Mariana's party and some Rawrs!

Ok, so the 2 blogs before this are with a turtle my family brought home "for me." Haha. It has been taken to a near by pond and set free.

Mariana's party was a lot of fun. We started off with a 2 team scavenger hunt around the house. Then we played a game while people were still coming where we taped a cartoon character to each person's back and they had to figure out who they were by asking yes or no questions. Then each girl got to make personal pizzas with roll dough and toppings. I think big Cody had a lot of fun with that, too. His pizzas were pretty fancy. And even had a story to go with them.
We played more games. Had cake and ice cream. Opened presents. And made t-shirts. Played more fund games and had a great time. And in the morning we had waffles!

Linda, Cody, Cody and I went to the museum the other day. This was the last day of the dinosaur exhibit. It was a lot of fun. Little Cody was afraid of the big T-Rex. He loves dinosaurs. He is so cute to watch. I love him so much. He is awesome. (And a crazy man at church.)
I love my husband!

Team Mantor has grown!

It's a girl! A 15 year old girl! We have welcomed a new addition to our family. For the next 10 months Linda will be staying with us. She is an exchange student from Germany. She got here last night around 9:30pm. She got bit by some strange bug while in between Washington D.C. and Texas. Her first day here and we are battling an injury already. yikes!

We are so happy to have this opportunity to be her host family. She will start school this week. Welcome to Mantorville Linda! Yippie!

Small moments = Big Days

It was a big day in the Mantor house yesterday. Big Cody and I were sitting on the couch and both of us held our arms out to little Cody at the same time and said, "come here Cody." He looked back and forth at both of us and then ran to daddy and leaped into his arm with a giant hug.

Both of my boys were grinning ear to ear. And I have to admit, I was too.

Cody is talking, Little Cody, that is...

Big Cody talks, too but it usually isn't anything to blog about.

I need to get some of little Cody's words down here so I will remember. He has a language articulation disorder. That is what they are calling it. (A few other things we are working on with an occupational therapist and so on.) We have been given a few tips and skills we can do to help him. After the 2+ hour screening appointment he decided he was going to start using some of the skills they were testing him on. So besides suddenly talking after being mostly silent of real words for the last 9 months he is also problem solving, identifying colors, putting 2 words together, and communicating better in general. I am really excited.

His word of the week when the girls were here last weekend was "mine." Everything was his, let me tell you. Mine mine mine mine. I thought he was a Finding Nemo Seagull.

This weekend his word was Gool. I love it. He is saying cool, but it comes out as gool. Sometimes he even draws it out. Gooool...

And today it was car. We went to Target and he pointed to every. single. car. car. car in the parking lot and told me it was a car.

He also has said with out prompting (in parenthesis is what is sounds like when he says it): Elephant, Butterfly (utterfly), dog (gog), please (peese), drink (ink), more, all done.

With prompting he says a lot more: Open, Plane, Amen, Cat (at), thank you, Bella, Stephanie (en-en-nee), gramma (gra-na).

He also will finish these phrases.. Ready... Set.. and he says..Go!! and there is 1...2...he says...reee!!

I am sure there is more. I am happy to see and hear these changes. He is so cute. He is so smart and fun. I can't wait tell he can express to me what he wants. He does say Woody and Buzz, too. This was at the Magic Time Machine Restaurant where all the wait staff dresses like a character. We love it!

And his hair has grown back!!

My mommy and daddy came to visit....

And I had to work!

But we had such a good time. We miss them a bunch!

Just a quicky

So much to blog about so little time.

It is hard to play catch up with the blogging. I post pictures on my facebook almost as we do things so that is like a photo blog, I guess.

I will start most recent and work my way backwards. I have 6 minutes, let's see what I can do and tell you about.

Last seen on Friday: Mouse, our little cat has gone missing. This is sad to me. I hope he has found a new loving family.

Last seen on Wednesday: Little Cody's front tooth. My little precious 2 year old knocked his front tooth out at day care. He was running after two other boys and tripped on a pillow and some how knocked his tooth out from the root! This was traumatic for me, mostly. He seems to be doing fine.

Out of order: Thursday we had our appointment with a group of doctors and therapists. Cody's official diagnosis was he is not autistic. He has some language articulation disorder and something else. But not autism. This is awesome news. I am out of time. Read me later. :)