Lots to talk about today. :)

Wow! So much to talk about...

First of all, I was supposed to have Cassidy's 3 year check-up. Unfortunately, 10 minutes after our appointment time we were still standing outside and there was nobody there. So, I call to find out if they are hiding in the back or what, only to be told they decided not to open that office today and I should have been called. WHAT?! Oh man, I was ticked. I asked if they didn't have my cell or any of the other 5 numbers on the paper I fill out every single time I go to their office, and she claims no. Ugh. So, now the appointment is set for three weeks from now and mama is not too happy with the ped office.

Silas came home with all sorts of good news from work. I can't talk about a lot of it, but there is a good chance that things may start looking up financially for us. :) The main thing is he is getting all the praise and recognition he has deserved for years. I'm really excited for him. :D

I was tagged by Jane (Jane's World) a few days ago, and I haven't forgotten! I've just been a bit busy. ;) So, without further ado....

rules:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: List 5 weird things about yourself or your pets. Then tag 5 friends and list them. Then those 5 friends need to state their 5 weird things on their blog, listing the rules and then tag 5 more people. Don't forget to let the person know in their blog that you tagged them or we will never find out their weird attributes.

1 - I can't sleep at night unless my pillowcase is a flannel one. I have no idea why, but for some reason my ear just prefers the soft feel I suppose. Weird?.....yeah. LOL

2 - Another weird sleep thing...I have to have my ear on the cold part of the pillow. I will turn my pillow tons before I can ever actually sleep. We have had a post on Scrappin' Secrets a few weeks now about our quirks, and it turns out this is something a lot of people do. So, maybe I'm not completely weird. LOL

3 - Our dog, Abby, is quite the scardey-cat. We had a very young kitten get into our backyard, and she was terrified of it. Nevermind she was at least 10 times the size of the kitten. It was hillarious to watch her whimper and run to the other end of the yard with her tail between her legs everytime the kitten would meow or start to walk around the yard.

4 - I can't stand the feel of cardboard. It gives me goosebumps even thinking about touching it.

5 - Hmmm, one more....I actually LIKE to vaccum. It's the one chore I enjoy. No idea why. :)

Ok, that took a while to come up with that last one. LOL I'm going to tag Lynds, Wendy, Cassandra, Nellie, and Tiana. :) As Jane said on her blog, "blame Kim J", because it sounds like she instigated this. ROFL

Want to see my new layouts? ;)


This photo of Elena was just too darn cute...it just yelleed "SCRAP ME!", so I did. She loves to choose her own outfits now, and this one is a favorite. She also decided to choose all sorts of accessories while she was at it. LOL It was a very...ummm....different look. HA! If you click, you can see it much better and read the journaling. The papers are fromValerie Fowler's "Princess of the Party" and Michelle Coleman's "Simply Spring Mini " (slightly recolored by me). Ribbon and flower charm are also from Michelle Coleman's "Simply Spring Mini" (slightly recolored by me). Doodles and word art from Lauren Grier's "Girl Notes " (flower and heart colored by me).



I metioned in my last post about joining Bella Gypsy's CT. Wow! They are all so great there! I love it! I got to work immediately and came up with two LO's that I really like. The first one is using the Bella Gypsy kit "Elementary". Wow, do I ever LOVE this kit! I had the perfect photo for it too. :)






And the second layout is "Baby Talk". I used Bella Gypsy's "All Girl" paper and embellishment packs. The colors are so soft...I just LOVE it! I also used some stitches from their Berry Sweet kit. LOL The photo is Elena with my best friend's baby. They appeared to have a nice little conversation going on. :)


So, I guess I didn't have too, too much to say. It seemed like a lot more in my mind I guess. Anyone that knows me knows that I can get to talking at times and keep on, and on, and on, and....I'll spare you. ;)

Have a great evening!

Woohoo!

School has been going pretty well for the most part. I decided to try something new with Jacob. I gave him the entire week's worth of work so he could see what was coming, and I told him that we were going to do all that was on the list by Thursday so we could have a fun day on Friday doing art, digital scrapping, etc. He dragged his feet so badly. He took an hour and a half to do one phonics sheet on Monday and Tuesday, and we never even got to half of the things we should have. So, Thursday we actually had a lot to catch up on, but we did get to everything. I think I will just stick with the daily schedule for now. ;)

Josh did pretty good this week. I am trying to give him work that is mostly play right now. He has a negative view of what school is like because he hates writing. We worked on it a lot last year for therapy. So, this year I am trying not to worry about the writing right now and focus on everything else. We will get to the writing later. We played a game called Train Salesman. We set up a nice curvy track and he sat on one side while I sat on the other. I was the buyer, setting up my own train station, and he had a train yard that I wanted to buy from. We took out all of his Thomas trains and set them up, and I would tell him what I was looking for...for example, a large engine with a green tender. He would then find them in the huge line of trains (which is hard for him to focus on large groups of items), put them together on a track and drive them over to me. I would then tell him my shipping business was doing so well that I needed to either trade in for a new one or buy another. He loved the game.

His other favorite activity was the number puzzles I made. I used index cards....on the left side I wrote the number. On the right side I used glittery puffy paint and made coordinating number of dots. This provided something for him to touch while counting the dots. I then cut them cards down the center in different shapes. He did great. I used the same puzzle idea with the letters to teach him the lowercase letters after he had learned the uppercase.

We also have done a little computer, but not much. He mainly wants to play his car racing game, Test Drive 5, and he does that as his reward after his school is done. He has actually figured out how to manuver the cars a bit now and discovered a track that will actually make him airborne. He also found a spot that is wide enough to make the car do doughnuts. Too many Nascar races, I think. LOL

So, in scrapping news....

I am super excited to say I received an email tonight asking if I would like to join the Bella Gypsy CT. Woohoo! I LOVE their kits, so of course I said YES! I was recommended by Lynds, and after checking out my gallery, they asked me to join. :) In addition to that, I also am now the Scrappin' Secrets CT Apprentice. Eventually somewhere down the road I will be the CT Leader. Woohoo! I'm super excited about it!

I did some layouts this week that I really loved:

I did the sketch challenge at RAKScraps. I was wanting to use a new kit I got by Jeanine Baechtold, and I still had not gotten Joshua's first day of Kindergarten pics scrapped yet, so I decided to put the two together. :) Even though we homeschool, we still do the first day of school photos each year. Stitching is from freedigitalscrapbooking and the kit I used is Jeanine Baechtold's Sophisticated Paisley kit. Isn't Josh cute. He had one of Jacob's Lego cars in hand, of course. :)

Next is a continuation of our ABC album. I used a photo of a huge giraffe we saw at Downtown Disney last October. Everything from RAKScraps May Mega Kit....Papers by: Jeannie Papai and Jane A and the ribbon by Corinne Fragata.

And I saved my favorites for last. I love how these turned out. Be sure to click on these and see them better and read the journaling. :)


Credits: Ginger Thibodeau's Catch Some Coral kit. The journaling is actually lyrics from the Barry Manilow song "I Am Your Child"


Credits: I used Rachel Dickson's Little Man kit. I also used Virtual Photographer on the photo. This one is currently my favorite LO. :)


Credits: Ginger Thibodeau's Catch Some Coral ki


Credits: Papers - Valerie Fowler - Princess of the Party and Michelle Coleman, Simply Spring Mini (slightly recolored by me) Ribbon and flower charm - Michelle Coleman, Simply Spring Mini (slightly recolored by me) Doodles and word art - Lauren Grier ~ Girl Notes (flower and heart colored by me)

ARGH!!!!!

Ok, this construction in my backyard is seriously going to drive me to the nut house! Let me give you a visual to explain a little of why I am complaining.

This is my backyard the afternoon after a hurricane came through our area in August of 2004. It's a mess, but you get to see what the trees that once existed look like. Notice this is from my garage door, and also notice the blue pipe which was sitting in a large ditch. Note also the amount of shade we received from all of these trees.



Now, here is what my backyard looks like as of week before last. Note the lack of a ditch, because a bunch of nice workers in trucks came and filled it in for us. Notice the bright orange truck that was kind enough to pull up a tree from next to our fence and then almost managed to drop onto my house. Also note the wonderful pile of pulled trees (you only see a portion of the long trail here) that they decided to burn this weekend. The smell of smoke in my house was wonderful (being sarcastic here) and the haze was such a wonderful sight - I really think this is probably half the reason Cassie and Jacob are both quite hoarse since that day. And while you are looking at this, imagine the feeling of the trees being pulled and thrown around like little lincoln logs, but on a MUCH grander scale. My house literally shakes all day long when they are out there working. My dog goes balistic because these workers are literally right at my fence. It's a whole lotta noise and a whole lotta shaking in the neighborhood!



Now, flash to today. I wake up to very low water pressure, which is not an uncommon thing when you have all the construction going on. At 9am it was low enough that I was not able to shower or do laundry, both of which were in need of being done. At noon, I fixed the kids their lunch and discovered we had absolutely NO WATER! Nothing, nada, zip. Nary a drop could be found. I was fuming now. So I call the water company to find out what's up. Nobody had reported a probalem, so the woman was sending out a ticket. I explained I had four small children and no water with them here was a very bad combination. She apologized and said they would send someone out as soon as possible. Here in my city, that is usually translated into a minimum of 2-3 hours before it is even looked into.

Joshua was panicked about not being able to wash his hands, Jacob's imagination was completely running away with him as to what would happen if we turned on the faucet with no water at the house....I have no idea what he thought was going to happen, but he was scared to try turning it on. The girls could have cared less...it meant no bath today, so they were happy. LOL So, I headed over to my mother's house for the remainder of the day. Luckily, we had finished school by the time this happened. The water was fixed by the time Silas got home.

So, now that I have explained a little more what our big complaint is right now, I guess you can imagine what it is like trying to get my highly distractable, autistic child to concentrate on doing school of any sort. I mean, it is hard enough for any of us to think some days with all the noise and shaking, but then for poor Joshua whose senses are extremely heightened...man, I feel for him.

So, hopefully they will finish all of this majorly annoying construction projects soon.

A new scrapper and a new activity

As a new activity for homeschooling this year, I decided to take a cue from Jacob and let him learn digital scrapping. We had his first lesson yesterday and he LOVED it! I let him choose the photo, papers, elements, and what to write. The main goal of the lesson was for him to learn to move the items he wanted onto the background. He chose 2 papers from Wendy Nelson's Back to School Basic kit and the elements he chose were from Melany Violette's Vroom-Vroom kit. The font was ITC Garamond (we'll cover changing the font later). I think he did a pretty good job for his first time! I even posted his LO at RAKScraps and Scrappin' Secrets for him, where he received quite a few wonderful compliments. (Thanks again everyone!) So now he is asking to do another page. LOL I think this will be a lot of fun for him when we go on field trips and when we study things he is actually able to take photos of on his own.



I've been doing some scrapping myself. I now have my letter F page done. Silas took the photo while out of town on business last month. Everything I used was from the Gotta Pixel Design Team's April kit. Papers by Brenda Miller, Ribbon by Stacy Carlson, Charm by Christina Wall, Glass Buttons by Michelle Pieters.




I love this photo Silas took of Elena. She brought a frame out of my room last week and I had it sitting on a shelf. She decided to be cute one evening and frame herself. LOL Silly girl. The kit I used is Misty Cato's Wonderfully Made.









This next one is a photo of Elena opening gifts on her actual birthday. It's so funny seeing how she knew what to do this year and actually ripped paper to get to what was inside. She was excited about her Crayola dominoes. Star clip and Birthday Girl Word art are by Jen Reed from the BirthdayZ elements kit at Scrapdish, Candles by Krista Mettler from the BirthdayZ elements kit, Celebrate Word art by Melissa G from the BirthdayZ elements kit, Star Background by Lisa West (Zephanee) from her Summer Celebration kit, and Patterned background paper by Robin Cabana from her You Rock kit available at Scrapbook-Bytes.


Finally, I participated in the Ad Inspiration challenge at Scrappin' Secrets and came up with this layout. I have so many photos of Josh with a car or train in his hands. I had to use them at some point. LOL he paper and truck are from Melany Violette's Vroom-Vroom Kit. The fonts I used are Mad's Scrawl BRK, Long Island, and Little Trouble Girl BV.






I received the latest issue of Family Fun Magazine this week and finally got a chance to sit and look through it. I came across a really cool article on Letterboxing. I have been looking for something like this and finally, here it is! It is similar to geocaching, but instead of using a GPS and leaving trinkets, you use a compass and clues to find the letterbox. You then take a rubberstamp (most people make their own) and stamp the logbook inside the box and then take the stamp inside the box to stamp their page. Then you hide the box back where it was found. Jacob is always wanting to find treasure, and this will fulfill the desire, improve thinking skills, get us some exercise, and give us some cheap family fun. There are several in our area and nearby areas, and in our state there are at least 3 mystery boxes. I can't wait to get started. My plan (we know how that goes!) is for Jacob and possibly the others to make their own rubber stamps. There are so many easy options for them that it is very doable.

And the year begins

We started school Monday. Jacob is in second grade, Joshua is in kindergarten, and the girls are "preschool". I had these great plans of how things would go and my schedule was worked out. Everyone would have something to do throughout the day. The boys would take turns entertaining the girls and the girls would love every minute of it since they adore their brothers. During naptime for the girls I would work on things together with the boys. Life would be nice and school would be fun. My schedule looked so good on paper that it was frameworthy.

Well, as we all know, life has a funny way of taking your plans and laughing at you. Half an hour into trying to get the kids to listen to what we were going to do first, I realized the joke truly was on me. I overhear Jacob mumble that he thought second grade was going to be fun. Uh oh! That's it. Time to rethink this whole thing.

So, with a huge sigh, I proceded to tear up my beautiful, happy schedule and go into my room to rethink the entire thing and how I need to work it out to everyone's benefit, all the while being serenaded by Joshua's drumming on my door. I gave that idea up quickly, and told Joshua he could play in his room while I worked with Jacob. Sweet Joshua actually peeked out his room about 10 minutes later and asked me if I wanted to play Legos with him. WOAH! This is one of our goals that we have been working on - initiating play by asking someone to play a specific thing with him. I was excited, but there was no way in the world I could just drop Jacob's school. So, I came up with a solution and explained that I had to do school with Jacob, but could play later. Until then, would he like to play with Cassidy? Oh yes! Great idea! Score one for Mom! And even better, Cassie was chomping at the bit to get in the boys room and help make a mess.

I decided to try easing into school a bit this year. So, Jacob worked on his Bible lesson and some Math. We are using an old 3rd grade Holt Mathematics book and supplementing as necessary and for the Bible lesson I am using Calvary Chapel Children's Ministry Curriculum. It's nice. It has mazes, crosswords, true and false, fill in the blanks, and word searches. I also have been getting "Keys for Kids" which is a free daily devotional for kids that we receive in the mail each month.

Joshua worked on several things so far. We have been sorting some magnetic letters by color. My letters come in 6 different colors, which is a lot for Josh to concentrate on at once. I had him sort about 100 letters into their proper place and it took him a few tries before he fully seemed to understand what I was wanting. While they were up today he asked me if some of them spelled car. So, I showed him the c, a, and r and explained that they make the word car. He giggled. So funny to see him get excited over something so simple. LOL I then decided to take it a bit further and took away the c and added f. I went over the sounds again with him, and explained the ar sound and how to put the f sound with it and make the word far. Ok, not impressed. So then I did a couple more and came to the letter t. I asked him what sound the t makes, he told me, and lo and behold he actually told me tar spells TAR! He didn't know what tar was until I explained it to him, but he smiled a little when I told him how proud I was that he just read a word by himself.

I also discovered this week that Joshua has a great sense of rhythm. He was playing a Reader Rabbit music game and actually enjoying it. All of the rhythm exercises that he tried, he did awesome on! So, that was exciting. :) Maybe there is a musical future for my little guy. He has always been able to hum and sing a tune amazingly well compared to other kids his age. I remember when he was only one and we were in the car and he was humming. I thought it was Jacob because of how accurate it was. Just amazing.

And he can use a computer mouse. Another thing that amazes me given that until this week he always prefered to watch others do the computer. Now he has one of his own and he seems to have completely taken to it. I'm really glad, because I think that he will benefit a lot from using it.

We did some drawings in shaving cream yesterday. Joshua hated it, but with guidance and my convincing him to draw some cars, we made it through. Even the girls enjoyed that one, though I learned next time we will probably try using whipped cream. Elena was way too tempted by the look of it and kept trying to taste it. Yuck!

So, that brings you up to date for now. RAKScraps has just started releasing their August Mega Kit and the theme is school days! Woohoo! Run over and join the message board to get the links to this awesome kit, and while you are there, why not say hello? Everyone there is great! I plan on trying to scrap a bit this weekend as time permits. I want to get the first day layouts completed ASAP and try to stay up on them for the end of the year, especially since Joshua's portfolio is going to be made up of a lot of photos. :)

Rumble Grumble

I have been busy, busy, busy preparing for this school year. I'm pretty much ready. Only 4 more days! Yay! I can't wait. :)

Here is my biggest concern right now - the noise. We have some major construction going on, practically in my backyard. What used to be a ton of trees and a ditch on the other side of my back fence, now appears to be completely empty space with the ditch completely filled in with dirt. Now, because the ditch was HUGE and is now full of dirt, obviously we have had work trucks bringing dirt, scooping dirt, dropping dirt....all of this after they already spent a day knocking down trees. They are very close to my fence - so close that their trucks keep bumping the branches of trees in my yard. My house literally shakes ALL DAY LONG. I had a horrible migraine two days ago, and it is near impossible to get rid of it with the house rumbling.

So, now that my grumbling is done, would you like to see my latest layouts? :) I've been busy
making new pages, but have neglected posting them on my blog. In my defense, blogger hasn't been very cooperative for me.

My first three layouts were made using the Pampered Princess kit by Sheri Smith, SheLynn Designs at Scrappin' Secrets. The layouts just flowed once I got started. The first two are of sweet Elena. I used the ShangriLaNFSmallCaps font in the first one, and Scythe font in the second.

My third layout was of Cassidy. Don't you just love that silly smile she had? LOL It was taken on her first real Halloween. She was Sleeping Beauty and was thrilled, as you can tell. :) I used Pea Catherine as the font on this one.

Next is a layout I did for the Ad Inspiration Challenge on SS. I am far from thrilled with it, but I liked the concept. I decided to do a layout on Cassidy's favorite things. What you see is the result. LOL Barbie, the color PINK, Disney Princesses, My Little Ponies, friends, and of course, her Purple Baby, which she never leaves home without. The font I used is Kayleigh, and the kit is Miss Mint's "To My Mother" kit from Peppermint Creative.

What's next? Hmmmm. My Abc Album is coming along nicely. I just finished my letter E page. I just realized I never showed the C and D pages either. Yikes! I am WAY behind!

C always stands for the older princess around here. LOL I'm still trying to get my tears to look halfway decent. I'm not thrilled with how they turned out here, but they will do for now. All of the papers and elements are from Ginger Thibodeau's Softly Shining kit. I love this kit. I have used it on at least 3 layouts and could keep using it over and over. It is a beautiful kit! The font I used is ITC Garamound. I decided right from the start that I was going to use the same font for this entire album to sort of tie the entire thing together.

My D page features a photo of some ducks that I took on Jacob's first fishing trip. The little babies were so cute. They would follow their mother into the high grass at the edge of the lake and simply disappear in it. Do you see the little white duck among all of the brown ones? He is too cute. LOL I used V. Kim Smith's Woodland Meadows 2 kit.

Just as C stands for Cassidy, E is for Elena. Scrappin Secrets has a new Mega kit out right now for free (so go get it - good through the month of August!) and I loved the lightly colored papers in there. I really loved Colleen Shibley's background that I chose to use, as well as the little tag. It just seemed too perfect. :)

Let me see. Wow, I did not realize how long it had been since I posted my layouts. LOL Next is one I did for the SS Quote Challenge. Journaling reads:
"Joshua, you have always had a special bond with Elena. I remember when this photo was taken in the hospital only a few short hours after Elena was brought into my room. You were so proud of your new sister. At that time you were still not very verbal, but the joy you showed us was amazing. Elena is so lucky to have such a wonderful big brother." I used Robin Carlton and Mandabean's Deco Fabulous kit. The fonts are Libby Script, Pea Jennifer, and Kayleigh.

I took part in the lyrics challenge at SS as well. I didn't think I had a single photo to go along with it, which is why I didn't do the same exact challenge at RAKS. While looking through my photos for one to use on the quote challenge, I came across the photo I decided to use. It needed something done, so I played with it a bit. You see the final result. The lyrics are from Natasha Bedingfield's song "Unwritten". The font I used is Apple Chancery, and the kit I chose is Funky Bunches of Flowers by Tania Cordova aka luna designs.

Finally, I made two layouts using Julie Major's Spring Time Kit. The first is A Little Cake. I got the stitching from Atomic Cupcake, and the font is Pea Becky. Gotta love those Pea fonts!

The other is titled Smile. I took this photo on Elena's birthday. She was so cute. She sat on the seat and kept smiling and saying "Cheeeeeeese". What a ham she can be at times. LOL I used Pea Becky on this one as well. Now that I am looking at it, I wish I would have kept her eyes colored when I desaturated the pic. She has the most gorgeous blue eyes. I may redo it one of these days.

I think that pretty much brings you up to date on the happenings and the layouts from this month. I'll try to be better about updating regularly so I don't overwhelm you with the layouts like that. ;)

Angel Madison

Baby Madison, who I have mentioned a few times here on my blog, passed away this morning. My thoughts and prayers are with Shelli. Madison fought so hard, and she beat so many odds. She just celebrated her 2nd birthday on July 29th - something the doctors did not expect to happen.
She touched so many people across many miles. To read her story, please follow this link:
http://www.memoriesofmariam.com/madison/

Happy 2nd Birthday, Elena!

I can't believe my baby is 2 already! She is such a joy. Happy birthday, baby girl!

Credits: Mindy Terasawa's Autumn Blossoms blog freebie Font: Antsy Pants

The boys and their growth issues

Well, if you rememebr all the way back to January, both boys were referred to an endocrinologist because one of them has a low Insulin-like Growth Hormone (IGF) and the other had a high according to the peds office. So, today was our appointment...finally! Nothing like 7 1/2 months of waiting! The endo is wonderful though! I really like her a lot, and the kids do as well.

So, we started with Jacob. He is still in the 5th% for height. His bone age scan (the xray my peds office supposedly couldn't get was miraculously there in the office) shows his bone growth as delayed by about a year. From what she explained, the IGF they tested is not actually a hormone, but a protein that binds to the bones. It increases as you grow. Jacob's isn't actually low like the ped thought...it is actually in the low range, but borderline. She thinks he is what they call a late-bloomer. They start out mid to high on the growth chart and then steadily decline until they level off. He pretty much has leveled off at the 5% now, which is great. She did a full exam and said he is still missing 2 of his 6 year molars which goes right along with the delay in bone growth.

The awesome thing? She said most parents have been told there is a window of opportunity that you need to get growth issues taken care of in. It is not true and we have plenty of time to just observe him and see what happens. Most likely he will stay at this % and wind up a normal height but on the shorter side. My brother stopped growing when he was about 8 or 10 and stayed the same height for 5 years...he is taller than me now. :) She said it is definitely something that tends to run in families, so this isn't really surprising. So, basically he has likely found his place on the growth curve and that's all. Yay!

Joshua had the bone growth x-ray today and we will get the results by the end of the week. The reason he was sent in was because his IGF was high according to the ped. Now, that wonderful office never bothered to send over his test results for some reason (I guess 7 months wasn't enough time to get them over) I told this doc what I was told and that I don't know whether or not it really was high since they weren't correct about Jacob's. She said it wouldn't make sense for it to be high, but she will look into getting the results from the lab and see what they say. So, when I call for the bone age scan results I can get that info as well. She may decide to run more tests. At this point though, Josh seems to be following the same path Jacob did and will likely be fine as well. Yay!

So, we go back in 6 months to check and see if they remain on their paths and will likely go twice a year for a while. I can deal with that. :)

The funniest part was the fact that Josh loved talking to her. She has a GREAT bedside manner and he just took right to her. The questions on paper asked about delays developmentally and I put on there about his HFA. She said she was really surprised he is autistic because he is so chatty and friendly. His eye contact wasn't great, but it is nice to know we have progressed to being able to even fool a few docs now for a little while. ;) He really has progressed a lot socially, so I am very pleased. :)

So, that's it. No hormone shots, so I am SO relieved! LOL 7 months of worry have been lifted off my shoulders in just a few hours time this morning. I'm not even worried about what Josh's test results will show from today because it is likely the same as Jacob and will be ok.

Oh! I also asked about the girls and whether or not we will see the same pattern. She said it might happen, but it is more common in males. Weird, huh?