I'm feeling sad. We got Jonah's preschool schedule for May today. There's only four more days of school left. One next week, two the next and one the week after that. Then they do an all school picnic and that's it. This school has been such a wonderful thing for Jonah. He has made so much progress since the beginning of the year. I know he'll miss going too. My one goal that I hoped he'd meet before the end of the year happened today. I hoped that by the end of the year he would go potty at school. A small thing, but a big deal for him. He was so resistant to potty training and then last spring he just got it. But for a long time he was completely dependent on having his potty seat and did not like going in unfamiliar places. At school they have potty time every day, but with ten kids in one bathroom, toilets flushing, kids talking, singing, washing hands, I think it was too much for him, so he wouldn't even try. A couple weeks ago he decided he was ready to go standing up and it's been great, he goes everywhere now. Sooooo...today we get home from school and I ask him to go potty and he says, "I don't need to, I went at school." Wooo hooo!

He's signed up to go to the same school next year, same teacher, some of the same kids. But we may not be here. It makes me a little sad. I know God can provide another school so I'll just have have faith in that.

Tackle it Tuesday

Well last week we were on vacation so no Tackle it Tuesday. Unless you consider the amount of food I ate at Cinzetti's. It took a lot of work to tackle that buffet, especially the dessert bar. I digress. So this morning I remember it's Tuesday and maybe I should find something to tackle. I really enjoyed doing it two weeks ago and would like to continue.

But....

I didn't really have one thing in particular today that I wanted to tackle. I did laundry, washed dishes, chauffered Jonah to school, ran errands, made cookies and french onion soup for dinner, normal everyday stuff, not just Tuesday stuff. And you know what? At the end of the day, I have a smile on my face from the satisfaction of doing just those normal things.

Jonah had a great day! He was so excited to go back to school. He was really good at telling me all day about the things he was thinking about. Started conversations with me. Played with Cason. At one point they were sitting on a little bench together and Jonah had his arm around Cason, so sweet. He had his first occupational therapy session today while at school. She sent home useful information and said she really enjoys working with Jonah. I'm sad there's only one more month of school left, I'm not sure yet what we do during the summer.

Cason's recently started lifting his arms to be picked up. I know almost two years old is probably late for starting this behavior but I love it. Jonah never lifted his arms to be picked up. When I worry about the possiblility of Cason having autism too, the one thing that brings me comfort is how he comes to us for help. Jonah will always, and has always, just figured out a way to do it on his own. A good trait, but also a piece to the puzzle that is autism.

Post vacation blues!!! After nine days of family time we are back to the grind. Josh went back to work today so I guess that means I did too. I have a full sink of dishes to do (after a week of very minimal dish care), two suitcases to unpack, two laundry baskets of clothes to put away. Jonah is adjusting slowly to being home and life going back to normal. It's similar to the start of last week, more resistance and demands. In his defense Mommy and Daddy have been a little crabby about being back too so he's probably just reflecting our attitudes.

It looks like this family will be heading west again before the end of the year though. We have always wanted to move back to Colorado and this trip just confirmed that desire. We came home and immediately started making moves to make that happen. In two weeks we're having a monstrous garage sale. It will include my parents and my brother's family who are also moving (to Colorado too!). We're also working towards getting the house ready to sell. We have probably a half a dozen projects to work on for that. I think there will be no shortage of activity around here.

More pictures from today...hopefully no one is getting tired of pictures of us with rocks and water. After a time of resting this afternoon we headed back up to spend some more time in Ft. Collins. These pictures are at the Horsetooth Reservoir. It was so beautiful. We are reallly sad to be leaving tomorrow. We're heading to Josh's parents house in Kansas City and will be home Saturday.

Cute Jonah


Jonah had no sense of how high up we were and was totally fearless (scared this mama!). Cason was hypersensitive to how high we were and held on super tight, but loved being able to walk over the rocks with some help.

This morning we went out to Estes Park with the intention of going into Rocky Mountain National Park. Call us stingy but when we saw the $20 entrance fee we decided to turn around. Half the park isn't even open yet and we were only planning to do a minimum of hiking. We did have fun walking around the shops at Estes Park, having a picnic by a lake and driving through the surrounding area. On the way back down to Loveland we stopped by the side of the road and scrambled down some rocks to the Big Thompson river. Jonah's got a knack for bouldering and Cason was ready to jump in the water.



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I think I'll let the pictures do most of the talking for today. We were a little worried about the weather as the day started out heavily overcast and rainy, but by noon the sun was shining and the sky was brillant Colorado blue. We had a wonderful time in Colorado Springs and visited many of our old favorite places. We stopped by the house Josh lived in for most of his time in Colorado. The lady who owned it was home and we visited with her for a while. Lunch at La Baguette was everything that I remembered it to be. We stopped by Glen Eyrie. That one left us a little sad. It's exactly the same and completely different. We have so many memories of that place. We hiked around Garden of the Gods. Jonah loved that and thought it was fun to draw in the red sand. We drove up to Helen Hunt Falls but the boys fell asleep on the way so we just jumped out for a couple quick pictures. My favorite hike is on the way up and I really wished we were able to go up...maybe next time. Then we ended up driving down town and stopped at a little outdoors shop to get some new sandals for me and crocs for Josh. Finally we headed back north but made one last stop north of Denver for dinner at Cinzetti's.

Cute Cason


Glen Eyrie


My boys in front of Garden of the Gods and Pike's Peak.




At Garden of the Gods.




Helen Hunt Falls.


Tomorrow we're going to Rocky Mountain National Park.

What a great long day it's been! We started the day out in Boulder. On the way I took some pictures out the window. I love our new camera! I got a decent shot of Long's Peak.


We found a children's play area along the Pearl St walking mall and let Jonah romp for a while. There was another boy and his brother playing and Jonah made a new friend. He went right up and asked the boy what his name was and then introduced himself. "I'm Jonah, I'm four." he said probably seven times. Then he gestured at us (see picture below) and said "These are my grown-ups." We're still laughing about that. We were reminded of one of the reasons we love Colorado so much, everyone is so friendly. People look each other in the eye and say hello, ask how you're doing, send you off with a smile.



Jonah loved jumping from boulder to boulder.



After Boulder we drove up to Ft. Collins. We stopped first at Beau Jo's for lunch. Yummy! The we headed over to the New Belgium Brewing Co. for a tour. They make Josh's favorite micro brew, Fat Tire. It was very interesting to learn more about the company's history. They are very eco-friendly and have gotten to the point where they make all their own power, either by wind or recycling waste products from the brewing process. They also only send 1% of their waste per year to a land fill. On top of that they have incredible employee benefits. Josh definitely walked out of there wanting a job.

After that we drove around for a while before getting dinner. Now we're ready to relax for the evening before heading to Colorado Springs tomorrow. Thank you to those praying for Jonah. He seems to be relaxing a little. We are so proud of our boys.

This is the view from the master bedroom. We woke up early this morning, not used to the time change yet. One not so pleasant surprise upon our arrival was that the master bedroom has a water bed. It also seems to be low on water, not so comfortable. In the living room there is a day bed with trundle so I think that's where we'll be sleeping for the rest of our time here. It's so weird feeling like your in someone else's house.

We would like to ask for your prayers for us and Jonah. He is very out of sorts with all the new things he's experiencing. This means he's being pretty rigid and when he's frustrated he's speaking in nonsense language. Pray that Josh and I will have patience beyond measure and that Jonah will remember that he's safe with us. I think some of it is coming from his over-excitement from being here. He was so cute with his first glimpse of the mountains. His face lit up with huge eyes and a big grin.

Mark, I'll have more mountain pictures tonight.

We're here! We're all exhausted and need a good nights sleep. The trip took a little longer than expected, but that's always the case right? We ended up stopping last night and getting a hotel room last night, which was a good thing because Cason doesn't sleep in the car well.

One cute thing from yesterday. We stopped for dinner at a Jimmy John's that was in a gas station. There was a lady mopping so there were wet floor cones out. Jonah kinda picked one up and moved it a bit so the lady came over to tease him about it. She said he could mop and to come with her and his reply? "No. I think I should stay here with my family." What a smart boy!

We had to get a new camera on the way as our old one died yesterday, so no pictures yet, hopefully tomorrow.

Josh and I are off to watch some t.v. and eat Ben and Jerry's!

The things they say.

Lately Jonah has been starting all of his sentences with "well". "Well, I don't think I can do that." "Well, I'm riding a doggy." (At the carousel in Shipshewana.) "Well, we had fun at the toy store this morning." He speaks in very matter of fact tones and with a low voice. Most of the time it's very cute.

Cason has started calling Mazzy "Cuffcord", as in Clifford the big red dog. The other night he got excited to see her and was saying pup pup over and over, when it suddenly switched to Cuffcord. Now it's always Cuffcord, even though we keep telling him she's Mazzy. I'm pretty impressed that in his limited knowledge of dogs he was able to connect a cartoon and stuffed animal to his real live doggy.

Tomorrow we head to Colorado!

Field Trip

Today Jonah's class took a field trip to the fire station. Jonah's already gotten his own private tour of Mr. Trevor's fire house, but I think today's trip brought it's own fun and other new things. I'm now convinced that it's really hard to get good pictures inside the fire station, too many reflective surfaces and really poor lighting. I did my best...

Jonah got to try on the neck brace in the ambulance.


They checked the heart rates of several of the kids.


Jonah's friend ZuZu was put on the gurney and loaded up. Her mom wasn't so sure she liked seeing her on that gurney.


I guess he's a natural at driving stick shift!


The whole class on the back of one of the engines.

Can I just go to sleep until Friday? This can't be April!

Wordless Wednesday

My first Tackle It Tuesday!

Over at 5 Minutes for Mom they do Tackle It Tuesday. It's a day to tackle a project that's been hanging over your head, be it cleaning, crafty or otherwise. Isn't it funny how something that could be a chore becomes fun when you get to post before and after pictures on your blog? So here goes something! My main thing needing tackling is the boys playroom. In my defense this room can get this bad in under five minutes, I've just been putting off cleaning it up.

I give you exhibit A:


I also have plans for my refrigerator. I threw away all the old, expired and possibly moldy food yesterday, so today I can organize what's left, clean the shelves and get it vacation ready. Isn't it so much nicer to come home to a clean kitchen?



In addtion to these two things, I need to clean out the van and get the oil changed. School was cancelled today because of fog that's already gone, so it'll be nice to have something to get out for.

After pictures later on today!

AFTER!!


I had a little help.



It's pretty empty, huh. We've got a lot of cheese though. I'm gonna have to think of cheese recipes for the next few days. I'm not buying anything else before our trip.

We've also been out and had the oil changed and did some shopping at Target. Jonah was very worried about what they were doing to our van and made sure to tell everyone that they couldn't drive it. Then as we left and were talking about going to Target he said something that boiled down to "Target will be much more fun than getting an oil change". His language was a little off but I thought it was funny that he articulated the stress he felt about the oil change.

Autism support group

We went to the local autism support group for the first time last night. I really don't have much to say about it though. It was interesting and we did get some info on other resources to look into too. Most of the parents had high school age children. It seemed like their kids had been diagnosed later and maybe they had more issues because of that. When we introduced ourselves they all agreed that it was great that we had an early diagnosis and could start getting support right away. There wasn't much time to just talk with the other parents. Next month is going to be more informal, allowing for conversations so we'll go back then. The subject of discipline did come up briefly and it seems that it's still an issue even when the child is older. We didn't get to ask specifically what people did when their children were younger.

The autism specialist from ECSEC had offered to meet with us so I'm planning on calling today to set something up. Things have been tough around here lately. I think that's mostly coming from Josh and I processing how we feel about all of this. We're not always on the same page.

Five days till we leave for Colorado! The weather forecast says it's supposed to rain while we're there. What are the chances? I'm holding out hope that it'll be wrong and we'll get to experience some glorious Colorado sunshine.

Faith Lifts

Check out a new addition to my blog on the right. I recently found an online community of blogs for Christian women. Faith Lifts also connects you to 5minutesformom.com which so far has proved to be an encouraging, interesting read for me (plus they give stuff away sometimes).

I've been getting a lot of cuddle time with Cason these last few days. I know what you're thinking. Uh oh, he must be sick. Yep, you're right. I haven't felt the need to take him back to the doctor, but I won't be surprised if there is a lingering ear infection when we go on Monday for a recheck. He's just had a fever off and on.

The other night as Josh and I were heading to bed we heard Jonah talking in his sleep. He does this sometimes but most of the time it's pretty incoherent. This time we heard some whining, so we stopped to listen at their door. Next we hear "No Cason! It's mine!" We go in to check on them and Jonah's sound asleep. It's sad that it's hard for him to share in his dreams too. He actually does okay with Cason 50% on the time.

I'm thankful it's Friday! Only one more week until we go to Colorado! Things have been a little frustrating lately. Jonah's been very argumentative and bossy lately. Last night he was telling Josh and I what we could or couldn't eat at dinner. This morning he woke us up at 5:45.

It's been a while since I posted any pictures so here's a picture post.

Cason and I, taken by Jonah.


You know those cupcakes at the store that are half cake/half frosting and the frosting is so heavy that they practically fall over if they're not in the container they were sold in? I bought some of those yesterday as a treat. I think they were thoroughly enjoyed.

A new week begins. Can I stay healthy this week? Stay tuned. . .

Cason's had really goopy eyes the last few days so he's getting antibiotic eye drops. Luckily I didn't have to take him into the doctor, I was very thankful for that. We had to take Mazzy to the vet today and two office visits in one day would have put me over the edge. Mazzy's going on antibiotics now too. She actually impressed me while at the vet with her good behavior. That and seeing how much Jonah loves her restores my resolve to keep her around. She is starting to show more respect for our commands so that gives me hope too.

I'm learning to trust God through these last few weeks. A couple months ago everything was going our way and we were giving thanks to God for His care. These last few weeks though have been pretty taxing. To much illness and the inconsistency of working in the construction field have left us wanting. I struggle with thinking that God is cursing us. But then I remember that God doesn't work that way. If life is hard right now it doesn't mean that God isn't loving me anymore. It's just life. If there is one thing God has proven to be it's faithful. We've had many ups and downs over the last seven years and God has never let us go hungry. So I'm going to remember that each morning and trust God's plan for us.