19 Months Old

Pardon the huge mess in the background

Hiding spot #1

The aerial view

Brooklyn with her new see-saw from the Basses

Loving Minnie and Mickey

A picture that includes Brooklyn

My precious Nana and PawPaw

Things are hectic as usual in the Russell household.  Tayden and Brooklyn turned 19 months old yesterday!!!  Tim has settled into his new job and the twins and I have settled into our new nightly routine.  We love the weekends when we can all hang out together!!!  The twins do new things every day it seems!  They are both talking more and more.  Tayden tries to repeat so much of what we say and it comes out so cute.  He loves to throw out random letters - usually vowels.  We will be in the car and he will saw E-I-B.  He is starting to say more of them in the correct order.  Tonight he was watching Sesame Street and starting singing E-I-E-I-O.  He loves to find secret hiding spots.  Brooklyn is perfecting her acrobat skills.  She has figured out how to climb into the window which she tries to do quite frequently.  She loves to draw on her Magna Doodle and has drawn somethings that look like actual pictures.  They both love singing and I have introduced them to "Baby" by Justin Bieber.  They love the chorus and will sing, "Baby, Baby, Baby."  I snap when we sing and they try to as well.  It is hilarious to watch! 

Brooklyn was evaluated for speech today through ECI and did not qualify, because her verbal score was too high.  She did qualify in a few other areas which Tim and I did not exactly agree with.  We talked about it a lot this afternoon and we are going to have them both evaluated by Our Childrens' House at Baylor Grapevine for a second opinion.  We have greatly appreciated all of the help ECI has provided, but their assessment tools are not the most accurate - for example, they asked Brooklyn to throw the ball.  She didn't throw it within the "structured assessment time," but did throw it later - but it didn't count.  The old assessment included parent feedback and the new assessment does not.  I spoke to the evaluator on the phone today and she told me that the results of the test are usually not super accurate, but it is the state required assessment tool.  Children will do many things with their parents or family members that they won't do for strangers, and it is counted against them.  We know that Tayden will not qualify for speech if Brooklyn didn't and that is good news.  We just want to get this second evaluation of their developmental progress to have a comparison. 

We hope everyone has a great week!