Logan's first tooth

Okay, it's not exactly what it sounds like. It's not his first tooth but his first baby tooth that fell out. He came up to me early Saturday saying boo boo pointing to his mouth. He allowed me to look in and touch it but as soon as I wiggled it he bit me! He wouldn't let me touch it again so I couldn't be certain how loose it was at that point. I did write a note to his teacher to let her know about it just in case it suddenly disappeared. Because he's autistic and doesn't speak much he couldn't tell me it was loose or when it felt like it was coming out. I did receive a call yesterday around lunch time from Ann who said she was able to get it before he swallowed it. Yeah Ann!! Of course, getting him to smile for the camera was a chore in itself. It took about six shots before I was able to trick him into smiling for me.

Logan

Not a very clear picture but the only one I was able to get with him smiling so you could see the gap in his smile.

Balloons

The kids all love balloons, heck, what kid wouldn't right? Logan happens to love them a little too much right now. He wants to have all the balloons to himself. I have to blow him up two and then blow one for each of the others and still he somehow ends up with three or four. Marie is a really good sport about it. He always ends up with hers by the end of the day.

It all started the other day while we were trying to get them ready and on the bus. Logan started having a meltdown because he wanted to have a balloon. I didn't think the bus driver would allow him to have it when Marie quickly let me know otherwise. She said, "Mom, if it will keep him quiet they will let him have it. They do it in the afternoon because they don't want to hear him scream all the way home." Okay, fine, I blew up the balloon for him. Oh, what a beautiful smile I received in thanks for that little chore. He even signed thank you while saying it at the same time. I knew I was in for it at that point.

I had Curtis pick up a pack on the way home. Okay, I thought I asked him for one pack but he likes to do things in a big way. He came home with four packs of balloons! Now I have plenty or you would think so at least. I wanted to blow up enough for them once a day and no more. Logan, on the other hand had a different idea. He came up to me and said in the sweetest little voice, "I want balloot, pease!" Big angelic smile added to him actually requesting something using a complete sentence; what was I to do other than to give him what he wanted! Now the little stinker knows exactly how to get to Mommy and Daddy. I guess Daddy will be making another trip to Wal-mart for some balloons today or tomorrow.

Monday - first day back at school!

Okay, it's the first day back at school for the two older children and it's soooooo quiet in this house. I do have the television on so that Katie can watch her absolute favorite cartoon; Dora the Explorer. Once that is over, it's being turned off and the cd player is going on. This past week, Marie had them all dancing around and playing while listening to a cd I made for Logan about a year ago. If anyone tried to turn it off Logan would have a screaming fit until it was turned back on. I love it!!

I can now clean up the playroom, vacuum and fold all the blankets and the room will probably stay that way all day. Okay, most of it will. Alright, you got me; I won't have to vacuum it again until after Logan has his snack this afternoon so that's a good thing. Katie and Ryan will pull all the stuffed animals, blankets and pillow off the couch and roll around playing on them at one point today but it will get picked up with very minimal fuss.

Okay, one thing I want to complain about and then I will be done for the day. Freecycle is great when you want to find something. However, if you want to get rid of something it's not always so great. I will freely admit that I have responded to an offer and completely forgot to get it. As soon as I realized that I did that I e-mailed the person to let them know and apologized up one side and down the other. I've been paid back for that in spades. I hate to take the baby clothes to the clothing bins when I know people could really use them but when you get a couple people respond to your offer and they are all no shows it's quite annoying! I always give them the benefit of the doubt but it's not asking too much to have someone just respond and say something like; "I'm sorry I can't make it so go ahead and give it to the next person on your list" or "I'm sorry I completely forgot, let's make new plans for me to pick up!" I have had several people who, like me forgot but then promptly e-mailed me or called to apologize and then picked up promptly. It's the no-shows that drive me completely batty! Anyone else have this happen to them???

Spring Break is over!

All in all, Spring Break turned out pretty well. The weather didn't cooperate during the first half of the week but we had fun anyway. We didn't use the water toys at all but could have yesterday as it got up to 81 degrees. Today it's supposed to be more of the same but tomorrow it's only supposed to get to upper 60's lower 70's. With the much needed break for Mommy and Daddy on Thursday it made for a very nice week indeed. Thank you Ms. Ann and Mr. Charlie for coming over to watch our little gang!! The kids had such a good time and were so exhausted that they went to bed with minimal fuss. Not only that but they got up and were still very subdued the next morning. They didn't hit their normal stride until around noon which was pure heaven!

I was able to still get a lot of housework done and Curtis was able to get some of the stuff on our BIG project list done as well. We started out with 16 things listed and we are now down to 10 which is great. I do believe that we may be able to get another couple done today and tomorrow. Now, as long as we don't add any more to the list we will actually have accomplished some this week!

A cute little story before I sign off today.... You know from a previous post that I absolutely HATE bees. (HATE HATE HATE THEM!) There have been two incidents where I had the kids outside and these bumble bees started flying around. The first time it was with Ryan, Katie and me so I grabbed them and headed inside. Those two bees flew around Ryan's swing all afternoon which made it impossible for me to go back outside that day. Once this week after we'd been outside for almost 45 minutes they flew near us again so I figured we'd been outside enough it was a good excuse to go inside. Of course, while we were at the movie and dinner this week the bumble bees came back. Charlie and Ann aren't afraid of them and told Marie that if she just stood there the bees would go away without stinging her. (Please note that a couple of weeks ago Marie had a friend over and the bumble bee was outside with them. They both came running back each time it flew out near them.)

Yesterday Marie was giving me the "lecture" about standing still and the bees not stinging. (Too cute for words!) So, later in the afternoon when the one came around to check us out I thought, I can handle this, no problem. I did extremely well if I do say so myself. As I was just finishing up hosing Katie down, it came for another fly by. Marie was standing on the patio when it buzzed her. I turn to look and here she is just flapping her arms at it. I'm between the bee and freedom so I started to scream at her to stop flapping her arms. It buzzed by me and flew off to parts unknown without bothering anyone, including the two little people who were right by me during this whole exchange. I had to ask her what happened to the stand still and it won't sting you routine. She was so funny; I had to crack up. "Mommy it was gonna sting me and I hate bumble bees they freak me out!" Hmmm, I wonder where she got that from but what HAPPENED to the if you stand still it won't sting you? I stood still but would keep an eye on where they were at all times. I guess my constant vigil/terror got to her.

Some spring time fun

Boys having fun on the swings.

Marie making a nice picture, before getting paint all over her hands.

Katie having fun with the paint. Before she was done she had it up both arms and on her face. I had to hose her down outside before I could take her in to the bath!

Ryan following Katie through their "Fort".

Everyone playing on the swing set.

Some spring fun

Our swings need some oil or something as they are just a little noisy!

Spring Break!

Yesterday at 3:15 Spring Break officially started. I'm sitting here trying to plan the week so the kids don't go beserk with boredom. Here is what I have come up with so far:

Games:
Go fish (Katie, Marie and I play)
Looney Toons board game - Marie loves it so it keeps her calm
Operation - you all remember that one I'm sure!
Life - it's a little old for Marie but it's easier for her than Monopoly at this point so...

Outside:
Swing set
Slide
Sit and Spin with water
Slip and Slide

Movie time: once a day we all sit down together and watch a nice Disney movie.

Walks: Marie pushes Ryan in the stroller while Mommy pushes Katie and Logan in the double stroller or pulls them in the wagon. (I can get some exercise this way!!)

Thursday is Mommy and Daddy "Date Night". We are going to go see a movie and then have an early dinner. It's going to be a lot of fun for us and I know the kids will have lots of fun with Ann and Charlie. Marie has been working with the younger kids (except for Logan) having them dance and sing for a show that they will perform for us and then for Ann and Charlie. Logan loves to watch them dance and depending on his mood, sometimes gets upset when they stop! I'm going to try to get a little video of this next week so I can post it on here for you.

All of these fun things with the therapies for both boys should keep us pretty busy all week. I still have to do the normal cleaning which will be twice as hard with them home but then again I will have Marie's help keeping them occupied.

Hoping to have lots of fun and still keep my sanity!!

Pics

Logan hates having his picture taken. As I tried to get a shot of him just now he ran away from me and then proceeded to close his eyes each time the flash went off.

Here is Mommy's little angel sound asleep in Daddy's arms.

While I was cooking dinner last night, Katie and Ryan played Dora the Explorer. Katie was Dora and Ryan was Boots the monkey.

How 'bout a little kiss for my baby brother?!

Say cheese!

Friday updates

We've been lucky this week as Logan and Ryan have pretty much slept through the night in their own "corners". Logan has slept on his favorite couch every night except for one this week. Ryan, once he goes down for the night has slept through the entire night. Now getting Ryan to get tired enough to go to sleep has been the issue this week. We've been up to at least midnight every night so far this week. (Since the Astros have been playing in San Diego that's no big deal as we were trying to stay awake to watch the games)



Wednesday night we didn't get to bed before midnight and Logan came in to join us around 3:45 so Curtis didn't get a very good rest. Yesterday afternoon he took a small nap while Katie and Ryan watched Dora or Teletubbies. I thought Ryan was watching it while sitting with Daddy but when I glanced over to them I noticed he had turned to face me and had fallen asleep. I couldn't resist and grabbed a picture of that. (Of course, Daddy insisted that I not publish his picture which I promised I wouldn't so I have a picture to post of just Ryan sleeping like the little angel he is with only Daddy's arm showing. ) Please note that they were in my recliner at the time.



Later last night after two of the four were asleep, I was trying to get comfortable and put my feet up in said recliner when it broke. Curtis spent almost two hours trying to find a nut and bolt to fix it as one had sheared off and was useless. By 11:30 we had to give it up as a lost cause so he took the other bolt to work with him today so he could find a replacement. At one point he looked at me after I apologized for the broken chair and said, "you know, if you were going to break the chair, you could have at least done it earlier in the evening" and proceeded to chuckle at me. I didn't break the chair on purpose but I felt so bad for having him working those two hours when he could have been relaxing or sleeping. While he was fixing the chair I was chasing Ryan around trying to keep him out of the tools and away from Logan who had finally fell asleep.



Anyone with kids knows there really is no point in getting nice furniture. They all at one point end up in our chairs eating something. They get caught and are told we only eat at the table. (Yeah right Mom! You so funny!) While pulling the back of the chair (thankfully it has velcro all along the bottom) we were bombarded with toys and food crumbs. Hey, there's Ryan's favorite toy; I wonder how it got in there?!?! He had to look at his chair to figure out how to pull it apart and guess what?!?! Yes, more food and toys came out and I do believe that he had a whole lot more toys then food. I also found a few of his vitamins that had dropped down in and he couldn't reach them. I guess I need to go through the chairs every night after the kids go to bed and get rid of all the food/toys and anything else that ends up in the cracks of the chairs. I now need to clean up the mess from the chairs and find all his tools he left laying around and put them up so they don't get snatched and end up in a toy box or behind the couch.



I've put off the dishes, cleaning and laundry as much as I can today. We got up, got the kids ready for school and on the bus and headed out to the local farmers market for some fresh veggies. What a zoo that place turned out to be today! There was some kind of art show that was going to be going on so they had the booths set up but no one in them. Lots of parking was blocked but no one there yet! I had to drive around the block a couple of times before I finally got smart and went to park along AIA. Not too sure how smart that was as I then had to push the stroller through the damp sand as it rained a lot last night. A couple of times I thought I was going to get it stuck. That was a nice work out but kids weren't too happy with me as they wanted a longer walk! They loved looking at the ocean and Katie was flapping her arms like a bird all the way back to the car as they both said "Aweeeeeeeee!"