, and Vance frightened, and rightly so when I had the scissors! In the end, it was a VERY good haircut.



Also, two weeks ago my family and I met in Orlando, Florida. We spent the entire week at the DisneyWorld parks (Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, and Epcot. The 50-60 degree weather was nice too. It was a fun experience. We stayed in a nice condo in Orlando on some water, went out to some nice restaurants in the evening, slept well, etc. Could you ask for a better vacation? Pictures will come soon.

Update

Wisconsin must have gotten more snow in December in nearly 100 years. Snow covered our mailbox by at least an entire foot the 2.5 weeks of being home. Of the three Sundays I was in Oshkosh, church was cancelled twice, ironically not due to the amount of snow, but because of the extremely cold and icy road conditions. Mom made home beautiful with her nativities, the Christmas tree, wreaths around all the windows, and other decorations. Her cooking and baking was top notch as usual. Someday I'd like to be just like her.

There was plenty of time to participate in all the fun winter/family activities like sledding, carving a cave inside of a huge pile of snow, making snow angels, playing lots of Wii, board games, making caramels (sadly, my first try was not edible), making and decorating gingerbread houses, shopping, sewing, etc. The Kindt family is growing as well! We've got two more neices and nephews coming this month and in July! Yay! It is amazing to see these miracles...

There is no place like home

Tomorrow I am going home for Christmas. It has been something I have been waiting for since...last year. I leave at 1:30 pm in Salt Lake and arrive at 7:35 pm in Green Bay, Wisconsin. And no, I am not excited. It'll be nice to give everyone a hug, check out the changes mom has made to the house and see all the decorations, then climb into bed between my mom and dad for a few minutes to tease them (I've done it for years), then maybe turn on the gas fireplace and gaze at the Christmas tree with Ruth Ann and Peter for a few minutes and chat (that's if they find that as fun as I do:) I have to admit I am a softy for thecheesy stuff in life, and Christmas is a perfect time for lots of cheese.

Here are some pictures from ONE YEAR AGO. Time has passed quickly!

Celebrating the Birth and Life of Jesus Christ

As the Christmas season has been approaching, I have been reflecting on the birth and life of the Savior. I know that Heavenly Father sent his son Jesus Christ to the earth, to teach us by example how to return to Him. Because of this great sacrifice, seen in Christ's life, the Garden of Gethsemane, and on the cross, we are able to be able to be return to our Heavenly Father.

THANKSGIVING IN WASHINGTON

Above is the Hawkins family, whom I met and had THANKSGIVING with. We had so much fun! They were celebrating their dad's birthday by getting him (but sounds like it was more for the kids:) a Wii. During the nights we slept by the fire inside the yurt and had yummy extravagant meals during our stay.



We stayed in this "yurt" in central Washington on some forested land they own. Have you ever heard of a yurt? It was such an outdoorsy thing to do and enjoyable!



Hawley taught me how to ride a 100cc motorcycle. After a couple falls and killing it a few times, I got the hang of it. It was VERY cold that day. I remember our fingers feeling numb when this picture was taken. Hawley was so patient. When I had a hard time starting it on my own, I asked Hawley if her 8, 12, and 14 year old sisters could start and drive these motorcycles, and she just smiled and said yes. That was really funny. It sure provided the motivation to learn quickly!

I love my job

Most days at work are pretty routine with having kids come into my room, teaching a sound or language concept, and then various kinds of practice. Some days my phone rings and rings, and there is so much paperwork and mail to deal with on top of therapy. Right now I have EIGHT referrals!!!! I would say each referral can take between 2-5 hours from the complete process of referral to placement. It is a bit unusual to have this many referrals this time of the school year. This will add to the 52 children I work with one, two, or three times each week. Although it is a lot of work, I can say I LOVE working with each of them, even with the tough ones.

Today I have been on cloud nine. Four kids have made RAPID progress in the last month (much faster than usual). For example, a kindergartner started one month ago and is now able to speak in conversation with /k,g,t,d,sh,f,v,p,sp,st,sw,tr,kl,kr,bl,dr,fl,fr/ and maybe some others...those are just the sounds and sound blends I remember him making correctly today while just chatting away) I was just taking data nearly the whole therapy session to see where he was at...and barely had time for therapy! Just 6 weeks ago he would have said ALL of these sounds incorrectly. It is so satisfying to see him sounding better and have his teacher and parents understand him. They are so happy! I love the smiles on their faces, how they want to learn, and the satisfaction felt when they meet their goals. Here is what it all looks like:

Child's Progress= HAPPY TEACHER + HAPPY PARENTS + HAPPY SPEECH THERAPIST + HAPPY CHILD

If it were legal, I would post lots of pictures of the sweet children I work with. But I do not want to get sued:) I value my job more than that.

Stuck on an Escalator

This is a second video that is worth viewing. It is about one minute long. I think many of us are like the people on the escalator, who when something goes wrong, have a hard time taking responsibility and changing. It is funny, funny, funny...