I have never tried Once A Month Cooking - but I would love to. It happens so often that I'm unmotivated to make something for dinner...so we end up going out to eat. It's hard on the budget and it's a challenge to eat something healthy when you're out! A fellow blogger is having a giveaway for the Once A Month Cooking - Family Favorites book. Click HERE to check her out and enter to win!
Well hello there, bloggy land! Being at home over the summer with an incredibly demanding 4 year old leaves VERY LITTLE time to blog. Let alone very little time to pee by yourself. Haha...who am I kidding. Every mom knows that you never get to pee by yourself when you have little kids at home.
Jack started his second year of special education preschool this Monday. And I could not be more excited. Neither could he. He loves school, loves his teacher, and LOVES the bus. All he talks about is the bus. When I ask him how his day was at school, he talks to me about the bus. When I ask him who he played with at school, he tells me about the bus. When I try to find out what he had for a snack today, he goes on and on about the bus.
Jack had an autism evaluation in the beginning of September. It went really well and we really liked the psychologists we met with. Long story short, we walked away with a medical diagnosis of autism. Hearing that comes with a lot of mixed emotions. On one hand, we were relieved that they saw "it" too...that we weren't crazy and we aren't just bad parents. On the other hand, it's never easy to hear that your child will have extraordinary challenges throughout life and that there's something that makes them "different" from all of the other kids. The word "AUTISM" just never seems to lose it's weight. On that day, it hit us like a ton of bricks. They suggested that Jack receive clinical speech therapy and occupational therapy. So, we have an appointment at the end of this month with a pediatric rehabilitation center that offers speech and occupational therapies. They will do another evaluation, to see how much therapy he'll need and then we'll go from there. We'll be driving about an hour to each appointment...so I'm not looking forward to that, but I would drive much further than that if it meant doing something that helped Jack!
More Jack news - he has his first dentist appointment this afternoon. Yikes! I'll take pictures and share how that went. I am praying that we both hold it together and can reward ourselves with some Starbucks when it's all said and done.
My FABULOUS husband surprised me for my birthday (29....ahem) and got me a first-class ticket to visit friends in Sacramento. I am so excited to spend time with girlfriends and have a chance to relax. I also think that the time Jack and Lonnie spend together will be good for them. They'll have fun just being boys and hanging out while mom's gone.
Speaking of my fabulous husband - he decided a couple of months ago to take up running and start eating healthier. He has been doing awesome and I am so proud of him. Check out his running blog here - Fat People Run Too!
This year, I am involved with our local MOPS group as the Hospitality Coordinator. Yesterday was our first meeting and it was crazy! Crazy, but absolutely wonderful. It has been so much fun to prepare the theme, decor and "feeling" of the room this year. We went with a spa/relaxing-type theme and it is wonderful. I love all of the ladies that I am serving with and I am excited to be a part of this ministry.
Speaking of ministry - Lonnie and I are currently involved in starting up a new church in our city! It is called NewLife, and it's a campus of LifeChurch in Oklahoma City. It is involving a lot of time, energy and prayer...but it is exciting to see what God is doing here.
Do you see why it's been a challenge to update this thing? Life has been a little crazy around here! Hopefully with Jack in school, I'll have a little extra time to dedicate to the blog. Hopefully.
4 years, 48 months, 208 weeks, 1,460 days, 35,040 hours, 2,102,400 minutes, 126,440,000 seconds. Exactly.
**Edited** Apparently my math was WAAAAAY off. I'm just going to blame that on lack of sleep. I changed it now. I'm going to bed.
My posts lately have been more pictures and "fluff" and I haven't really talked about what's going on in our lives. So, whether you want it or not, here it goes!
*Jack is currently in summer school through the school district's special education program. He LOVES it. He loves school. He loves his teachers and his friends. He loves the bus. We have no doubt in our minds that putting him in this program was the right decision. He will start the regular school year in September and will most likely have the same teacher as last year...which we are super excited about. He'll be in preschool another year and then we will need to make the decision if we want him going to kindergarten or waiting another year.
*Jack is also currently on a waiting list for an autism evaluation with Fraser Child & Family Center in Minneapolis. Their wait list is forever long and he probably won't get in until the end of fall or beginning of winter. We are looking forward to this opportunity, though. It will provide a medical diagnosis for Jack and also will help refer us to other therapies that will help him (and us).
*Autism is something we never thought we'd have to deal with, and now we are becoming very familiar with it. Having Jack diagnosed by the school district was not an easy decision and not one that we came to lightly. However, the help that we've received from the school has been wonderful and we know that we've made the right decision. Jack has learned A LOT at school and we are all learning how to cope. Our days are very difficult, but we are learning how to deal with things. Life with Jack is stressful. Life with any 3 (almost 4) year old is stressful, but we are also working through a lot of speech, emotional and cognitive behaviors that just aren't typical. We know that God has made us Jack's parents for a reason. We believe that one reason is to shape us into better people. Jack requires us to use some of the qualities that we lack the most in - patience being #1.
*Lonnie's work is going well. He works from home and we've figured out how to make this work for us! It's been a wonderful thing having him work at home and I've become spoiled. When something in the house breaks, I don't have to wait for him to get home from work...I can just bug him in the middle of the day!
*I am becoming more involved with MOPS and I love it. I am going to be on the "Steering Team" next year and I am excited for the opportunity to work with other moms in our community. I am looking forward to strengthening friendships and meeting new people.
*Lonnie and I were able to go to Kansas City at the end of June - ALONE! Lonnie's mom flew out to watch Jack for the week and we drove to KS. Lonnie was scheduled to go there for a business trip, so I was happy to have the opportunity to tag along. We enjoyed quiet dinners, quiet drives and quiet nights. It was quiet. We could have adult conversation when we wanted to. We could go to bed late and wake up late (7 am IS late in our world). I was able to swim in the pool and lay out by myself. It was fabulous. Of course, we were anxious to get home and be with Jack again. But, our time away was priceless. I would encourage any couple with young kids to do everything they possibly can to get some overnight time away as a couple.
That's about it! We are enjoying summer and all that is has to offer. We've been to the water park several times, we picked strawberries, we've been to the park many times, and are soaking up the warmer weather. Of course, as I type this, it's thundering and raining outside...but who doesn't love a good summer storm?
