Pictures

I haven't had too much time to play with my camera as my husband just got the memory card last night, but here are a few shots for the Grandparents.

Ack!

December has been kicking my butt! We were going to put up our tree last weekend only to have my husband spend the weekend out of town in readiness for an impending boat crash that never happened. I am glad that it did not happen because right now the last thin the environment needs is yet another oil spill. One of the head lights in my van was out so on Monday I treked to town to get a replacement and do my grocery shopping early. Today was Evan's dental filling and Harry puked in the car on the way home from an errand with my husband (I am so thankful that it was not my van and that my husband was the one it happened to so I got to avoid the wort of the barf cleanup). Tomorrow is going to be filled with a sick and likely cranky Harry who is stuck at home. I am sure the future has a lot of fun things planned for me.

Evan was super good for his filling. I was glad it went smoothly. They gave him a numbing reversal so by the time we got back in town his mouth was back to normal and he could go to school. It was cute to see how excited his classmates were to see him when I dropped him off. I can't help but secretly worry that his differences will make him unlikable and it is nice to see that he is well liked by his classmates and that he has special friends in his class.

I did get a fun surprise today. The special errand that ended in puking was partly to get me my Christmas present. I got a new digital camera (something we have been considering for awhile). The funny/sad thing is that it is a billion times better than the old one (which is 7 years old) and cost about half of what we payed for our old one. I am going to have to play around with all the shiny buttons and post the results here once I get a memory card for it. The one from the old camera does not fit.

The trip to the dentist

I had been slacking while we lived in Kansas and did not take the kids to the dentist. We got a glowing recommendation for a pediatric dentist here that also is noted for working well with special needs children so I scheduled an appointment. They boys had a great visit, Daniel is the only one who cried and that was expected.

All three boy have a tooth that is not forming enamel as it should which is not entirely unexpected since I had that same issues as a kid. We are just going to keep a careful watch on the teeth and see if they start forming cavities or not. Harry apparently fell on his face and cracked the root of one of his front teeth so we are also going to watch that to make sure that there are no signs of infection.

Evan of course is the complicated kid. He has a cavity in one of him permanent molars. He is missing an adult tooth plus three of his wisdom teeth and one of his adult molars is not forming well. Apparently kids with birth defects often are missing teeth or have them malformed so this was not unexpected to the dentist. The wisdom teeth not being there could also be attributed to genetics since my father did not have any at all. The one wisdom tooth is right next to the malformed molar so eventually they can move it forward and put it where the malformed molar is. With the missing adult tooth the hope is that the baby tooth does not come out and grows with the mouth. If that does not happen then a cap can be put on the baby tooth to make it match the other teeth.

Happy Halloween!

It was a crazy start to the holiday rush. Evan and Harry decided that they wanted to be superheros. They have become very interested in Veggie Tales (thanks to us being able to watch our instant Netflix queue via our Wii on our tv) and there was an episode about Larry the Cucumber wanting to be a superhero. I drew the line at making them helmets with plungers for the ears so they could climb walls.

I bought some fabric markers and white shirts and colored versions of the superman logo on the front of their shirts. Pillowcases became capes as I have no idea where a fabric store is near by and really don't like running all over for things anymore. I guess that is what happens when you live in the middle of nowhere and it is a hassle to just go grocery shopping. I can't bag on the town I live in too much because there is a store in town that sells yarn and knitting needles (along hand knit and woven goodies for the tourists) so at least my knitting emergencies are easy enough to handle.

Daniel was going to be a punk rocker, but I found out that the hair paste I bought to turn his hair into a mohawk was no match for the stubborn curl of his hair. A quick last second search through our saved costumes turned up the kitty costume which fit him perfectly.

My husband was out of town for part of last week so out pumpkins were carved much later than me normally do but that was ok because that meant there was no visible signs of rotting when we hauled them to the ward Trunk or Treat on Saturday. That is where the pictures below were taken. Sunday my husband took the older kids out around the neighborhood and Daniel and I stayed at home handing out candy. I don't take my kids out until they are old enough to actually say trick or treat ect, as it really looks like a blatant candy grab instead of the subtle one that I have with the older boys.

Evan's ABC book

See if you can detect a theme to the ABC book Evan did in school.

Ap Car
What that is no one knows.

Bap Truck
Again a bit of a mystery.

Cloud Car

Dump Truck

Evan

Fish
He draws human faces on everything, even animals.

Garbage Truck

House Car

Igloo Car

Jello

Kite

Lego Car

Monster Truck

Nest

Old Car

Playhouse Car

Quiet Car

Wrap Car
The WR sound counted for the letter R since the kids are not expected to know the sound combos quite yet.

Sports Car

Truck

Under

Van

Wagon

A rather carish looking Xray

Yo-yo

Zig Zag


Here is a little bit of independent writing that I captured. It says Evan on the bridge.

IEP update

We had Evan's IEP meeting with the new school today. Good news was that they just copied the one from Kansas. The odd news is that parts of it were missing somehow and they has no idea that he was getting PT and adaptive PE. Other good news is that after a long search a OT was found for him. The district is small enough that they do not have them on staff so they had to call around to see if anyone would make the drive all the way out here to help him. Thankfully there was a person that agreed to do it.

According to Evan's teacher he seems to be settling in well to the class. He will sometimes try and get out of answering questions when the whole class is answering at once and is still rather distracted in class at times. Unlike his school in Kansas they did not try and weasel out of having extra help on hand for him. He does not have one para this year, they already had two part time assistants for the classroom.

I left the meeting feeling confident that they were doing everything they could to make sure that Evan was getting the education he needed. It seems like there are a nice bunch of people working with him and that he will make great progress while he is here.

Picture overload

I have been rather bad about posting pictures of late and I decided that it was time to play catch up. Here are a few from our last days in Kansas.

My mother sent me these plants shortly after we moved in to our house in Kansas. This year was amazing for them and they got huge! I was sad that we had to leave them behind.

This was a hydrangea that was there when we moved into our house in Kansas but it never bloomed until this spring. I am glad I left it in instead of pulling out because it was neat to see it bloom at least once before we moved.

The zoo held a special event for kids with special needs a few weeks before we moved. I thought it would be a fun way to see the zoo one last time. There was a clown there handing out clown noses and Evan was thrilled with his. Harry was having none of it and would not even look at the clown.

However he did change his mind after awhile when he saw how much fun we were having with the nose and got one of his own.

We got to meet R2-D2 and at the time the boys were not quite sure what to make of the robot. We bought a Wii while we were in transit to California and one of the games we bought was the Star Ward Lego game. Now every time Harry sees R2-D2 he tells everyone that it is the Harry Robot. Evan (in case you were wondering) is 3CPO.

While at the zoo they got to see some of the animals up close.

My boys! When everyone was all aflutter about seeing Iron Man they made a beeline to the Jeep and completely ignored everything else while they examined tires and other items of interest on the Jeep.

Weekend update according to Evan

One of Evan's speech therapy goals is to be better at recounting past events so his therapist is having me send a note with information about what he did over the weekend. Here is his version:

I went to church. I sang songs. I had bread and water for snack at church. I dropped an RV on a tow truck. It was my dad's birthday. I had a piece of cake. I sang Happy Birthday. We gave Daddy a phone (which is not accurate since he got a laptop as a present). Grandma and Grandpa were there. They played cars with me. They had dinner with us. They slept in the spare room. When they got up, we had a good breakfast.

Bwahahah!

Apparently a company thinks I am full of crap because they wanted to send me coupons to what basically amounts to a laxative. They slapped a fancy name on it and the claim on the website was that it did not make you sit on the toilet all day, but still the intent behind the product was to "cleanse" your colon. So if any of you are feeling crappy let me know and I will hook you up ;)

Adjusting

I have been making progress with the boxes and with getting settled into our new area. I attended a welcome party for the spouses association in my area. It was nice to meet so many friendly people. I also got a chance to get to know some of the wives that live near me in housing better. It is still a bit strange knowing that all my neighbors are working for the same place.

Harry has been a bit of a brat of late. I am sure that he is just feeling the stress of the move but it is still irritating to have him acting out. I started giving him the choice to act good or bad. I would lay out the consequences for him being bad and continuing the naughty behavior and then ask him if he wanted be good or continue being naughty and get the consequences of that. So far it seems to be stopping the temper tantrums, although he is still ripping toys out of his brother's hands and other general naughty things. At least I can get him to go to his room when he is being punished with out having to drag him there myself.

I think that toddler is my favorite stage. They are a hoot to hang around and they do not talk back quite yet, although Daniel will jabber scold me if I am not paying attention to him. Toddlers are also super easy to entertain. I have no idea why we have fancy toys when he is happy playing with a cardboard box and other items out of our recycling bin (don't worry we have one of those fancy can openers that does not leave a sharp edge).

I plan on taking some pictures one of these days and hopefully I can find the cord to my camera.

Chugging along

I am alive still just very busy. We finally got a phone set up (got Vonnage since the local phone company was highway robbery) so I don't have to walk into town every time I want to make a phone call. That saves me a lot of time but it means I am exercising less. My dryer is now fixed so I am now doing laundry. The last appliance that needs to be put into working order is my dishwasher and that will require a new kitchen faucet. My husband was not thrilled at the amount of time that he would be spending doing the change over but when I pointed out the fact that I was having to hand wash dishes several times a day just to keep the sink clear he saw the wisdom of keeping his wife happy.

I need to take pictures of our new home but since I have not yet located the camera downloading cord thingy it is rather pointless. It is funny how many things are misplaced and how many things I have found again thanks to the shake up of all our stuff.

feeling out of sorts

I am feeling kind of frustrated right now. There are still so many boxes to unpack but so little time to actually do it in. I just want the boxes gone and the stuff magically put away. I don't want much do I?

It really is amazing how much my mood is affected by being in a crowded and cluttered house. I almost had the downstairs whipped into shape and all the boxes out of sight when my husband decided that he had to empty the storage room about an hour and a half before church. Instantly my mood went downhill from there. Not only were the kids distracted by what was mainly boxes of toys but having a ton of boxes impeding my ability to even leave my own house was disturbing. this morning I shoved them all back in *grumble at my husband and suppress urge to murder* and now I am feeling more cheerful.

I just have to keep plugging away at the clutter and hope that the kids don't hinder me too much and hopefully soon I will have a neat and somewhat organized house.

A moment of slience please....

.... for the household items that lost their lives in this move. The casualties are mounting thanks to careless packers and drivers that wanted to save some space.

This has been a hard move for our furniture, nothing has escaped with out some sort of battle scar. It is a good we have mostly solid wood furniture or we might not have anything that survived. I will post pictures once the house does not look like a bomb exploded in it... which may be never.

We haz house!

Now all we need is our stuff. We have arrived at out new home and are settling in. I have begun the process of making new friends and otherwise getting settled in. I just wish I had my stuff with me to make life that much simpler. We are supposed to be getting it on Wed and I am counting down the hours.

My husband's job turned out not to be the one he thought he was getting, it is a much more exciting one (for him) that he had thought. It is a posting that is highly sought after so he had just assumed that he was put in one of the less desirable one, but apparently the other applicants were not acceptable for one reason or another. Most days he will work the normal hours but there is going to be random and unpredictable travel involved, up to 30 days of it at times. Part of the confusion developed because most of his unit is actually away at the moment. I am not looking forward to the times he is away but I have been rather spoiled his last two assignments.

The weather here is amazing!!! It gets chilly at night and really wish that I had remembred to bring a sweat shirt or something. There is a playground steps away from our back yard and there is also a rather nice playground with in walking distance in town. The town itself is a small one, but packed with important things. There is a library, post office and a book store with in easy walking distance. The main deficiency is that there is not a decent (ie non touristy) grocery store in the area. We have to drive about a half hour over twisty roads away to get decent shopping.

My neighbors are nice and friendly. I was reassured that the local school was excellent and that there was a preschool in town for Harry to attend. My ward is nice and happy to have our children to help fill up the shrinking primary.

I will write more once we get unpacked and settled in.

Bleh

We are in California.

The move was crazy thanks to the weather taking a warm turn. My husband handled the movers and I got to wrangle the kids. We got a motel which was nice since we needed a place for the kids to nap during the day when all the hubbub was going on.

We had a semi eventful trip to Utah. My husband picked a long but more direct rout which meant we took longer to get there than we really should have. Daniel kept things fun by having a diaper blowout early on in the trip. I don't think the car seat will ever be the same. We had a nice stay with my family and the weather was amazing which was a nice change from the awful humidity of Kansas.

The trip to California was made eventful by my husband yet again deciding on a more direct route. If he had been headed to our new home things would have been hunky dory but since we are visiting with my inlaws we got a more "fun" route. The roads were insanely twisty and turny. I could not even hand back snacks to the kids after we left the main route across Nevada. Poor Daniel threw up because he got so car sick. We are never ever going that way again... ever, ever, ever again!

In a few weeks we will be headed south and getting settled in our new home.

move

The packers are coming soon. Daniel has decided to start walking and the smile on his face every time he takes a few steps is amazing. He is just so darn pleased with himself. I hope I packed everything we need for the trip, I know that I have at least 6 or 7 skeins of sock yarn to keep my busy. Hopefully we will remember to throw the trash out before the movers pack it up.

Catch up

Time in Kansas is growing short. We are gearing up for the move which I hope will go smoothly. A visit to my husband's cousin gave us a dry run for the long drive that is ahead of us and a portable dishwasher. The house is now being advertised for rent and we hope to have someone in it very soon. This morning we had the fun of a clogged sink. My husband, Harry and I have an annoying hacking cough that I hope goes away very soon, it is driving me nuts.

Summer break

We are settling into our summer routine. Evan is going to have an extra long summer this year thanks to the move so I want to keep some structure going or I will likely want to strangle him by the end of summer. We do schoolwork after lunch, nothing too major but enough to keep Evan in practice.

I really miss the morning quiet time that I used to get when the kids were at school and Daniel was napping. Now whenever I do anything I am interrogated by Harry who has appointed himself the house know it all. He has actually insisted on examining the contents of my mouth when he has suspected me of eating something that he might like.

I am struggling with transitioning Daniel off the bottle. Daniel is very resistant to change and while he can drink out of a sippy cup he won't. The novelty has worn off and unless I hold the cup to his mouth he will not drink from it. We are also having issues moving from baby food to finger food. He won't let me feed him much (except yogurt) but is ultra picky about what he will feed himself. He will not eat much meat to speak of and veggies never cross his lips. Luckily he does drink some milk so he does consume some protein and the cereal he eats (again he is very picky about which ones he will eat) are all fortified. I managed to get him to eas some humus by dipping some cheese crackers into it and not giving him anything he liked better.

I know that Daniel will eventually get better with the eating, but it is a bit frustrating trying to get him to consume a somewhat balanced meal. We as parents get so invested in what they eat at this age.

Yikes!

This month has been stuffed full of events. We had a wave of illness that also coincided with the end of the school year. So I got a nice pile of laundry among other things to help distract me from the sadness of the end of school. The weather has also been rather damp, so the beginning of summer break has not been all that thrilling either.


Below is a picture of Evan with his "girlfriends" who both loved to hold his had as he walked down the hall. One of them even drew him pictures.

Hippo birdy two ewe Daniel!

Today was Daniel's first birthday and we made an effort to make sure it was a fun day for him. We went to the zoo and had a blast!

Giraffes are totally rad!

Harry chasing a squirrel up a tree.

Fish!

I loves de fishes!

The gorilla was out which thrilled the boys.

Petting the goat was a lot of fun! I thought I had a really funny video of the boys talking to and petting this goat, but I hit the wrong button and ended up only recording myself putting the camera away. Bummer!

Flamingos!

The boys in the bear chair. This is Evan's love me pose.

This is Harry's My Name is Earl pose.

This is Daniel's Dr Evil pose.

Daniel playing chew and show with the pizza we bought for lunch.

Daniel lunging for the cake, he liked the candle.

Here is a video of Daniel noming his cake.

Here is a bonus video of Daniel being a silly little boy