Party, party, party!

As of Dec. 17, we have been to 5 Christmas parties already! Good thing Nate and Georgia love to party! Nate is always asking when the next party is, haha. He's going to be depressed in January.

One of the parties we went to last weekend was for the Spina Bifida Association of Kentucky. Blake couldn't go, so I invited my niece Dakota. She had a great time, and she was such a big help with the kids.

The kids all got to see Santa and got stockings, and I got a poinsettia!


But the best surprise of the party was that they presented me with an award! It's for the work I did with them for the doctors project (my thesis) and the playgroups this year. I feel very fortunate that our state has a thriving SBA, because many states don't, and love being involved and meeting other moms through them. So I'm really honored with the award!



Quick cute story: On the way home from the party, I told Nate that Dakota was going to come home with us and play for a little while. He told her, "You better play trains with me! You better!" :)

Then on Sunday, we had our Christmas party with Papaw and Grandma and the whole family.

Here's Nate playing with the big kids.

The first gift he opened was a train from Great-Grandma, and he was happy for the rest of the day!

Georgia gets cuter and bigger by the day. She just LOVES her big brother and lights up and smiles and laughs at whatever he's doing. I can tell she can't wait until she can keep up with him!

Check out this grin!

And the other day I was running out of places to sit her so I could work and she'd stay entertained, so I tried the high chair. She liked it!

Yesterday when I took Nate to school, I saw his speech therapist in the hall and stopped to talk to her about his therapy. She had a concern that Nate "zones out" fairly often. He'll be looking straight at her, but he's obviously not there. She even mentioned petit mal seizures. Nate does this all the time, and I have had concerns about it in the past. Then one of the teacher aides mentioned it a few weeks ago. Now the therapist. So I called the pediatrician and the neurosurgeon, and I guess the plan is for me to try to get this on video (I have no idea how that is possible) and then he'll see a neurologist. What worries me is that he has mild hydrocephalus but is not shunted. Anyway, it is probably nothing, but we're going to get it checked out.

Another Nate-ism: Yesterday when Elizabeth was here playing with him, he told her, "You're wearing me out!" :) Today they had a "Polar Express" party at school and got to wear their pajamas. Nate and his friend Joseph, another Thomas fanatic, both wore their Thomas Christmas PJs.

The other exciting news is that our story is going to be in an upcoming issue of a magazine called Exceptional Families, which is a Kentucky magazine about families with special needs children. They asked me to write my story, but lucky for me I already had it written for my thesis project! I'm really excited about this. I'll let you know when it's published.

I hope everyone is having a fun December without too much stress. Christmas Eve is in one week!

Hello

It's been a busy week, which is typical, but I guess I just haven't felt like writing on the blog. How's that for honesty? :)

But I have some pictures I wanted to share. Last Saturday, my cousin Nicole and I went out to shop for a little while, and this is what I found when we got home--all the kids looking at toysrus.com with Granna. Georgia cracked me up sitting there like a big kid!


Kim came over that day and brought Nate a present--a Thomas t-shirt that you can color with special markers, then you can wash it and color it all over again. Nate thought this was so cool, and everyone had a chance to sign his shirt and color on it. After awhile, we saw him walking around the house just mindlessly marking up his shirt, not even looking what he was doing. (I also found blue marker all over the white carpet.) So he had on this shirt that looked graffiti'd. Then he asked Cade to put his train hat on him, and Cade put it on sideways. We decided he looked like Flavor Flav (rapper), and I rigged up an old alarm clock around his neck to make him Flavor Nate! Haha! This was so silly and just cracked us up.

And here's Flavor Cade flashing his $15. (I'm still laughing about this!)

I finally got my hands on the digital images of the Christmas pictures we had taken at Sears. These are uncropped, so for example, you can't see Nate holding someone's hand in this one.

On Wednesday, I took both kids to the pediatrician. It was time for Georgia's 4 month appointment. She is 14.5 pounds and 24.5 inches long. She's in the 50th-60th percentile for everything, so just perfectly average. The doctor commented on how strong she is and had no concerns. She's doing great!

I also took Nate because he has had a skin rash for a long time. She says he has "keratosis pilaris" and eczema. From wikipedia: Keratosis pilaris (KP, also follicular keratosis) is a very common genetic follicular condition that is manifested by the appearance of rough bumps on the skin, hence referred to as chicken skin. It most often appears on the back and outer sides of the upper arms (though the lower arms can also be affected), and can also occur on the thighs, hands, and tops of legs, flanks, buttocks, or any body part except glabrous skin (like the palms or soles of feet).[1] Less commonly, lesions appear on the face, which may be mistaken for acne.[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratosis_pilaris. Nate does have it on his face, by the way. She said he'd probably always have it. It's not terrble or anything and you can barely see it, but it does itch sometimes. She told me to use 1% hydrocortisone and aquafor or eucarin, but that will only help the eczema. Anyway, it's good to know what it is.

Yesterday, I got a letter from Green Hill, the place where Nate gets his therapy. It was a fundraising letter, which I was interested in reading since I used to write those letters at Berea and I've talked with the director a couple times about their fundraising efforts. I'd like to share part of the letter here:

"... We've seen autistic children begin to commuicate, children with spina bifida begin to walk and many others develop skills, self-confidence and smiles that once seemed unattainable. To help you understand how Green Hill helps special needs kids in our community, I'd like to tell you Nate's story. When Nate's parents went in for a routine ultrasound at 20 weeks, not only did they find out they were having a boy, but they were also given the shocking news that they were having a boy with spina bifida. Knowing the liklihood that he would face a life of surgeries, wheelchairs and catheters, they decided to participate in an experimental in-utero surgery at 23 weeks to close his spine. Amazingly, when Nate was born 9 weeks later, he did not require a shunt and there was no evidence of paralysis. Although Nate defied all odds, his physical development was still slow and by the age of two, he still had not taken his first steps. Nate's parents learned about Green Hill and he started hippotherapy and aquatherapy. Within just a few months, Nate was walking! Now the child who most thought would never walk, walks proudly into preschool each day and thinks it's pretty cool that he gets to swim and ride a horse."

How cool is that?! They actually had asked me a few weeks ago if it was okay to use his story, and a few months ago I had written out his story for them to use however they wished, but I had completely forgotten about this when I opened the letter. So it was a nice surprise. One thing I forgot to put in the story I wrote that would have been awesome for the letter is that Nate actually took his first steps AT Green Hill!

Yesterday we all went out to buy a Christmas tree. This is the first year our little family has bought a live tree, so it was a fun experience especially for Nate. We found the perfect tree and put it up last night. Nate and Georgia wore Christmas pajamas to get in the holiday spirit. :)

Nate kept saying, "Look, Georgia! You see the tree?"

Then this morning Blake brought in all my decorations and Nate had the greatest time watching me pull out each decoration and playing with it (as much as I'd let him). Here's my decorated fireplace!

The last decorating we did this morning was to put a little tree in Nate's room! When I was growing up, we had a little tree that my brother and I shared. One year it would be in my room, and the next year it was in his room. A couple years ago I bought this little tree because we were selling our house at Christmas time and I didn't want to put up our 9 foot tree, then last year we used it because the 9 foot tree didn't fit in our 8 foot ceilings and Nate wasn't at a good age to have breakable ornaments everywhere. So this year, we start the tradition of having a little tree in his room. It may travel to Georgia's room every other year.

I want to brag on Blake a little. This month, he was presented with TWO awards at their regional meeting. He got plaques and everything. :) He was top producer in his entire office (maybe a couple hundred people?) in the month of September, and he was also in the top 10% of the whole company.

I hope everyone has a good rest of the weekend! It's my bed time.

A whole lotta pictures--Happy Thanksgiving!

Saturday I packed up and brought the kids to my parents' house for the week. Man, packing for myself and two kids for an entire week is insane! I had to bring the boppy, bouncy chair, play mat, nursing pillow, 2 suitcases of clothes, diapers for both, all of Nate's trains, all our medicine, all of Georgia's hairbows :) ... we completely overtook my parents' house.

Saturday night we went out to eat, and Nate did a great job using his spoon (an emerging skill).

He had taken a nap on the way there, so with all the excitement, he was up until midnight. And has followed that schedule all week so far! Craaaazy.

Here are some pictures from Sunday.

I caught her rolling!

Monday, my mom and I took the kids to Huntington to get their Christmas pictures made and to do a little shopping. THAT was interesting! Georgia didn't want to smile, which is very unlike her. We did everything we could think of to make her smile, and she just wouldn't. Plus she kept sliding down in whatever thing they put her in to prop her up, so we were constantly readjusting her or spotting her in case she decided to roll off. Nate also did not want to smile. Or put his arm around Georgia or hold her. The photographer had them on this platform a couple feet off the ground, and he actually fell off and I caught him in mid air, so he was really uneasy up there. Finally, after two photographers, one assistant, and a mama and Granna doing the silliest things we could think of--oh, and I had to feed Georgia mid-session--we got one good picture of Nate, one good one of Georgia, and one good one of the two of them together. The photographer acted like she was going to keep shooting, and my mom and I said, That's good! We're done! It was rough. However, the rest of the day went really well. Nate was an ANGEL when we were shopping. We shuffled him all over the mall and then to Target all day long, and he didn't throw a single tantrum. And of course Georgia was good as long as I kept her belly full. It was a fun day. I'll post the Christmas pictures when I can. I ordered way too many, as usual.

Tuesday, we went to my great-aunt Jean's house to visit with family. Nate had soooo much fun. Kim sang him silly songs, and Cathy and George played ball endlessly with him. That night and ever since, he's told me, "They need to come over!" He doesn't really remember everyone's names, but he loved them. :)

Bruce is notorious for falling asleep at family gatherings. He and Georgia took a nap. :)

Here are some of Georgia from Wednesday.

Look how strong she is! This girl loves standing, and she's so strong she can do it with just holding your hands. She's not even 4 months old yet!

And here's our Thanksgiving Day. This is my cousin Nicole with chunky Georgia!

A new skill for Nate--standing up from sitting in the floor, without holding on to a wall or something, and picking stuff up off the ground.

Nate just loooooves his uncle Lucas. :)

Nate and Georgia with cousin Cade. Nate is having so much fun playing with Cade. He's constantly begging him to play ball or trains, and Cade is teaching him to play hide and seek. Nate goes around saying "Where is she?" (He's not clear on his pronouns yet.)

Three years ago, Nate had his first bite of food on Thanksgiving Day. So we decided to make it a tradition and give Georgia her first bite of food today. It was mashed potatoes, and she was very confused.

She just held it in her mouth for a couple of minutes, then started spitting it out.
Nate liked it though! We had an awesome dinner--so good we've all been back for leftovers a couple times.

We've had such a fun week here, and poor Nate is playing himself ragged. He wakes up around 8:30, runs as fast as he can until he passes out around 5, then wakes up and stays up until midnight. Today he didn't get that nap, so he was especially fun to be around. He was miserable until I took him to bed around 9, and he was asleep within a couple of minutes.

There's 15 minutes left of Thanksgiving Day, but I am thankful every day for my family. I'm so thankful for my parents and inlaws who are such an important part of my and my kids' lives. I'm thankful for a husband who works hard so I can raise our kids at home during these early years. And I'm so unbelievably thankful for my children. God is so good, and I'm thankful for his unfathomable love.

There's such a thing as too much fun

I've finally recuperated enough from Wednesday to blog about it. :) Blake decided to take the day off. I really can't remember the last time he took a whole day off, so we wanted to make sure we did something fun. I suggested going to the train store we'd never been to in Lexington. Then I remembered that Wednesday was also the day that parents could eat lunch with their kids in the cafeteria at school, so it was a great day for him to be off. Then ... I remembered that Nate also had PT at 8 that morning, so it would be a long day, but we would just make it work.


So we started out at PT at 8, and Nate did a good job. He was fine when I dropped him off at school and was playing trains with Justin. I came home and got Georgia ready. Didn't she look pretty?





Well, she didn't even get to go to lunch because as soon as we walked in, they said that other kids weren't allowed in the cafeteria because they wanted parents to just focus on their preschoolers. So the ladies in the office were very excited to babysit such a pretty little girl. She was good and just talked to them for a little while and fell asleep.

When Nate's class came down the hallway, he wasn't with them. We figured he had just lagged behind a little, but after a few minutes, we went down to his room where he was having a meltdown with two other little boys because they didn't want to wear their Indian costumes to the cafeteria. :) We got him to settle down, and we all went down to the cafeteria together. We had a nice lunch together, but we could tell Nate was already getting tired and was on edge.


After school (he gets out at 12:30) we headed out to Lexington, which takes about an hour. As expected, Nate fell asleep in the truck. I figured he'd be hungry when he woke up, so we talked about where we could eat, and I remembered that Gatti Town (pizza and games) is close to the train store and that would be fun for Nate ... and Blake. :) Well, Nate was in a terrible mood when he woke up, so he had fun in Gatti Town, but he was throwing fits over every little thing. He especially didn't want to leave, but we reminded him we were going to the TRAIN STORE!!

Okay, this store is like Thomas heaven. It was amazing. Nate was thrilled! He kept saying "I love here!" In the front they had all the Thomas stuff you could buy. In the middle of the store they had two rooms with a ride-on Thomas, a big screen TV playing Thomas movies, and two train tables that they use for Thomas birthday parties. Then in the back they had a big model train layout.

Very serious about trains.

They have the same mural that Nate has in his room. :)

Georgia giving me a "look." I can see her as a teenager here.

Watching brother play trains.

Shopping. :)

We let him pick out any train in the store (within reason--there was some expensive ones there) that he wanted, and he chose the cheapest plastic non-Thomas train in the whole store, haha. We've named him Teddy. We also got a Thomas sweatshirt and an "I Love Toy Trains" movie.

So then it was time to leave. We knew he wouldn't want to go, but it was getting late and we'd been there foreeeever. So I told him we had five more minutes left and to pick out what one last thing he wanted to do. He chose looking at the model train. After five minutes, we rushed him out of the store so the crying didn't start until he was in the truck. :) But then we were in rush hour traffic. And Nate does not like traffic, you know, so that just made things worse. I don't really know how to describe how bad this tantrum was. I think he said, "We need to go back to the train store" at least 400 times. I felt myself starting to twitch. :) And we could NOT get out of traffic. It was bad, bad, bad. Blake said, "Why is he acting like this?" Well, he had PT, then school, where we came for a special lunch, then we went to Gatti Town, then the train store! That is WAY too much fun packed into one day, and Nate's head was spinning. I do hope Blake will take another day off soon, and we'll learn from our mistake and have a laid back day at home.

Another decision that came out of that day was that Nate's schedule is just way too packed in general. I had concerns about this when he started school, so we rearranged it a little and decided to wait and see if he adjusted, but it's still too much. He has school 4 half days a week, plus three therapies and music class. Although he loves all of these things and I think all of them are so good for him, he's just tired all the time. So something has to go. Music class may seem like the obvious choice, but he just loves it so much, and it's the only activity that's just fun and doesn't have anything to do with therapy. It's a nice change. So I decided we should drop OT on Fridays. It's the least necessary therapy right now. Yesterday I asked his OT Katie if she would assess him to see exactly where he's delayed so we could work on those things at home. She started the assessment and we'll finish it in a couple weeks. One of the things on the assessment was stringing beads, and Nate did awesome with that--much better than a few months ago. He has that very important skill mastered. :) Another was to build a tower 10 blocks high. Well, Nate wanted to use two of the blocks at the base to make it more stable. So he didn't pass that test, but I think he was far more clever than it was asking him to be. Anyway, we'll drop Friday OT in a few weeks, and he will ride the horse on Wednesday mornings at PT. I hope the PTs schedule will open up soon so we can move that.

A couple cute stories. Nate currently loves this book his uncle Lucas got him about trucks. We've read it a lot lately, and last night he was "reading" it to me. And he was surprisingly accurate! For example, on one page, it has the word "SPLASH" written in large print, and Nate said splash. I thought, wow, he's recognizing words! So I pointed to "SPLASH" and asked Nate what that word said. He thought about it and said, "It says ... I wuv you." Hahaha! and Awww.

The kids and I are going to my parents' house today for the week, and Blake is going to join us on Wednesday after work. This morning I was telling Nate our plans, and I said, "And I bet Pop will play trains with you." He said, "And Granna will wike my new train Teddy. She'll say Wow!" :) So cute.

And now I must go get everyone bathed and pack up all the stuff we're going to need for a weeklong trip! It could take me all day.