We're moving!

We are moving from our 2 bedroom duplex to a 4 bedroom house all to ourselves with a backyard and a small basement! This is a very exciting time for us. We are moving to the South Toledo area in Ohio. I'm going to be looking into the possibility of getting some chickens and see how much it'll cost my husband to build a coop (he's excited about moving into a house beacuse he'll have space to work on projects... I can certainly hook him up with projects!).

The only downer I can see is that I may not have a chance to put my garden in this year. With all of the chaos of looking for a house to rent before our lease expired here, I didnt' have time to tend to my plants. I also over-fertilized my container plants which killed most of them. I restarted them with seeds I had left, but I'm not sure how quickly I can prepare a garden plot at the new house and I don't have any idea what the soil is like! We were going to rent a rototill but I may just do it by hand if my body can handle it - I'm pregnant again with #4 and am somewhere around my second trimester at this point (we've been so busy I can't even keep track of how far along I am!)

I'll be starting a brand new blog about homesteading in the city. Once I have my first post up there, I'll share the link. I'm still trying to tweak it and get the design of the blog to my liking before I share the link!

What an awesome idea: Spa night with the girls

Inspiration thanks to this article at Mothering: http://www.mothering.com/articles/growing_child/family_time/saturday-night-spa.html

I have been looking for a way that my older daughter and I can connect. She's only 4, but so into girly stuff, lotions, baths, etc. I am going to impliment a special spa night for the two of us, and later her baby sister and I. And give us a chance to bond, talk, and reconnect. I know she'll love this!

Learning Activities for Young, Active Boys

I've learned that the best way for my son to learn is while he's active. I'm homeschooling my oldest daughter right now in preschool but with as much activity as I have Andrew do, I feel like i'm homeschooling him now too! :-)

We like to bounce, roll or throw balls across the living room or while outside. Each time I throw the ball, he repeats a sound I make (to work on the things his speech therapist has sent home with him). Then when he throws it back to me, he makes a sound that I'm to imitate. When doing this with my older daughter we can repeat sentances, rhymes, silly words, and tongue twisters.

Learning colors, shapes and other basic skills is becoming easier now that I have incorperated his cars! Today we drove the truck around to different colored peices of paper I laid across our living room. I'd call out a color, he'd drive the truck to it. Same thing with shapes and other basic skills. When we work on math, I'll pile up crayons or other small items on each paper and have him drive to a specific color to pick up "x" number of crayons (or whatever) in the truck bed, and drop off "X" number at color "x" and so on. In fact, i may begin doing that with my daughter - she really wanted to have fun driving the truck around today too.

That's only a couple ideas - we create new games and activities each day. You just have to keep those active little boys moving!

Circus fun

We took the kids to the Shrine circus yesterday. It was so much fun! My husband knew a lot of the clowns, Shriners, and security so I must admit to feeling quite pampered while we were there! We all took an elephant ride and Bret asked a Shriner he knew, who was a professional photographer, to take pictures with our camera. They turned out wonderful, he got a lot of great shots! I loved watching the kids expressions as they watched the circus. I hope this is something they'll remember for a long time!

Updates, First Speech Therapy Appt.

Ok updates first:
My neice's surgery was a success. I guess it made hospital history because of the complexity (sp) and new techniques used. It lasted 12 hrs, took several hours for my husband to see her in ICU but she was coherent, talking, and in a ton of pain. This poor kid was operated on through her stomach, and her entire back was sliced open again from her neck to her bottom. I had scoliosis surgery when I was about 9 years old, so I remember the experience... I can't imagine having been operated on through my tummy also. Poor kid - please continue sending up prayers for her and the family. She's expected to be in the hospital for about 6 weeks, including inpatient physical therapy.

My committments to laundry and dishes are doing pretty well. This week I've had two LATE nights (getting to bed at 2:30/3AM) due to lots of orders to fill for my business. So to get by without getting totally exhausted, I just tried to do dishes during the day and washed (by hand) one full load of dishes before bed. Laundry has been going excellently - I am using the retractable line in my apartment to dry (to save money on electricity), and soon I'll be hanging clothes outside! But it's very easy to fold clothes and match socks as I'm taking them off the line. I prefer doing it this way than folding right out of the dryer! Unfortuntaly my line doesn't always hold one full load of laundry to dry so occasionally I still have to use the dryer or just be sure to check the laundry on the line and remove whatever is dry and replace it with something wet.

Andrew had his first speech therapy appt. today. To save time with typing, I'll post what I posted on our familys family website (at www.myfamily.com):

"We had our first appointment today and she had this toilet plunger looking contraption with half=circles of different sizes. She went through her binder and showed Andrew a picture, imitated a sound, then had Andrew imitate it. If he couldn't, she made the sound again holding the half circle thing, then handed it to Alexis to say, then ALexis handed the half circle thing to Andrew and then he'd say the sound. Once the word was said, the half circle thing could be put on the plunger. Once it was full, the stick was pushed down and Andrew got to push a button, which made all of the half circles explode into the air! Then she brought out a bag of little toys and she and Andrew played with them, making sounds, saying phrases (she did, he doesn't do much more than small words and sounds), and having a lot of fun. She incorperated body language and sign language into everything also!She made copies of the sound cards, made copies of a list of toys and the sounds they can make so I can start putting together my own bag to play of toys to use to play with him. I noticed the spine of the binder she used said 'apraxia' so I went and googled it online, and found some free resources. I'll try to put together a binder like hers, so all of the stuff we'll use is in one place. We'll work on the sounds and playing several times a day, and of course use sounds, phrases and signs throughout the day. And another highlight is that Andrew remained dry the entire time :-) He's been out and about in underwear, having a few accidents here and there but mostly wanting to be dry and getting really upset if he has an accident. Andrew has begun exploding with imitating sounds lately, so I think now is the perfect time to have him get some help with his speech because right now he wants to learn and it's fun for him!"

Let's see... Nearly all of the 8 teeth Kaitlyn was cutting at once are in. She's making all sorts of noises and rolls around everywhere. She will pick up anything and examine it so closely - I love watching her. She squeezes gently, touches it with both hands, with one hand moves the object around slowly so she can see every surface, checks to see if it tastes good or feels good in her mouth, waves it around, then starts banging it to see the sound effect it has. Then back in her mouth it goes, she has to examine every surface again... So curious.

I have green beans growing on every plant. Peas will be next! Basil is ready to begin using and parsley is almost ready also. Everything else is still growing. I found celery seeds the other day and am SOOO excited to grow celery this year. This year, my garden will produce everything I usually buy. I need to get garlic still. I'd like to get more strawberries, and I'd love ot get some grapes. The problem with grapes is that I wont' get any fruit this year - possibly for another few seasons, and I'm not sure if we'll still be at this apartment when they begin producing fruit. Because of their price, I'm hesistant to buy them. But if we would have bought them the first year we were here, we'd have grapes by now!

Time for prayer

It seems like life has been so busy the past week again. Doctor appointments for Bret, a couple ER visits due to unexplained nausea, vomiting, and weakness. He's not sick, but he can't eat because he's nauseated or vomiting, and because he can't eat he's getting very weak and "out of it." He's been to the ER twice this past week, his GI doctor is on vacation and there is not currently a doctor available to fill in, and his main doctor has no suggestions for him other than to see his GI doc. Meanwhile, Bret has been suffering from severe pain in his side. He was convinced it was his gallbladder for a while, but he's had a gallbladder function test that came out normal. Then an upper GI. That turned out normal. Then a catscan. That turned out normal. Meanwhile the pain has reduced a little bit, but when it hits, it hurts more than ever. And now we have the nausea and vomiting, liver pain and stomach pain. He continues to get worse, yet all the tests, even blood work, are coming back normal. His next option is to get scoped so the doctor can SEE what's going on. Boy I hope that reveals something so my poor husband can get on the mend. This past week he's just been miserable on the couch. Not feeling well hasn't helped at all with his bipolar disorder because he began slipping into depression again. If you're reading this and don't mind sending up a prayer for him, I'm sure he'd appreciate it.

Meanwhile, on the topic of prayer. My husbands niece (does that make her my niece in law? Aw heck, she's more like a sister to me) is undergoing major back surgery tomorrow. It will be her third surgery, surgery is expected to take 15-20 hrs. Prayers for her, the family, the surgeon and the OR staff would be appreciated.

Green beans already

Lots and lots of baby green beans already!