August? Really?

What in the world is happening to me? The blogging keeps getting farther and farther
apart. My busy world is taking over any me time and that includes blogging. I must try to post more often because I can never remember anything. This is the one place that helps jog my memory.

Well a lot has happened since August...... Abby is in high school now and is taking Driver's Ed. Where does the time go? She will get her permit next month, Caroline is in 5th grade and is getting ready to finish up her ball season. She has guest played on some travel ball teams and really loves it! Mattie is in her 3 year old exceptional class and is making great strides! The girl is talking up a storm. Every day she is telling me something new. Today's word is "Conner". She says it so clearly. He is a little boy in her class and she is smitten with him. She also does not hesitate to inform me she wants french fries and chicken to eat each day I pick her up from daycare. Of course, she doesn't get them that often but she still will ask daily.

In September, we were hit by Irene. Fortunately, we only had large tree limbs and a mess around our home. Many neighbors were not so lucky and had large trees fall into their homes. It was a mess! No electricity for days and hardships throughout our town. We are glad that is over.

In October, we went to our annual Buddy Walk now known as Step it up for Down Syndrome. We had a great time and got to meet sweet Little Bennett from Our Unexpected Journey. He is a cutie!

So that is a quick highlight of our events. Now if I could just find the time to do this more often.

Carrot Pineapple Muffins

This morning we tried a new recipe. This will be a great one to use during the school year for those busy mornings. They would need to made in advance so the kids can grab n' go. They aren't very sweet but very moist. A much healthy alternative to pop tarts and mattie loves them!

Carrot-Pineapple Muffins

8 ounces crushed pineapple in juice -- undrained
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup skim milk
1/2 cup egg substitute
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup carrot -- finely shredded
1/2 cup golden raisins

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

Drain pineapple, reserving juice for another use. Press pineapple between paper towels to remove excess moisture; set aside.

Combine flours and next 4 ingredients in a medium bowl; make a well in center of mixture.

Combine milk and next 3 ingredients; add to dry ingredients, stirring just until moist.

Stir in pineapple, carrot, and raisins. Divide batter evenly among muffing cups coated with cooking spray.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden. Remove from pans immediately.

Yield: 18 muffins, serving size: 1 muffin

NI: Calories 113; Fat 2 gm; fiber 1.5 gm

2 points

Recipe By: WW The Secrets of Success

Beach Days

I just absolutely love this picture of Mattie and her daddy at the beach! If I'd only seen this vision in the early years after finding out the news of our sweet daughter's diagnosis of Down syndrome. I was scared and didn't know how this little baby would change our lives. I had this perception that we would have to let go of all the things we loved. One of them being the beach. I don't know why I thought that people with Down syndrome couldn't go to the beach or enjoy life as we did. Is life at the beach easy now? No. It is a lot of work.....not because my daughter has Down syndrome, but because my daughter is three. All the hard work of pulling the wagon with umbrellas, chairs, sunscreen, shovels, pails, towels, you name it......was well worth it to see that great big smile!

Running for the ocean!

Mattie and Abby

Mattie and Caroline

Future track runner?

Up until now, I would say that raising a child with Down syndrome has been relatively the same as my other children aside from a few extra check ups and therapies. Maybe you can say Mattie has hit her "terrible two's" but I'm not really sure I would call it that. Our dilemma has mostly been running. She will run away any chance she can get and will not stop no matter how many times you call her name. This has become very dangerous. If the front door doesn't latch, she helps herself out and runs toward our neighbor's house. She doesn't understand the danger and you can't reason with her. She simply has no concept. She just smiles and points to the house wanting to get to their dog. The hubby installed swinging latched gates this weekend and that has given me a little piece of mind. At least now if she gets out the front door, she is contained on our porch and I can get to her. Before, she would bolt. That girl is fast!! In public, we almost always have her in a stroller, in a cart, on a leash (never had to use that before), or holding our hand. She never complains about having to use any of these methods and that has been one positive. And as great as those methods come in handy, I would like for her to learn how to stand beside me without running. If all else, fails I guess she can always be a track runner!

One room down.......

Every year I dread the clutter cleaning that comes with the summer. I try to pick several days during the summer to clean out each room of the house. I'm finding it more difficult as Mattie gets older and seems to destroy one room as fast as I'm working on another. Well today she is actually sitting still watching Elmo and the older girls are out of my hair. I decided to tackle my 14 year old's room. Yes, I know she is 14 and should clean her own room.......which she does.....kind of......for a 14 year old. But every year when she goes to camp, I go in and throw away all the junk she has collected. It's stuff she won't throw away but never misses once it's gone. And I did it in less than an hour! Now off to get ready to have lunch with the hubby this afternoon.

Just for you Mom!

It's been a long time and well my Mom has been on me about my blog. She misses it. So since I'm off for the summer, we are going to give it a try again. I've posted a few updated pictures and an update on the kids.

Mattie
Mattie a.k.a. our little destructor. Who can tell by these sweet pictures that she can cause destruction in 2.5 seconds. She is a sweetheart that loves to take everything out of drawers, off tables, out of pocketbooks.......you name it. She likes to run too......away from you. She also gives the best hugs and biggest smiles! Mattie is doing well. Her kidney reflux is gone. Her hearing, eyes, and all her yearly stuff has come back normal. We are working on potty training which isn't going great but we'll keep working on it. She adjusted well to her new school and is really talking a lot. She repeats a lot of words. Last night, she even said "no no touch" to our kitty cat. We are excited that she is starting to combine words.

Caroline

Caroline just finished up her ball season. She absolutely loves being a catcher. She has worked really hard and our plans are to work more over the summer. She got to play on a 12u travel ball team a couple of weekends ago. She really had a great time. In the picture above, we went to the Lady Pirates softball game. The kids got to go out on the field and stand at their positions with the players. She was beaming from ear to ear. She also had a great school year. She almost had perfect attendance if it wasn't for that dreaded flu that hit everyone in the family except Abby. She ended up having all A's and one B for the school year. She missed having all A's by one point! We are so proud of her!

Abby

Abby is growing up so fast before our eyes. She will be in high school next year! It's hard to believe my baby will be that old. She also did very well in school having all A's and B's. Abby just finished her ball season. She had a great time with school ball and rec. She is away at camp now and I'm sure enjoying her time away from her siblings. It's nice to get a break away from the little ones. The picture above is from her 8th grade dance. She was so pretty!

Frisco Skippito the Great Masked Sword Fighter

Our beloved Frisco passed this past Saturday (3-25-09 to 6-25-11). She was attacked by a neighborhood dog. We will greatly miss her! She was a one of a kind cat and there will never be another one like her. We feel so blessed that she got to be a part of our family. Coming soon.......the 10 best things about Frisco. This is a little something that Caroline and I are going to work on as a tribute to her.

The Next Chapter

Mattie's last day of daycare was yesterday. I wasn't quite sure how I would react. It's one chapter ending and another beginning. It doesn't even seem like it has been three years already. I will miss seeing her smiling face during the day, but I know she is going to learn so much at her new school.

It is amazing how things fall right into place! One of our dilemma's was what we would do with Mattie when she gets out of school and we are still at work. Well, I happened to see my neighbor out playing with her kids. Mattie wanted to go play with them. We really never go over there since we are always on the run. My neighbor is also a teacher and we started talking about school which led to talking about Mattie's new school. I was telling her how we didn't know what to do about after school care. She tells me that her daughter, who is also Mattie's age, goes to a daycare that just so happens to be down the road from Mattie's school. And only 20 minutes away from my work. She loves it there and highly recommended it so I decided to give her a call. I am so glad I did!

We went yesterday to visit and loved it! It is a small country daycare that is run by a retired teacher. I was so impressed with all the little details. She had an imaginative play area, a music area, an art area, a very extensive science area, story time area, indoor rec. area, quiet time area, snack area, and an outdoor area that was like a mini-amusement park. And after all that, she let us know that she would be glad to focus on Mattie's IEP goals as well. Wow! And.....no worries about that peer modeling since she will get that there too. So it looks like everything is falling into place just fine!

Baptized!

I'm a little behind with this but hey better late than never! Abby got baptized on February 6th! We are so very proud of her! Here are some pictures of this wonderful event.

Group shot :-)

We get Mattie's placement on Thursday. Hoping and praying for the best! We also will be taking her to the eye doctors soon. They noticed what could be a vision problem. They aren't sure how accurate it is so we are checking that out at the end of the month. More time off.........

Evaluation

I took Mattie for her evaluation on Thursday. She had a blast! Who wouldn't love a room filled with books, toys, stairs, paper, crayons, markers, a slide with a ball pit, and so much more! Mattie especially loved the stairs and slide. The OT was very impressed with how well Mattie did with her motor skills. As far as speech went, she didn't really use a lot of words or signs. She tends to use more words and signs at home with us then with other people. That being said, she still has a long ways to go. She is starting to imitate more and more single words but not really stringing two word phrases together. I'm not too great at keeping up with signs for everything she is trying to say either. I find her pointing at things and babbling a whole strand of sounds. Then I try and figure out what in the world she is trying to say. We've gotten down our basic needs and wants but need to work on expanding our vocabulary.

Now we just have to wait 2 weeks for the results and see what her placement will be. That is the part that makes me the most nervous. Just not knowing where she will be. I guess I need to clarify from my last post too. Mattie won't be 40 minutes from our house for school. I will be 40 minutes away from her. I teach in another county and my commute is 40 minutes. Right now, Mattie travels with me to the daycare we have set up at my school. Once she is placed in the county we live in, then she will be much farther away from me. My husband will be near by so really it is me just being selfish and knowing I will miss having her with me. What is most important to me is that she gets placed in a class that will have the services and resources to help her grow and learn.

I did it again!

I can't believe how little time I have for blogging! Here it is 11:15pm and I'm making myself stay up to do this. It is time to update. We have so much going on. We are in the middle of Mattie's transitioning from Early Intervention to the public school system. I'm really not looking forward to this next step. I love having Mattie with me at my school daycare. She will be 45 minutes from me and I'm really going to miss her! Of course, she technically hasn't qualified yet. She goes Thursday for her evaluation. We'll wait 2 weeks and then find out placement. I'm a little concerned about where she will end up. I would rather have her in a daycare type setting then in a different school setting. And to top it all off, our county has decided to place all the preschool children in the worst part of our town beginning in the fall. I am not happy about this at all and I've been told by others that my only choice is to go private. We'll have to see what happens. In the meantime, I'm trying to keep an open mind.

Closing Remarks

Well I didn't really get a chance to post some closing remarks for the year 2010. It was a pretty uneventful year with some ups and downs. The biggest downs for us this year were vehicle problems. My husband has been through 3 vehicles this year. His trusty old Chevrolet broke down on him. We had just payed off our cars and really wanted to keep it that way. So the hunt for another vehicle started. We found the perfect mode of transportation for our family and we bought it. Well, that lasted about 6 or 7 months and the transmission went out. We are still looking for another one to replace that but in the meantime, he needed something to get and back forth to work. So we have just gotten another vehicle. Here's hoping that this will last us a little longer. Now that the not so good stuff is out of the way, I can focus on the great things. I really feel that I have so much to be thankful for.

Our health. We have been blessed with a healthy year. No hospital visits or any other major health issues. Mattie does still have Kidney Reflux and yes it got a little worse but it is still in a very manageable. We will continue to give her a nightly dose of medicine and monitor it throughout the New Year.

Our Faith. How awesome that we have the freedom to worship our God! Other countries aren't that lucky. I am also so thankful for my church family. I was able to go to a Women's retreat to the beach, Girlfriend's Unlimited Nights, Bible Study, and Joyful stitchers. Joyful stitcher's worked on sewing pillowcases for our local children's hospital. We were able to hand deliver them just a couple of weeks ago. It was very touching. I even got to meet a little baby with Down syndrome. She was in PICU recovering from her heart surgery. Her foster mom was grinning from ear to ear and you could just see the love she had for this little blessing from God.

Our Family. Being able to just spend time together. We were very thankful for our summer vacation to the beach, visiting the NC Aquarium, going to the ball field to watch our girls play softball, the Buddy Walk, Trunk or treat, Tailgating and ECU football games.

Our Friends. I can't say enough about our friends. They are always there for us no matter what!

And finally but not least having a very white Christmas Break! It was beautiful!!

Looking forward to a great year in 2011!

More Snow pictures

The kids wanted to go out and play in the snow. Well, Mattie and Caroline. Abby would rather just stay in her room. She's in her own teenager world.

Mattie's first adventure yesterday resulted in standing in one place. 0nce she realized she could walk in the white stuff, she was all over the place. Mattie has gotten into this posing stage. I've got a friend who takes awesome pictures and I will occasionally take the girls and "try" to take "serious" pictures. Well, the best I can without having an slr camera. Mattie now knows that when it is time to take a picture, that she should go stand next to a tree or strike some pose. It's quite funny! Anyway, here are just a few pictures I took of Caroline and Mattie today.

We have snow!!

So we didn't get snow on Christmas Day but we did wake up to snow today! What a special treat to have no obligations and another relaxing day with the family. I must say I must be getting old since I really don't have any desire to go play in the snow. I just love looking at it. I think Abby would much rather stay inside too. Caroline went out with her friend to play for awhile and has already changed clothes several times. Mattie didn't like the snow last year. This time she actually picked it up and showed some interest in it. She still isn't too sure about walking in it. She just stood in one place picking up the snow and throwing it. Here are a few pictures from the morning.





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We're still here.....

Hope everyone is well and creating wonderful memories during this holiday season! I have been quite busy with Mattie keeping me on my toes. Even as I type this little bit, I have had to hop up twice to redirect our little busy body. As much as I find it very difficult to blog, I know that I need to start keeping up with our daily life again. As we find ourselves fast approaching Mattie's final months with the Birth - three Early Intervention program, our blog has come in handy when looking up information concerning milestones. I'm sure I could write a book about our new and upcoming journey into the world of special needs and public education. I will save that for another day. When I have a little more time, I will post an update of the girls too. Hopefully very soon! For now, I will leave you with another one of my favorite Youtube videos they shared at church. Have a very Merry Christmas!!

Just think about it......

We made it through October!

October was such a busy month with very little down time. We've been at the ball field several nights a week along with weekends. Matt had a men's retreat one weekend in Virginia, off to Raleigh for the Buddy Walk the next, then my women's retreat for me the next weekend, Fall Fest for church, and ended out the month with another busy weekend. I've enjoyed every minute of it, but looking for a little bit of down time in November. This past weekend, we went to a friend's house for a Halloween party. It was a great family fun event. Then Sunday, we took the girls to our trunk or treat at church. After leaving there, we went home and visited our regulars in the neighborhood. I think Mattie had more than her share of trick or treating fun. She dressed as a princess for her school on Wednesday. We dressed her to match her punk rock sisters on Saturday. We left out the pink hairspray and make-up. I was not going there with that. Then on Sunday, she was a puppy. I've posted a few pictures of the girls dressed up below.

This is Mattie's favorite dress up outfit at school so they let her wear it for trick or treating. They bring the little ones around each classroom to get treats from all the teachers and their students. Mattie was exhausted by the time she got to my room.

Mattie as a puppy dog. The hat did not stay on long.

Wearing her punk rock skirt to match her sisters.

Caroline and Abby as 80's punk rock girls.

Buddy Walk

I'm Back

I believe this is the longest I have ever gone without blogging. Our computer crashed several weeks ago. Very frustrating! All of my pictures from the time Mattie was born are on the hard drive. And no, I didn't back them all up. In fact, that very morning, I had a thought cross my mind........"Kim, you really need to back up those pictures." That evening the computer died. We found out that the motherboard is bad but our "techno savvy superhero" said he should be able to get the pictures off. I'm praying that becomes a reality! In the meantime, I got a new laptop and loving it! We had a desktop before so I am enjoying my new found freedom.

On to the Mattie update:

She is a little sponge absorbing everything. Well, almost everything. She is using more language and I really can't keep up with all the signs to help her. She is too funny. Sometimes she just makes up her own signs when she doesn't know a word. Mostly she says "THAT!" and points. Then we turn it around to "What's that? I don't know that?" She loves Starfall! We practice the learning our ABC's. The best part is that she mimics the sounds to each sound and she loves the animation.

Sunday is our Buddy Walk~We are really looking forward to it! The older girls had to give up their ballgames in order to go. That was a sacrifice they were willing to make in order to support Mattie. I'll post some pictures next week. Last year, Mattie was just starting to walk so this year will be quite fun since she is fast as lightning! Good thing there will be lots of places to run! I better take my running shoes along with our trusty old wagon!

Dear Blog

Dear Blog,


Please forgive me for dropping off the face of the blogging world. I have been very busy with life. I am learning very quickly that I am finding it difficult to do much of anything with my little monkey of a 2 year old. She loves to climb and get into everything except the toys that are just for her. My keys just recently ended up in a toilet. Clothes are being found in the trash cans. Toilet paper strips are placed beautifully around the house. Phone calls are being placed and maybe even voicemails left for the unexpected receiver. Tables are being climbed and the computer keyboarded is getting a workout, just not by me. In fact, it has been so long since I've used the keyboard, I've forgotten how to work the keys. I'm now getting it mixed up with the Blackberry. For now, here are a few pictures of the little monkey.

Loves a computer!

We have to strip her down to eat. What a mess she makes! She found the big bowl of mashed potatoes after we finished dinner.

Mmmmm! Eating again!

Wall Art

Weekly Reflection

Sitting down with my cup of coffee and reflecting on the week.

The school year is off to a great start for myself and the kids. The girls love their teachers and adjusting well into the routine. Abby got her first hundred on her vocab test~ Always thankful that my girls are responsible for doing their homework and studying. We set that expectation from the beginning and though it wasn't always easy back then, it sure has made life easier now. School is going well for me. As always, there is never enough time and I feel like I am having to use part of the weekend to try and catch up. Praying that all that will begin to fall into place so that I won't have to bring any work home during family time.

Matt got free tickets to the first ECU football game! We are so excited even if we'll be sitting in the nosebleed section. Caroline has never been to a game. I'm hoping that she'll enjoy the whole atmosphere thing and not get bored.

Jill's Memorial Service was Friday. It was bittersweet~missing her but happy that she is not hurting anymore. Her service was exactly what she wanted. She didn't want it to be about her but all about Jesus. We sang praises and worshipped. I know she had to have been dancing, singing, and smiling down on us. She will continue to touch people's lives with the work she did with her time on earth. A servant of God.

Mattie's OT, Miss Amanda is moving. I know Mattie will miss her. I remember the first couple sessions with her and how Mattie didn't want to sit still. Amanda was very patient and consistent with her. Within the next couple of weeks, as soon as she saw her, she would just plop down in her lap, ready to work. Though we will miss Amanda, we welcome Ms. Kim back. Mattie did an awesome job with her this week and loves her too. I am so thankful for a support of great helpers.
We are also very thankful for Ms. Angela, her speech therapist. She has high expectations for Mattie and by the end of the session this week, Mattie was signing grape and saying "gaa-gaa-gaa". Little steps in the right direction.