we are moving tomorrow. i'm not super excited. there are still so many things that we need to get done. go figure. we will not have internet again until tuesday so i won't be online for a few days. i still have my cell phone so feel free to contact me there if you need me! :)
in other news. mr jace had a heck of a time last night. emily and he were goofing off and of course it went to far. she ended up pushing him down the stairs. he hit his head and back and shoulder, and ribs and left knee. he has a big bump on his head and bruises around his body. we put him to bed in our room so we could keep an eye on him and check on him. this morning he said his head is a bit sore and he's definately got some bruising but he seems ok. if it's not one thing it's another.
this morning was muffins with mom at emily's school. we went to that and it was nice. brian stayed home with the other kids so it could just be emily and i. yesterday was take your daughter to work day and since brian works in a restricted environment emily wasn't able to go with him. so i was able to get it approved for her to come to school with me. i just had my ASL class so she liked that. she has been learning a bit of sign and had fun showing off what she knew how to do. everyone thought she was so cute! she asked me when she could go back to college! :)
other than that not much going on here but the move. i will update on tuesday evening!
Friday, April 25, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Grouchy day
yesterday ended up not being a very good day. the morning was hectic and i was running around all morning trying to keep up. my 1st class of the day got out early so that part was nice! my sign class was fun. my teacher decided to move class outside. it was 74 degrees and we sat in the sun in the grass and had class there. it was alot of fun.
i got home to a hectic house. dinner was cooked..noodles and ground beef. jace wanted to go shopping to buy me a present so i told him to go downstairs and make me one. that made him happy. then he wanted to make me a cake. brian said there was no time. so i went to the kitchen and helped the kids bake me a cake. they ate dinner and then brian took all 4 of them to piano. i went to eat and they had eaten all the food. i couldn't go out to eat because brian had my van and purse and wallet, and the cake was cooking. so i made mac and cheese and waited for the cake to finish.
i ended up laying on the couch watching tv. they all got home and we had cake and then they headed to bed. brian gave me a card signed by him and all the kids.
i was pretty grouchy by the end of the evening and ended up going to bed early.
it's not that i wanted a big fancy present but a touch of pampering would be nice. i had to help the kids with presents cake and such, and had to make my own dinner.
i'm sure my attitude could have used a bit of an adjustment, but you know.
so that was my day.
today is rainy, so we'll see how it goes.
i got home to a hectic house. dinner was cooked..noodles and ground beef. jace wanted to go shopping to buy me a present so i told him to go downstairs and make me one. that made him happy. then he wanted to make me a cake. brian said there was no time. so i went to the kitchen and helped the kids bake me a cake. they ate dinner and then brian took all 4 of them to piano. i went to eat and they had eaten all the food. i couldn't go out to eat because brian had my van and purse and wallet, and the cake was cooking. so i made mac and cheese and waited for the cake to finish.
i ended up laying on the couch watching tv. they all got home and we had cake and then they headed to bed. brian gave me a card signed by him and all the kids.
i was pretty grouchy by the end of the evening and ended up going to bed early.
it's not that i wanted a big fancy present but a touch of pampering would be nice. i had to help the kids with presents cake and such, and had to make my own dinner.
i'm sure my attitude could have used a bit of an adjustment, but you know.
so that was my day.
today is rainy, so we'll see how it goes.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Busy day
today is going to be a beyond busy hectic day.
i have to get all the kids to school.
ari has therapy this morning.
i need to finish part 1 of my research paper as it's due today.
get all the kids from school.
take all the kids to daycare.
drive 40 min to class.
go to class.
go across campus to the next class.
go back across campus to lab.
drive 40 min home.
cook dinner.
rush both kids to piano.
home and kids to bed.
clean house.
attempt to get more packing done.
maybe talk to hubby and watch tv.
bed.
oh and try to remember at some point that it's my birthday and truely i should take it easy and enjoy a bit.
the life of a mom and wife! :)
i have to get all the kids to school.
ari has therapy this morning.
i need to finish part 1 of my research paper as it's due today.
get all the kids from school.
take all the kids to daycare.
drive 40 min to class.
go to class.
go across campus to the next class.
go back across campus to lab.
drive 40 min home.
cook dinner.
rush both kids to piano.
home and kids to bed.
clean house.
attempt to get more packing done.
maybe talk to hubby and watch tv.
bed.
oh and try to remember at some point that it's my birthday and truely i should take it easy and enjoy a bit.
the life of a mom and wife! :)
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Benjamin
I just took these and thought they are too cute not to post, even though I've already posted pics today! :) In the last picture you can see the beautiful wool longies he's wearing today! They are his favorite! The 3rd pictures is a closeup showing one of his many Autism hats. He fondly refers to this one as his puzzle piece hat! It's one of his favorites! He wears these pretty much anytime we leave the house and it serves a dual purpose. First it gives him a feeling of being slightly hidden where everyone isn't looking at him and he loves that. Secondly it gives people an answering to some of Ben's behaviors without getting nasty comments (sometimes).
We're Moving
Alot has happened since my last blog. We've been telling our landlord since day one that if he got a house with more bedrooms we wanted first dibs at it. Finally he called saying that he had a 4 bedroom house come available AND that it is quite a bit cheaper than the house we are in now. So we took it! We will be moving n the 26the of April. So as you can imagine we've spent the last few days running around hectically trying to get things organized and decided what things we don't actually want to keep around!
In other news. Emily's piano recital was postponed. Her teacher came down with the flu and was quite ill. It will be made up the beginning of May they are hoping. Emily has her first crush on a boy at school. They are getting together for a playdate at the park this coming Saturday. He doesn't know about the crush, so that's good! :)
Jace is doing good. He had his first speech therapy last Friday and did well. He will be going every week. He's enjoying school and is finally branching out from just having one friend, and has really started talking to other kids in his class in the last week or two. He's got his best friend coming over for a playdate saturday and then has a playdate next week with a new friend! Keeps him busy! :)
Benjamin is doing pretty good. He has his days, good and bad. He's doing well with therapy, and is talking a little bit at school even. His transition and IEP is coming up soon and my head is swimming trying to figure out all the right decisions. It will be quite the busy time.
Ariana is doing good. She's a little stinker. She's turned into quite the little high maintenance drama queen lately. I think she is hitting the terrible two's a year early. The other day she got mad at me and threw herself on the floor on her tummy kicking her little feet onto the floor as she screamed. An hour later that same day she did it again. Ben called me so I got up and left the room and she immediately stopped. As I walked back that way I could see her on her back watching to see me. As soon as she did see me she rolled back over on her tummy and started kicking her feet and screaming. i had to laugh because I thought it was so cute! :)
Here are 2 pics of her from this last week! you can see the sparkle in her little eyes!
The last photo is a picture of all 4 of my children playing the piano at the same time. As you can see they all think this is one of the funnest things known to man! :)
In other news. Emily's piano recital was postponed. Her teacher came down with the flu and was quite ill. It will be made up the beginning of May they are hoping. Emily has her first crush on a boy at school. They are getting together for a playdate at the park this coming Saturday. He doesn't know about the crush, so that's good! :)
Jace is doing good. He had his first speech therapy last Friday and did well. He will be going every week. He's enjoying school and is finally branching out from just having one friend, and has really started talking to other kids in his class in the last week or two. He's got his best friend coming over for a playdate saturday and then has a playdate next week with a new friend! Keeps him busy! :)
Benjamin is doing pretty good. He has his days, good and bad. He's doing well with therapy, and is talking a little bit at school even. His transition and IEP is coming up soon and my head is swimming trying to figure out all the right decisions. It will be quite the busy time.
Ariana is doing good. She's a little stinker. She's turned into quite the little high maintenance drama queen lately. I think she is hitting the terrible two's a year early. The other day she got mad at me and threw herself on the floor on her tummy kicking her little feet onto the floor as she screamed. An hour later that same day she did it again. Ben called me so I got up and left the room and she immediately stopped. As I walked back that way I could see her on her back watching to see me. As soon as she did see me she rolled back over on her tummy and started kicking her feet and screaming. i had to laugh because I thought it was so cute! :)
Here are 2 pics of her from this last week! you can see the sparkle in her little eyes!
The last photo is a picture of all 4 of my children playing the piano at the same time. As you can see they all think this is one of the funnest things known to man! :)
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Think Autism. Think Cure. WALK.
Today as our local chapters 1st annual Autism walk. There were over 700 people and there was over $20,000 raised! It was great! We had a wonderful time. We walked, we visited, we went to vendors and booths, and therapy centers. There were local vendors there with gluten free casein free foods and samples and recipes. There was a game room for the kids with prizes, door prizes, local radio station and TV station. We ran into tons of people that we knew and met so many more. At one point Ben starting getting really nervous and lost his track of communication and started flipping out. Next thing I new one of his speech pathologists was right there next to us with a PECS book for him to look at it. It calmed him right down. Later as we were walking through the mall we ran into his lead speech pathologist on the Autism team. Right there in the mall she got down to eye level and talked to him about his airplane. It was great! :) We came home with a bag full of fliers and pamplets and goodies and a stack of business cards, phone numbers, and email addresses. We are going to get Ben started on music listening therapy. He would use special headphones and listen to special cd's twice a day, each CD for 2 weeks at a time. He normally doesn't like things over his ears but as soon as we put the headphones on him and he started listening to the music he completely stopped and stood there calmly in the middle of a very crowded loud mall. It was ready to sign on the dotted line at that point! :) As we were roaming around the mall a man came running up to me calling my name. He looked familiar but i couldn't quite figure out why. His little boy is in Ben's class at preschool, and is autistic as well. Ben and the little boy (don't want to put his name online) recognized each other immediately and Ben even said his name. I was so excited that Ben knew who it was and what his name was! Another friend! We are going to set up some playdates with them, and a few other families as well! All in all it was an amazing day. I have never seen so many people and such chaos, and such love and acceptance and understanding. The whole family settled right in quickly and nobody felt out of place or embarressed. I noticed that the kids didn't even apologize for some of Ben's social no-no's and didn't feel the need to explain it to others. Everyone was comfy! AAAAAHHHHHH home! :)
And the money raised is amazing! For the first walk ever in a small community...WOW
Below is the link to our local news channel with a story and a video from the walk.
Walk for Autism 2008
And the money raised is amazing! For the first walk ever in a small community...WOW
Below is the link to our local news channel with a story and a video from the walk.
Walk for Autism 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Time passing
WOW. i can't believe how quickly time goes. 1st of all...Emily has big news! she lost her first tooth today. i was starting to think that it would never happen. she mentioned yesterday that she thought that she had a loose tooth, and i looked and it was literally leaning on the tooth next to it. today when she was picked up from school she came running out smiling, and we knew it had come out. turns out she got advice from all of her friends and pulled took it out herself at recess. she says she "twist twist turn pull" she was so excited! she put it in a little treasure chest! so the tooth fairy begins! :)
then the next thing on time passing. someone asked me how old i was at school yesterday and i drew a blank. i knew that i was either going to be 28 or 29. i literally ended up using my cell phone to subtract it out. 2008-1979 means that i will be 29 in 11 days. holy heck. that means i'm only done with my 20's. in one sense i'm beyond thrilled and in one WOW! i hate people at school saying WOW you are that old, but I HATE people in "real life" other moms and such saying WOW you are that young. I'm raising 4 children, 1 with special needs, paying bills, taking care of a house, keeping up with college, etc I feel as though i'm 80 some days! so i'm not quite sure what to think. i suppose i have 11 days to adjust to the fact that i'm apparently 28 right now since i wasn't quite sure if was going to be 28. heck i thought i had a whole nother year before 29. i guess they say the memory is the first thing to go. oooh did i tell you that emily lost her first tooth?????
then the next thing on time passing. someone asked me how old i was at school yesterday and i drew a blank. i knew that i was either going to be 28 or 29. i literally ended up using my cell phone to subtract it out. 2008-1979 means that i will be 29 in 11 days. holy heck. that means i'm only done with my 20's. in one sense i'm beyond thrilled and in one WOW! i hate people at school saying WOW you are that old, but I HATE people in "real life" other moms and such saying WOW you are that young. I'm raising 4 children, 1 with special needs, paying bills, taking care of a house, keeping up with college, etc I feel as though i'm 80 some days! so i'm not quite sure what to think. i suppose i have 11 days to adjust to the fact that i'm apparently 28 right now since i wasn't quite sure if was going to be 28. heck i thought i had a whole nother year before 29. i guess they say the memory is the first thing to go. oooh did i tell you that emily lost her first tooth?????
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
so much..yet so little
i feel like so much is happening in our lives, but so little to actually report...if that makes sense. sometimes i feel as though these updates may get boring to some, but it's our constant revolving life and i can only tell it like it is! :)
SNOW. that is the worst 4 letter word of all time. It did this yesterday. YESTERDAY a day in the month of APRIL after SPRING has supposedly already begun weeks after easter. This is wrong, horribly wrong.
Other than the above things are going ok. We are trying to get resituated and back into the grove of things. The kids are getting back into school and piano. Emily has a piano recital this sunday so she's busy practicing for that. She will be performing 2 songs, one of them is a duet with her teacher. Jace won't participate this year as he hasn't learned any songs yet and is working on the foundations still. This last week they did some drum play to work on getting the beat and rhythm down and he absolutely loved this. He also is working on some piano computer games that give him great practice with finger numbers and beat and such! He's really starting to enjoy it as he and his teacher figure out the right combo for him! :)
Ben is doing pretty good. He has his days. Right now he's on a bit of an eating strike and wouldn't even eat mac and cheese for dinner. When he is eating it's mostly fruits, as he loves these to death.
Ariana is doing pretty good. She is getting a bit braver. she's learned how to go upstairs and we are slowly working on teaching her how to go down. Tonight she took only one of brian's hands and walked across the floor! She has only walked up till now if we are holding both of her hands. We can also let go of her for a second and she is standing alone and then carefully lowering herself to her bottom! Slowly working towards walking!
Brian is doing well! He's been put in charge of a project at work and so he's really working to figure it out! He's enjoying his job though and that's a good thing for sure!
I'm doing pretty good. Trudging through these last 5 weeks of school. There's alot to be done and it keeps me pretty darned busy!
Therapys are all going well. Ben now has therapy 4 times a week, Ari will be once a week, and Jace starts this Friday, and he'll be once a week. Keeps me running!
I've made another great new friend and have really enjoyed getting to know her and the kids! We have alot in common, her daughter is 3 and uses PECS and has many of the same speech issues that Ben has so we enjoy chatting back and forth about this. We got together today for our littlest 2 to play and had a great time. Her youngest is a little boy and he's 19 months so he and ari had a great time!
we are gearing up for the Autism walk this saturday and then immediately start preparing for a fundraiser at pump it up on the 22nd. I'm also going to be in charge of a fundraiser called Autism:Time for Change, where will be doing a change drive, and are hoping to get it set up through the school district! Also something happening!
Missing everyone!
SNOW. that is the worst 4 letter word of all time. It did this yesterday. YESTERDAY a day in the month of APRIL after SPRING has supposedly already begun weeks after easter. This is wrong, horribly wrong.
Other than the above things are going ok. We are trying to get resituated and back into the grove of things. The kids are getting back into school and piano. Emily has a piano recital this sunday so she's busy practicing for that. She will be performing 2 songs, one of them is a duet with her teacher. Jace won't participate this year as he hasn't learned any songs yet and is working on the foundations still. This last week they did some drum play to work on getting the beat and rhythm down and he absolutely loved this. He also is working on some piano computer games that give him great practice with finger numbers and beat and such! He's really starting to enjoy it as he and his teacher figure out the right combo for him! :)
Ben is doing pretty good. He has his days. Right now he's on a bit of an eating strike and wouldn't even eat mac and cheese for dinner. When he is eating it's mostly fruits, as he loves these to death.
Ariana is doing pretty good. She is getting a bit braver. she's learned how to go upstairs and we are slowly working on teaching her how to go down. Tonight she took only one of brian's hands and walked across the floor! She has only walked up till now if we are holding both of her hands. We can also let go of her for a second and she is standing alone and then carefully lowering herself to her bottom! Slowly working towards walking!
Brian is doing well! He's been put in charge of a project at work and so he's really working to figure it out! He's enjoying his job though and that's a good thing for sure!
I'm doing pretty good. Trudging through these last 5 weeks of school. There's alot to be done and it keeps me pretty darned busy!
Therapys are all going well. Ben now has therapy 4 times a week, Ari will be once a week, and Jace starts this Friday, and he'll be once a week. Keeps me running!
I've made another great new friend and have really enjoyed getting to know her and the kids! We have alot in common, her daughter is 3 and uses PECS and has many of the same speech issues that Ben has so we enjoy chatting back and forth about this. We got together today for our littlest 2 to play and had a great time. Her youngest is a little boy and he's 19 months so he and ari had a great time!
we are gearing up for the Autism walk this saturday and then immediately start preparing for a fundraiser at pump it up on the 22nd. I'm also going to be in charge of a fundraiser called Autism:Time for Change, where will be doing a change drive, and are hoping to get it set up through the school district! Also something happening!
Missing everyone!
Friday, April 4, 2008
Surgeries
My surgeries will be done in 3 stages. I will include links if interested in more detailed info. WARNING the links do contain pictures that the website has chosen to use. They are not clothed so be aware before opening links in front of kids or at work, and no the pics aren't of me! :)
Stage 1. Belt lipectomy
Click for Info and Pics
This phase takes care of the stomach, hips, butt, and outer thigh area. This is the hardest surgery and recovery.
Stage 2. Lower Arm lift, upper body lift, and breasts.
Click for Info and Pics
Click for Info and Pics
I can't find the link for the upper body lift but it takes care of the breasts, under arm area and the area on the sides of your chest wall.
Stage 3. Upper Inner Thigh.
Click for Info and Pics
also during this stage the decision will be made on if I want to go with a breast implant. It depends on how the breast part of stage 2 goes.
so that is the process and I'm so ready to get started. The changes to a body after massive weight loss are something I would have never imagined.
Stage 1. Belt lipectomy
Click for Info and Pics
This phase takes care of the stomach, hips, butt, and outer thigh area. This is the hardest surgery and recovery.
Stage 2. Lower Arm lift, upper body lift, and breasts.
Click for Info and Pics
Click for Info and Pics
I can't find the link for the upper body lift but it takes care of the breasts, under arm area and the area on the sides of your chest wall.
Stage 3. Upper Inner Thigh.
Click for Info and Pics
also during this stage the decision will be made on if I want to go with a breast implant. It depends on how the breast part of stage 2 goes.
so that is the process and I'm so ready to get started. The changes to a body after massive weight loss are something I would have never imagined.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
What a week
I haven't blogged much this week. It's been busy. Not having the kids has probably been the strangest thing of my life. On one hand it's been nice. It's been nice having the quiet, not having to run around to 500 places keeping up with their schedules, nice being able to do my homework during the day instead of late at night, nice to be able to do some of my errands and get together with a friend, nice to be able to spend some time with Brian and go out in the evenings. But it's also been weird. We haven't slept in, not one single day. I just keep waking up, I can't help it. The house has been too quiet. It's almost scary quiet. I miss having the kids activities, I've actually been...ooooh i'm almost scared to say it...bored sometimes. I miss the cuddles, the love, the laughs, I miss watching them play, the cute smiles, peeking in on them at night before I go to bed, all those things. In some ways I've gotten alot done this week and in some ways I haven't gotten as much done as I expected. I got alot of school work done, got my errands done, got together with a friend, got a few appointments done, and spent some time with Brian. I did not get the house cleaned and all of those things finished up like I had hoped though. That's okay I suppose because as soon as the kids get home they'll run around here and make a mess anyway! :)
I had my plastic surgeon appointment this week. It's always a bit scary to have to go in there and get completely naked from head to toe. You are given a robe, but as soon as the doc comes in that's gone so he can look and see everything that he needs to see. He said that I look amazing and that I'm done losing weight. He said at this point he wants me to go into maintenance mode. That is the strangest thing I think I've ever heard in my life. I knew I was getting close but hearing those words was like WOW. So until after my 3 surgeries I'm done losing weight. His guess is by the time all the surgeries are done I won't have anything else to lose, but in my mind I'm thinking I will. We shall see. So we are hoping to start my first surgery the last week of May. We will set the official date next week. Then after I finished speaking with him I had to go be photographed again since my body has changed so much since my appointment in January. Talk about uncomfortable. I stand up on a stage in a photo studio with all the photo lights and the camera. Completely naked, turning and moving and sometimes having to get into strange poses, each time moving a small piece of paper with a ruler drawn out on it, taped to my body as she photos. This lasts for about 50-60 pictures. Talk about awkward. Afterwards she showed me my photos from january to now. The difference was amazing. I had no idea that in the last 2 months it had changed that much! It made me feel good! Then the surgeon and I met and got to chatting and BIG news may come from that but until I know more I won't be able to give all the details! BUT I will say that it could change my life!
Other than that there isn't to much to report. I have a big exam tomorrow, and am ready to just get it done. After my exam Brian and I will head to KC and will stay at the Plaza for the night. We will get our kids back Saturday afternoon and will be back here late Saturday night!
I had my plastic surgeon appointment this week. It's always a bit scary to have to go in there and get completely naked from head to toe. You are given a robe, but as soon as the doc comes in that's gone so he can look and see everything that he needs to see. He said that I look amazing and that I'm done losing weight. He said at this point he wants me to go into maintenance mode. That is the strangest thing I think I've ever heard in my life. I knew I was getting close but hearing those words was like WOW. So until after my 3 surgeries I'm done losing weight. His guess is by the time all the surgeries are done I won't have anything else to lose, but in my mind I'm thinking I will. We shall see. So we are hoping to start my first surgery the last week of May. We will set the official date next week. Then after I finished speaking with him I had to go be photographed again since my body has changed so much since my appointment in January. Talk about uncomfortable. I stand up on a stage in a photo studio with all the photo lights and the camera. Completely naked, turning and moving and sometimes having to get into strange poses, each time moving a small piece of paper with a ruler drawn out on it, taped to my body as she photos. This lasts for about 50-60 pictures. Talk about awkward. Afterwards she showed me my photos from january to now. The difference was amazing. I had no idea that in the last 2 months it had changed that much! It made me feel good! Then the surgeon and I met and got to chatting and BIG news may come from that but until I know more I won't be able to give all the details! BUT I will say that it could change my life!
Other than that there isn't to much to report. I have a big exam tomorrow, and am ready to just get it done. After my exam Brian and I will head to KC and will stay at the Plaza for the night. We will get our kids back Saturday afternoon and will be back here late Saturday night!
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Autism Awareness Month
East Central Iowa Chapter
First Annual Autism Walk 2008
Please join us at Westdale Mall on Saturday, April 12th, 2008 from 8am to 10:30am as our local ASA Chapter will be hosting a walk during National Autism Awareness Month.
Our family will be walking at the walk listed above. If anyone would like to sponser us please post a message here and I will get you the links and information!
Thanks everyone!!!
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