Updates!

It's been so long since I've posted anything on my blog that I forgot my password to sign in. Luck was on my side though and I finally figured out what it was (note to self: next time pick and easier password). We've had a busy, fun summer that hasn't left me much time to get online. Things are slowing down a little bit though and I decided to take some time to do an update.

Miss Rylee got a toddler bed yesterday and slept in it for the first time last night. She cried for about 2 minutes after we left her in her room, and then crawled in bed and slept perfectly for most of the night. I think she fell out of bed twice last night, but she didn't even really fuss, she just crawled back in bed and went to sleep again. I'm a proud mama, can you tell?? And what's really great about this is that right now she's taking a nap in her bed! She just got in it and went to sleep. I love this! Rylee is such a big girl now- she's started new words every day and she even shakes her head yes and no when you ask her questions (which is the cutest dang thing I've ever seen). She turns 18 months next week and I just can't believe it. She'll be 2 before I know it.

Brandon's getting ready for school to start- he reminds me every day that he wants to ride the bus. His preschool starts up again 1 month from today (not that I've been counting down the days or anything) and he'll be going to a new school this year. He'll still have a long commute- about an hour- but we've heard many great things about this school. His speech has come a long way since even a year ago. It's amazing to hear him talk now! He's still behind, but he'll have speech therapy at school again this year, and I think it will do wonders for him. Brandon has an appt. with his developmental specialist next week and we should be learning more about what other programs are out there for him. We're also going to work on potty training this week, although it hasn't gotten off to a good start. I'm hoping that things will get better, but I guess we'll find out in the next few days.

Richard officially celebrated 4 years at Internet Truckstop in June. For his hard work, he received a well earned raise and a little bit more vacation time. We're proud of him for all that he does. I know things have been a little stressful for him at work lately, but he still works as hard as he can to provide for us. Richard's also taken on bike riding this year to get back into shape. He wakes up way too early nearly every morning ride before he heads off to work. I don't know how he does it, but I'm glad he's found something to make him feel good.

I've recently started selling tutus and princess wands at the Wild Ivy in Kuna. It's kept me busy doing something I love to do, and I'm extremely excited about this new prospect. I also recently went on a quick whirlwind trip to Salt Lake to visit friends (more on that later) and have a couple baby showers I'm helping with this summer. Things have been busy!

The one thing I haven't posted on is the loss of Richard's brother. Ben was one of the most supportive people in our lives and we miss him greatly. For those that don't know, he passed away after a tragic accident on May 16th. We still feel the sadness of his loss, as I'm sure we will for a long time to come. Things won't be the same without him, but I hope that we can help his legacy live on through memories that we shared with him.

Fun at the zoo!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iPLB7EsCBE

I hope Charlotte doesn't mind me posting this, but she made this video about our trip to the zoo last week. She took such cute pics of the kids that I wanted to share with everyone. We had a really fun time on our zoo trip, and near perfect weather (we were actually complaining that it was a little too hot!). And best of all our kids made some great memories together! We look forward to more fun times with Alison, Jamin, Travis, Charlotte, and Brock.

Bye bye Petalprincess!

I won't be selling for thepetalprincess.com anymore because the owner wants to focus more on selling her products in a couple stores instead of online. You can still find cute flower clips on her website, but her stock seems to be pretty limited at the moment. I have quite a few clips and headbands in stock that I would like to sell, so if there is anything you can't find online, chances are that I probably have it. I also have a few discontinued items as well. Right now I'm selling all of the headbands I have for $1 each with the purchase of a clip at regular price (no shipping charges or tax).

Brandon goes to school...

Brandon started preschool at the end of March and he LOVES it! His face lights anytime we even mention the word "school"! When the bus comes to pick him up, he jumps up and down and screams "there it is, there it is" over and over! And when he get's home in the afternoon, his face is beaming with happiness! This is such a good experience for him, and I'm so glad that he likes it so much.

The only bad thing about it is that I always get a little emotional when I see the bus pull away. It's a little bittersweet to let him go. It's for the best though, and it is nice to get a little bit of a break twice a week. =)

Miss Rylee turns 1!

Actually she turned 1 back on January 29th, I'm just really slow at posting lately. It was a special day though, so I wanted to share the fun with everyone. The day of her birthday fell on a Thursday, but we decided to celebrate with our family on the following Saturday. Rylee's grandma and grandpa (my parents) were there, along with her great-grandpa, her great aunt Debbie, her aunt Jeni and uncle Ben, and their kids.

Rylee wasn't too sure about opening presents, but she loved to pull the bows off!

And she liked playing with the wrapping paper once I pulled it off the presents!

She also loved hamming it up for everyone. Unlike her usual somewhat reserved self, she danced, sang, and went around showing everyone what she got for her birthday! It was super cute!

She also enjoyed her cake, although she wasn't quite sure how to dig in at first. She got the hang of it eventually though.




Here's her cute birthday cake, and...

her own little smash cake!



I can't believe my baby is a toddler now! I say it all the time, but really, where does the time go? Rylee has grown into such a sweet, loving, good natured little girl in such a short time. We love her and we love watching her grow every day. Happy Birthday "Littles"!!!

Catching up with long time friends...

Ok, so I'm more then a little behind on my blog- I still have Rylee's birthday to blog about and that was back in January. I'd like to blame it on being busy (that's part of it at least), but I think it's more because I can't seem to find my creative juices lately. I have fun things to write about, but when I start to type it all out, it just comes out looking lame. Not that I have that many blog followers, but it bugs me to read my lameness. Anywho, I'm giving the ol' blog thing another try today.

A dear friend of mine, Jessica, from years and years ago came into town on vacation and I, along with another very close friend of ours, Katee and her friend Kim, were able to get together for a visit. It was so fun to catch up with these girls! I'm lucky enough to be able to talk to them on a weekly basis, but it's been way too long since I've seen either of them.

Saying goodbye...

Brandon turns 3 this Friday, which marks the end of our time with The Infant Toddler Program, and everyone involved with it. It will be a big change for us, as our 3 therapists have been coming into our home for a year now. We will miss them greatly and it will be hard to fathom what we will do with our time in place of therapy, since it's been a routine for so long. These people hold special places in my heart now, I'm beyond grateful for everything they've done.
Our speech therapist, Kristi, has been one of our biggest advocates and we are truly sad to see her leave. Brandon has loved her from the start (literally, she was the first person he ever said "I love you" to), and it's because of her that his language has blossomed so much in such a short time. Kristi has always gone above and beyond her job to help us in any way possible- there aren't enough words in the English dictionary to express how thankful I am for that!
Christine, Brandon's Occupational Therapist, is another person that I am unequivocally thankful for. I'm sure I would have pulled my hair out long ago if it weren't for her! Chris comes into our house on a weekly basis to help Brandon with anything from simple tasks, like brushing his teeth, to next to impossible tasks (for Brandon, at least) like transitioning with ease and playing nicely with Rylee. She's done everything from stay late to help me with paperwork, to listen to me vent on a regular basis. She's an absolute super-hero in my book, and I don't know what I would have done without her.
It will be hard to say goodbye, especially for Brandon- he talks about Chris and Kristi all the time. I hope that his new preschool will have people just as devoted in helping Brandon as these ladies have been.

Such a silly little man!

With Brandon's new found vocabulary has come quite a few funny conversations! For example:

The other night when Richard got home from work, Brandon was just waking up from his nap. Richard opened up Brandon's door to let him out of his room, but Brandon wouldn't get up from his bed. Richard sat down on the bed with him and asked him what was wrong. Brandon, in a very dramatic voice, said "I just can't take this anymore" and laid his head back down on the bed.

Then last night Brandon was cuddled up with me being all sweet and lovey. Trying to be sweet back, I said "are you mommy's big boy?". And here's how the rest of the conversation went:

Brandon: "No"
Me: "Oh? Are you mommy's little boy?"
Brandon: "No"
Me: "Are you Mommy's baby boy?"
Brandon: "Nope"
Me: "Are you a girl then?"
Brandon: "Yep Mommy, I'm a big girl!"

Guess we'll have to work on that one. =)


He made us laugh again tonight when he randomly came up and asked me if I have DirecTV. I think that means that we should probably stop watching so much TV. lol

Homemade fun!

I stole this from Dana's blog- I thought it was a fun idea! I've kind of been feeling crafty lately, so you never know what you might get. *wink*


Homemade Fun!! The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations: 1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make! 2. What I create will be just for you. 3. It'll be done this year. 4. You have no clue what it's going to be. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure! 5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange ! The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must repost this on your blog and extend the same offer to 5 people! You know, keep the cycle going!So the first 5 people to leave a comment, and post this on their blog, win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! *Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!*

A much needed reprieve...

I think I've been so stuck in my own little world, that I haven't been a very good friend lately. I seem to have let Dr.s appts., school meetings and Brandon's therapy take over my life. So when Britney called me up to get together for lunch on Wednesday, I was ecstatic! Britney, you are awesome, and you have no idea how bad I needed someone to help me get out of my rut!
She made an awesome lunch for us (thank you, thank you, thank you!!!), our kids got to play together, and best of all I got to slow down and spend time with my dear friend that I've missed very much. So, I concluded that I need to take time to find identities other then just being "mom" all the time, and that I need to put more effort into my friendships (oooooh, 2 lessons in 1 day, yay!).
Wednesday also happened to be the day of our anniversary, and a friend of ours offered to watch our kids so we could go out. It was our first date since Oct. 2007! Sad, I know. We were planning to go to Olive Garden, but decided on Chapalas last minute, and I'm so glad we did. When we got there, there were only 4 other people in the whole place. I think we spent 2 hours there just talking and reconnecting. We had both been looking forward to our night out, and it was every bit as wonderful as we had hoped for.
After we left Chapalas, we weren't exactly sure what to do (really, what do adults without kids go do???), so we opted to just go wander the mall for awhile. It sounds lame, but it was actually a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the mall does have to close at a certain time, so we had no choice but to say goodbye to our night out. We did resolve to make date night a regular occurrence at our house after we realized how crucial it is on our marriage.

This is what happened 9 years ago...

It was 9 years ago today that Richard and I got married. It's kind of funny, now that I think about it, how our marriage started. We were young, too young maybe? And in love, and we couldn't wait any longer to tie the knot- even though we already had a church reserved and a wedding date of June 10th picked out. My wedding dress was picked out as well, but wouldn't be altered for another 3 months at least. I don't really know what we were thinking, but on a whim, we decided one night (Feb. 10th, 2000 to be specific) that we would just go down to the court house the next day and have a judge marry us on our lunch break, then we would go back to work, and then spend the weekend looking for an apartment to rent, you know, so we could actually live together. Well, we did go to the court house on our lunch breaks, with 1 witness in tow, and found out there would be an hour wait and a $50 fee for the next judge to marry us. We decided to go for plan B and have a friend of ours marry us that night instead. So we made some phone calls, found a church that was available and went back to work. That night after I got off work, I made a mad dash to the store that had my dress reserved, and luckily found out that it would fit well enough for me to be able to wear it that night. Then I ran home and had my room mate, Kirsten, try to come up with some way to style my newly cut, very short hair. We couldn't come up with much, so she just put it up in 2 braids- kind of tacky, eh? I wasn't in the right mind set to safely drive, so Kirsten volunteered to drive me across town to the church. When we got there, I discovered that somebody had called all of our friends (luckily they did, because we forgot too! Woops!) and there was quite a crowd waiting for us. We still don't know who made all the phone calls for us, but we are eternally greatful for it!
So our friend that was going to marry us had one condition for us before he would acutally let us take our vows, and that was that 1 of us would have to call 1 of our parents to tell them what we were up to. I was too scared to call my parents, so Richard called his- and happily they were elated for us. I knew mine wouldn't be so thrilled, so we opted to tell them about a week after we got hitched, which is not one of the better decisions I've made in my life time (sorry about that mom and dad). Anywho, we went through with the ceremony and it was short but beautiful. We were surrounded by our friends and fortunately at least 1 family member, my husband's brother. We had a short, low key reception after that and then we were on our way to West Yellowstone for our Honeymoon (actually we stayed at a very nice hotel in Boise for the first night, thanks to arrangements made by my BIL). I won't go into details about our Honeymoon, because it's an entirely different story, but I will say that it involves strep throat, a blizzard, 4 tornadoes, a 5 hour long power outage, and nearly being fired from my job.

It's funny to look back on this now. This was remarkably out of character for me at the time, but now I think that it sums us up pretty well.

An update

Brandon's Dr. appt. was on Thursday and it went really well. He was officially diagnosed with autism, and the Dr. thinks that it's severe enough that Brandon will need special ed. We went in thinking that he would be diagnosed with something else, like ADHD or just a sensory disorder, but Dr. Felix said that it's 100% autism. In all honesty though (I hope this doesn't sound heartless), having a diagnosis like that won't really change anything for us. He's still our sweet guy, and we already knew that he had a learning disability, so we'll just continue working with it. We are hoping that he will be accepted into the developmental preschool here, and we'll be meeting with them in Feb. to find out if he qualifies. Keep your fingers crossed for us. =)

Rylee also had a Dr. appt. this week, for her 1 year check up. She weighs 21 lbs (60%) and is 28 inches long (35%). She's just a little tiny thing to me, but I love that she can actually wear her clothes for a good amount of time before she grows out of them. Brandon was wearing 2T and 3T clothes by his first birthday, so I'm not used to this at all.

I was worried about the possibility of Rylee being autistic, but our pediatrician reassured us that there's only an 8% chance, and that Rylee is right on track for normal development. I was thrilled to hear that!

Happy Birthday Littles!!!

How did my little girl grow so fast? It really seems like it was just a few months ago that she entered our lives. It's crazy how 1 year can go by in such a hurry! It's been a fun journey with Rylee by our sides, and we can't wait to see what next year has in store for us. Stay small for just a bit longer though Littles, momma isn't ready for her baby to grow up just yet.

Happy 1st Birthday Rylee!!!

We have a big day tomorrow!

First, and most importantly, my little Rylee girl officially turns 1 at 10:01 tomorrow morning! I can't even believe it's already been a year. She's brought so much joy into out lives though, and a lifetime worth of memories all in such a short period of time. Who knew such a little girl could bring so many blessings into our lives?

The second reason tomorrow is such a big day for us is because we are taking Brandon to see the Pediatric Developmental Specialist. I'm stressed beyond reason about what he'll say. All of Brandon's future therapy will depend on what diagnosis he receives. It's like a catch-22 for us- if he doesn't have autism, we will of course be over joyed, but he will no longer be qualified for any of the services that help him with his daily life. It's hard for me to imagine everything being hinged on what one Dr. says, but I guess he is the specialist, so we'll see what happens. Wish us luck!

Friends and fun on Friday!

Friday was a fun filled day for us (but especially me)! After speech therapy got over with, I took the kids to Pizza Hut to meet up with Charlotte, Alison and their kids. It was so much fun to just be able to talk with adults! The kids had fun too, although we were a little bummed that Pizza Hut did away with their kids play area. Rylee made eyes at Travis the whole time we there and kept stealing food off of Alison's plate, silly girl! =) Brock, Jamin and Brandon had fun bouncing off the walls (I mean that literally) and playing with Brock's dinosaurs. It was so good to see my friends, it's not very often that I get to catch up with my girls!
After that, I took the kids shopping in Boise and found the cutest little pink raincoat for Rylee (see picture)! I was hoping to find some nice pants for Brandon, but no luck there. It gives me a good reason to shopping again though! When our shopping adventure was over, I took the kids home and they both slept for 3 hours! I guess they were a little tired from our fun day out and about!
Later that night I went out with some other friends of mine, first to Applebees and then to the movies to see Bride Wars. It was a blast! The movie was so much fun, I can't wait until it comes out on DVD! It was the perfect way to end such a great day!

Some cuteness for the day!

One of Brandon's favorite things is watching the garbage truck (which he fondly refers to as the diaper truck) pick up our garbage. Today was no different- like radar he heard the "diaper truck" coming down the road and at about a 100 miles an hour he ran into the living room to watch it. The cutest thing happened though- the garbage man turned around and waved at Brandon and since then he's been on cloud 9! He hasn't stopped talking about the "diaper man" all day! We can't really understand what he's saying, but "diaper man and diaper truck" keep coming up, and he's been all smiles since that magical moment!

Miss Rylee has also surprised us today with some cuteness! After I got her up this morning, I set her on the floor and she immediatly said "hello" to Brandon! She's also been saying "hi" and waves at the same time! I love it!

Friday night fun!

We decided on an impulse to take the kids swimming at our local hotsprings on Friday night. We were thinking that because it's winter and our hotsprings is located out in the middle of nowhere that there wouldn't be many people there, but boy were we wrong! The place was packed! There was hardly anywhere to swim when we first got there so we ended up just hanging out in the kiddy pool for awhile. There were 3 or 4 boys that were there with the Scouts that wouldn't stop splashing water and throwing balls (they hit Rylee and I several times even after I asked them to stop) inside the kiddy pool so we ended up going into the deeper water. The kids enjoyed that a lot more! We rented a little floaty thing for Rylee to sit in and she had a blast in it! She was splashing water and kicking her feet everwhere! Brandon was scared at first, but he seemed to lighten up a little bit towards the end. And even though we know that he doesn't care much for it, we hope that in time he will start to like it more. Of course I forgot to take any pics of our fun night together! Taking more pictures is on my list of new years resolutions! =)

This is good too...

Amazon is offering the top 50 MP3 download albums of 2008 for $5.00 each! Here's the site: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&ref%5F=amb%5Flink%5F83144631%5F2&docId=1000325061

Check this out!

If you like Coldwater Creek, they are offering a 75% off coupons (use this code: WXH6446) for anything online, including everything in their outlet store. Better hurry though, this expires January 5th!