Emily's Prayers

Probably about two weeks ago Emily suddenly stared to deeply love and desire prayer. We had not been forcing her to pray out loud figuring it would develop on its own time. Emily is a wild, energetic, enthusiastic little girl with a sparkle in everything she does. But she is also very shy and gets embarrassed very easily. I think this is why praying out loud has been a slow development for her.

But as I was saying, about two weeks ago Emily suddenly decided she could pray! (Perhaps it was after memorizing the verse, "God is my helper, I will not be afraid"?) Her first real prayer had both Henry & I in tears, "My Dear Jesus, Thank you for the food, thank you for the playground, thank you for the round round slide, thank you for my mommy and daddy, thank you for my sister, thank you for the food, thank you for my family. Amen" All this with her eyes squeezed tightly shut (we've actually never made the girls close their eyes during prayer time, but they've picked it up at Sunday School I think). Since this first prayer of hers, she's enjoyed praying. She's stopped during her play to pray. She's prayed for different family members. Some days her prayers are full of "thank you's" and other days she's asking for help for different people. All I know have touched God's heart as they have touched ours.

I can tell though, that she is really getting comfortable in her praying. Last night she prayed, "Dear Jesus, Thank you for all these things and all my stuff. Amen" :)

Little Katie

We have discovered a few things about our non-verbal Katie. Nothing to do with her being non-verbal, but interesting all the same! Katie is a non-talking 2 year old who potty trained in record time, knows her shapes, and today I just discovered also knows her colors! She is quite a remarkable little girl. Although she doesn't talk, she is constantly observing everything going on (something her Mommy could learn from! :)

Oh and Emily has something she wants to say, here she is:
emily aAmy HEnnry KAtie hgytjrfyr4hfrg4fhrjfyhrfnhrbhefgnrefbgd

Katie's Speech Therapy

Ok, before it is two months and no update, I had better squeeze one in! (I can't believe I last posted on December 15th! That's terrible!)

Katie is now in speech therapy...or we are in speech therapy! Henry & I are taking classes to learn how to help teach Katie to talk! There are 4 classes that Henry & I take and 2 meetings with Katie and us with the speech therapist. Katie is officially a "late talker" which basically means her receptive language is quite high while her expressive language is quite low for her age. She understands everything - in fact she basically potty trained herself in 3 days!
So at home we are working with Katie throughout the day simplifying our language, giving her key words, even using sign language to help. During the next 4-6 weeks we should see quite a lot of progress. If we do not, then this would indicate something else is going on. It is possible there is also a oral something component...you would think I would remember what the "something" should be! Basically it would be that her mouth muscles are developed fine, but there's some connection between her brain and her mouth that needs "therapy". It would mean that over the next 2-3 years Katie would need quite extensive speech therapy. Pray that we would start to see some progress! Right now, 2 weeks into it, Katie has maybe one more word - which would bring her grand total of words up to 2!