Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Halloween, First Haircut, Updates on the Last 2 Weeks

The last few weeks have been BUSY! I get up at around 5:30 in the morning (4:30 now-Thanks to Daylight Savings), to get to work at 7 am. I work from 7 am - 4 pm. Then get home spend time with kids, do dinner, a little more time with the kids. They're all in bed around 8:30 pm. By then I am exhausted and ready to wind down for the night. Which means I haven't kept the blog updated. 

So let's play catch up over the last few weeks.

I do billing for an Appliance Repair company and I'm LOVING it! It's a small family business, which works for me. I really like my co workers and just enjoy doing billing again. I didn't realize how much I have missed it. The best part is I can leave work at work. I don't proof bills from home or stay late to meet tight deadlines. (Or maybe my priorities have changed over the last 4 or so years). 

I do miss getting to spend my days with the Littles. Char will send me photos at least once a day of what they're up to. 

Heidi Anne was a nurse for Halloween. She picked out the pink scrubs because the OR green and ER blue colors were "to ugly" according to her. She went trick or treating with a group of friends this year. (Don't worry, a friends' mom was there with them). 
I had this cute plan last year for Anastasia to be Tinkerbell and Rowan to be a pirate. It turns out Rowan is terrified by masks. Oh, that and he wasn't a fan of his costume. So I kept the babies home figuring we'd get a lot of trick or treaters for them to see. We only had 10 kids show up. 10! I went ahead and put on Anastasia's costume just for the heck of it. It was also this picture which convinced Char that Anastasia needed a hair cut. 
I got a treat at work for Halloween. Each person in the office got a special cupcake. My boss remembered that I mentioned how I just LOVE cookie dough everything and wanted to try Cookie Frosting sometime. This was my surprise. A cookie dough cupcake with cookie dough frosting. It's nice when people remember the little things. 
For the last 2 weeks of October Heidi Anne would read the book "Mouse's First Halloween" to Rowan every night. He began to memorize parts of the book. Now, he'll randomly recite some parts to himself out loud, saying, "Eeekk! Mouse Squeak! What could it be? A pumpkin that all. Not so scary at all."   

Later that week Char's side of the family were all going to St. George to celebrate Grandma & Grandpa's 40th wedding anniversary. We were unable to go due to work. However, they we kind enough to take Heidi Anne down with them so she wouldn't miss out on all the fun.

There was a marathon that Grandpa and some of the others ran. Grandpa came in 1st place for his age group. They also had races for the kids to participate in. Heidi Anne got to run her first 1/2 mile race. She came in 3rd place, Cousin A came in second. Heidi Anne even got a cool medal. In addition to that she also got her first official marathon tee shirt.
I guess the kids were still full of energy because Aunt E took the girls hiking. They climbed to the top of Red Rock in St. George. We even got a cute picture of all of them together. The neat thing is I have a picture somewhere of me around Heidi Anne's age (9) on top of Red Rock as well. I'm grateful to have such a wonderful family that includes Heidi Anne on their adventures when we aren't able to. 
Last week Char took Anastasia to get her first hair cut. Well, it was more like a trim. Apparently, it's nearly impossible to hold down a toddler getting a hair cut AND take pictures at the same time. Char sent me a picture after everything was over and Anastasia was well fed.
Here's a picture a day or two later from the other side.  She's getting so big. She can say "Up, Please", "Wader", and "Cookie".

Thanks to ABA, Rowan is learning his name. Well, I guess how to introduce himself would be more accurate. The exchange goes more or less like this, you ask him "What's your name?" He'll ask in a slightly confused voice, "Name?" Pause. Then he'll nearly shout out "ROWAN!!" 

One afternoon Rowan was jumping on the floor when something tripped him and he fell down on his bottom, with quite a thud sound. I was expecting a good cry out of him. Instead Rowan looked up at me, laughed and said "I drop!" 
He also knows his colors and shapes, according to ABA/ Pre-school there isn't a shape he doesn't know. Here he is showing off his skill to Char one morning. 

We accomplished something we haven't been able to due in over a year. We attended all of church. Normally Rowan freaks out over the loud speakers / microphones. Typically we have to take him to the hallways where he'd run away. Also previous teachers have expressed difficulty with Rowan. 

I think ABA / Preschool has really helped him. He was able to stay in the chapel as long as we feed him snacks and had a car to play with. Until he started toss cars at other members of the congregation. I took him to the hallway expecting the worst. He'd explore empty classrooms, felt the different textures of the walls, exposed brick, the floor. Then we discovered his classroom was empty, so we went ahead and entered the room. 

Once there he found a ride on train. I also learned that his teachers have a child with autism as well. I just told them some of Rowan's quirks and favorite things. (Cars, trains, airplanes, slides.) They immediately pull out a slide and found a box of cars. They just let Rowan be Rowan. We he went to the corner to spin some car wheels, they gave him space. They'd try to include him in actives but understood he has his own little world that he lives in, too. It was nice to have someone totally understand his needs outside of therapy, or ABA / preschool. 

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If you cant say anything nice, then dont say anything at all--Bambi