Fun with baby

Bed head anyone?

Our free entertainment here in the house.

whining. Just a little.

I can't compete.
I am now, in no way, as good as dad. At anything.
I have officially lost another child to the "Dad is my favorite" side of the fence.
my little Nooshie is growing up.

At a certain point, all the toddler aged kids at my house flip sides from wanting nothing to do with dad and needing mom for everything, to no longer caring if mom is around and needing dad to do everything.
The score is now 3- dad, 1- mom.
What am I going to do in 2 years? I'm going to have to rethink my game plan and regain some loyalties.
The scale has tipped and this makes for lonelier bedtime tucking ins and less desires for cuddling on the couch. Suddenly I am not so cool.

Speaking of not so cool, I was head butted by my favorite two year old today. I put him in time out and while I leaned down to talk to him about the "naughties" that were committed. BAM! I never even saw it coming.

My head still hurts.

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I got a call from the kids school today. I don't like answering those calls. I know they can't possibly be good, and I only like good.
Chan wasn't feeling well. He had a headache and said his throat hurt, but he wouldn't let the nurse look.
He came home early and laid on the couch. He laid there all day. sleeping and puking.
Poor kid. I feel bad for sending him now even though he said he didn't want to go.
He says this often, and usually he really just doesn't want to be there anymore.

Lysol, lots of Lysol. My best friend right now. I don't want more sickies. We have had our share.

Great Day!

Report card day.

Normally a day that we secretly cringe when we open Chan's. Afraid of what we might see. We never have to worry about the one we get from Beans because we know that it will be outstanding as usual.

Today, was a little different.
Well, Beans was the same- Perfect, kudos, excellent student, complete joy to have. I will never tire of hearing all those good things. It is especially nice to hear when the first child has yet to hear it. It sort of validates us a little. We know that we do our best with Chan, but it is hard when he has so many bad days, Any good news is definitely a reward.

But today.

Today, we got a glowing report for Chan. I am so excited, I could write it in sidewalk chalk in front of the school for all to see. His improvements have been awesome and he has made great strides!!

We used to say that we would occasionally see glimpses of our sweet little boy shine through, but lately, he's been here everyday! I cherish these days and I half expect them to be short lived, but we keep having them. I just wish we knew the trigger. Either way, I LOVE This sweet boy!!

We had a meeting at Chan's school today to review his IEP. We revised it back in February to fit his growing needs and just last week the school received it back from the district, approving it all.
This is all great, since there are a lot of extra services for him in there. There is just one little change- Oh, almost all of it!
Chan has been doing so well in school that his IEP is really just going to be used as a backup plan! This is awesome for Chan, for us and the school. Chan is finally receiving daily one on one assistance for his reading and writing instead of one on one just to make sure he'll stay in the building. His regular education teacher wanted to cry with genuine joy when we reviewed his work. He has made so much progress, and really just in the last 4 weeks. It was a great meeting and we are excited to see Chan excel in school. He is the top student in his class for math. He still has some work to do with his reading but with the new specialist, this too will be just something that used to be.

C had a meeting with the local Mental Health clinic director for work today. He has a special interest because we attribute some of Chan's progress to his psychologist that has been working with him. As a result of the meeting, C will now be on the board for the MHC and will begin helping them raise the money necessary to bring more therapists into each of the local elementary schools. There are not a lot of parents that would be willing to share their story about their child with mental illness, let alone a parent willing to spend his "Free" time lobbying to support other children with the same or more severe needs in the community.
The Director was impressed with C and our story, his willingness and desire to bring more awareness. She has now agreed to make one of her therapists that work in the school district, available to Chan's elementary school. Currently there are only 6 schools that have this advantage in the district and soon there will be at least one more.

During our meeting this afternoon with the teachers, and other staff at the school, C shared this with them. They were excited and almost stunned. This is something they have been told would probably never happen. What they didn't know is that there was a father willing to do anything for his son and other children just like him.

Today, was a good day. I am so proud of both my boys :)

Finally! Egg hunt pictures

Okay, it wasn't that long for you to wait for these, but it took me long enough to figure out Vista and the unpleasant set ups for memory. Apparently I was at the limit allowed for moving or making copies of any files. But it was only willing to tell me that there was not enough quota. SPEAK DUMB AMERICAN, please- Cause I don't know what that is? What quota? and how do I fix it? Thankfully the Internet and it's wonderful resources for other people with my same problem, helped me fix it pronto, Yay!

I decided to play with some settings on my camera on Saturday, and I have since changed it back. It didn't work well with the natural light, and while they turned out okay, they are not the quality I wanted.

I still have not fixed the sticky key problem yet and this is very annoying.
Ugh, two year old's- they sure make life interesting.

So, here are some pictures from the egg hunt as promised.

One Egg. Two eager kids.

One very awesome big brother. Sharing- it does happen!

Count em up!

The mess after we got home. and no one around.
I went looking for them and found this:

Nooshie asleep on the landing in between the stairs. So many questions going through my mind.....

sticky stuff, easter eggs and a story

We went to the park today with some friends and did a joint Easter egg hunt with 5 other families. It was a lot of fun for the kids and the weather held out to be slightly decent too.
I took several pictures as always, and for some reason my memory card is holding mostofthe pictures hostage. So when I can figure out how to make it cooperate, I will post the cute pictures once they are retrieved. I'll add a couple of others that would cooperate just as a consolation prize for reading my post.



I will also keep this short as Nooshie was being helpful and spilled soda on the keyboard.The keys aresticky and thespacebar isn't working so welland I've stopped going back tofix the sticking together andthis is just easier.
Last night I typed this cute exchange between Chan andhis friend.I love the way kids think and thatsomeanswers arejust completley acceptable.


I'm sure there are truths in this story, it's justfunny, cause Chan is not.

Friend: I've seen bats before.

Chan: That's cool

Friend: yeah, we were in a cave and there was a huge one in the back of the cave. It was this big. (points to the Xbox)

Chan: oh, yeah, when I was six I saw a bat once and it was this big. (pointing to an imaginary line for half the T.V. The television is 52") and when it was a baby, it was only this big. (pointing to the Xbox)

Friend: Wow! I once saw a vampire bat and it's fangs. Then when we woke up the next morning, we were on a farm and a cow was dead. From the bat!

Chan: When I was six, I saw a vampire bat and it just sucked the blood of an animal and it was black blood.

Friend: Oh! I've never seen black blood before, but I've seen green from a manatee once.

Chan: what does green blood look like?

Friend: Hey, have you ever seen Goosebumps?

Chan: yeah, did you see the part about the Devil?

Friend: you wanna go back outside?

Chan: Yeah!

Autism Awareness Day

Tomorrow is Autism Awareness day.

Learn something you didn't already know about Autism and pass it along.

The website mentioned in the video: faceautism.org is no longer registered.

I chose this video because Quinn is a lot like Chan was at those ages. He loved to line things up and put them in patterns or sort them by color. He was mesmerized by football on tv and taught himself all the hockey moves by watching it. Practically a normal baby, we are so blessed to have such a great kid who has overcome so many challenges.

We are so lucky, We GET to hear our son tell us how much he loves us and we GET to hug our son and have him know what it feels like!

Autism is amazingly complex and I know that we feel like people with Autism are different, but maybe they are the ones that actually have it all figured out.

We Love you Chan!

AWESOME!

That's all I can say.
spiritually uplifting and inspirational all rolled into one!

I have always sort of criticized myself about my talents. I felt as though I was trying too hard to pretend that I was actually talented at something. I expected that everyone should be born with something. A beautiful voice, the hands to paint well, the eye to see the most beautiful picture and then the ability to capture it to film for all to see. An amazing pianist, or just simply beautiful.

I had none of these.

I thought I was funny, but I also tried very hard. I loved and still love getting all the attention.
When it came time to get my patriarchal blessing, I prayed daily for weeks about questions I had. Hoping these would be answered in my blessing. To my complete surprise, the blessing addressed nothing I asked.
I wanted to know what my talents were and I was told I would develop many.
Come on- that is the way I answer my kids- not the way I was supposed to be answered. What kind of God would answer his own child this way? Yeah, don't answer that.

I have since discovered that while some people are born with natural talents, that most of us have to actually work at something to make it our talent.
I now know that I have many talents and these are all ones that I created myself. I chose them and continue to work at having more. One of my greatest talents is being a mother. This is not something that every women can handle and it definitely takes some skill to master it. I have watched many a mom's make it look so easy. And while I would like to say that is my goal, the reality is, this is dang hard.

I have been reading a couple of different books lately. (and by reading I mean flip through them and read a paragraph at a time. ) Both are focused on the importance of Mothers and how in this world, the majority of us shrug our shoulders or sink in our chairs and quietly tell career oriented people that we "are just a mother" When actually, this is the greatest talent a women can posses and the most spiritual calling we can hold here on this earth. We are actually a big deal and just because our monetary worth is calculated and traded in hugs and kisses it doesn't mean we are less important in society or to the work force. In my home I am the Chief Operating Officer and that IS a big deal. It actually means something and I wear that title proudly. So with that said- I AM just a mother- and dang good at it! (most of the time) :)

" In every woman's story there are unknowns- struggles only she knows about, fears she's tried to overcome but still harbors, disappointments and sorrows she bears. The last thing any of us wants or needs-is to be judged by others who don't know our stories, in part or at all. "

Yesterday was the Relief Society Birthday celebration and while our ward may be small and ever changing because of the colleges here- it was great! So many awesome sisters all here in this great Iowa town all relying on each other to help them through each day. Each of us taking time to do service, make friends for life and even become a part of each others family. The family in Iowa. What a great organization we have in the church and what a blessing it is to move 2000 miles away from our comfort zones and be able to find one here.
Shout out to the sisters- you rock!! Thanks for caring. Thanks for sharing. And thanks for always laughing- even if it wasn't all that funny. I sure do like you guys and all that other sentimental stuff.