Dancing Diva

Natalie's new favorite song is Stronger by Kelly Clarkson. She is starting to really like a lot of songs (ABC, clean-up song, Twinkle Twinkle and asks us to sing them to her.)

She loves to dance to music!

My other therapist...

Natalie has such great older siblings. They love to help teach her the LING sounds and see what other responses they can get from her... I love the extra help!


Dylan helping with the LING sounds:

Helping with Colors:

Colors

Natalie has started learning her colors. It has been so cute to watch. I originally started out by taping some different colored construction paper up on a our laundry room door and labeling them. We have been talking a lot about colors and she is really catching on.

Here she is saying a few of her colors:

She also really loves The Napping House book, and at the end there is a rainbow. She loves when we sing the rainbow song too. I think for her birthday I am going to attempt to make a rainbow cake...

Happy 1 Year Hearing

On Tuesday we celebrated Natalie's 1 year hearing birthday. She has done so amazing this past year and really exceeded any expectations we had with cochlear implants. And I would like to say she has done so well because she is amazing (which is totally true) but I really believe that we have had such a team approach in dealing with her hearing loss early on, we have made such great strides.

A BIG thanks to amazing audiologists ; our ENT and surgeon Dr. Buchman, auditory-verbal therapists (Miss Jenni), pediatricians, our local ENT, family and friends. I have met so many amazing people through blogs, online forums, conferences, etc. I have gained so much knowledge through these place and individuals and hope that I continue to learn so much so I can advocate in the best way possible for Natalie, until one day when she can advocate for herself.

I made a video of Natalie's 1st year of hearing.. click here to watch it.

1 year ago - Activation Day!

Happy 1 Year Hearing Birthday!

A Year since Surgery

It is hard to believe it has been a whole year since Natalie's surgery on January 4th, 2011. Here are some pics of her post-op.

post-op and chilling with daddy

the next morning and all smiles

Christmas - 1st "Hearing" Christmas

What a fun Christmas season this was for Miss Natalie. She loved all the fun sounds of the holidays. I never would have believe how well she would have been doing a year ago. The year has just flown by and she has rapidly been changing physically and just understands so much!

with "Santa" at the Hitch-Up Christmas Party

growing up WAY too fast!

She loved the Christmas tree and loved saying "off"

the night before Christmas

I entered her in the Cochlear contest for an ipod touch. You had to submit a hearing video about the holidays. This was about the best I could do as Natalie's attention span changes rather quickly. You can hear her saying "off"on the lights. So cute...

My little Bookworm

We were told early on to read 10 books a day to Natalie to help in her therapy. Even before she could hear. She has gained a very strong love for books needless to say. She will spend 5-10 minutes stacking books on a chair and get a whole chair full piled high and then climb up into it to read her books and thumb through the pages. We have read so many lately and out of curiosity I thought I would see how well she does recognizing which book I was asking for. 3 out of 3!

Check out her video:

And her love of books at different stages:

7 months

9 months

17 months

17 months

17 months