I'm Out!!

Leaving at 8 or 8:30 am for Montana. I can't believe that I'm leaving. I'll be staying in Denver Sunday night and then drive the rest on Monday...assuming the kids do well.

Wish me luck!!

100th Post...do a little happy dance!

This is my 100th blog post!

Here's what I have to say...
Since I have decided to gear my photography more towards children I am re-doing my name and logo. It took me a long time to think of something that was fun/funky, kid friendly, and reflects my personality.
At 3:00am sometime last week when I was lying in bed not sleeping I came up with
happy dance photography.

Click here to view my new photography blog. Still working on the logo.

Thanks for peeking!

Moving

So...Spencer and I have decided that it would be in our best interest for the kids and I to move back to Montana early. Here's why...

1. We need to find a house and close on it before Spencer graduates because I don't want to move more than once.
2. When Baer turns 3 years old he will be transitioning into the school district for his therapy. Because his birthday is in July it is in his best interest to move back early and get all his therapy going.
3. It will be much easier for Spencer to finish up the house projects without all the toys and kids messing things up.

So...see you Montanans in a week and a half or so.

Baer's Mischief

One example of what Baer likes to do when I'm working on something.

Pretty sure 32 lbs plus the occasional bouncing force isn't so good for the dishwasher door...yet I pause to take a picture ;)

Thanks for peeking!

Winter Formal

Photo displayed below

Spencer's school has a winter formal every year and hasn't taken me to any of them...until last night. I guess the last year is as good as any. We had a group of 8 and we all rode together in our armada. We had dinner, awards ceremony, and dancing.

Spencer ordered the vegetarian plate for me (he knows me so well) and got the chicken plate for himself. Mine was better than his was (or so it seemed by his reaction to his chicken plate...bland). One of the girls in our group kept leaving to go check on the Kansas State vs Kansas basketball game during dinner so we joined her after our meals. We joked that if her date/fiance had tried to pull that it may not have gone over well. Spencer wanted to make sure he got his cheesecake so Devin (the one who couldn't miss the game) grabbed one off the server's tray when she wasn't watching and handed it to Spencer. He took it with him and when we got back we all had been served our cheesecake...including Spencer. Lucky dog got two!

It seemed like forever before they finally started the awards. Devin announced the winners and then it was dancing time! I danced for a bit, Spencer danced a slow dance with me, danced a little more, and then decided it was time to go. Spencer and I left our group there to find their own ride home, haha. No, but really they were going to an after party to get smashed and said they'd take a cab home since we didn't want to go. I had a lot of fun and was glad that Spencer took me. Thankfully our friend Willa watched the boys for us and said they were really good for her. It was nice having a babysitter that we didn't have to drive home after.

Here is a picture of us and Joe's house where Spencer spends a lot of time working on the Jeep. What a great backdrop for formal attire, right??

I don't have a point and shoot and didn't want to take my big camera in so I'll have to get more pictures from one of the other girls who brought her camera.

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As for the rest of our happenings...
We are trying to get our house in order so that we can put it on the market. Don't stop by though because you may be confused or be thinking I am a liar. I just can't seem to get anything done! Baer is going through what I am hoping is a stage where he wants me to hold him all morning. If I set him down, he SCREAMS and throws his body around. I swear he will hurt himself one of these times. I have been doing a little better at my biggest feat...the laundry. I do it everyday and I am still not on top of it. I am constantly wondering how I am going to get my house ready to sell if I can't even keep up with my basic chores? I am seriously considering putting the kids in daycare for a week so that I can try to get things done. The only problem with that is something to do with girl stuff, being in pain, and not wanting to work. We are hoping to get it on the market by mid February but we'll see how that turns out.

Today I did a brainless thing and left the sink running while I went upstairs to get something. When I returned, the bathroom was flooded and leaking through the floor into the basement. Not so brilliant. I grabbed a bunch of towels from......the LAUNDRY pile right next to the bathroom and threw them down. Guess it was convenient this time to be behind on the laundry. I was scared to go downstairs and see what the damage was. Luckily the area it leaked down into was right where the drain is and there weren't any boxes. How lucky is that?? I just hope the wood floors will be okay.

Trapped under the chairs

Here are just a few pictures of my kids playing under the table a couple of weeks ago.
Baer only let me take one picture before he was off chasing the can across the floor and James had taken his place.

Such a sweet boy.

Cheese!

RAWRRR!!! (means I love you in dinosaur...look how much he means it)
Thanks for peeking!

Old friend, and info on Baer

We are lucky to have my friend Pocahontas, her husband Jeff, and their son Ziggy with us for the week. I haven't seen Pocahontas since my wedding so it has been fun to reminisce about the old college days. I will have to post pictures later.

Today Baer had an appointment with the developmental pediatrician and it is official...Baer has autism. We still have to wait to find out if he has any genetic syndromes...so 4-6 weeks still of waiting for those. They don't have anything to do with autism...if he does have anything genetically abnormal it would be in addition to autism. He developmental pediatrician said that we are doing the right things with him right now (ie...therapy, therapy, therapy, etc...) so that is reassuring. She did say that he is way behind though and has a long way to go. Not a surprise. He is 2 1/2 yrs old and here are his stats... 3 feet tall (25 percentile for height), 32 lbs (75th percentile), and his head is in the 50th percentile.

Baer is a happy boy though and gave a lot of smiles and laughter to his developmental pediatrician.

Updates on Baer mostly

For one of my Christmas presents Spencer took my computer apart and fixed it. He put a terabytes worth of memory in it and an extra cd drive. We haven't hooked it up yet since we have been home because we are debating where we should put it. I don't use it as much when it is down in the cold and spidery basement so I want it upstairs....somewhere...but where?? Anyway...the point is that all my pictures are on that computer so that is why I don't have pictures to post.

Here's a picture I pulled off my email of Baer.

This last Monday Baer had an appointment with a geneticist. He has been on the waiting list for months and we finally got in! They basically asked all about my family and Spencer's family and a ton of questions about Baer. To make a long story short...they took 4 vials of blood (and the lady dug around quite a bit with the needle the whole time the blood was going into the vials...WHY? Poor guy) and are sending them in for some genetic testing.

They are testing him for Angelman Syndrome and Mowat-Wilson Syndrome. We don't hear back for 4-6 weeks. I am not a patient person. I wanna know last year!

I will update when we hear back.

Post Delete!!

Last night I worked on writing a fun and witty post and when I went to finish it this morning IT WASN'T THERE!!

So bummed.

New Year, New Goals

Wow, back to the blogging board!

Can you believe it is already 2010?

While in Montana this past extended Holiday I was sitting with my sister-in-law while she was going through some of her old journals and such. She read a few of her entries a loud and I chuckled as she read "I know it's been a while since I have written..." (or something much to that effect) because it is a phrase that is well known in all forms of my journals.

So...in keeping up with my reputation...

I know it's been a while since I have written. Many excuses come to mind, but I'll just have to try to pick up where I left off and catch myself up. It is important for me to keep a record of my family so I will just have to do a better job in the future. Before I go back and retrace those steps though, I would like to post my goals/things I would like to work on, for the new year.

In no particular order:

I would like to do better at my journaling/blogging/family photobooking. My mother-in-law gave me a very thoughtful gift for Christmas that should help to keep up with this a little more. There was a lot of time and thought put into this gift and I can't wait to try it out.

I would like to do better at reading not only a book for book club every month, but a book from my "to read" list as well.

I need to do better at personal prayer, making sure we have Family Home Evenings that include a lesson, and scripture study. These things always have room for improvement for me.

I would like to organize my house in a way that can allow for easier (I say easier instead of easy to keep things realistic) clean-up/staying on top of things.

It is important to me to keep up with regular exercise and to find a diet that can most benefit me and my dysfunctional body. I would also like to meditate more frequently as I know it helps to calm my spirit.

I want to do better at supporting my children in the things they need. I need to either put James in a preschool or do better at doing it myself. I need to be better at organizing my schedule so that I can keep up with Baer's therapy and appointments.

I need to to better at keeping to my budget. Enough said.

I guess I can sum a lot of this up into: ORGANIZE MYSELF!!

And the list goes on....



As I was writing this list, I found myself wanting to write excuses to why I am not doing better at these things already. I'm not going to do that because I only know of a couple of perfect people and I am not included....yet ;)