Happy Birthday!

My Dad is turning 60 in a few days. My big sister Traci decided that we needed to throw him a good bash and invite a lot of people. I think we did pretty good. Of course it had to be a surprise.....=)

We had it at my parents church in the Gym, and spent weeks trying to contact people and not tell Dad. He claims he was surprised, but we all have our speculations. The plan seemed to work. Mom got a phone call and told Dad that I was an irresponsible parent and Duncan had to be picked up from our church, and took off down to the party. Kristen who was hanging out with my parents said it was time for her to take off. The rest of us were trying to set up, while the kids ran around crazy.

Then my parents sneaky Bishop called him and said he had something urgent that needed to be taken care of, and could he please meet him down at the church. I was afraid it would be the one time Dad would tell the Bishop no...=) However, we got him there. He was quite pleased.
Dad, just after the surprise.
Mom didn't want to be included in the being surprised so she had to come up with some excuse to not have to walk in the room with Dad.
We had Family there.

Old Palermo's crew! That was my job. I got the most important ones there, anyway....=)

More family. My Aunt Nancy playing with my sweet boy.

People from Marriott. Dad's assistant made sure to get everyone invited for us.
Grandma and GrandpaSome old High School friends.

I think we touched as many basis as we possibly could! Love you Dad! Happy Birthday!!

Life as we know it

Well life hasn't been much different, just busy. I haven't felt like there was much for me to blog about. I was talking to a friend of mine at church yesterday. (Of course this was during the joint relief society/priesthood meeting, bad Mel!) She has had enough tragedy in her life that she is an easy one to talk to about our every day life. She is so sweet and wants to know how we're doing and if she can do anything for us. She helps me to see the good things in our life, even if I don't always see them myself. Thanks Lisa!

I talked to another lady in my ward briefly about her son who is also Autistic. He's 9 though, so they've already been through the stages that we are going through now with Jason. I asked her how on earth they made it through Sacrament Meeting when he was 2 years old. To which she chuckled and said, "We spent the meeting in the foyer, until he was about 5 years old." She told me that the Spectrum Academy that her son goes to is looking at starting a preschool next year. She is going to keep her ears open for me and let me know if I can get Jason in. She also Facebooked me last night and told me that I can ask her "Anything". Gotta love it when people understand what you are going through. It sure is helpful. Thanks Lindy!

I also had a wonderful friend of mine call last week and let me know that I can call her anytime and she will come and get Jason. Which will be a good thing since Brett will be out of town all week......sigh. Thanks Cori!

Thanksgiving was wonderful, and we got to see a lot of family. We went to my In-laws first and had a great dinner/lunch with the crew. We saw everyone except Stan and Brenda who live in Arizona. We even got to see a nephew that we see maybe once a year. I do quite like Ryan.

Then we hoofed it out to my sisters house for Thanksgiving dinner with my family. Traci did a great job with the Turkey, and everyone else pitched in and we had a good dinner. Grandma and Grandpa Wilson were there as well as my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Tim. I love how close our families are. It's fun to be able to share our experiences with the ones we love.

I got to harass my 12 and 13 year old nieces yesterday. They have become obsessed with the "Beatles" since the new Rock Band game came out. Meghan thinks that Paul is her ideal man. I'm not a big fan of the Beatles. I know that they were the beginning, but I personally can't sit and listen to too many of there songs. We had a good debate on the ability to connect the gospel to the song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Then it turned to Twilight. Meghan is very opinionated about this subject, and it's lameness. I told her I quite enjoy the series, and the mindless fun it is. My sister-in-law said that Bella really doesn't deserve Jacob or Edward which I kind of agree. But then I said, "She really is quite Bratty, kind of reminds me of all 13 year old girls." Meghan jumped on that. It's fun to give the pre-teens a hard time....=)

Hopefully this week will go by quickly........=)

Who needs sleep?

Me! That's who!!!

Last night Jason slept for about 2 hours from 9:00pm-11:00pm. Sort of. We tried to keep putting him in his own bed and within 2 minutes of leaving his side he was back in our bed.

He was up screaming and jumping and climbing and generally making me crazy until about 3:30am or 4:00am. Then he was up at 7:00am.......I tried another round of Melatonin and he didn't even get sleepy. So now I will have a migraine for the Holidays.

If it was me with Insomnia maybe it would be easier!!! =)

Today's goings on

Well, I spent all day with my tush planted too this chair. I worked a full 8 hours, for the first time in a long time. We'll see if it payed off. My whole motivation was to get caught up so there is less stress in life for the Holiday weekend.

We'll see......=)

New Niece

I'm an aunt again for the 38th time! Yes, I said that. 38! Between Brett and I we have a ton of nieces and nephews.

Lauren Elizabeth was born at 3:05 pm today, 6 lbs 10 ozs and 21 inches long. Looks like she will be a loud one. =)

Tori Update

A little side note. Tori told Brett before bed last night that she was already starting to see better. Love the eye doctors, that take care of my kids!!!

Sort Of.....

I was waiting for a process to run on my computer last night and doodled. I know, it's not very good, but I think you can kind of tell who it is. Maybe I should take some lessons at the art gallery. I think that would be fun. If I ever have time that is. My Mom is an excellent artist, maybe she would want to take a class with me. Anything to get out of the house.....=)

Another Samanthaism

Sam: Dad, when you get really fat do you turn into a balloon?

Dad: No!

Sam: Oh, goood!

Dad: Why would you think that?

Sam: I saw it on Harry Potter.

I really don't want to ask who she thinks if fat enough to turn into a balloon....=)

Letter to Santa

Tonight for Family Night we wrote letters to Santa. Santa needs time to collect all the presents after all.

The tradition in my husbands family is to write letters to Santa, read them aloud for everyone to hear, and then burn them in the fire place. Then they go out the chimney, float to the North Pole, and they are reassembled in Santa's Chimney.

Love it!

Tori's Eyes

Tori went to see Dr. Moshirfar today, to check the build up in her left eye. She is such a tough little thing. I took her out of school, ran to the Moran Eye Center and were immediatly ushered into an office. Dr. Moshirfar got us in pretty quick and looked at her implant. It is building up, and she did need to have a laser procedure done.

We went back into another office and waited, and waited, and waited. Finally I asked what the hold up was, and almost immediately Dr. Moshirfar was back with us. He thought he had to wait for an approval from our insurance company, which we had already gotten before we went back to the laser office.

Tori sat with her head in the brace and just took everything in stride. Dr. Moshirfar is really sweet, and talks all the way through the procedure. He wants to know if you are uncomfortable in anyway, and takes breaks as necessary. He even gave Tori a percentage of the work that he had completed and what was left to do.

She will probably see some fuzzy floaties in her eye and she needs some steroid eye drops for 4 days but for the most part she is good. My brave girl!

A little overwhelmed

Last night I had a moment. It seems like the littlest things are the ones that set me off. I've got a lot of work to catch up on. We are going to be doing a 48 hour turn around now so there is a lot to do to get to that. The girls had been hounding me since they walked in the door. Tori has been struggling with doing her homework. Samantha sits over my shoulder as I work and wants to know when she can play on the computer. Jason is.......Jason.

Of course we had a lack of sleep yesterday which never helps the situation. Paula had come over to discuss a few things with us so it was later then usual. I was trying to get the kids ready for bed after she left. I had Jason in the tub and Brett was making quesadilla's for dinner. Duncan comes into the bathroom and wants to know if I can find him an outfit for Colonial day.

I told him that he needed to do the best he could because I can't do everything. I told him that he needed to chill and decide if it was really that important. He came back in and started pleading for me to help him find a long sleeve white shirt.

So I told Duncan to finish bathing Jason and told Brett I was going for a drive. This doesn't happen that often. I really do try not to lose it that often. So, he wasn't sure what to do about it. I feel bad, I left him at bed time when things seem to pile up on us. I ended up going to the store, because as an LDS woman living in a very quiet place, where else do you go? I bought him his long sleeve white shirt, and a vest.

I probably shouldn't have. He needs to learn to go without sometimes, but I couldn't emotionally handle Duncan's tears last night. I hope today is better. I'm still really tired, but I need to learn to cope with this stuff on top of everything else in our life.

Jason Update

We spent last night at PCMC from about 11:30pm-3:30pm. I'm actually feeling pretty good because we slept until 10:00am. Brett however is NOT, since he had to go do a training at a school this morning. Hopefully he stays awake.

Jason was wheezing sort of all day. It got worse as the day went by. He woke up about 11:00pm struggling to breath. He was working pretty hard, and I could see it in his belly. Everytime he took a breath you could see the bottom of his ribs like he was using everything he had to get enough oxygen. So I called Lisa, who was concerned he could have pneumonia.

My Dad came down to the house and stayed with my other kids, while we took Jason to the ER. They got the respiratory therapist in there to give him a "super neb" and we spent a while fighting Jason to keep the mask on so he could get the full dose of Albuterol. They also gave him a pretty good dose of Decadron and that seemed to calm down his breathing pretty good. Downside, my already hyper baby was super hyper. We got his chest x-rayed and they were nice and clear.

Basically he was having a pretty good asthama attack. They don't diagnose Asthma until they are 5, but this might be another issue. We'll have to see if it continues or if it's just an isolated incident. He is starting to pop and wheeze already this morning, I have to go pick up some more Decadron and his inhaler at the pharmacy. Hopefully this will not be permanent........sigh.

Sooooo Tired

You know when you wake up to a baby covered in marker, the toilet brush in the toilet, the refrigerator door open, and 3 kids already gone to school, that we had a rough night.

Jason wouldn't go back to sleep last night. He is just ready to play at 3:00am. He was up for a good 2 or 3 hours before he finally decided to go back to sleep, with the help of some Melatonin. If you give him the Melatonin too soon after waking up at night it does no good. You have to let him start getting tired before you give him the stuff and then it will kick in fairly quickly.

The only reason I got up at all was because Jason was on my bed digging under the covers trying to get my hands out to open a go-gurt. His hands were freezing!!! It was a bit of a rude awakening. Hopefully I'll get all my work caught up today so that I can get to bed early tonight. Sigh.....

Duncan's Glasses

Duncan went to the eye doctor today. He's been complaining about having trouble seeing the board at school. He is slightly nearsighted and will be getting a new pair of glasses tomorrow. He doesn't need them like the girls do so he will be keeping them in his desk until he needs them for the board.

He is so picky! It took us about 3 times as long as it usually does for the girls. He finally picked a very thin rim on top and no rim on the bottom. Nothing like not wanting to be seen with glasses. We should be able to pick them up tomorrow, so I'll take some pictures.

Honey

We had to have our sweet dog Honey put down today. She was 12 years old and such a sweet thing and always happy! She's been in a lot of pain, her hips were displacing and she had really bad arthritis. I contemplated not posting this, because it really sucks. The kids our obviously really sad, as well as Brett and myself. She will be missed!!!

The reason I decided to post is because Duncan wrote a poem that I wanted to share.


Honey died hard and strong. I was sad but I was wrong. Death makes us sad it makes us mad. But now that I think about it it's not BAD! -Duncan Lutz

You're in a better place.

In Honor of Honey the first dog I ever had and a wonderful friend. Can't wait to see you again.
Love-Duncan Lutz
P.S. I miss you already.

Working, and Hiding Away

Yesterday I tried to stay home and get a lot of work done. I did pretty good.

Jason was so cute and crashed about noon. He headed upstairs and I hurried and answered a few emails. When I got upstairs to check on him he was in my bed with a bottle under a blanket. So I grabbed the melatonin, filled up his bottle and took advantage of nap time.

The kids got home from school early again, since it's early out week. The kids played for a little while and then they went back to the school for Choir Practice. The kids have decided that they want to join the school choir. We'll see how long Sam last's since she is absolutely restless as of late.

I was supposed to go to Pack Meeting last night, but couldn't bring myself to fighting Jason in that crowd. We just stayed at home made dinner, did homework, and enjoyed the night off. Even if it was a night off that shouldn't have been.

Hopefully I'll be able to get on top of some things so that I feel like the rest of the stuff I'm supposed to do doesn't kill me.

Finally got my pictures

My little sister took these wonderful pictures. I can't wait to get them up in my house!!

Grandma is Retiring.....sort of

Last night I had a wonderful dinner with the in-laws. Grandma Siddoway is sort-of retiring. Really she can't retire, because that would make her go crazy!! However, as she stated yesterday, if she works it will be on her own schedule not the bosses.

It was fun, and was wonderful!! We went to this wonderful Greek restaurant up by the U of U. I couldn't tell you the name of it to save my life, but it was SOOOOOOO good. Brett had to go to a school visit so he didn't get to go, I'm going to have to take him on a date there. He will love it!!!

It was fun to catch up with the in-laws that we don't see as often as we used to. Plus my mother graciously watched my brood, so I didn't have to worry about them. Although Jason bit Tori's stomach last night and left a nasty mark. sigh.......he's going to be a trial.

Visiting Teaching

I actually went visiting teaching today. Yay me! Well Yay Katie, without her I'd never go. We spent a good hour or so talking to Kate. She is awesome and I love her fun personality, and how friendly she is. We talked about everything from work to kids, to things I'm not going to share about baby bowel movements. =o)

I found out that her mother is blind, so that opened another round of discussion. I had no idea. She said that if things progress for the girls in a direction that looks like we might need more services, to let her know because she has connections.

This months Ensign was the conference report so I had to find a talk that I wanted to share. I really liked Elder David A. Bednar's talk "More Diligent and Concerned at Home." It struck a chord with me, so I thought I would share.

He said, "We can begin to become more diligent and concerned at home by telling the people we love that we love them. Such expressions do not need to be flowery or lengthy. We simply should sincerely and frequently express love."

"We should remember that saying 'I love you' is only a beginning. We need to say it, we need to mean it, and most importantly we need consistently to show it. We need to both express and demonstrate love."

"President Thomas S. Monson recently counseled: 'Often we assume that [the people around us] must know how much we love them. But we should never assume; we should let them know....We will never regret the kind words spoken or the affection shown. Rather, our regrets will come if such things are omitted from our relationships with those who mean the most to us.'"

If you want to read the whole talk click Here

300th Post

I can't believe I have so much to write about. 300????? Anyway, it's time to catch up.

I've been going through my annual October funk. Make that Winter funk. I've just had a hard time getting motivated to do much of anything. There have been quite a few appointments and fun things happening around here.

On November 3rd we had an appointment with Dr. Peine. Dr. Peine felt better about his progress, and seeing that making sure he sleeps and gets good nutrition is a key for our boy. We are to work on finding the things that are comforting and rewarding for Jason. Also we have to start working on Biting. Jason has started Biting when he is really frustrated with things. If you take him away from something that he really wants he will try or succeed in biting you.

On November 4th the refinery blew up. It scared the snot out of me! Jason was in the front room and I was in my room chilling with a book. When the house felt like something hit it. I thought Jason had knocked over the refrigerator. That was the only thing I could think of that was big and heavy enough to make such a sound. Which of course in the 2 seconds it took me to get to him I thought he was dead. He was in the freezer, and he looked at me with his sweet blue eyes like, "what's up?" So then I looked into the back yard to make sure that we didn't have a train in our house, NOPE. So I looked in the front yard to see if a truck had plowed into us, NOPE. I noticed that the neighbors were outside so I knew I wasn't the only one that felt it. I walked outside to the billowing smoke and sirens of the refinery. I took some pictures of the other refinery that isn't far away either because it was billowing smoke too, but it wasn't the one that blew up.
This is what Jason was doing as I was running in and out of the house. Literally, this is all he did. He was my focused little boy!
So as I was trying to get things settled down again and get back to work, I got a phone call from the school. Tori had been outside walking on the track and she had gotten some debris in her eye. Of all the kids in the school that could have gotten stuff in her eyes, it had to be my girl. We ran out to Dr. Dries and he looked her over. Her retinas looked good, her eye was completely blood shot so he knew something had been in there but it had finally worked it's way out on the ride out there. She stayed home because he didn't want her to put her contacts in until the next morning.

November 5th Jean Dellangelo came to the house to start the Play Project stuff. She was at my house for 2 hours. Grandma and Grandpa Siddoway came down to see what needed to be done to help Jason out. She recorded me and Grandpa Siddoway to give us a comparison to start with. He played well and really seemed to be involved in the physical play stuff. He played "Catch" for quite a while and when he got bored with that we hid the ball in his shirt and he had fun finding it. He eventually got tired and took his raisins and hid behind the diaper and wipes boxes at the end of the hall. He was finished. She set us up with the website that is involved with the Play Project and we are on our way.

November 6th Duncan and Tori took part in the Story telling festival. They both did well and it was fun to see them be so outgoing. We don't know if they won a spot in the actual festival, but I'll let you know if they do.

Then November 5th-7th was Play practice and the actual play. My poor Jason was pawned off on Grandma and Grandpa Siddoway and Grandma and Grandpa Child for a few days. He was really warn out. It's all done, it was a lot of fun. The kids had a blast and Brett and I did as well. I only flubbed a couple of my lines but I don't think anyone noticed. Duncan was my little actor. He really has a knack for this. He is a natural performer.
November 9th Jean Fowles came to the house to work with Jason again. She is so sweet, and loves the kids she works with. We played with some cars and a track to see if Jason would share. He did OK. He didn't throw a tantrum or anything which is an improvement for him. Then we worked with a DoodlePro and he loved it! (Good idea for Christmas for me.) We traced his hand and said the vowel sounds as we did. He actually kind of started to make some different sounds. Usually he is very quiet as he draws, and he really started to come out of his shell.

Good things

Tori is going to be in a different class in the morning. Mr. Holmes finally got the hint. =)

She will be switching classes tomorrow, which is making her very nervous. But, I'm so excited for her. I think it will be such a good thing. Brett gave her a blessing that will hopefully help her get to school. I'm going to drop Jason off at Grandma Siddoways in the morning and help Tori get to her new class. Somewhat unnecessary as far as being any physical help to move things, but emotional support will be what she needs tomorrow. Hopefully she will find some kids that she knows quickly.
Also, we have discovered something else that brings Jason out of his own little world. The Vacuum...... Yes I know, weird. But, he actually asks for it to be on again. He likes to stick his fingers in the tube and pull them out again. I think I'm going to have to find a smaller vacuum or a dust buster. Whatever works!!!!

This is my boy!

We've discovered something about my baby boy. He really likes warm air. He'll sit on my lap and let me read him multiple stories. He'll lay and talk to me a little bit. He even smiled at me today. Well worth the space heater I must say.

Disneyland Stuff

I just caught this, and thought it was pretty cool. Disney has hand-held devices for Deaf and Vision impaired individuals. Unnecessary for my family at this point but cool none the less.

http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2009/11/disneys-handheld-device-adds-audio-description/

I shouldn't be.......

I'm bummed. I've had kind of a hard week, at least emotionally. I feel picked on.....

I need to be grateful for my beautiful family, my wonderful kids, my amazing husband. I think it's just the fall, I'm going through some seasonal crud. Plus the last couple of days Jason hasn't been sleeping very well.

Well, here goes......it's Monday.