Christmas Eve

The kids enjoyed decorating GFCF cut-out cookies that I had made. They actually came out quite tasty...a little fragile but still the kids were able to enjoy decorating them. Santa had quite a bit of GFCF cookies this year. We made meringues, chocolate chip and sugar cookie cut-outs. Not bad at all.

Brian, Katheryn and Ethan decorating cookies for Santa

Katheryn showcasing her handywork

My parents came over on Christmas eve to witness our tradition of letting the kids out onto the lawn to sprinkle "reindeer food" for Santa's reindeer and Katheryn's reading of "Twas the Night Before Christmas." We bundled the kids up and headed outdoors. Katheryn went next door to see if our new neighbors' daughter would like to join us and when we all got outside, Matt, Katheryn and Ethan had disappeared into the neighbors' home. We waited and waited in the chilly wind for what seemed like 30 minutes. Matt's parents went back inside to wait. The cold MD air was not what they were used to. Finally Matt reappears with the kids and off they went all over the yard to sprinkle their reindeer food. They had a blast.

Ethan and Brian sprinkling reindeer food

Ethan trying to figure out the perfect place to sprinkle his reindeer food

Once back inside the warmth of our home, Katheryn set up her bench and began to read "Twas the Night Before Christmas." She seemed a little annoyed at having to read this story...she feels that she is getting too old to have to read this every year. Once her story is read, we start a movie, "The Polar Express" however this year we decided to change things up a bit and we played the ever so classic, "A Christmas Story." About half way through the movie, we sent the kids to bed since they were having trouble keeping their eyes open and then Matt and I went to work. We had a train table to put together and many more presents to wrap and display.

Katheryn reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas" in her pj's

While Matt cleaned up the basement play area, I was upstairs putting together a huge train set and a basketball hoop. I tested out the train set and didn't realize that it would toot so loud. Matt came upstairs to let me know that if we wanted to keep the kids asleep in bed that turning on the train was not a great idea. oops. Once we wrapped up the remainder of the gifts we decided to tackle the train table. After pulling out the pieces, we got to step 2 and for some reason, the holes did not line up. We were baffled and it's midnight. After sitting there with the directions in hand, Matt finally figured out that step 2 didn't really matter and that it was just illustrating what it would line up like. hmm. Anyways, we made it over that hurdle and 2.5 hours later the table was set. We then went to bed.

Brian's diagnosis

This year we had a great Christmas. Matt was home to celebrate with us which made it so much better. His parents also made the long car journey from Florida to celebrate with us. We were very glad that they were able to join us. Before I start into our holiday, I would really like to mention a wonderful blessing we were able to experience with Brian. Brian was diagnosed with having high functioning Asperger's Syndrome..in other words, autism/PDD (Pervasive Developmental Disorder)...at the age of 3 about a month before Matt deployed to Afghanistan last year. He's been going to school and receiving services such as speech therapy and occupational therapy. We see improvements in him every day. Everything that we do normally and do not think about like having a conversation or even going to the bathroom, yes I said it..peeing and pooing..is difficult for those who are autistic. One day in October, I picked up a book by Jenny McCarthy called "Mother Warriors." Her son has been undiagnosed from autism so I was curious. After reading "Mother Warriors" I craved to know more. I then bought her book "Laugh Out Loud" and was glued to it and like a sponge I absorbed the information. I then researched what I could on the internet about a diet she mentions called the GFCF (gluten free casein free) diet. It all seemed a bit confusing at first and I was overwhelmed. I gave my eyes and mind a break for a couple of weeks just to let things sink in. I took Brian to a doctor appointment to get him set up to receive services here in MD for speech and OT and I mentioned to the pediatrician that I would like a referral to see a DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!) doctor. He looked at me with a puzzled look and then said, "I have a lady who's 9 year old son is a patient and has autism. She is very well versed and has seen some great success. I'll have her call you and she may be able to connect you with some support." I said "great" and off we went. A few days later, I received a call from this lady he had mentioned. We talked a bit and as soon as I mentioned the GFCF diet, she went into full detail about where I could go and who I could call. She mentioned a support group nearby that she was part of that had a DAN! nurse. I was very thrilled to hear this. Matt and I loaded up the kids one Sunday and headed over to the meeting. We were the first ones to arrive. We were greeted by a lady with open arms. She introduced herself and said that she was a DAN! nurse. I broke down and started to cry. I was overjoyed and filled with so much hope at that moment. Hope that maybe one day Brian will be able to be undiagnosed. That one day he will be able to function "normally" as any other person without a label. I finally had guidance and someone/somewhere to go to to answer questions that I don't know the answers to. It was sheer relief that someone knew what I was feeling; what I was facing. A couple more families came in and we were greeted. The DAN! nurse was wonderful and just so full of knowledge. She made sure that everyone that was there left with information that they wanted/needed. Matt and I walked out with a huge stack of information that I still have yet to get through. I had my information to start the GFCF diet. I removed all dairy from Brian's diet first. This was not that difficult. He really enjoyed his milk but I was able to replace it with rice milk or almond milk. Brian had some eczema and I found out that it was because of the milk he was consuming. Once the dairy was cut, his skin seemed to improve. Next was the gluten. This is a little more difficult. I slowly replaced his gluten foods with gluten free items starting with his waffles. He likes Eggo waffles in the morning and I replaced them with Van's waffles. I found gluten free cereal and pancake mix. I bought a cookbook that really seemed to confuse me but the DAN! nurse gave me a guide of what gluten and casein is so that I could avoid those ingredients. A lot of items have gluten which almost makes the grocery store seem like the enemy. I read EVERYTHING on the ingredients of everything I buy. I've learned how to make muffins with pureed meat and veggies in them so he will eat them. So far, Brian has been gfcf for about two weeks and we've already seen some improvement. He seems to be more involved with us and those who surround him. He's talkative and quite funny. He has a great sense of humor. I took him to the neurologist and he went up to her and told her that he wasn't frustrated. The neurologist looked at him and said that she was glad he wasn't frustrated and he rebuttled with, "my mommy and daddy are frustrated." I didn't even know he knew the word frustrated. Our biggest miracle/improvement with him being on the diet is his potty training. I thought he would never ever get the hang of it. About three days into the diet he has started to go to the potty on his own. We had quite of few days of him being able to pee in the potty but not poo. He would do that in his pants and Matt and I would be "frustrated" that he didn't go to the potty. One day though out of the blue, he told me he needed to go poopy on the potty. I told him to go and he did it!!! It was a joyous moment. He was so happy that we were happy that he kept going and going. He even got disappointed when he would try to go and nothing would happen. We would tell him it was okay and that he could get up but he said he needed to stay so he could go poopy. Nana told him that it was okay if he didn't go anymore today and that he could probably go again tomorrow. He was satisfied with that answer and the next day, there he was in the hallway, pants down to his ankles going to the bathroom to go poopy. It was like he was addicted to pooping. :) No more accidents and he even stays dry the entire night. Hooray for Brian!!! What a nice thing for our wallets too...no more pull-ups!!! Another great thing that has happened for him since changing his diet is his awareness of self. He is able to express himself a little bit more. He plays with his siblings and not beside them. He also has friends at school that he plays with. This is huge!! He also told me this morning that he was a new person. He said this several times for me today and I haven't quite figured out what he means yet. Matt and I have questioned him different ways but still haven't gotten to the core of what he means. I'm thinking that maybe he's feeling that the fog is finally clearing up but I truly don't know. Maybe he'll have an answer for me one day. I'm just thankful that I have renewed hope.

Hmmm...where to begin....

I really don't know where to start since so much has happened with the holidays being here. We've had some wonderful things happen in our family this month. To get the holidays started off, the kids decorated a gingerbread house. It was a little tough to put together with the roof coninually sliding off but we managed. Once it was built, the kids were really anxious to tear it apart. It didn't taste so good. I think this same night, Brian lost his first tooth, the bottom middle. I was worried that he might freak out about it but to my surprise he was really excited and immediately put the tooth under his pillow. The toothfairy has a running tally of not collecting Katheryn's teeth so we had to make sure the toothfairy came this night. Lucky for us, she did. :) Brian had two shiny quarters under his pillow the next morning.

Brian (with his painted red Rudolph nose) putting together the gingerbread house

Almost finished

Ethan constantly keeps me entertained while Katheryn and Brian are at school. He discovered that if he licks a lollipop, it'll stick wherever he places it...especially on his skin. I thought it was so funny that I took a picture of him. When he realized I thought it was cute, he kept doing it and wanted to stick it on me as well. Yuck!!!

Ethan's new discovery

I have a 3rd eye!

On the 16th we got some snow. Yay! Snow!!! Brian was so excited that we had gotten snow, he thought it was "the night of Christmas!" The kids geared up in their coats and headed outside to play. They were having a great time until Katheryn started throwing snowballs at the boys. Ethan got one down the back of his shirt and his laughter turned into screams. Once the snow melted, Brian was upset because he didn't know how Santa was going to make it to our house to deliver presents.

SNOW! Brian made a snow angel.

Snow much fun!

A few days later, Ethan woke up and decided to make himself some breakfast since I wasn't downstairs just yet. Once I came down, I discovered that his culinary skills may still need quite a bit of work. He took the cereal container filled with cocoa krispies and added water to it. Then he stirred and stirred and placed some on our living room carpet. Lucky me!!!

Ethan's breakfast

Katheryn decided a few weeks ago that she would like to trade in her flute for a saxophone. The case is bigger than she is!! She is actually pretty good at it..a natural. The boys loved watching her play it and Ethan kept sticking his face into the end and would jump everytime she blew into it. It's sooo loud.

Katheryn with her sax

Ethan checking things out

After some rain, a lot of rain, we received a gift of a double rainbow. It was really pretty and it looked like it was falling right into the middle school on the hill. Brian and Ethan were really impressed and insisted that I take a picture of each of them.

Brian

Ethan Double Rainbow

Brian is becoming our budding photographer. Anytime the camera is out, he wants it so that he can take pictures. No one is safe with him around. I've had to delete MANY pictures but I kept of few of the cute ones. He especially likes to stick his tongue out and take pics.

Lookout! It's Brian with a camera! (silly Pop-pop!)

Brian discovering the mirror

Self picture...tongue out of course!

What a mess!

A few nights ago Brian decided to build a home for his pet hamster Kia. Well, he used Kia's food. I keep the food in a large plastic box by the cage. He opened it up and started to build with it. Well, I guess Ethan then went up to help Brian and well...lets just say that I let Matt take care of this one.

Brian's room

Hamster food on the floor

Cleaning up

Katheryn helping to clean up

Almost finished

Camera pics

Matt brought his camera home since I don't know where mine is and has been letting me use his to take pictures of our family happenings. I just downloaded the pictures and they have been fun to look at. I got this camera for Matt the summer of 2007 and sent it to him to Afghanistan so he could take pics and send them back to us. Well, before I sent him the camera, I took pictures of the kids and their various activities that were going on at that time. I can't believe some of the pictures. The kids are sooo cute. They grow so fast. Here are a few that I couldn't resist putting on here.

Brian and Ethan

Ethan

Katheryn w/arms up

Hip hop Diva

Jazz

Ethan and Mommy going to Chicago

Katheryn and Brian going to Chicago Ethan living it up; in Chicago (it was empty!)

I also found some pics of our Thanksgiving. I know I wrote about it but here are some pics of us enjoying the feast. Yum!

Thanksgiving dinner '08

Thanksgiving dinner '08

Pumpkin Pie (courtesy of Ethan)

It never fails..at least it hasn't yet...where Ethan destroys at least one pie during the holdiay dinner. Last year he threw up on an apple pie.

Just living

Time surely is flying by. My dad told me the other day that when time starts flying by for you, it means you are old. lol. Some days I do feel that way; especially the days that I'm chasing Ethan around and trying to clean up after him. It can really tucker you out. Since becoming a mom, I realized the other day (yes, my oldest is 9 so it's taken me 9 years!) that nothing is ever the same nor is anything that you thought was yours is yours. For instance, I like to make myself oatmeal with raisins for breakfast. All part of my eat healthy, lose weight concept that just doesn't seem to be working for me right now. Anyways, I make the kids breakfast and most school mornings they like to eat waffles. Ethan will eat three waffles and once finished will peek over at me and see that I have a bowl. He demands that I share with him. At first I tell him no way, this is mine but he keeps bugging me so I eventually give in. He takes two bites for every one of mine. It's not my oatmeal...it's his. And as I sit here typing this blog, I look at my water bottle that I filled so I would know how much water I have had for the day and I think it looks to be a little cloudy in there. Upon closer examination, I realize it must be cloudy because of all the bread crumb floaties in it courtesy of who else...Ethan. Yumm! So much for it being "my" water bottle. A few weeks ago, Matt and I created a play area in the basement for the kids in effort to reclaim the living room. We painted the wall, threw up some huge wall stickers, carpeted and put in shelves so the kids would stop dragging toys in the living room and I could get a break from cleaning up after them. Wanna know who has spent more time in the basement?? Me. My kids own our house...not myself or my husband. We find ourselves "hiding" in the basement just to get a break from the craziness upstairs. Atleast the basement area has toys for us to play with. The kids really aren't as bad as I am making it seem. We love our children and want them to be the best that they can be with all that we can teach them. It's just some days, I would really like to eat my entire bowl of oatmeal without any help. It's been a long time since I've done anything really for myself. Mostly my days are dedicated to making sure the family has clean clothes, a clean house, healthy meals, rides to and from dance/gymnastics, dog fed, etc etc etc. All the wonderful things mommies do even though they would rather be doing something else. lol. So, rather than "just living" and letting the days fly by I decided that I needed to help myself get back focusing on not only my family but myself also. My first step is to figure out why the heck I can't lose weight even after Ethan claims my breakfast and water. And I figure that if I post my journey here, it'll hold me accountable since I will know that some of you, my friends, are following me and are curious to see where I will make it to. So today I called the doctor's office to make an appointment. When asked what the appointment was for, I really didn't know what to say and I just blurted out because I'm overweight. lol. I think I need to have some bloodwork done to make sure my body is okay and if it's not, well, then maybe I can get it fixed. I've been teetering back and forth with my weight since our first child was born and I'm really just tired. I'm tired of going to my closet and seeing all the wonderful clothes I used to wear knowing that I can only really fit into a couple of shirts and maybe a few pairs of jeans. I want to be back in my size 7/8 jeans and I want to just love me again. Hopefully taking this initial step to have a doctor's point of view will help. I've heard the B12 shots work wonders for energy and may even help boost metabolism. We'll see. I'll let you know. I guess I'm getting my New Year's resolution out of the way here too. Lose weight, be happy and reclaim my breakfast and space.

Catch up

So here I am and still no camera. I can not find it anywhere. I had Matt bring his camera home from work so that we could use it to take pictures of Katheryn as she participated in the two local parades here with the dance studio she attends. The parades were on November 22nd. The Greencastle parade was held at 9am and then the Waynesboro parade was held at 2pm. It was a very long and very cold day. The weather temp in the van flashed at 28 degrees that morning. Luckily Brian had spent the night before with my parents so we only had to worry about keeping Ethan frostbite free. We bundled him up with layer upon layer and finally draped Katheryn's coat over top of him while he sat in his stroller waiting for the parade to pass by. It seemed like forever but finally we saw the dance group make the turn by the tree. Yay! We kept pace with them to the stopping point so we could get Katheryn and go. I know she had to be cold..she had on long johns and just a sweatshirt and dance pants. She did have gloves and an earwarmer but the wind was just awful. She was thankful to be in the warmth of her coat. We then left from there and picked up Brian. We grabbed a few warm things from WalMart before dropping Katheryn off for the second parade. This time she kept her coat. The temp in the van said it was warmer...32 degrees...however the wind was unwilling to cease. It felt worse than the morning. We drove across town to the end point to park and found a place on the side of Main Street to plant ourselves. I had stuffed "HotHands" into Ethan's pants to attempt keeping him warm but the moment he stood up, out they came from the bottom of his pants. lol. The Waynesboro Parade seemed to be a lot better than the Greencastle one. There was more to enjoy. After about an hour, it was really starting to feel cold. Finally, the dance group peaked the hilltop. Again, we rushed to the end point to meet with Katheryn. We didn't stay for the parade, it was way too cold. So we then went to Franks Pizza and ate ourselves warm. It was nice to be warm that day. lol. And later that week we found out that the parade had been judged and the dance group received 1st Place. Katheryn was excited about her ribbon she received at dance class later that week.

Coming down the hill

A&B Dance Dimensions

Katheryn dancing in the parade

A very cold Ethan

The following week was Thanksgiving. It was a lot of fun and for once it was stress free. My brother came home with his girlfriend and we celebrated her birthday the night before at a local bar/restaraunt. My friend Wendi joined us and her kids watched my kids while we were out. We played some pool and from there went to a local bar in Waynesboro...lol...Pappy's Pub. Not a really nice place, definately has all your "locals" and let me tell you, you were taken back to the 70's in this place. Funny thing is though, since we have been here, I really haven't run into too many of my friends from when we lived here before and all of a sudden at Pappy's, I run into a handful. Matt decides he's going to get Wendi and I drinks and heads to the bar. He comes back with a minature drink that we just kind of laughed at and he also came back with tequila shots. Wendi downed hers and I followed afterwards. We went to sit and all of a sudden Wendi is having a tough time staying awake. lol. It was pretty funny. Anyways, we got back home and the next morning I started cooking. We had so much food. I always make butternut squash soup for Thanksgiving and it's a long process. I really enjoy the soup and I just found out this year that Matt really doesn't care for it. I don't know if anyone else really enjoyed the soup as much as I did but oh well, more for me! I just know now to make less of it. Dinner was wonderful, we had the usual turkey and ham. I tried out a new dressing recipe that was absolutely delicious. It was called cornbread pomegranite dressing. I got it off of Martha Stewart's website. Delicious!!! I can't wait to make it again. With Thanksgiving out of the way, it was time to set up for Christmas. We put up the tree and brought up tubs of decorations from the basement. They seemed to have sat for about a week before we actually did too much decorating. Matt put the lights up on the porch roof and maybe this week he will finish the rest of the house in lights. I put up some garland around our porch and bought wreaths for all our front windows...10 to be exact! I tied a red bow to the bottom and we got those up...it looks really cute. I then decorated the door to look like a present and you can see our red door when you drive over the hill by the school. It sticks out and looks really cute. We bought little candle lights for all the windows and timers too so when dusk hits, all the lights automatically go on.

Katheryn sorting the ornaments

Brian hanging an ornament

Katheryn hanging an ornament

The trio

Matt was back to work the Monday after Thanksgiving and the kids had off from school. To keep my sanity, I decided to take them out for some Christmas shopping. Katheryn had her money and Brian had his wallet. He was so proud of his wallet. We couldn't let it out of his sight, not for a minute! He was determined to buy 5 trains with his dollar bill. As we were going to the shopping center traffic started to become heavy. Great, the interstate was closed at this particular exit. Thankfully though we were able to immediately get off at the next exit and we went to the mall instead. Brian loved the train table display they had set up and it was hard to pull him away from it. Matt and I had talked earlier about letting the kids each pick out an ornament from Hallmark and starting this tradition so that when they are ready to venture out of the house and spread their wings, they would then have a decent starter set of ornaments. My friend in NC does the same with her kids where they can each pick out an ornament each year. Well, we get to Hallmark and Brian starts pouting and screaming that he doesn't want to go to Walmart. lol. I don't care for Walmart much either but it was funny to hear him say that. It took some tugging and I told him that I was sure they had trains in the store trying to just get him to come along. We go to the ornaments and I couldn't believe the ornaments start at $15. Yikes. I would have been okay with just one but I had to buy three! One for each kid. They looked and looked and finally we had ornaments. Ethan picked out the Little Einsteins rocket ship (which plays their theme song), Brian picked out The Polar Express and Katheryn chose a set of three which features the old Minnie, Mickey and Pluto. We left out of there and toured the mall windows and left and headed to Target and Michaels. We were headed back out to get to the shopping center that I had originally wanted to get to and traffic was still heavy and the interstate was still closed. I decided to just head home. We had done a lot for one day and I was happy that there weren't any hard to deal with tantrums. Oh, I will post pictures on here soon. Matt did bring his camera home and somehow the USB cable for his camera is missing. It was here, I know it was. I think Ethan must have found it and hid it somewhere. It's been missing now for about 2 weeks. ugh. lol.