Happy Birthday, Jeff!

Today is Jeff's birthday; I can't believe he's 3 years old today! Has it been that long since I gave birth? Wow, I guess so! He's such a fun little kid to have at home; he makes me laugh and smile and I love it when he smiles at me! His "Mom, I love you!" still melts my heart, as well as his mischievous smile, which is really common.

Scott thought he was going into work today, but ultimately decided to take a day off to recuperate from his trip, plus spend the day with us for Jeff's birthday. Since Vanessa and Ryan are off-track from school, we took them down to Provo to have lunch at L&L's because I was craving some teriyaki and their mac salad.

Later we cleaned up a bit for Jeff's party, which we had seven. Just family for some cake and ice cream, which Jeff didn't want to blow the candles out. Which is weird, considering he'll happily blow out everyone else's birthday candles, but when it came to his own, he refused, lol! I guess it can't be his or something!

Jeff had lots of fun being center of attention and getting so many cool new toys. It was also nice to see some of the in-laws that we haven't seen for awhile. When asked how he liked his birthday, Jeff exclaims, "YES!!"

Lol, whatever that means! ^_^

Big Poppa comes home!

We're still counting down the hours, but Scott will be home later tonight! If everything goes as planned, his flight will land here at about 8:30 pm and he'll be home!

The kids are so excited!

Okay, and yes, so am I. But, can you blame us, really? I mean, it's been a very long week with him gone!

Hurry up clock! Move!

Face Time rocks!

Since Scott is out of town for some work training, we've been using the Face Time feature on our iPhones.

It's such a great thing!

The kids love being able to see their dad despite the fact that he's in Dallas, Texas, plus they can also see themselves in the little window on the screen. It's quite hilarious to watch them get so animated as they talk to Big Poppa, lol.

Being able to see Big Poppa makes us miss him just a little bit less, but, we still miss him!

Sunday night can't come fast enough!

Ethan's 1st day at his new school

If you ask him, he'll give you an enthusiastic, "IT WAS AWESOME!"

Love it!

Even though we got there late (stupid me, I didn't calculate even time to get there with traffic and construction!), his day was off to great start. I walked him to his class, Miss Holly showed him his new desk, and I left him to it.

When I picked him up after school, he greeted me with the biggest smile I've ever seen! And he was so excited to tell me about his day; he's never been this excited to talk about his school day! So I took him out for some ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery since we had an hour or so before Vanessa and Ryan would get home. We got our ice cream and sat outside eating and talking. We had a great conversation about a lot of things; I really enjoyed it.

The bus will start busing Ethan tomorrow, so I'm glad I got to spend some extra one-on-one time with Ethan before that.

New adventures!

This morning I got a call from the Cluster Learning Leader from the new school Ethan will be attending. She called to set up an appointment for us to meet and tour the school, which we did at 11am. I had to pull Ethan from school, but it was worth it.

We met with Miss Nancy at the main office, who's really friendly and perky. Actually, she reminds me of Reba McEntire, whom I really like, lol! Anyway, she introduced herself, then showed us Ethan's new class and teacher. His teacher is Miss Holly and he has eight classmates, all from different grade levels between 3 and 6. They're all really nice kids and during the introductions, Ethan found out he has a lot in common with some of them.

Afterwards we went on a tour of the school, which really perked Ethan up, as the layout is exactly like his current school, so he basically knows where everything is. He was quite proud of himself in that aspect, lol. He wwas also quite excited to see the computer lab as they have "way cooler computers!" than his old school; Miss Holly mentioned computer lab day is tomorrow, so now he's even more excited!

They also showed us where Ethan will be dropped off and picked up when he catches the bus, which won't start until Wednesday. So just for tomorrow, I have to drop him off and pick him up.

On the drive home, I asked Ethan how he liked it and he was so excited! I'm so glad!

We'll have to see how tomorrow goes.

So it begins....

Please pray for me, as Big Poppa left this morning for work training in Dallas. He'll be gone all week and won't return until next Sunday.

I've got my Prozac ready, but my crack monkeys are so unpredictable.

*deep breath* I can do this!

I think.

o_O

Uh, okay...whatever....

We got word today that the committee approved Ethan's transfer to a special class for autistic students; YES! I am so happy, I really can't express it. Ethan really loves going to school and I was worried that with his current difficulties with schoolwork, that his enthusiasm would wane. But, now that he's being transferred, I think he'll be able to learn more now!

Ethan's reaction to changing school? A shrug and a simple, "Uh, okay...whatever."

I'll try to take my cue from him, but I'm really happy about this!

Crossing my fingers, toes, eyes....

Scott and I went to Ethan's LRE meeting at Kauri Sue Hamilton School today to sit in on the presentation to the board about possibly transferring Ethan to a school designed for autistic kids. It was a real eye-opener to hear his different teachers tell of the struggles they've been having with him, and the difficulties in progress for him.

Ethan has a really wonderful and caring team, who really care about him and want him to succeed. I'm really grateful for them and everything they've been doing for him, because Ethan has come a long way. They're hopeful that a change of environment geared for kids like him will be really good for Ethan.

Hopefully, the committee will agree. We'll just have to wait and see what they decided.

Ethan says so, so it must be true! ^_^

So today I was printing out some of last year's family photos for a scrapbook page I'm creating, when Ethan comes to sit next to me. He's quiet for the longest time, but I notice he keeps looking from the picture to me, then back again. I think nothing of it and continue printig out the pictures.

Finally, Ethan says, "Wow, Mom! You've lost a lot of weight since we took that picture!"

I just smiled and said, "Yeah, I did. Pretty cool, huh?"

Ethan grins back at me and says, "Yeah! You're way more prettier than before!"

I just love him to pieces! ^_^

Feeling festive!

The weather turned a bit chilly today, so I took advantage of the change and got out my fall decorations for my porch. I actually had to buy new hay bales since my old ones got destroyed during our mouse infestation last winter, but it wasn't too bad since Michaels' was having a sale. So I ended up buying new hay bales, a few scarecrows and some pumpkin decor. Here's the result:

I'm really pleased with the way it all turned out. Plus, it helps get me in a festive mood, considering fall is my favorite season!

Bring on the changing leaves!

Is the week over yet?

The last few days have been exciting; on Tuesday, Vanessa woke up in a really bad mood and made the morning really difficult. How difficult? Well, I had to call Scott because the whole ordeal resulted in me having an anxiety attack (crying, shaking, etc.), so he came home to take her to school because she refused to get going.

Then, while we're waiting for Vanessa to finish getting ready, Ryan (who had already left for the bus stop with Ethan), came running inside the house, announcing, "I chipped my tooth!" Except, it wasn't a little chip; the bottom half of his front right tooth was now in his hand!

Apparently, Ryan and his friends were playing football (I think!) at the bus stop and he collided into his friend. The result was Ryan's chipped tooth and a scratch on his friend's head. Ryan insisted that he didn't feel any pain and wanted to go to school, so we let him. By recess, however, I had to go and pick him up because the tooth started to ache.

I took him to the dentist yesterday, but he sent us to a root canal specialist instead; something about our dentist didn't have the right stuff to fix the tooth. Or something. Anyway, we went to see Dr. Groneman and he fixed Ryan right up. He worried that he would have to do a root canal because the tooth nerve had been exposed, but it happened where a cleaning, some sort of sealant and reconstructing the tooth was all that was needed.

It has to be said that Ryan did really well through all of the work; even Dr. Groneman commented on what a good patient he was.

So now, here it is, Thursday morning. If there's going to be any more excitement, can it hold off until next week? Please?