Rachel: thumb, skiing, reading

So our girls are growing and things around here are shaking!
All is well and we are thankful for what we have.

Thumb
Rachel stopped sucking her thumb!  We worked with an awesome SLP who helped us through the process.  It was a really big deal and took a lot of work on Rachel's end.  Actually, it took a lot of work on everyone's end.  We weren't sure if we wanted to pursue intervention or not, but we decided that it would be best for Rachel's teeth/mouth to stop.

Rachel gets her nails painted as a reward during her stop-thumb-sucking-program.

On Feb 1, we had a big party to celebrate 60 days of no thumb sucking.  She hasn't sucked it since and she seems so grown up.  At her party, she earned a big reward of a 'pet' dog (battery operated stuffed animal that looks pretty real from Nana), that she named 'Fishy'.



















Note - if you want an interesting TSA experience, try flying with a pretend dog in your carry on luggage internationally.


Skiing
Rachel has done the Breck Bombers program for 7 Sundays this year.  She and a group of other 5 year olds had the same instructor throughout, and she loved it.  She skied from 8:30-3:30 and had a blast.  She can independently ski greens and blues, loves going on small park obstacles and in/out of trees, and has even done a few ski races!  Big skills this round were learning to 'hockey stop' to either side and 'side slipping' to either side.  I think her favorite part was eating lunch in the lodge restaurant, where she got to eat things like cheeseburgers and french fries.


Reading

Rachel continues to learn to read.  In this video, she reads a new book she's never seen for the first time and figures out some new words.  It's an amazing thing to watch as a parent, and it's really fun.  It makes us realize how cool reading is, and how difficult the English language is.  Rachel is pretty hard on herself and can get very frustrated, but overall we are very impressed.



Our girl Rachel is really growing up!!