Wordless Wednesday ~ Sisterly Love January 30, 2008

Boring Much? January 29, 2008

Ugh.  There is nothing interesting going on in my life to blog about. Nothing. Zip. Nada.

Kids are good.

Emma’s still peeing in the potty, no poo yet.

Taylor’s mornings are making a surprising turn for the better.

Aaron’s working on his very first report (on Thomas Edison) for school.

Hubby’s good…but I still haven’t gotten my lobster and hot tubbin’ night out.  Hmph.

I’m good…well, at least I’m here, so I guess that’s something.

I don’t go out enough to have interesting things happen to me.

What can ya do?

Got some new kid photos.

Little Miss Tay

Aaron is always acting like a clown.

Emma and her crazy get-ups always crack me up.

You can see more here.

Random Blurbs January 25, 2008

Not too much to report about on this insanely cold day. 

Did I mention that it’s cold here?  When I woke up this morning it was -2.  Wind chill was -19.  My poor son had to walk to school in that.  I am happy to report that all his fingers and toes are infact intact. 

So, now at, um, almost 4 o’clock, we have warmed up to a balmy 16 degrees.  But it feels like 3.  {shiver}  On the bright side, it’s been sunny (pardon the pun) and that’s always nice, especially in January.

Enough about the weather…

I posted a video of Taylor today on Life Unscripted.  It’s the first (of many, I hope) one I posted of her and it turned out really good.

I also posted details about a fun, new project that I’m starting over at Say Cheese or Else.

I found out on Wednesday that Kristi and Rob (sis and BIL) are going to have a little girl!  Yay, a neice for me!  She’s now 20 weeks along and is due in mid June.  I am super excited for her.  Actually, I think that I’m glad it’s not me… :) … no, really, I loved being pregnant and having little babies around, but it’s not for me anymore.  I’m going to get a refresher, though, because I am going to do daycare for them when Kris goes back to work.  Who better than family to watch the wee one?

Aaron got his report card for the 1st semester.  He is doing very well (as always).  So far, school seems to come easy for him and I am glad for that.

Aaron also has his Pinewood Derby this weekend.  He and Doug have been working on his car for the last week or so.  He is very excited about racing it.  I’ll post some pics of the event later.

Emma is Emma.  She’s continuing to do well on the potty and she knows it.  She’s very smug about the fact that she can “make tinkles in the potty”.  She lets everyone know about it, too.

Wouldn’t you?

So that pretty much sums everything up. 

It’s been a busy week and I’m sure the weekend won’t be much better.  It never is.

I’m on a Roll January 23, 2008

In addition to re-inventing Taylor’s blog, I have also decided to get my photo blog back up and running.  So, again, new site, new look, new name.  But best of all, new pictures!!

Say Cheese or Else

BTW…the title is a work in progress…not sure if I dig it yet.  Any good suggestions for a title?

A New Blog January 23, 2008

Well,  sort of.

Over a year ago, I started a blog chronicling Taylor’s (and our) life with Autism.  It was called Unlocking the Puzzle::Taylor’s Story.  After only a few entries I stopped posting and I have regretted it ever since. 

So, last night I resurrected her blog, moved it to wordpress, changed the look and the title.

I’ll still continue to post about Taylor on this blog, I just feel she gets overshadowed by Aaron and Emma here.  This way, I’ll be telling her story and educating people on autism, and those two things are very important to me.

Life Unscripted

It truly is.

Success! January 21, 2008

After many futile attempts, I have finally gotten Emma to pee in the potty.

4 times to be exact.  Once Saturday, twice Sunday, and once today. 

She really seems to “get it” now.  This is fabulous.  Now I can start training her and continue to train Taylor.  Then, eventually I won’t have to buy pull~ups anymore and I will not be lining the pockets of the big wigs that run Kimberly-Clark (aka Huggies).  I swear, as much as I spend on those things, those guys/gals over at KC probably have vacation homes in Cabo San Lucas and they are paying for them with my money.

I buy a lot of pull~ups.

So now starts the saga “Chantelle attempts to potty train 2 children at once”.  It’s gonna be interesting, I’ll give you that.

On another note, I finally bought batteries for my camera today.  That’s why I haven’t had any new pics for a while.  Here’s the latest:

Taylor playing with her foot. This has become a pasttime of hers.

Emma being a cutie. She has a nasty scar under her nose from a fall she took a couple of weeks ago. I never thought it was going to heal because she was always picking at it. I am glad to see that it’s finally getting better.

Aaron vegging out on his day off school.

I can’t forget my puppy. He was tired after wrestling around with Aaron.

You can find more photos here.

Oh, yeah, I never did get my Red Lobster and Hot Tub night out like I had hoped, but hey, I can always try for this weekend!

Through the Eyes of My Toddler January 20, 2008

Emma got a digital camera for Christmas and has spent the last few weeks snapping pictures of anything and everything.  The quality of the photos are terrible, but it keeps her mitts off of my camera, so that’s really all that matters to us.

I got the idea to post some of her pictures from Missy, who’s daughter also got a camera for Christmas.  You can see the post here.

As you can see, Emma’s got quite a unique eye for photography…

The floor.

Someone’s arm.

Doug.

Taylor.

I’m pretty sure this is me.  How flattering.

Like I said, the picture qualiy is bad, but she has so much fun taking pictures that it’s totally worth al the $$ we spent on that camera.  Who knows…maybe she’ll ending up loving photography like me. 

Yay It’s Friday! January 18, 2008

{Doing my Friday dance.}

I’m glad it’s Friday. 

Babysitting for Miss J and Miss K is going well.  Emma and Taylor love having kids their own age around to play with.  Emma runs herself ragged every. day.  The poor child barely makes it until bedtime (even though her and Miss K take naps).  Taylor is slowly starting to join in with the other girls.  At first, she just kept to herself, but now I see her acting like she’s more interested in what the others are doing.

Other than that, there hasn’t been much going on around here.  Just the mid-January-I’m-getting-so-sick-of-the-cold-and-snow lovely mood I adopt every year.  I know I shouldn’t complain because I choose to live here…

Anyhoo…

I wanted to mention that I have opened an oline store via Cafe Press called The Striped Sock.  I’ve got lots of things for sale, and I’m adding more everyday.  Most of the designs are made by yours truly.  It’s a fun, creative outlet for me, and I really enjoy coming up with new designs.  So come on over and check it out!

Not much planned for the weekend, although, I do have  gift certificates for Red Lobster and Oasis Hot Tub Gardens burning  ginormous holes in my purse.  Maybe I can talk the hubby into an evening sans children.   Sounds good to me!

BTW…I’m keeping my current header as my permanent one. Thanks to all who commented!

Getting Creative January 16, 2008

Here’s the scoop.  I want to change the header for my blog.  I don’t want one of those “premade” ones, so I decided to make my own.  I have Photoshop Elements 5, so making the header is the easy part.  Deciding on which one to use is the hard part.

Here’s the one I made last night:

I really like this one and it goes well with my page. 

Then there’s this one:

This is the one I’m currently using.  I love the color scheme.

I also have this one:

This one has a funky sort of retro feel to it.

So, if any one has a suggestion on which one they would like me to use, please leave a comment for me.  I’ll make my decision in a few days.

I’ll also periodically switch the headers to give an idea on what they look like.

Happy Hump Day, All!

Taylor’s New Word January 14, 2008

On Saturday morning I was looking for something for the girls to watch on tv while I picked up the house.  I saw that Max and Ruby was going to be on and left it there.  As soon as the theme song came on, Taylor started clapping and yelled “Ruby!”. 

This is so exciting!  “Ruby” is her first word in almost a month.  We are also working on “Dora”.  What she says sounds more like “door”.  But I guess that’s not so bad, either.Taylor’s vocabulary now consists of the following words/phrases : “I do”, “I  go”, “ma ma”, “da da”, “thank you” (she also signs “thank you” as she says it), “yum yum”, “love you”, “baby”, “ba ba” (barbie) and “Ruby”.

Although Taylor still gestures quite a bit, she is slowly working her words into her everyday routine.  She’ll tell me “yum yum” when she’s hungry and when she starts saying “ba ba”, we know she’s talking about her beloved barbie doll.

That’s another new thing.  Taylor is very fond of a barbie that we got her for Christmas.  This is the first real attachment she’s made to any sort of toy geared for her age group.  It’s good to see her play with a toy instead of some of the other things she likes…spatulas, video game controller cords, toothbrushes, spoons…the list goes on and on…