new family pics

Leslie's brother, Lane Davis--you can see some of his work at lanedavisphotography.com --took some pics of us at the Children's Park in Tyler. I thought they turned out so great. These are just a few of my favorites. I love the way he can kind of capture the kids little looks and their special little faces.
Elle and I...we haven't had a good mother/ daughter pic in a while. I still have this one picture of my mother and I that I just love when I was about this age. Hopefully she will love this one as she grows up...not that we won't have more...and hopefully I can age well!

Easton is going to school

In November--Easton went through testing at Tyler ISD to determine whether or not he would need to continue the speech and occupational therapy services that he has been receiving the past few years with Early Childhood Services. It was a really humbling experience, as this is what I do for a living and now it was my child going through the process. A few times--it was really almost too much. At one point, during the initial testing, Jason stopped the lady and asked, "does this mean he will be in Special Ed?" I looked at him with this crazy look on my face because we get that question all the time and now here was my husband asking it...I answered, "yes, baby...he needs support and this is where he gets it". Jason just kept saying, "Easton doesn't need Special Ed". I thought we were going to have to stop the meeting. All in all, it was a great experience and Easton is going to get the help he needs and will hopefully be able to be dismissed before he starts kindergarten in a few years.

We also decided to start him at a little Pre-K a few days per week. In Tyler, the waiting lists for all of the good ones are so long...so God was so good when Easton got in to the one we wanted fairly quickly. He is now going twice a week and LOVES it! He has a few friends from church in his class and the school is so great with all of his allergies. It is a rich language based program, which is what he really needs and then he will go twice per week to speech therapy at the Elementary School that Elle goes to in Tyler (which is one of the campuses that I work on). God has blessed us in so many ways here in Tyler--always guiding us and pointing us in the right direction.

Need a new hobby

So, I guess gymnastics is not going to be a Rinewalt Family hobby...we have Easton in it right now and he is SO coordinated that we felt like this would be a good outlet for him to enjoy himself while getting some structured play as well. WELL--they have had to hire another teacher in the group of 4--as almost a one on one aide for Easton to keep him sitting down with the group. He is not doing anything awful--and he participates well when it is his turn...but then when he is supposed to be waiting his turn, he runs around like a chicken with his head cut off and the teachers cannot even catch him! We probably hear Easton's name over 100 times during each hour lesson--"Easton come back here", "Easton get off of that", "Easton, no sir"...so at this point-we are looking for another hobby for him. He can do all of the things the kids in the class are working on right now, so mastery of skills is not really an issue--but I want him to learn how to listen to random nonstructured teachers...because he does not have any issues like this at his little school, or obviously with me or Jason.

Any ideas about what we could put him in? We put Elle in Soccer Tots when she was this age, but it is now a bar in Tyler, so that is not an option...He will be 3 in December...

So many questions...

For over a year, Elle has been asking questions about life and death and why God allows people to die. We have had MANY a talk about how amazing God is and how we may never understand His plan--but that His Word tells us there always is one. She has worked through so many workbooks and Children Bibles that I can hardly count at this point...to help her to understand better just that Jesus came and died on the cross so that we don't have to...
Don't even get me started on the questions that came up when we started reading about the consequences of sin!! She was so concerned forever that if she talked back to me that the consequence just might be death...WOW!
She appears to really understand the ABC's at this point and to truly love the Lord. I feel like I spent a lot of time trying to convince her to wait and that maybe she wasn't ready to ask the Lord into her heart and then I realized--who is?? Do any of us know Him as well as we can or will? Aren't we all working towards a daily closer walk with God and it isn't like we do anything to deserve it!? I feel like this experience with Elle has really broken that down for me. So--she has asked Jesus to come and live in her heart and she is excited about it. We are being patient about scheduling her baptism and continuing to learn more and talk as much as we can about His love and how honestly it is all about what He did and daily does for her--not anything that she can do to earn His love--I just want her to GET THAT!
How great is it that we as parents get to watch as the Lord molds our children and actually comes into their heart?? Such an amazing gift! Thank you for that Lord!!

Elle's new speech impairment

Okay, so its not really a speech impairment...she has started talking like a friend of hers that is not able to say her r's and another friend of hers that is not able to say her l's...and that really make for a child that sound like she has a real issue! The other day, she had to use the Sassy Bag--and read "Honor your Father and Mother..." and it came out something like.. "Hona yau Fathau and Mathau..." I am not kidding--it is histerical! Especially for a child that has never had an articulation problem in her life!! And yes, Easton has lots of issues with it--but not with those two letters! So--I keep telling her that she is really going to confuse him!!! She is going to need some therapy in a few years!

:)

Am I getting old?

Elle started FIRST grade on Monday! It really blows my mind that she is getting so big! We have seen a few of her friends that she went to preschool with at Green Acres that are just starting kindergarten and she asked me the other day why they were not in first grade with her...I started wondering if we should have held her back too--but I honestly feel like we made the right decision for Elle...she was MORE than ready to start school and has loved it and just soaked it up! She had a wonderful teacher last year and I love her teacher this year (I am blessed to work in her school a few days a week--and know the best teachers...but the first grade team is packed with them--so we couldn't go wrong!) She is so fun right now--from changing her clothes 15 times a day to laughing at the silliest things...I love that she is able to play dress up and be nurturing, but then go outside and roll around in the dirt...

She is such a great kid!

Easton officially "went on the potty"!!

Man, those of you that have spoken to me about potty training Easton know that I finally threw up my hands in frustration--just giving up and hoping by the time he goes to kindergarten, he would be out of diapers! Well, he finally went tee tee and poo poo on the potty today! We had a very busy weekend this weekend and I left Elle with my parents after being in Houston with my mom and dad...I was thinking that if I could just have Easton all to myself, maybe I could tackle this potty thing!

Praise the Lord it didn't take long this morning--my prayers were answered first thing!! I think I was so excited when he actually went that he couldn't help but yell and scream! He is so my child as far as enthusiasm goes...so it is fun to do things like this with him--he gets so over the top excited! After he went twice this morning, we ran to the dollar store and picked out some stickers and some prizes he can earn with the stickers...

He has done a little dance everytime--although we did have an accident or two today--I am optimistic that we are on our way to being trained. I will keep you informed...but I cannot tell you how much I dread this part of the development of children! This is my least favorite part! Just the potty training...NOTHING else! But, I would love it if just one day, they said "I go potty"--and I never really had to do anything--I would LOVE that! BUT--they don't--so I train on...