Why I Blog

As I've considered sharing my blog lately, I have examined my reasoning for blogging.  I think it's relevant to document as a reminder for myself if I get tired of it, or the focus shifts or others who read it are confused by this public outpouring of our private life.

In order of priority, here is why I'm blogging:

1. To Remember:  I realize how quickly our lives pass us and I want an accessible documentation for Chris and I and our kids to see who we were, how we lived at a given time.  I want to remember good and bad times for what they were in the raw moment.

2. Deane's ASD (Autism Spectrum Diagnosis):  2011 has been the hardest year of my life (I recognize my life is easy compared to so many people in the world; just talking about my experience.) and as we come to terms with the challenges we all will face with/for Deane, I want to keep track of his progress, our struggles, and our successes.  I think this information could be useful to other autism moms out there (im no expert) and to those who care about us in understanding this process and understanding Deane.  My son is a rockstar and if you read my blog, you'll see why.

3. Creative Outlet:  When I began staying home earlier this year, I threw myself into a lot of creative outlets that I had only dabbled in throughout my 30 years.  I LOVE mom blogs, craft blogs, etc. and I want to participate in this technology driven community that is celebrating good old fashioned ingenuity, being thrifty through upcylcing and reuse, and supporting each other through the day to day challenges of being a mom and wife.

4. Encouragement: Autism diagnosis and becoming a stay at home mom have been very isolating for me.  Sharing our life in this form might just be the boost we need on a given day. 

5. Monetizing:  A distant last on my list at this point is monetizing the blog.  I know this will be part of the plan and I hope that it will help to supplement our family income in the future and assist with unexpected expenses that have become our norm.
So, that's my story....I think I'm very close to sharing this.  I have big dreams for my blog, but I plan to take it slowly because that's one of the many realizations of our new lifestyle...God has a plan for us far beyond what we can imagine.

Ozarks July 9-11

Mom, Dad, Chris, Deane, Kate and I spent a short trip in the Ozarks the weekend following the 4th of July. Here are few photos.

Chris and Kate shortly before a server knocked her seat off of the highchair.  She was strapped in and fine, but it was a scary moment. 

Of course Deane had to play iPad on the boat.

 

It was very tired and hot that day!

 Diaper kids

Mom let Kate drive, but only in the slip.

We wanted to show the kids that we would do pretty much anything to keep them happy and comfortable :)

Week after July 4th

As I mentioned before, this was a bit of a tough week for Deane, but I wanted to capture some happier moments:

The only semi-smile I saw from Deane on July 5th

This is a girl who knows what she wants.  When she's sleepy, the thumb goes in.

We call this among other things, the "side pose".

Happy little sweetie!

Rest of 4th of July Weekend

I didn't want to forget to show the great times we had on Saturday July 2nd with the Figanbaums.  They are officially the coolest people Deane knows because they brought over their inflatable waterslide.  He's a little daredevil and loves that it's so much bigger and faster than him.  Kate stayed in the shade while Deane enjoyed the slide with the Figanbaum girls and the dads did all of the heavy lifting.  Here are some great moments:

We ate and played until bedtime and then the adults played some more.  We enjoyed cards and each other's company and had an old fashion sleepover with the entire Figanbaum clan sleeping in the theatre/play room.  Good times!

Sunday morning I believe is the first time both kids sat on my lap to read.

Chris reads to Deane every night and it's really become a special bonding time for them.  Hopefully Kate will be as interested in books as Deane is. 

Friday, Friday, Gotta Get Down on Friday

You have to admit it's a catchy song!?!

Today has been typical of us even though we are not very typical.  Chris is opening his first of two apartment buildings in Milan today.  He had two move ins and was fairly stressed by how unprepared he felt the bulidings were, but of course he'll figure out how to make everything perfect.

This morning Kate took an unexpected early nap so we waited for her until around 10 to go to the grocery store.  I need to try out online grocery shopping as Erica recommended to me, but I didn't plan ahead enough.  Having a baby in a carseat in the "bucket" of the cart and a toddler in the seat doesn't allow much room for groceries not to mention my totes and purse.  Deane ended up sitting between a box of diapers and frozen vegetables.  About a month ago, I first let Deane get a free cookie at the bakery (which I think all Hy-Vees do for kids, in addition to a balloon, piece of cheese, etc.) and now he remembers every time we are in a grocery store that he gets a cookie.  This is exciting for me because he's generalizing this information. 

Since today is Grandpa and Grandma's wedding anniversary, I made up a dinner and dessert for them (for tomorrow as they are going out tonight).  We are having the same thing:
Salsa Rice Chicken Casserole - Chris gives it an 8.5
Cream Filled Strawberries - Chris gives it a 9.25.

After the grocery store, we hurried home to sneak in some cooking and quickly met Mom at McDonald's to give her Kate since she had just dropped off Nicole at the airport for her trip to LA.  Deane's session at the Quad City Autism Center went well today.  He's doing great and I enjoy his instructors and how much their care for him.  He has just started enjoying swinging, but still prefers to do so in a protected way either in a sling or with a therapist (at his OT).   Here he is today just leaning back and enjoying it.

He fell asleep just before we got home and is napping on the couch now.  I thought maybe I should try cutting his nails while he is sleeping since this is a big challenge for us.  His response was to wake up enough to do this:

We had dinner, gave Kate a bath and put her to sleep.  Deane is playing trains and Andy is visiting.  Should be a simple Friday night...that's perfect for me.  We have a date night tomorrow...I'm excited!

Fireworks

Sadly for Deane, fireworks were not a hit this year.  In 2010, we let him stay up to watch them (probably the latest he had been up to date in his little life) and he seemed to enjoy them until he fell asleep.  However, this year, from the moment they began testing fireworks and even before it was dark enough to see them, he was terrified.  We tried to distractions of the iPad, cartoons, etc.  In the end, he and went to his bedroom because he was asking for "Bed" which ended up meaning my bed.  We cuddled and I watched the fireworks through the bedroom window as he faced away.  It was sweet and sad. 

The fall out lasted a couple days with Tuesday (the 5th) involving sending home a therapist before their session started, saying "No" before everything whether or not he wanted it, and crying for a lot of the day.  It was rough and I was scared he had regressed over it.  But after the sleep caught up and a couple days passed, he returned to Deane.

I hope next year is better for him (and all of us). 

Here's a little video of last year's fireworks display.

4th of July

For the second year (our second in this house), we hosted a Lee family fireworks party.  In the top five coolest things about living here would be that the fireworks are shot off from the dam between the lake we live on and the larger lake.  It's about 100 yards from our backyard.  It's one of the only private (authorized) fireworks displays in our area.  We feel so lucky and we love that others want to enjoy it with us. 



By this point, I had lost my sweater to baby spit up, but the rest of them look cute :)

When I was growing up in Aledo and for several years after, we always sat on the 3 tee at Oakview Country Club with the Lee family.  From the time my parents put in a pool, this always followed an all day swimming party.  I have memories of swimming days at Aunt JoJo's pool and homemade ice cream made by Larry and/or Jim, but they are just general summer memories to me and I'm not sure it was specific to the 4th.  Before we moved here, Aledo decided to move the fireworks from the hillside at the high school football field to the fairgrounds creating an opening to offer for the Lees to join us here.  Maybe this party will get bigger, but this was a good start.


The original "little sister", Coley, and the new "little sister", Kate

 In 2010, we had a homemade ice cream bar, but this year I wanted to try some other things too.  So our menu some new things...


  

caramel corn, chocolate covered strawberries, salsa, but we kep the vanilla ice cream.

I had fun decorating the mantle for the 4th this year too.  One of the framed photos is a free printable found here.  I made my flag with paint color samples, stars cut on my Cricut and Modge Podge.

Here's the link for the scalloped garland tutorial.  I used pinking shears on my circles.



Doesn't he look happy to be having his picture taken!

 It was a great 4th!  Separate posts about the rest of the 4th weekend and Deane's fireworks experience to follow.

Lots fit in this day!

Today was full of fun at home.

This morning I realized there were toys of Deane's that I had not really introduced Kate to yet.  I realize I'm not very inventive when recognizing my children's milestones and what new things they might be ready for.  I think this is partly my personality and partly because Deane does the same thing over and over.  So, I introduced Kate to his sing and stage and this is a little video of her playing with it (please excuse my singing and sideways video):



After baby sister went down for her morning nap, I put up the inflatable pool for Deane.  He had a great time playing in it, the sprinkler and watering the yard while I enjoyed a little down time in the sun.  It was very hot so we only stayed out for about an hour.

This evening we had another surprise as Kate started crawling!  Fortunately we have a little video of the event.