Emma's speech

In April of this year we started to have a speech therapist come to work with Emma to improve her speech. We noticed that Sophie was saying a lot more words than Emma was. In fact Emma wasn't really saying anything. She mainly just giggled and made grunting noises. We thought that it might be that the girls are twins and Sophie was doing the talking for both of them but thought it wouldn't hurt to have someone test her.
They came over and asked a lot of questions and used special toys to test her speech and other things like motor skills, language, and social skills. She passed with flying colors in everything but receptive language and expressive language. She was testing about 6 months behind where she should be.
The therapist comes twice a month and has lots of fun toys and things that help her speech along. Emma's therapist's name is Becky. All the kids LOVE her. They are always waiting at the window when she comes over. Sometimes I think that the kids all swarm her a little too much when she is here and hope that Emma is getting all the time that she needs. I try to hold Ethan and Sophie back as much as I can. LOL.
I have noticed that she says a ton more words and is even putting together 3 word sentence's.  I am so proud of her and just love her so much. I am happy that we decided to do some therapy with her. She loves to have Becky come over and I can tell it is helping her so much.
In September the did some standardized testing she passed in all of the areas!! We are so proud of her and sad to know that Becky is not going to be coming to visit us anymore. I am thankful for her and all that she has done for Emma. In the end I think she may have just not been ready to start chatting just yet.
WE love our little Emma bean so much and are so blessed to have her in our live.

LOVE you Emma

My sister

My sister is honestly one of the most loving and caring person I know. She has a huge heart and always makes sure everyone is happy. She is BEAUTIFUL and funny. She loves kids and sure knows how to make them smile. She is so very thoughtful and I know she will always be there for me. I just cant say enough good things about her. She really is irreplaceable. I am so blessed to have a wonderful sister like her! Im sure you are all JEALOUS!! I would be!!

 She just turned 29! What? "Why are you so OOooOOOLLLLLlllDDDD!" Hahaha ... inside joke. Anyways me the kids and my mom went to Francesco's for Lunch on her birthday day. It was fun to just relax ( as much as you can with three kids) and enjoy our lunch. Garlic Cheese pizza!!! YUmmmmmmm!!

 This...sadly....is the best pic I got of my sis and the kids. Getting all of the kids to look and smile is virtually impossible. LOL

Sunday we celebrated her birthday at my moms house. We had some yummy food, chatted about what has been going on our lives, and did cake and presents...OF COURSE!!

 Grandpa reading a book to Emma.....so cute!

 Me and MY SIS!! Love you so much Jess!! Thank you for being such a great sister! I will LOVE you forever!! I hope you had a great birthday this year!

Happy Birthday JESS!!

Utah State Fair

Ohhh the fun of a Fair. I love the food, rides, animals and you can't forget people watching! We had a great time wandering around looking at all the animals. Ethan rode a few rides. We ate a yummy funnel cake. We even saw cute itty bitty baby piglets!! adorable! The girls were pretty good considering we didn't bring the stroller so they walked all night. Boy did they sleep well!

 Emma petting the sheep

one to end the night. LOL

Preschool!

One week ago today my little boy started PRESCHOOL!!! What? He is old enough for that? I just can't believe he is getting so big! He has been SO ready to start school. He can already read.......write words.....and color in the lines so I don't know how much he will learn academically but he sure has enjoyed being with other kids his age. Our dear friend from high school has a cute little Preschool in her house and it is within walking distance of Mikes work.

We went to meet his teacher the week before he started school. We got there and she has a fun scavenger hunt set up. You got picture of somewhere in the house and had to find that place. Then you got another picture until the end one that was in the preschool room. They had a cookie and juice waiting for them. Miss Kim had all the kids say their name and something fun about themselves. All of the other kids were kind of shy and mainly had to have their moms help them. Ethan was last and when it was his turn he jumped up and rant to the middle of the room and said "My name is ETHAN MICHAEL JINKS, and I like to play basketball and I like monster trucks!" ( he really isn't a fan of monster trucks......some other kid just said it first. LOL) When it was time to leave he was upset that he didn't get to go to school that day!

 They made this chain with fun facts about themselves to take a link off every day until preschool started.

 This is his cute teacher Miss Kim and her son Boston!

 This is his classroom.

 This is the present he took for Miss Kim on his first day.........and the present that was waiting for him at the kitchen table.

 His bowl of cereal before school!

 I bribed him and said he could make a funny face if he did a nice smile for me after! LOL He got a New York Yankees backpack for his present!

Here is the cute smile one! :)

On the first day when Mike dropped him off he ran up to Miss Kim and gave her a big hug and said " I love you Miss Kim!"

He has already got mad at me for picking him up on time because he wanted to hear the story that she was reading while everyone got picked up.

He also pointed out a girl and said her name was Nadia and told me he loves her. 

oh boy

Kaitlynn's Birthday

The kids attended their first "kid only" birthday party. It was for our dear friend Kaitlynn. She was turning 7. The theme of the birthday party was a sleep over party, with no actual sleepover. They wore their p.j.s and brought their favorite stuffed friend and a pillow and blanket. They played a balloon popping game, broke the pinata, had waffles, did a treasure hunt, watched her open her presents and watched Rio! It was so fun and the girls actually did really well. They even liked watching the movie. We are so happy we have awesome friends like the Sylvester family. Thanks for inviting us to the party!

 All the kids

 Balloon Poppin fun

 reading the clue's for the treasure hunt

 Ethan even got to read one!

 Pinata fun!!

 Enjoying the movie :)

Thanks again for inviting us Kaitlynn! Hope you had a wonderful birthday!

Classic Skating

So Classic Skating now has tons of other things that you can do including a really kid friendly bouncing area. There are tons of huge blow up slides and things that you can climb through. Ethan and the girls LOVE it. We got a summer pass so that they could go and enjoy themselves. We actually only ended up going a few times but still they had a really good time. Here are some pics from one of the days we went.

 Thats the slide for the twins......DOUBLE TROUBLE!!!!!!