The Smolder

For Christmas we are building a sensory gym for the kids. It got delayed due to the stomach flu, but on New Years day Allan finished the rock wall. The kids are so excited about it. We're hoping to finish the rest of the gym this weekend!

L enjoyed helping Daddy screw the handles onto the rock wall!

Grandma and Grandpa H got the kids this swinging ladder and some weighted balls for their gym. They've all figured out some fun ways to swing on it, but A is already doing some pretty awesome tricks!

 Santa brought a Nugget couch for the kids for Christmas. It's a fort building couch that we also use for a crash pad and part of a deep pressure sensory diet. We have used this pretty much non-stop since Christmas! The kids love it and come up with different creative ways to use it daily.

L and S are the sweetest little buddies. They pal around most of the day. One day L decided to put S to bed with her scarves. He laid down and she covered him with all of them and then lay down beside him and sang to him. He sang with her because he likes to sing himself to sleep. They're the cutest!

Nana and Pops bought the kids this sensory sock for their sensory gym! They love to hide their heads in it too and pretend to be monsters, lol!

A cut her finger on a can. It bled a ton! After we got her all cleaned up she drew this picture of the event. She told me "Mommy, it's me and my owie!"

L is my dolly girl. She plays dolls in one way or another all day long. One Sunday after church she got her doll and her baby mouse, tucked them in, lay down between them and sang them to sleep. Then she came to the table (we were eating lunch) and told us all "Shhhhh." Haha!

We love having smoothies. One day A decided to drink hers without the straw. It was pretty thick and all fell on her face, lol! She was pretty surprised!

A has already successfully managed climbing to the top and ringing the bell. A big feat for her as she's really hesitant about heights. L and S can do it with some help. I think S will be able to do it alone fairly soon, but L will need help for a while still. She's quite the determined girl though and was so proud to climb it!

S loves to receive compliments. One morning he came running to me to show me the shirt Daddy had dressed him in. I told him he looked so handsome and he puffed out his chest, smiled so huge, and wandered away totally elated. He's seriously adorable. He's also mischievous and into everything. If you tell him no he looks at you with his "smolder" and does it anyway. Little stinker.

S learned how to say "Mommy pleeease". And he says it with a smolder. (Think Flynn from Tangled) It melts me. I don't know how we're going to say no to him.

I was working on finishing up some Christmas gifts (I'm behind as usual) when I noticed that L and S were being really quiet. When I walked away from them they were rocking in the rocking chairs giggling together. A had been coloring with the markers earlier, but hadn't put them away. I found L and S sitting on the floor amongst all of the markers. S was putting the lids on and off. L was coloring S. She covered his torso in stripes and scribbles! I asked him if he was a zebra and he said yes, lol!

I remember another 3 year old who colored her sister and gave herself a matching picture, ha!

Allan has taken a short hiatus from the sensory gym to build A's birthday present. She is so excited about her birthday she can't even stand it. She squeals about it daily.

We decided to homeschool A. School was just so exhausting for her, a constant sensory overload. And she was bored out of her mind because there were a lot of things she couldn't move forward in until she could verbalize it, but she can't. So, we're giving homeschool a try. So far it's gone great! We're using The Good and the Beautiful curriculum and we love it! We've done preschool, Pre K, and now we're doing Kindergarten. She loves to learn and asks me regularly when we're doing school.

L can recognize the first three letters in her name! She is really into coloring, especially on a white board. She loves to do puzzles and is very good at matching.

S also loves to color. He is very upset that he can't do the same things that girls do for school so I've had to get creative to occupy him and then give him his turn. He has started getting interested in legos and built his first lego creation, a "baba"! He was so proud of himself and came running to me saying "Mama! Mama! A baba! A baba!"

We've gotten some snow lately and have been enjoying that. A really nice thing about where we're living is that there is less snow, and its 15-20 degrees warmer! Hallelujah!

The snow we got was really wet, perfect to build some snowmen! A and L love the snow, S is not so sure. The first time we went out his boot fell off, then his glove fell off, he fell down. didn't like being pulled on the sled, and mostly just cried the whole time. Poor little guy. He's slowly getting used to it but doesn't ever stay out for long.

We're Back!

Here's a quick recap of what's happened in the last two years. ( I can't believe it's been two years!)

In August 2018 we were blessed to adopt again! Our son, S. He is such gentle, sensitive soul. He adores his sisters, loves to dance, tease, and wrestle. He and L are the best of buddies. The do pretty much everything together. (He came to our family at birth, I just don't have those pictures on the laptop. I'll have to post his birth story another time.)

In August 2018 L learned to walk! (Thank goodness for that timing!)

I did another Broadway Review singing "Don't Cry for Me Argentina". 

In summer 2019 A learned to ride a bike with training wheels. She worked so hard to figure out pedaling. We are SO proud of her!

L learned to pedal her tricycle! She's been slowly gaining the strength to do it and is finally there. We're so proud of her too! Now to work on steering. Ha!

A was diagnosed with Absence Seizures. She very rarely has them, so that's good. We're working out treatments for her to hopefully help them not progress to a more serious kind of seizure.

In July 2019 we moved again. This time to a small town in Utah that is closer to the children's hospital. We were blessed to find a large home on half an acre. We're loving the space and especially the backyard. The house and yard both need some TLC. It's kept us busy. We're really hoping to stay here for a LONG time. We love our new, quiet neighborhood. There are several homeschool families in the neighborhood and we live just around the corner from the church! We're also really enjoying the warmer weather. It's been a relief, although A misses the snow. (Apparently this is the only picture I've taken of our new house.)

Allan took a job as a super intendant and has loved the change. He misses engineering, but is enjoying the new challenges that management brings. He loves his new job as it allows him to do some engineering and slope stability still. It's been a good balance for him.

We're HOPING TO ADOPT again!

January 2018

Grandma and Grandpa got Little A this set for Christmas. She LOVES it! And she is already saying more sounds. It also helped me realize that she already knows all of her sounds and can tell which words start with what letter most of the time. One day she's going to speak more, and more clearly, and I'm going to be blown away with all that she knows. Little smarty. Whenever I think I've found something to challenge her she shows me she's way ahead of me, lol!

We started going on dates with the girls every week so that they can have one on one time with us. One week I'll take Baby L and Allan will take Little A and then we'll switch the next week. It's been a lot of fun for all of us!

Little A was thrilled to turn 5 years old! And even more thrilled that her bestie got to be there on her birthday. They had a sleep over. They tried to sleep in the same room, but they were too excited.

We got Little A some paw patrol cars to go with the paw patrol car mat that AG and family got for her. She has had a ball with them!

She has 5 friends whose birthdays are in January! We went to another friends birthday party. Birthday parties are very overwhelming for her but it went okay.

When I told her it was going to be her birthday she said, "Friends come my house eat yummy food!?" So we had a birthday party. We had some lunch, ice cream cones, and played. They loved playing hide and seek downstairs, and with the balloons that her bestie from school brought.

AG and family came down for a birthday party too! They surprised her with this awesome cupcake cake! She was SO thrilled! We had a lot left over so she took some to school to share with her class. She is a very proud 5 year old!

AG and family also got her this cute Skye hat and glove set, a stuffed Skye, and an adorable suitcase for when we go to Disneyland next month! Little A is pretty excited about it!

They also got her this magnet set that you can paint. She really loved painting it. You can see her concentration in the picture, lol! She is super proud of her butterfly magnets!

I've wanted to take Little A (and Baby L when she's older) to the Bibbity Bobbity Boutique at Disneyland FOREVER! We showed some videos to little A and asked her if she wanted to go and she said no and cried. :(   It would be a sensory overload for her for sure. Maybe when she's older.

Heehee! Practicing.

Baby L is determined to participate in dance class too. She gets SO mad when I won't let her. I keep telling her she has to learn to walk first.

We got to visit with A's bestie and family for her baby brothers baby blessing. It was so fun to see them all! C had a gift for Little A. Best Friend necklaces that attach together with a magnet. Oh the cutness! I can hardly stand it! In the picture they're connecting their necklaces. Little A never wanted to take it off. Then one day she chewed on it and the chain broke so we need to get a new one. She was so sad.

Here's miss L on the treadmill! She LOVES this thing. But she refuses to walk on it. She just lets her shoes drag behind her.

She got hungry.

Little A said "Oh, I sick" and fake coughed. She wasn't.

But Baby L was. Poor baby. She had an ear infection. Little A did catch a cold a couple of days later though.

This year it has hardly snowed at all, and the girls have got ear infections every time it snowed. Then by the time they're better the snow has melted. What a bummer.

Baby L had her 6 month check ups. She is doing great! She was VERY brave for her blood draw. They had to stick her twice. It's hard to find a vein in all that baby chub. They gave her this teddy bear for being so brave.

My sister-in-law gave me a foot zone and Little A wanted one too. I was really surprised because she doesn't like to have her feet touched. One of the cousins did one for her and she seemed to love it. Unfortunately she woke up in the middle of the night screaming in terror and saying her feet hurt. She was completely frantic. She paced up and down for a while limping until I could get her calmed down enough to let me hold her. We were up for about an hour with her screaming. She finally went to bed with me and touched her feet and hands to me the rest of the night. Poor baby. We won't do another foot zone any time soon.

We had a couple family councils the last couple of weeks. One of them we talked about our diagnoses and what they mean. We talked about each one and then explained Little A's to her. We told her what each one was and she said excitedly "I got three!" It was too funny! We laughed and laughed! We told the girls that when Heavenly Father gives us things that can make things challenging for us, He also gives us special gifts that help us, and then talked about their special gifts for a while. We are truly blessed with both of our beautiful daughters!

The next one was about adoption. We asked Little A how she feels about being adopted and she said she feels happy. When we asked her who her birth mom is she said "My AG!" with this sweet little smile on her face. At one point we told the girls that being adopted means a whole lot of people really love you. She said, "Ya! My AG, grandma-grandpa (AG's parents)", and then said grandma grandpa over and over until she thought she got all of them counted! Ha!